Such a Daring Endeavor (36 page)

Regardless, he can’t have her here right now. He’s worrying about enough without her breathing down his neck. He meant what he told Ambry in the hallway. He doesn’t feel right about this.

“Get out,” he orders the shorter girl.

“I was just—Jomeini sounded really upset a minute ago and I—”

Talon grips her elbow and frogmarches her to the hallway outside. Ambry is sleeping—dreaming for all he knows—and they can’t afford any distractions while Ren attempts this. And while Shasa has many talents, one thing she’s very good at is being a distraction.

“Talon Haraway, don’t you dare close that door on me—”

He slams it behind him.

He’ll pay for this later. He has so much to answer for later. And here he is in the same mess. If only Shasa would just leave. Except even if she left it wouldn’t free him of what he knows awaits once his people come. Once he returns home.

His father seemed so disappointed, so disgusted with him. Talon had to tell him the truth of what happened. He knows they’ll give him a trial, at the very least. There has to be hope for him, in spite of his failings.

He locks the door behind him to find Ayso and the wizard coaching Ren.

Jomeini’s shoulders rise as her breathing speeds up. She hasn’t taken her eyes from that same spot on the carpet. Something is clearly troubling her, but he’s not sure what it is.

He blinks away his confusion and sits beside Ambry’s legs on the cot. Ambry doesn’t stir. She inhales a peaceful breath and continues her slumber, her hands placed leisurely on her chest.

Ren lies back on the cot beside Ambry’s, and the wizard stands over him. Solomus pours the powder into his hands. Flames alight his palms, but they’re green, tinged with glitter and imprints of leaves as he extends his arm over Ren and mutters words of incantation. Talon recognizes a few of them from studying ancient Liachle.

Sinresa hecorl e y’arna.
Xavi el avna viern y’graundai.
Something about sleeping restfully and allowing his mind to be overtaken. And,
graundai,
progressing quickly.

Talon knows that last word well.
Graundai.
He called Ambry that once. He remembers holding her in his arms during their training. Having her so near, having to touch her—he fought himself constantly, to push her away instead of fold her into him. No one he ever trained learned so fast; not even Tyrus’s already-trained soldiers picked up on things as quickly as Ambry did. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was Feihrian. But that’s impossible.

He wishes it were possible, though. He longs for her to have that lineage, a connection that could link her to him in all the ways he wishes he could. In all the ways that can never be.

Solomus finishes his incantation and, hand still blazing with green flames, sifts the powder like controlled steam over Ren. The steam floats above his body. It forms his exact shape, down to the space between Ren’s feet at the bottom of the cot and the spaces between his sides and his arms, the circular shape of his head, before settling over him and caving in, like a soul returning to a body it left too soon.

Tension roils the air. Ambry’s slumbering chest rises and falls, her lids twitching. Ren’s inhales become more labored, and then brother and sister breathe in unison, each shuddering every few seconds.

Jomeini watches too, her puzzlement melting into a simmering resolution, though Talon can’t fathom what can be bothering her right now. Crossing her arms, she makes her way to the table where Ayso placed the remaining reveweed and what’s left of the tonic. Her fingers travel, inspecting. And then, with another glance across the room, she makes her way to the door and leaves.

***

A fog settles over Ren. Neither cold nor hot, it lands one drop at a time, like the beginning of a rainstorm. The air shifts in warning of the oncoming storm until the wetness builds into a torrential downpour. He runs to the nearest door he can find before the rain hits, letting it slam shut behind him. Air enters and escapes his mouth. It’s tasteless and textured, drying out his mouth like he’s chewing on a tablecloth.

Low music pulses. People dance below in a scene Ren knows better than his hometown. Cadie’s set up with magitats; Zeke hovers over his trunk, wary of shoplifters; Ayso stands with Dircey, skulking and blending in with the patrons to keep an eye on things.

Instead of Micro at the door monitoring who enters, it’s Ambry. She wears a sleeveless shirt and tulle skirt with knee-high boots. Her hair is twisted up off her neck, her arms more toned than Ren remembers and spangled with magitats and bracelets.

