Allie's War Season Three (74 page)

"Okay," I said.

As I said it, the curtain slid back to our private balcony and two waiters came in, both of them wearing dark suits and ties. I was surprised to see that the waiters carried trays with them already, piled with enough food to be intimidating. I wondered if Revik had ordered for us in advance of our being here, or if there was some kind of set menu to go with the play.

"There is no play, Allie," Revik said, his voice low.

I stared at him, confused.

Before I could ask, waiters were placing dishes between us, making me hesitant to speak until they'd finished. They covered every blank square of white linen, pretty much everywhere not already taken up by a wine glass or a plate or a candle. Revik leaned back, watching me cautiously as they arranged the different-sized plates and bowls. I noticed that most of them contained only small portions, maybe only a few bites for each of us. Glancing around, the types of food made no sense, either. I saw a small bowl of what smelled like canned human soup next to what had to be seer food on two of the center plates. One of those looked like some kind of white noodles that only tipped me off as seer food because of the unusual smell of the spices and the reactions of my light. Another had mango and spices that I almost recognized...another was a kind of dark green wrap that seers ate during training exercises and long hikes, a kind of seer quick food that Jon called a seaweed burrito.

I couldn't help laughing once I'd scanned most of the dishes laying before us.

"Isn't that what we ate in Vancouver?" I said, pointing at the burrito. "And what we ate that first night in the cabin...and on the bed that one night?" I said, pointing at the mango thing, then the noodles. "And is that
curry?"
I said, laughing again. "What is this? Seer tapas? Or did you have them bring us some of each of your favorite foods?"

He smiled, shrugging with one hand. "Something like that."

"Which one?" I said, meeting his gaze with a grin.

He surprised me though, catching hold of my wrist and looking at me seriously.

"Allie," he said. "It's a ritual."

I continued smiling, not sure if he was serious. "What kind of ritual?"

Releasing my wrist, he sat back in the chair, looking uncomfortable again. "I probably should have just told you," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I asked them to do this...it's supposed to symbolize different phases of our relationship so far." He motioned towards the one dish that was covered. "All except that one. That was chosen by our family and friends. It's supposed to be where we are now, in their eyes. Afterwards, we'll have something chosen by the eldest seer. It's supposed to be where we are going...the future...along with a kind of blessing for the whole gathering."

I felt things happening in his light, just out of my reach, but intense enough that I couldn't pretend not to notice. I also felt him shielding me, enough to make me nervous.

"Revik," I said. "After what?"

"Are you okay with doing this tonight?" he said, studying my eyes. "I should have asked, but we'd already put things in motion..."

"Doing what?" I said.

"I was starting to feel like we didn't have a lot of time..."

"Doing what?" I said again, still studying his face in some bewilderment, trying to understand all of the conflicting feelings I could see there. Even though I had some idea where this might be going, when he said the words, they still jolted me.

"Marrying me," he said, still watching me with that taut expression. "In a ceremony, I mean...like we talked about."

When I only looked at him, trying to decide how to react, he cleared his throat.

"Now," he added, as if to clarify.

18

RITUAL

JON WANDERED INTO the restaurant unnoticed, along with ten or twelve others from the hotel, most of them ex-rebels. He'd had to dress in a hurry when Allie dragged him along for the dress-shopping excursion and then down to wait for Revik, but it ended up not being a big deal, and Wreg and the others arranged for him to come in one of the later cars while Balidor and a lot of the Adhipan coordinated shuttling over the rest of the guests.

Anyway, as Wreg pointed out, they'd only been planning this party for two months, give or take...the last month dealing with security protocols alone.

Being a few minutes late didn't mean a lot, in the bigger scale of things.

Wreg waited for him, which Jon found both reassuring and a bother, which was pretty much how he felt about Wreg's shadowing of him for the past few weeks, in general.

His days of traveling among the seers incognito appeared to be over.

He rode over in the same car with Wreg, Jorag, Neela and Jax from the security team, but they all pretty much scattered as soon as they got inside.

The construct shield supposedly would keep Allie from recognizing anyone from their balcony perch, but it was still unnerving, being in the middle of a surprise party and never knowing when the trigger would be pulled.

Wreg disappeared the second they entered the hall together...first distracted by the bar, then by some of Allie's friends from art school, the few that Jon had been able to get here without causing some sort of security breach. The few that didn't live in San Francisco, in other words.

Watching Wreg start to flirt with a few of them, Jon rolled his eyes, irritated in spite of himself. Rather than watch, he wandered off, too, and managed to find a drink without having to wait in line when a waiter visited the table where Jon sat alone.

The fact that Revik managed to pull this off without Allie figuring it out had pretty much blown Jon's mind. It also seemed to be a testament of sorts to how distracted everyone was, Allie included. Of course, at the time Revik proposed the date, he'd planned on waiting on the sex and whatever else between them...including their moving in together...so some of that got blown out of the water when they robbed that bank together and got cuddly afterwards.

