Fifteen
UNCLE
“LET US GO somewhere we can talk,” he said, once more gripping my arms. He glanced over at Nick and Angel, not quite with indifference but with a certain air of dismissal. “...Alone,” he added, softer, leaning his forehead briefly against mine. “You can decide what you want to tell your friends later, but I think we should talk alone first, Miriam.”
I nodded, feeling that tightness in my chest worsen.
I glanced reluctantly at Angel and Nick, then at the four seers standing there, their faces still holding no expression at all. I looked at the red-eyed one the longest.
“They’ll be quite safe,” Uncle Charles assured me.
I glanced back at him, frowning as my jaw tightened.
“What about Black?” I said.
Amusement touched Uncle Charles’ face, but he quickly wiped it away when I didn’t return his smile. “He will be quite all right too, Miri.”
“He’s hurt. Badly. Thanks to you.”
“Not as badly as you might think. I’ll have my people take care of it...” His words trailed, even as he seemed to be listening to some faraway sound. After a too-long pause, he looked at me. “He’s offering resistance to my people. You might need to talk to him, Miri.”
Without waiting, I pulled the rest of the way out of his embrace.
I walked around the back of the jagged stone pedestal of Winged Victory, aiming my feet for Black. When I rounded the corner of the base, I found him trying to get to his feet, shoving back seers who were trying to put their hands on him.
“Stop it!” I snapped.
I said it without thought.
I wasn’t even sure which of them I was talking to.
Luckily, it worked for all of them. They froze, staring up at me.
Meeting Black’s gaze when he looked up, I struggled as another wave of emotion hit me, wiping away any hope of calm. I knew seeing Uncle Charles had thrown me way off balance already, but I still had to fight to get my equilibrium back when Black’s gold eyes met mine.
I couldn’t even put words to those feelings, not anymore.
I barely noticed the other seers watching me warily from near Black.
“Let them help you,” I snapped at him. “Let them help you, goddamn it. They’re not going to hurt you. Uncle Charles...” I stumbled on the name. “...He won’t hurt you.”
“Don’t go with him, Miri!” Black said. “Not alone.”
It struck me, in staring back at him, that we were giving each other orders.
Moreover, they felt like real orders. Meaning, I didn’t really question his right to ask that of me... nor did I feel him questioning my right to tell him what to do, either.
Nodding, I met his gaze, looking up from where I’d been frowning at the blood seeping through the shirt and belt bandage. When I caught his stare that time, emotion stunned me all over again.
“You’re an asshole,” I said, tears coming to my eyes. “You’re a fucking asshole, and I’m never trusting you again...”
“I’m sorry––”
“No you’re not. You lied to me... you took that signal scanner off me... manipulated me with that kiss.” I swallowed, realizing I was shouting. Moreover, all the seers around us were watching me yell at him. Nick and Angel likely were too.
“You’re an asshole,” I repeated, fighting a tightness in my throat.
“Don’t go with him alone, goddamn it,” Black growled. “Please, Miriam. I’m asking you. I’m fucking asking you not to do it––”
“I heard you.” I stared down at him, frustrated. I could feel he was worried about me, but somehow that only made me angrier. He was on the floor, possibly bleeding out, and he was worried about me with Uncle Charles.
“He’s not going to hurt me,” I said.
“I’m not worried about him hurting you. I’m worried about him taking you. Or hadn’t it occurred to you he might take you from me?”
I stared at him. The wording might have offended me if it had been anyone else, but I could feel the emotion behind it with Black.
With him, it confused me mainly because it touched me.
A voice spoke from directly behind me then, and I jumped nearly a foot.
“I won’t take her, brother.” I could feel Uncle Charles’ annoyance, despite his amused tone. “...Or do I need to start calling you ‘nephew’ now?” He glanced at me, that harder look still in his eyes. “If you really are concerned, you may join us, Mr. Black. Providing Miriam approves, of course. They can patch you up while we talk... ?”