Ambry’s dreaming about Black Vault? And looking like
that
?

Her gaze dusts across the crowd, and though he’s standing there at the top of the stairs, she doesn’t see him. A crease digs into her forehead. Ren follows to see Gwynn, her hair in a messy bun and wearing that old pink jacket she had.

A crowd of people surrounds Gwynn, cheering her on as she smokes some kind of pipe, exhaling sparkles and slamming back at the impact of the smoke.

Talon sits on a couch, wearing a clean shirt and pants. He stares straight ahead and then in an instant, Ambry is no longer at the top of the stairs but sitting beside him. Ambry pulls Talon’s face to her. She shakes his arm, punches his shoulder. But no matter how Ambry tries, Talon won’t talk to her.

“Okay,” says Ren. “This isn’t what I need.” Black Vault is only the base of the dream. What he’s really after is the core of Ambry, like Ayso said. If they want a shot of this working with Gwynn, that’s what they need to find.

He approaches Ambry, who is still shaking Talon’s arm. The warrior stares ahead as though she isn’t there, and the look of exasperation on her face builds.

“Ambry,” Ren says.

She bolts to her feet. “Can you believe this guy? The least he can do is give me my money back.”

It’s a dream,
he reminds himself. Nothing in dreams really makes sense.
That’s why this needs to work.

“Ambry, look at me,” Ren says, glancing back to the crowd around Gwynn once more. The pulsing music hounds his ears, but he takes his sister’s chin in his hand and forces her to gaze to his.

She rolls her eyes and shoves his arm away. “What are you doing?”

“Tell me what you want,” Ren says, not sure if it’s the right question to ask. But if this were Gwynn, that’s what he would ask her. What does she think she’ll get out of this allegiance with the enemy? “In your life. What do you really want?”

“What do
I
want?” she repeats.

The black of her irises connects with his own, and a rush of wind sweeps between them. He gasps as she does, her eyes widening, welcoming his scrutiny.

Small curls of red smoke spiral in her eyes. Slowly the smoky coils change, displaying images. He sees her going to Black Vault so Gwynn could get tears. The heartache and desperation when Ren himself was taken by soldiers burrows into his chest, along with the frantic energy that resonated to get him back, even after Haraway had given up.

With every change of image, Ren feels it all. The pang in her heart at the sight of a single man fighting against the crowd of citizens being taken to the Station, knowing she could do nothing to save him. The weight of her emotions drags him down like wet clothing. The pity for a group of captured, Proned men, the ache and longing for Talon. Her indecision, her fear of inadequacy, the worry of being unable to figure out the purpose of the tears in time.

The sensations crackle. His knees grow weak, and waves of realization snap over him. He breaks from her eyes with another gasp.

Music pulses, growing louder once more. Incense dulls his brain, making his thoughts lag. Ambry blinks several times as if unsure of what just happened. Ren grips her shoulders.

“I never realized you were dealing with so much,” Ren finally says.

“I want to help people,” she says distantly. “You asked what I want? I want to fix things. To use the tears for good, for what I’m meant to use them for. I just don’t know how, Ren.”

“You care so much it was painful to see it,” he says, remembering everything he saw in her mind. A collapsing forest, teaching others even when she couldn’t do what they did, loving Gwynn even after the anguish she caused when she took Ambry’s magic. “You have such a big heart, Ambry.”

Her face pinches in dejection. “The Firsts told me I have to use the tears to break Solomus’s spell, to stop the Arcaians. I think it’s maybe because I felt when others didn’t. When they couldn’t.”

“And you still don’t know why you feel?” Ren asks.

She shakes her head.

“You are their hope, Ambry,” Ren says. “That’s why it’s you. You’re their passion, their fear, their hate and frustration. You’ll fight because they can’t. That’s why it’s you. That’s why you’ll figure this out.”

Her eyes flick up to his once more. This time the despair is gone. This time a hopeful amazement rides in them. “You think I can do this?”

He smiles. “I do.”

A smile creeps at the corners of her mouth, lifting it until the grin blossoms on her face.

