Such a Daring Endeavor (22 page)

His head hangs down again. Whoops. I shift to my knees and kneel across from him instead of beside him. An owl hoots above our heads.

“Talon,” I say.

His lids lift, and those clear green eyes meet mine, ensnaring something within me.

“Why does Tyrus hate you? What happened between you two? To have him backstab you and betray you to your people—your
father—
like that?”

“My whole life has been a chain, Ambry,” he says, eyeing the chain as he carefully drips its length into my hand. His fingertips linger on my skin. “I never realized how much until just before he betrayed me.”

“What happened?” I ask again.

“Bridar Haraway was my blood father, but I only have segments of memories with him. Tyrus was the only father I really knew.”

“After how harsh Gwynn’s stepdad was on her,” I say, “she wouldn’t give herself to anyone who treated her anything like Clark Hawkes did. Tyrus obviously has a soft side as well. I just—I’ve never thought of it before.”

Tyrus as a person. A human being.

A human being who is manipulating my friend and turning her against me.

“He had his moments,” Talon says. “Heart-to-heart moments. He would come to my room, talk to me about my day. He would treat me to dinner just the two of us sometimes to talk over battle tactics and what the new recruits had learned that day. He would exhibit pride in my accomplishments and more so for the accomplishments of his battalion.”

“But?”

“He wanted me to rule at his side, to be just like he was. But I couldn’t bring myself to take magic like the rest of them. I thought my strength and skill was enough for Tyrus, but…”

“It wasn’t,” I finish. “Is that what made you want to leave?”

“He gave me an ultimatum. Either I take magic or lose my position.” He clenches his fist.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “But you didn’t do it. And that’s what matters.”

His eyes flick to mine. “Well…not exactly.”

“What are you saying?”

With the slow shake of his head, Talon tugs at the strap on his fingerless glove, tearing it from his hand. A distinct tan line marks where the sun has been kept from his skin, but that’s not what rips the gasp from my lungs.

Talon’s palm is a soft violet.

I forget where I am for a moment. I forget about the war, the dungeon, the Feihrians. The world spins, and I nearly spin with it.

Talon took someone’s magic.

He pumps his hand into fists, flipping it palm-up and -down several times. The purple is almost unnoticeable under the added blood flow. It doesn’t engulf his entire hand the way it does to Tyrus’s and other Arcaian’s hands.

I don’t care
, I want to tell him. But it wouldn’t be the truth. I do care. It cuts as deeply as though it’s my own magic he tried to steal.

But this is Talon.
My
Talon. The Talon who trained me, who helped me find my magic, who kissed me, who came to help me. The Talon who used to be so closed up I could hardly get a sentence out of him.

But he showed me this, without request. He opened up to me. He could have kept this from me. But he didn’t.

I pause before pushing out the words, “Whose magic was it?”

“Tyrus can be very persuasive,” Talon says, his throat working as he swallows. “He knows the right things to say to get people to think foolish things, to think they have the right to subdue others. I was so stupid.”

“You fought him,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as him. “You ran away. You fought against that teaching, that influence. Maybe there’s hope for Gwynn too.”

“She’s got to want it, Ambry. I don’t know; I wish I could promise you that she will change, that she’ll wake up and listen to reason instead of his tainted promises. But it took me years. And if she’s not pure to the core…”

And Talon thinks he is? “You took
magic
, Talon.” I shouldn’t be so defensive about it, but Gwynn was my friend too. My only friend.

His voice sounds gnashed, as if he’s choking out the words.

“I always thought I could be separate from them. But it got to the point where I couldn’t straddle the line anymore. I had to be fully with the Arcaians or turn wholly against them. And when it came down to it, I couldn’t do what they do.

“I couldn’t finish, Ambry. I released the claw halfway through. And when I wouldn’t finish, Tyrus stabbed the poor girl—our kitchen maid—right in front of me. He killed her. And I’ll always bear the mark of it.”

I reach a tentative hand toward his, sliding my fingers over his palm. He closes his eyes at the touch. It’s strange, feeling his skin against mine instead of the leather I’m used to. Seeming to realize this, he pulls away, but I tighten my grip.

“I don’t care. It’s not who you are now.” And it’s true. I doubted him for a moment, but it’s clear he’s ashamed of what he’s done. He’s changed.

He presses my hand, folding it between both of his. “I ran away after that and never turned back. I started wearing these then. I only take them off if I have to.” He releases me to slip the glove back on.

“Talon—”

“I have to put an end to it. I don’t know how many people he owns, Ambry. But someone has to stop him.”

The sight of the gloves on his hands reassures me for some reason. Like he’s back to being himself. Those gloves are part of who he is; he should know he doesn’t have to hide it, and ironically, seeing him without the gloves seemed like the opposite.

“Gwynn didn’t stop,” I say after thinking it through. “Gwynn took my magic. All of it.”

Talon purses his lips. The silence between us is comfortable like an old friend. Friendship. It will work. If it’s all we have, we can make it work.

“That’s what he wanted for you, isn’t it? He wanted you to lead his army against Feihria, against your own people. I should have known he wasn’t only after Itharians.”

“I’m going to kill him for what he’s done.”

My head rears back at the declaration. I blink at him a few times, but the stern set of his brow doesn’t change.

I’m not sure what to say. Tyrus humiliated Talon in front of his real father. Of course Talon would want justice. Tyrus used Talon as leverage against his people.

“I’ll help you, if I can,” I eventually say.

Tyrus deserves death and so much worse. I can’t get the image of Mile Odis’s subjugate out of my mind. The way she stood there while Miles used her magic. The way she looked too frightened to even speak to me. Tyrus is the cause of it. For the girl’s sake, for my people and Talon’s, for Gwynn, Talon is right.