I distinctly got the impression he made the offer grudgingly.
But he was looking at me, lifting his eyebrow in an obvious question, hands clasped at the base of his spine––so I nodded.
“Fine,” I said. “That’s fine.”
“It’s a bit of a walk,” Uncle Charles cautioned, glancing again at Black. “Across the courtyard to Richelieu, I’m afraid.”
“Not a problem,” Black said at once.
His voice held zero compromise.
Uncle Charles inclined his head as if making the concession, but I felt his irritation sharpen. He motioned two of his seers to help Black to his feet. I watched them get him upright. Seeing the relief in Black’s expression, I had to bite my lip to keep from reacting to that too. I still couldn’t untangle any of my feelings around Black himself––nor the intense pangs of guilt I felt when I glanced over my shoulder and saw Angel and Nick watching us, worry in both of their eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” I assured them. I looked from Angel’s face to Nick’s. “I promise, it’ll be okay. Let them fix you up. We’ll be back soon.”
I could almost feel Nick wanting to tell me not to go.
I honestly couldn’t tell if his reasons were radically different from Black’s.
“It’s going to be all right,” I repeated. “I promise, okay? I’ll be right back, and then I’ll tell both of you everything.”
The two burly seers supporting Black were already walking away. I glanced over when Uncle Charles turned to follow. Watching them take Black down the main staircase at the front of Winged Victory, I barely hesitated before I did the same.
I could tell my words didn’t reassure either of my friends.
They especially didn’t reassure Nick.
When I caught up to Uncle Charles at the bottom of the first landing, I murmured, “Please tell me I didn’t just lie to my friends. Especially since they risked their lives to come out here to help me.”
“You didn’t lie to them,” Uncle Charles assured me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me against his side as we walked to the second set of stairs. “I promise you, my dear, I plan to return you to them without a scratch.”
I let out a grunt, glancing ahead of us at Black.
“Guess you can’t say the same for him,” I muttered. I gave my uncle a harder stare. “But I am bringing him back with me. Tonight. With no more scratches. Right?”
Uncle Charles glanced up at where Black limped ahead of us.
“I gathered that, yes.” He gave me a wan smile, winking, but his eyes remained serious. “Despite brother Quentin’s fears, I never intended to conscript you into my seer army tonight, little Miri... and never unwillingly, regardless of time and place. There are far too many things you must learn about your people first.” He gave a delicate shrug. “I admit, I would very much like to be the one to educate you on some of those things. Particularly what it is we really do and believe here. But only when the time is right. And only when you are ready.”
He gave me another warm squeeze.
“...There are enough days in all the world for all that, ilya. For now I wish merely to let you know a few things that affect you currently, so you can might more educated decisions.” Another frown touched his lips. “I admit, the situation in Bangkok scared me badly, Miri. It also made me realize just how vulnerable you are. Particularly given what you are...”
His words trailed.
In that silence, a harder pulse of grief left him. He looked at me again. I was staring up at his face when tears returned to his eyes.
“I am so very very sorry, my dear,” he said, his voice thick. “...For Solonik.”
I stared up at him, fighting confusion.
I’d briefly forgotten his role in all of that. Some part of me still couldn’t fully comprehend that this was the same Lucky I’d been hearing about since then. The Lucky who gave orders to human traffickers and threatened Solonik with retribution if I was harmed.
I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it.
“...I will never forgive myself for letting that animal touch you...” He trailed again, once more overcome by emotion. “...Or what happened with Ian Stone.” He looked towards Black, his expression darkening. “Although, I confess, I do hold your current paramour somewhat responsible for that mess. Ian was not wrong when he said that the poaching of mates is a very serious crime in our world.”
He firmed his lips, once more meeting my gaze.
“But Solonik is entirely on me. He worked for me. He was my responsibility... and for that, I can never forgive myself, ilya.”
I glanced up, focusing on Black when I felt some part of him react.
