City of Shadows (14 page)

The boredom on his face was quickly replaced by smug satisfaction. He shook his head, collected his things, and headed for the doors. “You're absurd.”

“
Afraid your pals might catch you talking to the construct?” My words rolled off him as smoothly as the water had and in the next few steps, he passed through the doors, leaving me alone with my head full of more Samuel than I'd ever wanted to see.

The fae had filed out and loaded into the Range Rovers at dusk. I waited fifteen minutes, then made my way to Kael's war room. The lock gave easily with a sharp jerk of the handle. Inside, little had changed. Everything had its place. Files stacked at perfect right angles. Pictures pinned horizontal and organized. I scanned the map of the Underground unrolled on the table, its corners pinned down with paperweights. A few stations were circled, others crossed off, but no mention as to why. Behind his desk, I pulled out a few filing drawers and flicked through the folders. One had my name marked on the tag, but my excitement was short-lived when I opened it to find it empty. I wasn't sure if I should be grateful or disappointed.

Turning toward the desk, I pulled out the top drawer and found
my
original daggers insides. I had one in my hand and intended to take them both before realizing Kael would know I'd been snooping if the daggers went astray. Reluctantly, I set the one in my hand back down in the drawer and flicked through a planner. For someone who had the social skills of a brick wall, Kael had a surprising number of functions. Court appearances. Metropolitan Police interviews. Meetings with the mayor. As the spokesperson for the FA, and the fae in charge of keeping the London fae under control, it all came back on him. Reign had mastered many faces; Kael had likely done the same. In public, he couldn't be
the
brusque general. He must wear another face; one of the fae ambassador. Perhaps all the fae had their many faces; I certainly had two. My fingers skipped over loose sheets of paper. I pulled one free of the planner's pages and ran my fingers along the hastily scrawled notes—names, dates, some fae script I had no chance of deciphering. It appeared to be snippets of a speech of some kind—until I reached one line set aside from the rest and written in red: “
London isn't ready for the truth
.”

“What truth—?”

“Did you lose something?” Samuel said, backlit in the doorway.

I yanked my hand out of the drawer. “My earring.” I groped at my ear, hoping to strengthen my hasty lie. “I dropped it when I was last here …” Why hadn't he left with all the others on patrol?

“Oh, you did?” Samuel entered the room, his face in shadow. “You don't wear earrings.”

He was suited up in his FA leathers, daggers sheathed at his thighs within quick reach of his fingers. I had a hard time keeping the image of him virtually naked and dripping wet out of my mind. Now I knew exactly how close the leathers fit.

There was a smile on his lips now, where there hadn't been before. Just the smallest of hints, easily missed. Maybe I'd missed it all along?

“How do you know I don't wear earrings?”

“I've been paying attention.” He moved around the desk, stopped close enough for me to feel the warmth of him, and lifted the day planner out of the drawer, revealing my daggers beneath. They glinted conspiringly in the low light.

He
noticed the slip of paper poking out from the planner's pages, set the book down on the desktop, and turned his glare on me. “Snooping in Kael's office, Alina?”

My heart stuttered. “My daggers. He took them from me,” I said, and added, “They
are
mine.” I could smell warm leather and something fresher, lighter, that tugged on memories I couldn't quite place.

“You took them off the fae you murdered to get to the queen. Technically, they're ours.”

In the dark I couldn't tell if he was scolding, commenting, or leading me headlong into a verbal trap, and I could make out only the sparkle of light in his eyes and the twitch in his lips. He ran his fingertips along the blades, admiring them in the same way all the fae seemed to get all wide-eyed over weapons.

“You're late for patrol?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

He turned his head, and a shaft of light slid along his cheek to the corner of his lips where that little smile tucked in. I was starting to wonder if he might at any second free his own daggers and set them to work on me.