But from what Revik told him, and from what Jon had observed between the two of them in the time since, the spirit of the thing remained intact.

Of course, half of the guests hadn't been able to make it, despite their purchased plane tickets and whatever else. They'd been stuck behind the quarantine line in San Francisco. The four seers who'd gone looking for them, including Garensche, wouldn't be in attendance either, obviously, which Jon knew would probably bug the big pirate-looking seer more than he'd let on during their last communication.

Cass wouldn't be here either...or Chandre...but Jon tried not to think about either of them.

He tried to think even less about the absence of Dorje and Vash, who each had specific roles in the original ceremony they'd planned, too.

Tarsi had flown out for it, though, which was no mean feat.

So had the remaining members of the Council.

More significantly for Jon, and for Allie herself, their Aunt Carol had made it from Arizona, along with four of their cousins...the cooler ones from that branch of their mother's family. One of whom, Kara, also happened to be on the list, although Jon hadn't talked to Allie about that yet. He'd avoided giving Revik the names of any family friends or relatives who might potentially turn them in to SCARB, which unfortunately meant most of their father's side of the family. He
had
risked inviting Uncle James, their father's favorite brother, and his son, Marcus, who was a few years younger than Jon.

Well, and Marcus was on the list, too.

Jon figured he'd have to find some way to have a chat with him and Kara before they got ideas about bolting town. Hopefully without locking either of them in a basement storage room for a few hours, the way he had with Dante.

The bottom line was, given what they'd found out from Surli earlier that day, this wedding ceremony had probably pulled a lot of Allie's favorite people out of harm's way just at the right time. It still left those in San Francisco at risk, of course, but at least Aunt Carol was safe, and Surli had practically mentioned her by name. Jon didn't want to imagine what would have happened to their artistic, sharp but somewhat overly-idealistic aunt in the hands of the Lao Hu. Aunt Carol was a hippie at heart in a lot of ways, or a gypsy at least, despite her four kids. The Lao Hu would have rained on her happy parade in ways that Jon didn't even want to think about.

The fact that Revik had been so insistent that Jon invite friends and family from Allie's human life had been interesting to Jon. He didn't know if the motive there was guilt, or some sense of wanting family there, since he had no one but Tarsi, or simply a desire to please Allie...but Jon found it sort of touching.

Meaning, touching in that usual way Jon had with Revik, where he felt touched without being fully aware of what exactly it was that his brother-in-law was thinking or feeling.

Balidor assured them the dining area remained well-cloaked, but still, everyone held their breath when Revik and Allie first appeared in that box seat, and Allie stared down at all of them, her eyes reflecting the light of the chandelier. Jon had been sure she'd been staring right at the table where Uncle James, Marcus and Aunt Carol had been sitting, but her eyes seemed to go right by them a second later, right before she looked behind her, as if Revik had called her name.

Still, Jon could almost feel it when Revik dropped the bomb on her.

Aunt Carol and Uncle James were both staring up where she had been for a few minutes after she disappeared. Neither of them said anything to Jon right then, but he had a feeling that they might not have recognized her, if they hadn't seen Jon staring too.

Truthfully, she looked so different from the person he'd grown up with in San Francisco that he probably wouldn't have recognized her, either. Jon himself had already adjusted to two major changes in her that reflected in her physical appearance...one when she married Revik the first time in that cabin, and the next after she returned from her stint with the Lao Hu. Each time it had taken Jon a few weeks to adjust to how she looked, talked, acted...even how she carried herself, her very mannerisms.

She'd come out of her marriage to Revik taller, more seer-looking, harder somehow...and a lot more sure of herself. She'd taken control of the Seven and the Adhipan without batting an eye, and Jon had to question whether the old Allie would have made that transition so easily. She'd even been a little frightening at times, especially when she'd been matching wits with Revik while he was under the control of the Dreng and Salinse. It hadn't been Revik who'd pulled the cold maneuver that time...it had been Allie herself. She'd lied to him for months, convincing him she was considering joining him with the rebels, only to kidnap him and demolish his rebellion with the help of her sort-of ally at the time, Voi Pai and her Lao Hu army.

Jon understood why she'd done it, even then, but he couldn't help being a little off-balance that she'd been
able
to do it.

She hadn't exactly softened since those times, but something in her had changed, as soon as Revik took away the influence of the Dreng in both of them.

It had been harder to gauge all the differences that time though, since he did that right after they'd sprung Allie from the Lao Hu's stronghold in Beijing. Even without what Revik had done to remove the last of the Dreng's influences from her light, the Lao Hu had changed everything about her from the way she dressed to how she wore her hair to her facility with old-form Prexci and her ability to use seer sign language. Her actual
mannerisms
had changed from living with the Lao Hu, even though she'd only been there half a year or so.

According to the seers, if Jon could have seen the before and after of her aleimi, he would have been even more shocked by the differences.