That pull from him felt almost compulsive. I felt worry on him too, along with unease around my conversation with Uncle Charles. Black could feel how much seeing him affected me. He felt my memories of the past tugging at me, my confusion, my hyper-emotionality. He was worried about my uncle manipulating me.
It amplified my own worry about him briefly.
It also cleared my head, reminding me why I was here.
“You’re not going to harm him.” My voice grew colder as I looked back at my uncle. “I’m really fucking serious about this, Uncle Charles. Black... you’re not going to harm him for that poaching thing. Or for anything else.” I narrowed my gaze. “I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to forgive you for what you’ve done to him already... but it needs to stop. Now.”
My uncle startled me by breaking out in a wide grin.
When I glared back, clenching my jaw, he held up a hand.
“I know you are threatening me, my dear... and I am taking it very seriously, I promise you.” Even as he said it, he smiled wider, squeezing me against his side. “I admit, it is incredibly endearing to see my little Miri make such a brazenly seer statement. You are so very much one of us... do you know this? If I did not think so already from the work-ups Black’s people did, I would know it by you snarling at me just now about my damaging your new companion.”
He shook his head, once, still smiling. I couldn’t help noticing it was same strange shake of the head I’d seen Black do on more than one occasion.
“He still hasn’t told you much about us, has he?” my uncle said. “Black. He hasn’t told you very much about seers? What we’re really like?”
I followed his hand gesture towards Black himself. I must have reached for him in other ways too; I felt another pulse of pain on him, enough to stumble my steps. Fighting it back, I shook my head, unconsciously imitating both of them.
“No,” I said simply.
When I glanced up that time, Uncle Charles’ green eyes sharpened.
I saw him looking between me and Black. That time, I felt irritation on him again, stronger than the affection he’d just been showering on me.
“He didn’t waste any time with you, did he... ?” he muttered.
“He hasn’t done anything, Uncle Charles,” I warned. “...Not like that’s your business. We haven’t done much at all, and for the record, that was his decision, not mine. So please stop acting like I’m his rape victim, or Black is brainwashing me...”
Clicking softly under his breath, Uncle Charles dismissed my words with a wave.
“I know that,” he said. “I’m quite aware of your boyfriend’s restraint... as well as where it’s failed him.” His lip curled, right before he glanced at me. “I suppose you’re right. As every seer knows, some things are not for the mind to decide. Still, I confess I am annoyed that I had so little say in who you were exposed to from our world prior to meeting him.”
“Planning to pick out my boyfriends for me, too, Uncle Charles?” I said drily.
“Was I planning to offer you options for companionship from those among our people with integrity and principle? With a sense of responsibility towards their race and the continuation of our blood and shared history?” He gave me a scathing look, not a trace of apology in his voice. “...Of course I was. Who could blame me for that?”
Shrugging at my unimpressed look, he gave me a wry smile. “Although you never did like doing what you were told, Miri. I should have remembered that. I might have done better if I’d ordered you to become involved with Black at the outset...”
“Is that what Ian was?” I said, my voice unamused. “One among our race with ‘integrity and principle’? Because I think I’ll pass, Uncle Charles.”
“Ian was...” Uncle Charles clicked his tongue with regret. “...A miscalculation.” At my incredulous snort, he gave me a sharper look. “For the record, niece, I never once told him to become romantically involved with you. He was there to act as your bodyguard, nothing more. I placed Ian with Tanaka to give him an excuse to look out for you. He developed a fixation on you all by himself... again, the unpredictability of seer affections being at issue.”
He gave me a more apologetic look, shrugging with one hand.
“Seers, I’m afraid, can be quite difficult to manage when it comes to their sexual inclinations. You may have discovered that for yourself by now, Miri.”
I bit my lip, not answering him.
Looking up as we descended a short flight of stairs, I realized we were back in the cavernous room with all of the marble pillars and statues.
