Chapter 25
Lila yawned and stretched on Helen’s leather couch, her cheek damp and cold from where Scout had nosed it. Above them, the clock read four thirty, ticking more loudly than the dog’s rattling collar. He sat down and panted, his tongue lolling goofily to the side.
“I hate you,” she muttered, tossing the red blanket off her shoulders. Snatching her palm from the side table nearby, she checked her messages, but still her father had not responded.
Scout licked his lips and nosed at her hand.
“I’m guessing you need to go for a walk?”
At the word walk, Scout hopped and twirled toward a leather strap hanging from the coatrack, biting the clasp. Having nothing better to do, Lila connected the leash to his collar and took him downstairs, letting him lift his leg on a patch of brown grass between the buildings.
He took two steps and crouched.
His back rounded, and his tail flipped up.
“Please, don’t shit. Please, don’t shit,” she chanted under breath.
The dog shat.
Lila dropped the leash and ran. She hit the stairs at a thundering pace, her boots pounding against each step.
The dog trailed along happily after her.
Back in the apartment, she unclasped the dog’s leash and found a small scrap of paper. She scrawled a short note, thanking Helen for letting her stay the night, then folded the red blanket she’d slept under. Scout whimpered as she closed the door.
Lila crushed a wad of credits in her coat pocket while she jogged downstairs. Helen had lent her some money before shuffling off to bed, ignoring her protests.
They hadn’t been that loud. Lila needed the money for gas.
She slid into her sedan, the door creaking in the dark and quiet complex. She’d never had to worry about gas before. Compared to her chief’s salary and her dividends, a tank of gas had never registered. Even buying a new car had never registered. Up until the age of twenty-eight, the world around her might have been free, but now she saw the strings attached to the world. Price tags dangled and danced in the wind.
She hadn’t even had to pay for anything yet.
Other people had paid for her. She owed. She was in debt.
At a red light, she checked her accounts on her palm, but they were still empty. If her mother had planned to return her money, she would have done it by now.
A decision would have to be made about that.
Soon.
Lila filled her tank at a self-serve pump, then drove through the sleeping city, few people awake and moving throughout New Bristol. Only the poorer workborn moved on the streets so early, walking in worn boots on the gritty sidewalks because they could not afford cars. In fact, the interstate might have been filled with ghosts, for few cars traveled upon it. Only a couple of lone semis shuffled along, stuffed to the brim with things for people to buy. The boxes inside would soon be attacked by workers, unloaded onto shelves, ready for the morning.
Lila threaded through the trucks, sped southward, and quickly approached the oracle’s gate.
The eye did not blink in the darkness.
A purplecoat emerged from the gatehouse, peeking into the car while Lila rolled down the window. His chubby cheeks and chubby fingers tapped on her roof absently, like concentrated raindrops. Green eyes stared at her, eyes that reminded her of La Roux.
“You’re her, aren’t you?” he said. “Lila?”
“Yes. Hurry, please. I need to see the oracle.”
Though she’d wanted more proof of Camille’s identity and a bead on the second mole, she’d changed her mind about waiting while tossing and turning on Helen’s couch. Camille knew far too much about the compound to wander freely, regardless of whether or not the other mole got spooked and ran. They could not give her another second to vanish. One mole was far better than none, for they’d never learn what the Italians knew about the oracles if they allowed her to slip away. That knowledge was far more important than the second mole. The truth serum would reveal the snoop’s identity, anyway.
“No one sees the oracle at five o’clock in the morning. I’ll let you inside, but don’t go near her cabin. We’ll detain you if you do.”
He slapped the top of her vehicle and whistled to the gatehouse. The compound’s doors opened with a small screech and a groan.
Lila didn’t budge. “How long have you been in the oracle’s militia?”
“Five years,” the guard said, standing up straighter.
“Five years, and you’re working the overnight shift on a Friday night. You have no rank. You realize you can’t be demoted much further than this.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed.
“I suppose they’ll find a place. They always do.”
The man mumbled something and punched a few buttons on his radio. Static filled the air.
