Watercolour Smile (34 page)

“How?” I ground out the word. “How is that possible? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I wish I could tell you more, but information is dangerous, Seph.”

“Argh!” I tore my arm from his grasp and ate up the remaining distance to the building entrance.

Our strange bond was fraught with tension, but it only made me feel him more keenly, and that annoyed me. I knew that he was exactly two steps behind me, matching each of my strides. It was unlikely that he would run into me even if I stopped suddenly; he would probably feel the pause in my limbs before the action of stopping had even been carried out. Even so, my feet had barely cleared the steps before I was turning about, my hair whipping into my face and my fist crashing into his chest. He faltered for a moment, still standing on the last level of the entrance steps, and then he moved, manifesting directly before me.

I didn’t want to see his expression, or examine my own feelings, so I took to comparing our shoes instead. His were pointed at the end, a clean brown leather boasting a matted shine: just dull enough to seem well-worn, but lustrous enough to belong to the wealth of his remaining outfit. His pant-legs were obviously tailored, because they ended at the perfect spot despite Quillan being taller than most men. I frowned, my eyes travelling the short distance to my own shoes. It was like standing in a dessert as the sun disappeared behind the dunes in the distance—I was no longer confronted with the perfect amount of shine, because the golden sand had turned shapeless with blotched light. My shoes didn’t fit properly. The laces on the right may not have even matched the laces on the left, and the colour of each second inch of faded fabric was utterly indiscriminate.

My hand is stinging
, I realised.
I need to learn how to punch properly
. It was surprising that Quillan had ended up on the receiving end of the physical manifestation of my frustration, but then again, he was definitely the safest recipient for it. I had fought with Silas… but it wasn’t an experiment that I was keen to repeat. Once was enough. Once was a little like poking a bear through the bars of a cage, while twice was a little more like flinging open the cage doors, and three times would make me a bear’s meal. I glanced up to catch Quillan rubbing at his chest absently. Definitely not a bear.

“You’re angry,” he stated.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He moved past me to take the lead. “You’re quick on your feet when you’re angry. You’ll need that, since I can’t tell you what to do in there. Not that I think you’ll need your feet. We’re not running anymore—at least not from the Klovoda. You’re about to get offered the job you’ve been asking for.”

My mouth was hanging open and I was staring after him, too shocked to properly react. I hadn’t expected such an unemotional response from Quillan. Reflexively, I started to follow him, but my mind lagged behind, snagging on every step that I took.

There were two men standing at the doors to the Sports Centre and they patted us both down and ran a metal detector over us before allowing us entry. A small desk had been set up with a chair on either side, right in the middle of the empty basketball court. Principle Webber and Jayden both stood to the side of the table, watching us. I didn’t feel confident about this, but Quillan was right—my anger was rising to the forefront of my mind, shoving everything else behind it and mustering up a battle-stance. Quillan, Silas, Noah and Cabe had taken on an impossible task; they took me where I would be safest from one enemy, even if it was right beneath the nose of another—and they had managed to keep me out of the clutches of both.

Until now.

Now, their resources had been exhausted, and it was time for me to start planning for my own safety. I had to start acting like a Zevghéri. I had to start playing their games. I wasn’t the same girl anymore. Despite their best efforts, I was well aware that the volume of information in my head was already reaching a dangerous level. If Weston were to get inside my thoughts, he would see more than enough to ruin us all. I understood why information was dangerous in the era of the
Weston dictatorship
, as Clarin had so labelled it, but I didn’t regret what I had learnt. My ability to shield my mind seemed to be an anomaly, and that changed things. Information wasn’t as crippling to me as it was to other people; instead, it was empowering.

If there was one thing that this year had taught me, it was that Zevghéri society was a two-headed beast, and the face you were shown depended entirely on how you fed it—or, more importantly,
what
you fed it. I was an Atmá; a tasty morsel bred specifically for Zevghéri consumption, only I had been starving the beast. And now? Now… it had come for me.

“Jayden,” I said.

“Seraph Black.” He smiled, and it seemed to reach his eyes, if only for a moment. “Take a seat.”

“Actually,” I clenched my fists tighter, “we all know why you’re here, so why don’t we just get it out of the way? Give us a little privacy and I’ll show you my mark.”