Given where we were, I assumed we’d be leaving Denon the same way we came in. But the two seers trailing behind us walked directly to the wall facing the courtyard instead. Only then did I notice three doors lived there, in that long wall––two smaller rectangular ones on either side of a much larger, arched doorway in the center.
I watched a seer use keys to open the smaller door to our right.
Once he had it open, he used more keys to open a series of iron barred gates on the other side. When he’d gotten through them all, the two burly seers carried Black through the open doorway and Uncle Charles and I followed.
We descended the steps on the other side and then we were outside the structure completely, back in the wide courtyard with the three glass pyramids and the dormant fountains.
Uncle Charles didn’t wait for the two seers to finish closing and locking the doors behind us, but began walking with me across the courtyard towards Richelieu.
The two seers holding up Black were already heading in that direction.
I could hear Black panting now. When I got closer to him with my mind, I got hit with a blast of physical pain. Fighting not to react, or maybe not to yell at him again, I forced my eyes off his back and looked at the illuminated glass pyramid instead.
I was still looking there when the lights inside the wing behind us went out.
“What will they do with Ian?” I said.
Uncle Charles shrugged with the hand he didn’t have wrapped around my shoulder.
“Ian Stone will be... dealt with.”
I felt Black react to his words.
“So you’re leaving him alive?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I could tell Black hated the idea. “...After everything he’s done, all the people he’s killed. He just... walks? How is that safe for either me or Black?”
I felt a plume of warmth off Black.
“He’ll be dealt with,” Uncle Charles repeated, giving Black an annoyed glance. “Don’t worry about that, Miri. I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me on this point, but I give you my solemn vow... Ian won’t get anywhere near you or yours again. Certainly not the way he is now.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant.
Either way, his words didn’t reassure me––at all.
Biting my lip, I looked around the deserted courtyard while I collected my thoughts. The light was brighter than it had been when we arrived. A new sheen of water darkened the stone, turning the surface into a mirror and reflecting the glow from the orange lamps.
It must have rained.
“You and I will have to visit here again sometime, Miri,” Uncle Charles remarked, glancing up at the dramatic face of the Richelieu building. “Humans really can be such curiously artistic creatures. They make unquestionably beautiful things when they put their minds to it––it is an interesting paradox of the species, given the small-mindedness of so many, and their propensity for destruction in all its forms.”
I fought not to roll my eyes. “I guess you toned down that aspect of your personality when I was a kid,” I muttered.
“Which aspect is that, my love?”
“The racist asshole part,” I said, giving him a harder look.
I felt another plume of heat off Black, even as he let out an involuntary laugh.
I felt Uncle Charles notice both.
He shot another annoyed look in Black’s direction.
“Kindly ask your...” Again he seemed to stumble over the word. “...boyfriend... to keep his light to himself. You are still my niece, and I admit, his presumed proprietorship over you is... rankling.”
I felt Black hear him.
I felt him dim something about his presence with me too, but it did nothing to disguise the darker whisper of anger he exuded. Turning his head, he growled something at Uncle Charles in that other language. Charles rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion, then said something in response that definitely sounded like a threat.
Whatever it was, Black didn’t answer.
“Where are we going?” I bit my lip, fighting not to react to his blatant bullying of Black. “He shouldn’t have to walk this far... even with help. We could have walked a hundred steps and no one would have heard us.”
Uncle Charles smiled indulgently, again making that soft clicking sound with his tongue. “Ah, you really don’t know very much about us yet. Do you, my Miri?”
At my annoyed look, he held up a calming hand.
“...I fully intend to explain. With seers, ‘overhearing’ is more about our sight than our ears.” He gazed out over the pyramid, his voice thoughtful. “..Seer sight cares nothing for walls. Or doors, my Miri. It cares only marginally about distance, and then only under certain circumstances. And yet, we still have ways of keeping things secret from one another, in spite of our abilities. One of those is to design special spaces we call ‘constructs.’”
