The flush that had arisen when Ilsa began had leached away. Aelius narrowed his eyes at Eliot. “You can’t seriously be indulging this.”
Eliot didn’t appear to know what he was doing. His gaze swung from Ilsa to Aelius and back again. “She’s right,” he said. “You did say something like that.”
Aelius glared. Eliot opened his mouth to fill the crackling silence, but Ilsa put a hand on his arm and shook her head minutely. Let the silence linger. She wanted the other man to break it. Aelius’s knuckles were pale on the grip of his cane.
Finally, he met her gaze. “Have you been interrogating the others this way?”
“Din’t have to. Everyone else was forthcoming,” she lied, then softened her voice as she continued. “Please, Aelius. There’s something I should know, ain’t there?”
“I tried, you understand?” he said abruptly, his voice cracking. “It was just a rumour, one of a dozen I hear every day, but I tried to prevent it nonetheless.”
“Prevent what?” coaxed Ilsa.
“Anybody getting hurt.”
Eliot had gone very still beside her, but Aelius turned and paced to the empty fireplace.
“There has been so much unrest in that starsforsaken faction since Fisk died,” he said, “it’s hard to move without brushing up against a Sorcerer with grand ideas of revolution. The foxes have had their ears to the ground. I’ve chased every whisper, including those of another raid.”
Ilsa had never heard him speak with so little theatre, so little swagger. He took a shuddering breath before he went on.
“A Sorcerer contact informed me that the rebels knew of this expedition to Millwater, and would use the opportunity—”
He was cut off by a strangled noise from Eliot, whose face was a mask of horror. He looked like he was choking from poison, and Aelius had been the one to spike his drink. “You knew when they were planning to attack again,” he said in a voice like a blade. “You damned traitor, you knew.”
Ilsa braced to spring between them if Eliot erupted into violence, but his posture was terrifyingly calm, like he would sway and fall if she nudged him.
“You have no idea what I do for this family!” Aelius hissed, each word spilling into the next. “No idea of the sacrifices I make—”
“That we all make,” said Eliot, his voice soft. “You make those sacrifices for all of us. Do you think the foxes are the only ones among the militia who can spy? Do you think we don’t know why you’re so secretive about your methods?”
Aelius laughed uproariously. “So it all comes out! You’ve been gathering intelligence on your intelligence man, is that it?”
“You serve up our secrets, our resources,” Eliot went on, as if the other man hadn’t spoken. “You siphon away a piece of every valuable innovation Fyfe has ever created – don’t you dare look surprised. Everyone knows why you take so much interest in him. You sell our safety to forge contacts, over and over, because at heart, you’re out for no one but yourself.” Aelius opened his mouth to retort and Eliot raised his voice. “You knew they were coming and you let it happen.”
“I thought I knew!” Aelius boomed. One moment, his anger was like a fire engulfing the room. The next, it crumbled. He spared Eliot one last disdainful glare, sighed, and collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands. “I thought I knew. Thought that I could… but my information was bad. I lied and misled and pressed on the squad leaders to get twenty extra wolves here that day. This house was guarded to the nines, even after the trip was cancelled, so that I could be sure. And then – then they didn’t come. It wasn’t until after, when the wolves had all gone home and the place was quiet, that they…
“My information was bad,” he repeated. “Do you understand, Quillon? Nothing I could have done, no one I could have told would have made a difference.”
He put his face in his shaking hands once more, and Ilsa’s gaze slid to Eliot.
That icy reticence was as present as ever, but something else was going on underneath; something he couldn’t disguise. She stepped closer; perhaps now he might share something: with a glance, or even a word or two. But it was as if he had forgotten she was there. Aelius too. He stared into the middle distance, a haunted hollowness in his storm-blue eyes. Then, he dragged himself back to the present, and slipped from the room.
Ilsa quelled the unease he had sparked in her belly and turned back to Aelius. “Why didn’t you tell no one?” she snapped.
Aelius laughed derisively and raised his head. “That Gedeon’s confidential plans had reached the Heart? You can work that much out yourself, can’t you?”
Ilsa bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to scream at him for never saying what he meant – that the rebels had a spy in Camden – but something stopped her. They were alike, she and Aelius. He had kept his information about the attack quiet so it wouldn’t leak back to the Heart and give him away, but valuing secrecy was second nature. He played his cards close to his chest, same as her. He had thought he had a strong hand – until he’d fallen for a bluff. How close was she to being in over her head?