Lila winced at the racket.
A familiar figure strolled through the open gate doors, his purplecoat waving in the blustery, damp wind. “I’ll handle it, Jackson. Finish cleaning the guard station.”
Jackson shuffled toward the little structure.
Nico leaned upon her window frame. “Why aren’t you sleeping in your cabin, Lila? Dixon returned last night.”
“I slept somewhere else.”
He raised a brow. “Slept with someone else or slept somewhere else?”
“It’s not really any of your business.”
“Of course it is. I need to know if I’m cooking in vain.”
“I thought you were cooking for the oracle.”
“I was cooking for her and her mysterious new friend, a friend who’s becoming more and more mysterious with each passing day. It was supposed to be the opposite.”
“That’s interesting, since your entire attitude changed when the oracle called me god-chosen. Now you’ve gone back to flirting?”
“It just took me by surprise. I needed some time to adjust.”
“Why? I don’t even know what it means.”
“It means the eyes of the gods are upon you. A high body count tends to follow the god-chosen. I’m especially fond of being alive. I suppose that doesn’t make me as devout as Connell believes.”
Lila looked away, tracing the guard tower’s peaked roofs. “Connell doubled the watch tonight.”
“Yes, he did.”
“She had another vision, didn’t she?”
Nico nodded. “I don’t know any more than that. Take a nap and wait for breakfast, Lila. You can see the oracle then. I’ll not wake her for the world right now, not even for you.”
“You’re worried about her.”
“You’re damn right I’m worried. Connell’s been gentle with her the last couple of days. The man doesn’t even baby babies. It doesn’t bode well.”
The radio on his shoulder cackled, filling the air with a series of clicks, pops, and squeals.
“Are all your radios like that?”
Nico nodded.
“Since when?”
“Since last year.” He turned down the radio’s volume. “The company that installed them has come out to investigate a few times, but they claim they’re working perfectly. They say there’s interference nearby. We haven’t had enough money in the budget to investigate further.”
“You receive donations, don’t you?”
“It’s been a hard few years for the workborn. Donations have run lower than normal.”
“I guess Mòr bought Blair’s telescope in simpler times.”
Nico laughed. “It’s not Blair’s telescope. Some highborn bought it years ago and made a deal with the oracle. We’re paid well to keep it safe and well maintained. Whenever the woman comes to visit, we turn out every light in the compound so she can watch the stars. Blair plays host, but she pretends she owns it the rest of the time. You’d think it would piss her off, some highborn amateur strolling up to her tower whenever she pleases, but Blair almost skips on those nights. I think it’s the only time anyone cares or understands what she’s talking about.”
Lila drummed her fingers on the wheel.
Blair would let her in to see the oracle.
“I know what you’re thinking, but forget it.” Nico marched through the gate and hopped into a cart. He led the way to her cabin, looking back several times to make sure she still followed him.
He walked her to the door, reminding her not to disturb the oracle as a personal favor. Then he climbed back into the cart and zipped away.
Lila crept inside the cabin, not bothering to muffle the sounds of her footfalls. It would be empty, for Dixon would be in Blair’s tower, writing notes—
She stopped short. Blair and Dixon napped on the couch, limbs intertwined, cheeks pressed together. The hushed screen before them had been filled with black. Two used notepads lay open on the coffee table, the pencil dulled and abandoned. A pile of shavings lay scattered nearby.
Gods, he’d written a lot.
Lila closed the door quietly behind her and padded across the living room, her satchel’s zipper tinkling like a bell.
Dixon twisted and smacked his lips, waking Blair. They both blinked and yawned, squeezing each other as they glimpsed Lila walking past.
“Sorry.” She winced as they turned their heads.
Dixon reached for his notepad, yawning again. Where have you been?
“Out.”
He rubbed his eyes and checked his palm. He passed it to her, the last message still open. Tristan’s fine. He’s already awake and puking. It had been sent a few hours before.
“Katia?”
Dixon nodded and tapped a reply.
Lila plopped down heavily on a padded sofa chair.