“Training,” he said, expecting me to figure out what that meant. “Kael's orders.” He lifted both daggers from the drawer and set them down gently on top of the desk. “These were made in Faerie. They're older than much of this city. They've seen many wars, countless battles, and killed an innumerable number of fae.”

As I watched him admiring the daggers, I wondered if he'd seen the same battles as those blades.

“Kael and me … ” I said quietly. “I don't think this will end well for either of us. We're both still trying to finish what we started in the tunnels when we tried to kill each other.”

Samuel
curled his fingers into his palm, reluctantly drawing his hand back from the daggers. He straightened, and looked down at me. The smile was back, broader now. “You're not the first to notice that.”

“Kael thinks so too?”

“Which is why he won't be training you. I will.”

So that had been the heated discussion in the general's war room, the one I'd overhead. Kael had ordered Samuel to train me. And Samuel had made it clear at the time that he wasn't particularly happy about those orders.

“Oh.”

My face must have revealed my uncertainty because a sudden glint of tightly restrained humor brightened his eyes. “Your problem isn't training,” he said. “You could cut down any one of us if you really put your mind to it. It's the fear that's stopping you. Try mastering what's inside you instead of letting it rule you. I doubt I can help until you know what—who you are. I told Kael the same.”

He really had been paying attention. “He disagrees?”

Samuel paused. He stared unblinking into my eyes, but I felt no pressure to look away. Almost as though, for the first time since I'd arrived on the FA's doorstep, he understood me. “We each have something inside of us we must overcome,” he said. “Take control of your future. This is your battle. Nobody will fight it for you.”

That was easy for him to say, he didn't have
her
draíocht in his veins and an ancient spirit calling the shots.

“And what if what I am is insane like the queen? What if I let the truth in and it changes me for the worse?”

“
Then, at least, you'll have discovered the path you must follow.” He picked the daggers up by the blades, one in each hand, and held them out to me, hilts first. “Training hall. Five minutes. You'll need these.”

I curled my fingers around them, feeling a sense of rightness settle in my bones, and drew them slowly from his fingers. Was he giving them back to me for good, or was this an attempt to soften me up before he kicked my ass?

Before I could get any ideas about thanking him, he headed for the door. “Five minutes, Alina. Don't make me wait, or Kael will hear about that lost earring of yours.”

“You need to hone the skills we already know you have, without turning into a draíocht-hungry, dagger-wielding killing machine. Can you at least try to focus?”

I was lying facedown on the training mat. Again. Samuel had yanked my arm behind me and pressed his boot between my shoulder blades, pinning me down with the unruffled efficiency of someone who could drop his opponents with a glance. Scaw had been right, Samuel really didn't like to lose. He'd taken every opportunity to knock me on my ass, face-plant me into the mats, and kick my legs out from under me. I'd spent more time horizontal than vertical. There appeared to be a distinct lack of actual
training
in my training.

“
This gives me no pleasure, Construct.” He sounded genuine, but I didn't believe him. Behind that blank fae face, the bastard was grinning from ear to ear. Smugness practically radiated off him.

“Uh-huh,” I grunted. It was no secret that I could fight him. But dialing up that part of me at the click of my fingers was a little more difficult, and dangerous. I'd held back—for both of us.

Samuel released my arm and left me on the mats while he crossed to a row of chairs running along the outside of the training hall. He picked up a bottle of water and a towel and threw both at me. I caught the bottle, but the towel smacked me in the face.

He twisted the cap off his water and upended it, taking a long, deep drink. Considering we'd spent the last forty minutes getting physical, he'd barely made eye contact. Clearly, beating on me was a waste of his time, and he'd have preferred patrolling.

I had gotten in a few clean and sharp right hooks, even cracked my elbow into his jaw with a very satisfying crunch, but nothing had rattled him. The same went for answering any subtle questions about Kael. Samuel wasn't rising to my bait.

Tossing his bottle aside with a bit more force than necessary, he took a few deep, measured breaths. At least he
was
out of breath. I could run, and being half his size and half his weight, I had made the most of that advantage.

