“Moorgate station,” said Eliot. “Ilsa.” His voice curled around each syllable like it was the best thing he’d ever said. “I believe you’ve found our chemist.”
23
Eliot raised an eyebrow. “What?”
He had taken the first half-dozen steps of the entrance to the Underground, looked over his shoulder to find Ilsa hesitating at the top, and come back.
Though she was not simply hesitating. The real reason she clutched the post at the top of the rail was to maintain her balance, and she would never admit it to Eliot, but she feared she would keel forward if she let go.
Ilsa had been under the streets of London before; everyone had. But the furthest she had ever got was the platform – just once, and she had stayed for all of four seconds. Boarding a train, and disappearing into the tunnels, had been a work still in progress. Whatever was underneath this London, Ilsa was unprepared for it.
The Psi militia who had approved their passing – cloaks, Eliot had informed her they were named, so called for their capes in various shades of pink – eyed her like they might change their mind, and Eliot reassured them with a smile. Ilsa didn’t see that smile head-on, but she doubted it looked very reassuring.
“It’s just… I don’t like confined spaces,” she murmured.
“I never would have guessed.” When Ilsa shot him a look, he was watching her with cruel amusement. Was he actually enjoying this? Had he been waiting for the moment Ilsa buckled? “I can do this alone, you know.”
She scrutinised him. There was a truth that had become so shamefully obvious to Ilsa that she couldn’t deny it any more: she liked Eliot. She liked when he touched her. She liked when he looked at her. She liked trying to work out what he was thinking. And she was cursing the fact that she had had him alone in her room and missed another opportunity to kiss him. She was going mad wondering whether, if she ever got his mouth on hers, he would be as sharp as he looked.
The worst part was, every time her thoughts went to kissing Eliot, she remembered he was carrying a torch for someone else. There was no Athena at the Zoo – she had checked. Neither Eliot nor anyone else had ever mentioned her, but he kept that damned pocket watch and it had to mean something. It stung her.
She loathed it.
But Ilsa’s feelings didn’t stop her being suspicious of Eliot. Now he was offering to seek out this chemist alone, and she didn’t trust it. Was he being kind – unlikely – or did he feel Ilsa closing in on his secrets?
“No, I—” I don’t know whether to trust you? I think you’re keeping things from me? I need to work out if we’re actually doing what you told me we’re doing? “You’re helping me, remember? I got to come with you.”
From the look that crossed Eliot’s face, Ilsa thought she might have said any one of her rejected thoughts by mistake. Then he flashed her that smile – the one that was the opposite of reassuring – and she shuddered.
“The familial resemblance is stunning,” he drawled. “Gedeon thinks everything is about him too.” He angled his head towards the stairs, and then he had vanished down them.
Ilsa let the retort on her tongue propel her after him, not stopping to think as the curved, tiled walls of the tunnel greeted her on all sides. Eliot was waiting at the bottom, hands in pockets.
“I s’pose you’d rather I was like you?” she said.
He grinned wolfishly. “Absolutely not. If you were like me, you would have taken the information I handed you and come down here alone.” He joined the flow of bodies heading further into the tunnel, and Ilsa gathered every ounce of her courage to follow him. He brought his lips close to her ear – close enough that his breath made her shiver – and added in a taunting whisper, “Although perhaps you needed someone to catch you when you swoon.”
It was true that she had lost her colour, and her breath was coming in jagged little gasps, but she would not swoon. She’d be damned if, of all the things about the Witherward that might terrorise her, this utterly unthreatening tunnel would be the one to best her – and in front of Eliot.
“Remember, you’ll bring the wrath of the Psi down on us if you shift in their territory. Don’t so much as spring a second dimple. We’re going to find out who’s been in contact with Gedeon, swap some money for his whereabouts, and be back on the surface by teatime.”
They descended another set of stairs and the tunnel split – one avenue for those descending and another for the blessed souls about to break the surface. Then she was being swept along on the downward current like a pebble being dragged to the bottom of the sea. Was there any air down here? A pressurised blast of it was swelling from below – stale, suffocatingly warm, and smelling faintly of a thousand strangers’ skins – but it refused to be drawn into her lungs, no matter how deep she breathed.
Another set of stairs. Bodies surrounded her on all sides but no one said a word. With no other stabilising force to cling to, Ilsa reluctantly grasped for Eliot’s arm and entwined it with hers. He must have felt her fingers tremble as they brushed his shirtsleeve, as instead of mocking her, he threaded her arm tighter through his and