“Did you really tranq Dixon’s brother?” Blair chuckled, sitting up. “I wish I’d been there. What’s it like being tranqed?”
“Ever been hung over?”
Blair nodded.
“Ever had the flu?”
She nodded again.
“Add them together and multiply it by a hundred.” Lila slipped off her boots. “It’s nice to see you take a night off. I thought you didn’t do such things.”
“I didn’t take a whole night off. Dixon wouldn’t stop pacing in my tower. It was annoying and distracting. Since I wasn’t getting anything done anyway, I agreed to watch a movie. I must have dozed off.”
Sorry.
Blair shrugged. “It wasn’t all a waste.”
“Oh? What did you watch?”
“I have no idea. We made out through most of it.”
In the dim light, Lila saw a hint of pink cloud her cheeks.
Lila took out her palm and ran it along the walls and the couches and the drapes. She checked the kitchen and the bedrooms as well, with Blair following her movements with curious eyes. Lila showed her the four audio bugs before she lobbed them off the porch. They struck the packed earth like stones skipping across the water.
Dixon held up his notepad as she reentered the room.
About last night—I’m sorry. I should never—
Lila waved him off before he could finish writing. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
His pencil wavered over his notepad, but thankfully he wrote no more.
“We need to see the oracle right now. You were right last night. This is a street fight. We should attack. We—”
Blair shook her head. “No. My sister had another vision last night. Whatever this is, it can wait for a few hours.”
“That’s what Nico told me at the gate.”
“He was there. It was bad. Let my sister sleep, and you can speak to her at breakfast. You could use a few hours yourself. You look like shit.”
“I had a few hours. I need to keep working.” Hitching her laptop higher on her shoulder, Lila trudged into the bedroom, giving one last look behind her. The couple had fallen back onto the couch, their eyes closed, their lips pressed against one another. Blair had thrown her leg atop Dixon’s thigh, and her fingers skated under his shirt and up his chest.
Lila closed the bedroom door and booted up her laptop, then slipped into the compound’s medical records. If Camille had seen Dr. McCrae, perhaps Lila could find a marker, something to help her investigate the Alleanza database.
The records did not disappoint. Dr. McCrae had taken an x-ray of Camille’s leg for a potential fracture the year before, and one of her chest for pneumonia. Dr. McCrae had noted that it wasn’t the first time Camille had broken her leg. She’d also noticed a scar on her chest. During the exam, Camille had claimed that a dog had bitten her as a child, but Dr. McCrae believed she’d been stabbed. The wound was too neat and the scarring too straight. The doctor had treated too many purplecoats over the years to be fooled so easily.
“Well, well, well…” Lila mused, breaking into Randolph General’s records. She found Camille there as well. She’d broken an arm, and the doctor had noticed evidence of past fractures in her x-rays. Another doctor had treated her for a busted lip, a swollen eye, and a possible concussion, suspecting domestic abuse.
Lila copied the files to her laptop, then hacked the Alleanza database, searching for Camille. Fifteen women in the Italian army had been stabbed in the chest over the last ten years.
Only one looked like Camille.
Skimming through the woman’s file, she quickly learned the reason why Camille always seemed wiser than her years. Camille was not twenty years old but twenty-five. She’d first been seen for a health assessment at age six, listed as a new volunteer recruit in the Alleanza database.
How in the world did a six-year-old volunteer for anything besides ice cream and ponies?
Lila read on, her frown deepening. The doctors had found a plethora of injuries in the bones of young Camille. Breaks, mostly, and far too many for one rambunctious child.
Lila backed out of the database and closed her laptop, snatching up her palm as it vibrated. Lila girl, her father had written. I regret to inform of you of my impending retirement.
For the first time in days, she breathed easy. Her father had not been given a death sentence or a slave’s sentence after all. And Mr. Shaw?
He must face the auction house. I promise we will speak later. I just need a few hours’ sleep.
Lila dropped her palm on the bed, wishing she had more energy to celebrate. Instead, she took a quick shower and dressed for the day in a gray sweater and gray trousers, no color to speak of, no coat of arms on her breast. That fact weighed more deeply somehow this morning, especially when Dixon knocked on the bedroom door.