“You fight like a human girl,” he grumbled. “Just as you're about to let go, you pull yourself back, falling back into the human role. Yet you're not human. You are aware of this fact?”

“Says who?” I got to my feet, sweeping my hair back from my sweaty cheeks and straightening my clothes. Muscle burn radiated through my shoulders and
thighs.
His words rang true, but I didn't have to like them or give any hint that he was probably right.

His smile grew. It wasn't entirely pleasant. More like a frustrated slant to the lips. “A human couldn't have almost killed Kael. Nor could a human hold back a lytch.”

There hadn't been anything human about the way I'd held off that creature or about the words coming out of my mouth.

“You did well,” he added, gaze sliding away. “Saved a great many people.”

“Thank you.” I hadn't expected that. Not from him.

“But it won't do you any good unless you accept what you are.” And the prickly fae with a holier-than-thou complex was back. “And until you do that, don't expect the rest of us to accept you.”

I bit my tongue and kicked at the mat, swallowing the urge to tell him I didn't want to be accepted by the FA, anyway. I wasn't here for them or to unlock my
potential
.

Samuel dropped into one of the chairs and leaned forward, running his fingers through his hair. He hadn't volunteered for this; training me was probably his idea of hell. Did he always do what Kael said?

“How long have you worked for the general?”

“Since he pulled me off the streets of Faerie as a boy and put a blade in my hand,” Samuel replied. He looked up and met my gaze. “He gave me a purpose.”

Something Kael believed I was looking for.

Samuel pushed onto his feet and plucked his daggers free. We hadn't fought with blades yet. If we had, I was pretty sure he'd have planted his in my back fifteen seconds into our session. Mine lay on a chair—behind him. If there was
something
I was good at, it was running, and I'd have to run if I was going to get around him and arm myself.

“
Stop wasting my time.” He flipped the blade in his right hand, catching it again without so much as a glance. “I'm not here to babysit you.”

“Okay, but don't go crying to Kael when the pathetic construct carves that smile off your face.”

He lunged. I bolted, feinting left, then swerving right. His blade breezed past my neck, too close for comfort, but I was already beyond his black and red blur. Snatching my daggers, I ducked and spun, crossing the blades high, blocking the incoming strike. Samuel's blade sang out against mine, ringing down my arms. He pushed in, driving me to my knees, but I'd done enough. I held him back. Even as he leaned deeper into my blades, a devilish delight in his eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Samuel must have been impressed enough with my ability to avoid death by his blades, because I'd been rewarded with a set of FA leathers to call my own during the next patrol. I had to push and pull various bits of me into the right place, and then ask Nyx to zip me up.

“I can't breathe,” I puffed.

“They'll loosen up once they're warm.”

“There has to be more practical clothing than this?”

“Practical perhaps, but none as intimidating. Haven't you figured out by now that it's all about appearances.” She sank her fingers into my hair, twisted it into a quick knot, then rammed two pins through it. And she did it all so quickly, so
efficiently,
that I didn't have time to protest. “There. If you're on your best behavior, perhaps Samuel will braid it for you?”

I threw her a look of horror, which only made her laugh. She handed me my blades. I pushed them into their sheaths, flicked them free, and shoved them home again, marveling at how easily I could have them palmed and ready.

She stepped back and whistled through her teeth. “You'll make a fine warrior, Construct. If you can stay alive long enough to learn how.” She winked and headed for the door.

“Thank you.” I followed her into the hall. “For not agreeing to be present when they—” Words clogged my throat. I swallowed, and tried again. “When Kael tested me.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “London sees us like machines, and that's fine by us, but we have hearts too. Out there, on the streets, I'm a cold bitch. Here, I'm still a bitch, but I bite less.” Her smile revealed the tips of her sharp canines.

“What's Samuel's excuse?” I asked, falling into step beside her.