Ilsa wanted to say something comforting but her mouth was dry.
So she put her cards down and pushed her sleeves up to her elbows. “You called London an experiment what failed.”
Oren blinked. “Yes.”
“But it’s still standing, ain’t it? So, it can’t have failed yet.”
She laid her palms on the table, then with a deep breath and half a thought she changed her naked flesh and showed Oren what was underneath; the scars that matched his own. “This place might still be better than the one I left behind,” she said. “Or it might not. But please don’t say you’ve given up on it.”
Oren stared blankly at her scars, then reached a hesitant hand towards hers, and took them in both of his. He ran the pads of his fingers over her ragged skin, like he could better read its stories that way. When he looked up at her over the rim of his glasses, something had come back to life in his eyes.
“It would be a shame to give you back your home just to see it laid to waste,” he said. “Nothing has failed yet,” he echoed.
“Well, that’s more like it.” Ilsa beamed and discreetly vanished her scars again.
“I’m sorry, Ilsa,” Oren said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful about the amulet. I tied the fate of a dangerous artefact to yours, without knowing where it might lead.”
“You did what you thought was right,” said Ilsa. “It’s all any of us are doing. Was Hester angry?”
“Oh, yes,” he said mildly. “On many counts. But I gave her my reasons, and I stick by them. I told her the truth: that the only person I trusted to resist the lure of such power was myself, having suffered at its hands.”
“D’you think…” Ilsa hesitated. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but the truth of her own words made her wonder – they were all doing what they thought they needed to; what they thought was right. “If Gedeon knew what the amulet really was, what it did… d’you think he’d still use it?”
If Oren was taken aback by the question, it didn’t show. He gazed into the middle distance as he considered. “The boy I’ve known him to be would see the seventh Seer’s amulet tossed to the bottom of the ocean if he knew the suffering it caused – but I don’t know if that is who Gedeon is anymore.”
“What d’you mean?” said Ilsa, Oren’s uncertainty making her uneasy. “Who is he?”
“Well, I suppose the Gedeon I have known is a lot like you. Determined, forthright, self-assured.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “A little headstrong sometimes. But he hadn’t been himself for quite some time. He was thinking about his place and his power, and questioning everything.”
Ilsa looked up sharply. “How’d you know?”
“Because I am also a lot like you. I observe. I see things others don’t care to notice. This inter-faction conclave of his – it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t believe he wants to rule the way Hester and their forebears did.” He paused, shook his head, and fussed with his glasses again. “The only thing I had failed to see was how desperate he had become. He was withdrawn, distracted. I didn’t understand it at the time, but… I’m sorry to say, I think he was losing faith in us.”
Ilsa felt the sadness in Oren’s words wash over her, like Gedeon had turned his back on her too. “You don’t think that’s why he was going recruiting in Millwater?”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
“Then why’d he cancel it?”
Oren frowned slightly. “That was the day of the attack.”
Ilsa blinked to clear the confusion, and shook her head. “The attack was after. Aelius had only thought it was the same time, but he was double-crossed.”
“Aelius is mistaken,” Oren said. “The trip was scheduled for that evening.”
Ilsa shook her head. “But Cassia said so too.”
He regarded her mildly and reached for his notebook. “No matter. I have always believed the secret to a reliable mind is writing everything down. So let’s see.” He licked a finger and started skimming back through the pages. “Here it is. Gedeon to Millwater, seven pm on the twenty-ninth.” He laid the book on the table and turned it to face her.
“That’s the day of the attack alright,” murmured Ilsa. “But then why…”
The date.
The meeting room.
She gasped and leapt from her chair, startling Oren. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I – I have to go.”
He didn’t try to stop her as she wrenched the door open and hurtled for the stairs. Privacy; she needed privacy.
She was running so fast that when she met Fyfe rounding a corner, they collided hard enough to back him against the wall.
“Ilsa, why are you – gosh, you’re pale.”
“Fyfe,” she gasped, holding onto the front of his shirt. “Gedeon’s trip to Millwater. The one what got cancelled. You knew ’bout it?”
Fyfe frowned, his mouth opening and closing. “Well… yes, he mentioned it in passing. He said to keep it quiet.”
“What time was it?”
“I’m not sure I remember. Why do you—”
“Was it the morning or the evening?” she pressed frantically.
“Early. Definitely the morning. Ilsa, why—”
But Ilsa was already gone, hurtling for Gedeon’s room, where she couldn’t be caught by the wrong pair of eyes. She locked the door behind her, and dragged a chair in front of it just to be sure.
Panting, she sank to her knees and reached under the mattress with shaking fingers. She had kept the slip of paper where she’d found it, under Gedeon’s bed, folded twice and tucked inside a book to keep it flat.
Stupid. She had been so stupid.
The diagram wasn’t about the amulet, it was about Gedeon’s cancelled trip.
Oren’s notebook told him that it had been scheduled for the day of the attack, approximately twelve hours after the rebels broke in. He would have written it down at the time; it was nearly impossible for him to be wrong.
And yet he had to be. Because Cassia and Aelius had
