What happened to you? Emily clung to the thought as she ploughed through his memories, looking for the truth. A vision of herself drifted across his mind... she shuddered in disgust, even as she forced herself to keep going. Who did this to you?
Hedrick’s thoughts screamed in agony, his mind threatening to break as she reached for the memory. Boredom. Waiting. Desire. And...
Silent?
The memory was so vivid Emily knew it was real. Silent had touched the prince’s mind and... Silent?
Emily fell out of Hedrick’s mind, losing her grip on the suicide spell. His body started to glow, then burst into flames. The magic consumed the levitation spell, sending the lifeless corpse to the ground. Emily nearly fell. Silent? It couldn’t be Silent. The maid had been with her for the last eighteen months.
And yet, the memories didn’t lie.
She lowered herself to the ground, unable to think clearly. Silent had been with her in Dragora. Silent had known about Simon. She could have tracked Simon, when he’d left the castle, and recruited him before anyone else knew he’d been kicked into the cold. And... she swallowed hard. Silent had known she’d intended to meet the moderates. She could have easily tipped off the hardliners. She could have set the bomb and enchanted Fran and passed commands to Bajingan and... Emily cursed, savagely, as the full scale of the betrayal struck her. Silent couldn’t have done it, any of it, without...
A memory echoed through her head. There is a gaping emptiness at the heart of Whitehall...
“Emily!” Aiden was running towards her. “Emily! What...?”
“There is a gaping emptiness at the heart of Whitehall,” Emily said. She felt numb, too numb to think clearly. “What do we call a gaping emptiness?”
Aiden caught her arm and shook her. “What happened?”
“What do we call a gaping emptiness?” Emily understood now, too late. She thought she heard the demon laughing as the darkness teetered in front of her, threatening to swallow her whole. She needed to stop and think, but there was no time. “A void!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
EMILY RAN.
She was barely aware of Aiden following her, of the guns growing ever louder as rebels and royalists fought to the last. Dater was raining makeshift shells and catapult projectiles onto the city, trying to defeat the rebellion even as his own forces were riven with mutiny. It was a nightmare and yet... the real nightmare lay in front of her. She’d known Void was up to something, that he’d had an agenda of his own, but...
In hindsight, she wondered if he’d used subtle magic to keep her from suspecting the truth. The mystery enemy had used her techniques. Master Lucknow had put that on his list of charges. And who knew her techniques almost as well as she did? Who had the experience to take her ideas and innovations and improve upon them? There weren’t many possible suspects and only one of them had spent the last eighteen months in her company, listening to everything she said and assisting her to devise newer and better ways to use magic. The sheer scale of the betrayal was terrifying. She wanted to believe it was a particularly insane test, like the others he’d tossed at her, but she knew it had to be real. No one, not even Void, would put so many lives in deadly danger for a test.
She ran past a pair of bodies lying on the cobblestones as she turned into the street. The spies, she guessed. Killed by Hedrick, or Silent herself. It didn’t matter. She reached out with her mind, feeling her head starting to ache as she pressed her awareness against the wards. Silent had done well, she noted sourly. Lady Barb had woven a gap into the wards for her - the maid had had to purchase food, after all - and Silent had widened it to the point she could simply take control of the wards at any moment. Emily had thought Hedrick couldn’t leave the house, but she’d been wrong. Silent had opened the door for him.
The wards crackled against her fingertips as she stopped in front of the house. She half-expected them to resist her, to have to smash her way through the wards herself, but they parted at her touch. Emily tensed, bracing herself for the trap as she kicked open the door and peered inside. The hallway was dark and silent, the lanterns dead and cold. She glanced at Aiden, motioning for her to stay well back, and inched down the corridor. The wards had been designed to make it impossible for someone to spy on them, as long as they remained within the walls. They were making it impossible for her to sense Silent, too.
She heard a moan as she stepped into the dining room. Silent sat on a chair, hands tied behind her back. Emily blinked, wondering - for a moment - if she’d made a terrible mistake. Silent looked so weak and harmless that Emily felt almost ashamed of herself for suspecting Silent of anything. She bit her lip, remembering all the weird little coincidences surrounding the maid. Someone had to have recruited Simon, someone had to have...
Silent’s eyes narrowed. Emily sensed the surge of magic and threw herself to the side, just in time to escape an overpowered force punch. The building shook - she heard something crashing above - as the magic slammed into the foundations.