Ren can’t help returning it. Obviously he just helped her with something he didn’t know she was struggling with. He inhales, remembering why he’s here. “This could work,” he says to himself, glancing around for Gwynn once more.

She’s still standing where she was before, surrounded by a group of onlookers. He approaches her, his heart shrinking in his chest. Dream Gwynn looks like she used to, more youthful and innocent. The celery green eyes, the face that once made everything else around him dissolve. It doesn’t have that affect on him anymore, he’s pleased to note.

The crowd lets out another loud cheer as Gwynn brings a pipe to her lips and puffs on it.

One final look and then he can let her go. He can move on.

“Gwynn,” Ren says, pulling her to face him.

And she does so, exhaling a puff of reveweed right into his face.

***

Hurt and bitterness coat the underside of Jomeini’s skin, slowly transforming, a snake shedding its skin and changing colors to something black like hatred. That hatred guides Jomeini’s steps, giving her more drive than a vehicle in motion. Ambry is wrong about Gwynn. This won’t work—Jomeini can tell it won’t just as surely as she could tell Shasa’s plan to poison Craven wouldn’t. And she couldn’t stay in that room any longer.

No one in that room listened to her. She begged Ayso for help, begged Solomus. Ambry should know how she feels too, but she’s too absorbed in her own problems. Fury fists over Jomeini’s throat, battering against the cage she’s tried to enclose it in. But this time anger is stronger. It hammers and pounds with heat and fire and hatred until the bars crash down around her chest and pure vengeance filters in.

Gwynn Hawkes is just like Craven. A person like that will never change. No matter how badly Ambry wants to, she won’t succeed, and the thought only makes Jomeini hate Gwynn all the more.

Jomeini shouldn’t have helped Ayso figure out how to pull it off. But Ayso has been so kind to her. They all have been so kind. And that hug with Grandfather—the reminder of his awareness of her was exactly what she needed. That even though she was so destructive, he still loves her.

That thought ironically called her to action. She mentioned using transey to get to Gwynn and administer the drug to her, to access her dreams when the time came. But why wait? Jomeini grips the jars she snuck from the table, the excess potions Ayso concocted, resolving filtering through her.

She’ll go right now. Even under the most casual circumstances, it’s clear she’s dangerous to be around. She destroys everything she touches and right now her touch needs to be directed at Gwynndol Hawkes. She’ll get the tears and stop her friends from going through with a plan she warned them was wrong. Then they’ll all see how right she was.

Though she hasn’t used the transey magic Baba taught her as a child, she remembers it clearly. It isn’t hard to take a glass from the kitchen, shatter it against the counter and elongate one of the shards. Jomeini concentrates on the glass’s particles and soon it widens. She pictures exactly where she wants it to lead, and though she doesn’t know the room’s details, transey guides her there anyway.

The magic leads Jomeini to an elaborate room draped with the finest adornments money can buy. A maid is turning down a bed with thick, welcoming blankets. Wearing a red tank top and shorts, Gwynn Hawkes sneers at the maid from a fur-lined seat near the blazing fire.

Jomeini’s sudden appearance sends Gwynn diving for the dazeblade on the fireplace mantel.

“Don’t bother with that,” Jomeini says, whisking with a hand from this distance. The blade clatters to the tile hearth, and she takes a deep breath, savoring the moment.

She never had the upper hand with Craven. Not once. But with the assurance spreading through her body, she has it now. She bottles down the rage, letting it stew, letting it fester.

“What do you want?” Gwynn demands, suspicion in her voice.

“I burned an already dead body. I attacked sirens when I should have been attacking soldiers. I attacked Cadie when I should have been going after you. But I won’t fail this time. I’m going to take you out, Miss Hawkes.”

Heat fuels her words, triggering the flame inside her. She feels the power that comes with extreme anger.

Fear grips Gwynn’s expression. She backs into one of the tall mahogany bedposts and fidgets as if reaching behind for something.

Jomeini sniffs. Thoughts ward in—warnings, second guesses. She dismisses them all and steps closer to the other girl still clinging to the bedpost.