He glanced down at me, his green eyes studying mine for comprehension.
“A construct could be described as a fenced-off portion of the psychic space, my dear. What we call ‘The Barrier.’” He glanced at Black’s back, then at me. “Is any of this familiar to you, child? I don’t want to overwhelm you with new terms and ideas all at once.”
Despite my annoyance with him around Black, Uncle Charles calling me “child” didn’t really bother me––maybe because the way he said it sounded strangely formal. I got the sense it was another of those seer customs, like seers calling one another “brother” and “sister.” Either way, I blew it off.
Thinking about what he’d just told me, I nodded slowly. “Some of it’s familiar. Black’s mentioned the Barrier.”
I didn’t say anything about Black’s journals.
Uncle Charles’ expression remained unreadable as his eyes flickered to Black. He seemed about to say one thing, then switched direction before he actually spoke.
“Well, the short version is, I had my people set up a construct in Richelieu. Constructs have a spacial dimension as well as a nonphysical one, so generally are centered on a specific structure. Stone is ideal for this. Paris, thankfully, has that in abundance.”
It occurred to me to wonder who he thought might be listening in exactly.
For all I knew, he meant his own people, though.
Details like that weren’t high on my list of priorities at the moment, especially since he’d just reminded me that he set Black up to be killed by Ian.
“Not killed,” Uncle Charles corrected.
“What then?” I said drily. “Were you just giving them some guy time to work out their differences?”
“I knew you were on your way.”
“So what? You say that like it’s some kind of explanation... or an excuse!”
“Not an excuse, certainly. An explanation of sorts, yes.”
I didn’t hide my anger, or the hostility that went through me like an electrical current. “And just what the fuck is that supposed to mean... uncle? Because I admit, your ‘explanation’ went a bit over my head, I’m afraid.”
Pain moved tangibly over his expression. Seconds later, I felt it coming off him too, strongly enough that it tightened that fist in my chest all over again.
I’d hurt his feelings. I could feel that, too.
It infuriated me that I cared. After all this time, after everything he’d put me and Black through, it struck me as delusional in the extreme.
“I know you have questions, ilya,” he said, softer. “About old things... as well as new ones. I’m also aware of your...” He glanced at Black, and a tangible curl of hostility came off him, the strongest one yet. “...of your condition at the moment. I won’t be able to satisfy you on all of those fronts tonight, my love. Possibly I won’t ever be able to satisfy you, or succeed in winning back your trust. But I intend to try.”
He glanced around us, still holding my shoulder tightly with his arm.
“I do not wish to broadcast some of these things where others might hear them, however. This is for your safety... as well as your partner’s, believe it or not. I may not be overly fond of him personally, but I fully intend to honor your connection to him, ilya.”
Clenching my jaw, I glanced at Black.
Reluctantly, after turning over my uncle’s words, I nodded.
“Thank you,” he said, softer still.
We walked the rest of the way to the outer doors of the Richelieu in silence.
Instead of entering via the archway across from the pyramids, what I knew to be called the Richelieu Passage, we walked to the far western edge of the wing instead, where it nearly touched the road. We reached the corner of the building and the same ritual was repeated as had been done at the outer doors of Denon. The two seers pulled out an old-looking keychain and began unlocking the iron gates.
Once they’d unlocked a second gate and the door that lived behind that, Uncle Charles and I filed in behind Black and his two escorts. I found myself in a cold, dark passageway, obviously meant only for security personnel and other staff.
We walked down that cave-like corridor a short way, then the same seer pulled out a different set of keys. Opening a smallish door with a copper-colored key, he swung it inward.
Light filled the featureless stone tunnel.
Uncle Charles clicked his fingers, a sound that echoed sharply in the dark.
The two seers holding Black brought him in ahead of us. I followed when Uncle Charles urged me to walk in front of him, ducking down to pass through the short door.
Once inside, I stopped dead, looking up and around me in surprise.