Toornan’s mouth dropped open.
She kept on. “I want your help because you hated being sent to break people’s livelihoods in the Wastes as much as I did, but had the sense to keep your mouth shut. You want to be gone almost as badly as I do.”
“I… I… Well I suppose that’s fair.” The poor boy might have been blinking back tears. “What do you want? How can I help?”
“Try asking Jools what she’s doing. How she’s feeling. What she thinks of her new complement. Anything would help right now, because I’m running out of ideas on how to take this further. But don’t be pushy; she’ll have been told to keep things confidential, so ask for small details.”
“Whatever access you’ve got is more than I have, Terese. I’m not flush with contacts here.” He waved a hand, displaying his isolation within the enormous courtyard.
“I need you because I’ve already done as much as I can.” She took a breath. “And that includes searching Keeper Lijjen’s office.”
“You what?” Tendons jumped out on his neck.
“It was the right thing to do. And I left everything as it was. I made sure there weren’t any security mechanisms before I picked the lock.”
“Are you insane?”
“You ever get a feeling in your gut, Toornan? That doing the right thing sometimes looks like you’re doing the wrong thing?”
“In what possible circumstances does that ever apply?”
“It isn’t like stealing a sausage from a butcher to feed a stray dog, Toornan. That’s still stealing. I’m doing this because I’m convinced Lijjen knows something we don’t about innocent people being killed. Yes, the underground chamber back home. I’m doing this because if I do nothing, more people might die. Seekers are supposed to save lives, Toornan.”
He pointed at her, suddenly excited. “Your father! Do you hear from him much? Could you tell him about this and ask for help?”
Terese snorted. “I had a letter from him a few months ago, after I’d explained our little disaster. He said to make him proud by showing courage, no matter how bad the situation. I wanted to reach through the letter and slap him.” A thought occurred to her. “What do you lot know about him and me?”
Toornan bit his lip for a moment. “You’re a good Seeker, just like him. Everyone knows. But people say your daughter changed you. They say his disapproval was the reason. That you came back from maternity a little, ah, more determined to do your job well. Always striving for perfection. Driving yourself to be better: A better person, better at your work. That you got promoted to head, maybe, just to get you to calm down a little, to give you validation.” He winced. “But you’re clearly a good leader, Terese.”
The words knocked her backward. Did everyone think she’d been promoted out of sympathy? Had Holder Moorcam seen her desperation as something to be exploited?
She dropped her gaze, unable to look up. “I suppose that’s fair,” she said, echoing Toornan’s own comment.
“My brother,” Toornan said, breaking a long silence, “wrote to tell me he was accepted to the cadets. He isn’t sure if he should go or wait until he’s eighteen. I went through the academy, but I’ll always wonder if I’d have ended up doing something different if I’d just finished school at the same time as everyone else. I don’t know what to tell him.”
“The Academy’s an echo chamber,” Terese replied. “We take the best and brightest, then teach them the easiest route to the truth. We don’t really develop our young ones.” She looked up. “Tell him to stay out of the Academy, Toornan. If he’s good enough to get in, they’ll take him when he’s grown.”
He tilted his head. “What about Pella?”
“I used to think I wanted her to follow the family trade. Chances are she’d be good at it. Her father’s one, too. But now? I’ll have her finish school. Look what happened to me.”
Toornan wouldn’t understand that, but he’d seen enough to sympathize. Perhaps if she’d known more of life outside the Seekers, she wouldn’t have needed to prove herself so desperately. To herself. To her father. She would have been made a head one day, regardless of being a single mother. And she knew she had the potential to be a keeper and a holder. Someone, somewhere, had told her she would be a holder one day. So why had she been striving so hard, exactly? Sitting on Toornan’s blanket, cracking pistachios and throwing the husks at the palm tree’s roots, she wasn’t certain.
“As badly as I need to be with my daughter, I needed this time away. She’s lost three teeth since I left. Outgrown a pair of shoes. Finished and started the school year. She had a dream of me holding hands with a man on fire and asked me to bring some sand back to Armer from Sumad.” Terese shook her head. “She thinks if a place is dry it must have lots of sand, and I didn’t want to disappoint her by explaining. Now, no matter what, I’ll disappoint her.”
Stop babbling, Terese.
She snapped her mouth shut, only seconds from bursting into tears. Toornan patted her on the shoulder.
She cleared her throat. “But if I’d stayed in Armer, surrounded by my accomplishments and family, I wouldn’t have been able to ask myself questions I’ve avoided. There are things I’ve neglected.” She took his hand from her shoulder and squeezed it. “A part of me is grateful to be here.”
They shared a moment of eye contact, as comforting as any embrace.
“Lijjen’s office,” Toornan reminded her. “What did you find?”
“Oh? Lots of books, hidden in his desk. First-hand. I think he must have bought them. Nothing contraband, or even dangerous. They were all about the Royals, in one way or another.”
“Is that significant? Some people make Royal-watching their hobby.”
“Lijjen