It’s still early, but Connell’s probably up.
Lila dried her damp hair with a towel. “I found the proof I’d been looking for an hour ago. It’s definitely Camille.”
I rather liked her.
“So did I. What do you think they’ll do to her?”
Probably stick her in the basement with the others for a while, then shoot her in the head.
Lila quickly updated him about her father, then wound her damp hair in a bun and grabbed her coat. She took her satchel too, not wanting to take any chances with the information she’d found.
Dixon and Blair held hands as they walked across the compound, their clothes still wrinkled from pressing against one another in a sweaty, happy mess all night.
When they arrived at the oracle’s front door, Connell answered. He led the group into the parlor, a grim expression on his face, then fetched his lover. It took nearly twenty minutes for her to join them. She sat heavily on the couch next to Kenna, her feet curled underneath her, her eyes red and drooping, her head resting on her sister’s shoulder. The oracle hadn’t even dressed in her oracle’s robes. Instead, she wore a flannel bathrobe, an oversized one, likely one of Connell’s.
Blair was right. The visions had ravished her too often lately.
“I’m not dead yet,” Mòr grumbled.
Connell’s mouth twitched. “Kenna and I made you some biscuits and gravy. That’ll perk you up.” But his expression wasn’t loving this morning—it was worried.
So was Kenna’s.
Mòr didn’t even have the strength to pretend today.
It worried Lila, too. She’d seen the oracle stride into the aftermath of a bloodbath. Mòr had had visions back then too, hadn’t she? What made today so different?
Lila found the audio bug in the parlor and moved it into the kitchen, then sat on a sofa chair near the oracle. “We need to talk. It’s important.”
The oracle abandoned her perch on her sister’s shoulder. “You know who the mole is, don’t you?”
“One of them.”
“I’m not going to like who it is, am I?”
“I don’t suspect any of you will.”
Lila quickly told them what she had found.
Kenna shook her head. “I always had a feeling about her, but she’s made Cecily so happy. It’s going to crush her. She’ll doubt herself for the rest of her life. That woman slept in my daughter’s room a thousand times.”
“That’s unusual for an outsider, isn’t it?”
Kenna nodded. “She stays here a lot, Lila. There’s an off-and-on boyfriend in the picture, a rotten one. Camille’s had nowhere else to go. She’s an orphan, or at least she claimed to be. I suppose it was just a lie for sympathy.”
“Broken bones are a lot of commitment for a lie.”
“Yes, but she’s a soldier,” Connell said. “It’s what soldiers do.”
“That soldier fed information to our enemies,” the oracle reminded him, tugging her robe’s collar. “You have no idea what they had planned for those little girls. Fetch her, chief. Secure her. Interrogate her. Find out what she’s told her comrades back home, and find the identity of the second mole. Whether that one gets away or not is immaterial. Whether Camille lives or dies afterward is immaterial. I only care that the leaks stop, and that we find out what they know. Take her down carefully. No half measures. Take all precautions.”
He sat up straighter at his title. “Are we at risk? Are you at risk?”
“Everyone’s at risk every day. Secure Camille. I see nothing but blood and fire and dust in our future if you do not.”
Connell cleared his throat and didn’t press. “Kenna, ask Cecily to come downstairs. We have no idea how Camille will respond once she’s confronted. She might have a weapon, and we don’t want her taking a hostage.” He turned to Lila next, jutting his chin toward her tranq. “I heard you’re awfully good with that thing. Fast, too. Have it out and ready, will you? Watch our back?”
Dixon got to his feet, looking at Connell expectantly.
“I had a feeling you’d volunteer too. I’d appreciate the extra pair of hands. She’s seen you at breakfast every morning. It won’t be odd to see you in the house.”
“Will you summon your militia to help?” Lila asked.
“Not yet. Her friend might see them gather and get tipped off. He might try to warn her before we take her into custody.”
Voices hushed, they hammered out a plan.