Delirium Trigger.
He cleared his throat and strove to control the bitterness in his voice. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You set the Shacklemores on me.’ He began cutting the cards and reshufing them absently.
‘You were a hard man to find,’ she said. ‘It took them six months. By then . . . well, you know what had happened by then.’
Frey’s throat tightened. Rage or grief, he wasn’t sure.
‘They came back and said they’d found you. You were doing freelance work somewhere on the other side of Vardia at the time. Using what you’d learned from working as a hauler for my father’s company, I suppose. Making your own deals.’
‘It was a living,’ said Frey neutrally.
She gave him a faint, distracted smile. ‘They asked me if I wanted them to bring you back. I didn’t. Not then. I asked them instead to let you know - discreetly - how I was doing. I was sure you hadn’t troubled to enquire.’
Frey remembered that meeting well. A stranger in a bar, a shared drink. Casually mentioning that he worked for Dracken Industries. Terrible what had happened to the daughter. Just terrible.
But Trinica was wrong. He had enquired. By then, he’d already known what she’d done.
Memories overwhelmed him. Searing love and bilious hate. The stranger before him was a mockery of the young woman he’d almost married. He’d kissed those lips, those whore-red lips that now smiled at him cruelly. He’d heard the softest words pass from them to him.
Ten years. He’d thought that everything would be long ago buried by now. He’d been badly mistaken.
‘It didn’t seem fair, really,’ Trinica said, tilting her head like a bird. There was a childish look on her face that said: Poor Frey. Poor, poor Frey. ‘It didn’t seem fair that you should be able to turn your back and walk away like that. That you could leave your bride on her wedding day and never have to think about what you’d done, never take any responsibility.’
‘I wasn’t responsible!’
She leaned forward on the card table, deadly serious, those awful black eyes staring out of her white face. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you were.’
Frey dashed the cards across the table, but his fury died as soon as it had come. He sat back in his chair, his arms folded. He wanted to argue but he needed to keep things calm. Keep things together.
Don’t let this bitch get to you. Play for time.
‘You had the Shacklemores keep track of me after that?’ he asked. Trinica nodded. ‘Why the interest?’
‘I just forgot to call them off.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It’s true. At first, I’ll admit, I wanted to see what effect my news would have on you. I wanted to see if you suffered. But then . . . well, I left home, and other things got in the way. It was only years later that I realised they’d been keeping the file open on you all that time, drawing a fee every month. My father was paying for them, you see. When you’ve that much money, it’s easy to forget about something like that.’
‘You know I joined the Navy, then?’ he said.
‘I know they conscripted you when the Second Aerium War began,’ she said. ‘And I know you were drinking too much, and you started taking all the most dangerous jobs. I know nobody wanted to fly with you because it was only a matter of time before you