“Ambry,” Talon says, fading away, like he doesn’t know what else to say. I can’t tell how he feels about my offer, but he doesn’t argue.

“A man like Tyrus wouldn’t invite his girlfriend to battle,” I go on, “to guard a coveted jar of tears, to lead soldiers like Gwynn was doing back at the Triad, unless she was contributing somehow other than just behind closed doors. And he certainly wouldn’t do it for a girl he just met weeks ago.”

“You think the tears she drank have given her battle tactics or some other kind of advantage?” Talon asks, folding his arms across his chest.

The only noticeable changes have been in her appearance, but something shifted
inside
her. Talon and I begin making our way back to the house, our steps unhurried. The sky is now a velvet blue, the moon fully visible outside the cover of the trees.

“I don’t know what those tears did to her, but they ruined her. They’re allowing her to be manipulated by him.”

“She had to accept it,” Talon says. “Gwynn still had a choice in all of this. Drinking those tears hasn’t forced her to do anything she didn’t want already.”

“That’s what Ren keeps telling me too,” I say, peering up at him. “But I just can’t believe it.”

He stops for a moment, pressing his lips into a firm line. “I wish there was a way to reverse its effects on her, Ambry. For your sake.”

“If there’s a way, I’ll find it,” I promise him. I stare at the house. “I’ll talk to Jomeini and see what she knows about what Nattie told me. About my destiny to break Solomus’s spell. And if that means helping you kill Tyrus, then I’ve got your back.”

Talon chuckles at this.

“Not that you need me,” I add. “But I want you to know…”

“I’ll always need you,” he says, the green of his eyes spilling enough on their own that he doesn’t have to say anything else.

W
arwick flips through the designs. A drawing compass, rulers and other measuring devices cover the desk, filtering in with the smell of eraser shavings and scraped metal. He uses a small handheld brush to dust the debris from the finished sketches.

“Tick tock, tick tock, Warwick.”

Miss Hawkes swaggers down the narrow lab between discarded bits of metal and the file he used to shave down the locator turret element earlier. Her green, pointed alligator heels clip the concrete with every step.

Warwick fingers the pencil and attempts to write in the corner of the sketch, determined to ignore her for as long as he can.

He grits his teeth, lowering the leaden tip as though through mud. His body swivels in the chair, but he wraps his foot around the bottom rungs, pushing the pencil down. Seconds count in his mind—ten, eleven, twelve—but his body still turns. His fingers pop open like a sprung trap. The pencil falls to the sketch, and he sighs, relaxing his will to hers.

Seventeen seconds. He made it longer that time.

Miss Hawkes wears a khaki pantsuit to match her general boyfriend’s. And while Warwick is positive she has no qualifications other than being Blinnsdale’s girlfriend, a set of badges decorates her breast pocket and shoulders.

“Show me what you have,” she says, “and it better be good.”

Sparks bulge in his chest. He’s been working on keeping his anger in check, but the feeling has been growing with every passing day. The more she comes down here, the larger it gets.

It starts at the edges of his chest, like always. A streak of resentment on the prowl. He scratches the bracelet he hasn’t been able to take off since she slapped it on him.

“This doesn’t look like I thought it would.” She lowers the sketch. “You’re sure it will sync with the system?”

“I studied the structure of your Station and its blueprints,” Warwick says. “The day you brought me there, I even took measurements.”

“You’re sure you got all the dimensions correct? We don’t have much time—our source in Feihria says they’ve reached Haven Town. They’re coming, Warwick, and this machine has to be ready before they get here.”

His jaw shakes with the effort of holding himself back. “You picked me, remember? If you didn’t think I could do it, maybe you should have chosen someone else.”

A crease mars her brow, but she ignores his frustration and points to another drawing. “What’s this?”

“Your power source.”

She levels an unarmed glare at him, thrusting the paper in his direction. It floats to the floor. “We have a power source,” she says, biting each word.

Warwick stands. He can’t take her towering over him any longer. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t put as much trust in an unreliable jar of tears that holds no promise of a definite outcome. It’s best if the machine runs on a canteen power source with the alterations I made, just like—”

“We aren’t using any other power source,” she snaps, cutting him off. She pauses, toying with her head like a bird on its perch. “Did you design the chamber I requested?”

“I—”

“Don’t answer that,” she says. His throat tightens, and wet, smacking sounds come from his mouth as he tries to speak without a voicebox. Miss Hawkes clacks closer to him, placing a fingernail beneath his chin to direct his attention to her.

She stands several inches shorter, even in her heels. “We need powerful magic for this device, Warwick. Build it with the tears chamber.”

His head begins to swell like a balloon being tied off, and then she opens her hand in his direction. His airways open once more. He gasps for breath and bends, bracing his hands on his knees.

He hacks a few times, his throat dry, but he asks the question anyway. “If this is as important as you say it is, why power it with something so unreliable and hard to find? There has never been any way to monitor the outcome a jar of tears will bring to its drinker, let alone to prove its ability to power machinery.”

Miss Hawkes’s mouth twists. “Tears give the drinker what that person wants more than anything else. Considering how this machine of ours isn’t alive, I’m certain it doesn’t
want
anything. Therefore, it will work according to the calibrations we give it.”

“That’s possibly the most intelligent thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Warwick says, instantly wishing he could take it back.

Her eyes flash. “Is the machine ready or not?”

“The sketch is done to scale, Miss Hawkes, and manufacturing should only take a day or so. You have these dubious tears?”

“I will by the time your manufacturing is done.”

Despite her explanation, he still can’t figure it out. If this machine is so important, why base it on something so unpredictable?

“If you don’t mind my saying so, how do you know they’ll work? You’re basing a fair amount of your strategy on this, but what if the tears run out? What if they don’t power the machine like you want?”