“I’m here for many reasons,” he countered.

When I didn’t reply, his smile melted away, and he turned his finger in the air. I suspected that it was more for show, because he hadn’t needed a hand gesture when he had controlled me on our last meeting. Every person in the room suddenly turned to face the walls.

“Is that enough privacy?” he asked.

I blinked at the back of Principle Webber’s head. His arms were hanging loosely by his sides, but I could almost feel the tension that formed starchy creases in his suit-jacket. Quillan had been standing beside me, so I could still see the side of his profile.

“Some things are starting to make sense,” I said, almost offhandedly.

“Hm?” Jayden narrowed his eyes, his expression toting subtle inquisition.

“Your position in Zevghéri society is determined by blood, because blood can’t be faked, right?” I returned to examining what I could of Quillan’s face. “You’re a suspicious people—you prefer to put your faith in the obvious, the tangible. The power.”

“You can hardly blame us.” Jayden sounded amused. “We are a people that work from the shadows, it would hardly be possible to remain unsuspicious in such an environment.”

“Still, blood can only determine a power, the
person
that comes with that power is a bit of a gamble.”

Quillan’s mouth twitched, but I returned my attention to Jayden.

His smile was back in place, his head inclined by the slightest degree. I wondered if he had found his pair, and if they were fighting like Aiden’s pair did before they all died. I stepped forward so that even Quillan was blind to my actions and I quickly tugged up my skirt, raising the side hem of my underwear to reveal a faint white pigmentation mark between my upper thigh and hipbone. It probably didn’t even look like a proper mark, but it had definitely been the most awkward position that I could come up with on such short notice.

“I understand why you didn’t want to show Lord Weston.” Jayden’s eyebrows arched for a moment, and then he strode forward and pulled something out of his pocket—a magnifying glass, it looked like, though it was barely the size of his thumb. He dropped gracefully to his knees, his hand hovering in the air beside my thigh. “Do you mind?”

I shook my head. He brushed his finger over the mark, frowning. Probably checking to make sure I hadn’t painted it on with makeup. He set the magnifying glass over it and bent close enough that all I could see was the top of his head. He had brown hair, dusted with ashen strands. It had a sweep to it, and fell to the left side of his face as though he often pushed it out of his eyes with his right hand. The first touch of his fingers on my thigh almost sent me jolting out of my skin. His fingers were cold.

He glanced up at me, and I got my second biggest scare of the day.

Liar
. His mouth formed the word silently and then he simply knelt there, seemingly on the verge of laughing at me.

“I don’t like it when people touch me. It makes the valcrick act up.” I blurted the words, at a complete loss for what else to say.

He pulled back, tucking the magnifying glass away and allowing me to put my clothing back to rights.

“I’m not surprised.” He sat down, acting as though he hadn’t jut caught me out, and motioned the chair across from him. “You haven’t fully formed a bond, so it will be straining you—”

“How do you know that I haven’t fully formed a bond?”

“Aside from the fact that you told Lord Weston yourself?”

“If there is an aside—”

“There is. You can’t have a mark. You’re a different breed of Zevghéri, Seraph. At the time of your birth, there wasn’t a single mark on your body at all. The mark on your thigh is not a proper pairing mark, so I can only assume that the pair is still being decided. Naturally, you can’t be bonded if your pair is still being decided.”

“Wha—” Quillan’s voice was smothered before he had even muttered a word, and I narrowed my eyes on Jayden, seeing that his hand was once again raised.

“But of course, that information is classified,” he said. “Forget it.”

I continued to stare at him, my confusion reaching new boundaries, but he seemed to be concentrating on something else entirely. His eyes were fixed intently on the back of Quillan’s head, his hand still stuck in mid-air as though he had forgotten that it was there. After an elongated moment of silence, his eyes flickered to Webber, and then he straightened, his smile back in place.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now… where were we? Ah, yes. The Klovoda is very interested in your valcrick, Seraph. The Voda has informed Director Kingsling about what happened in the graveyard with Silas. I must admit… if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I’d think it a myth.”

My brain was still stuck several seconds behind the conversation. I couldn’t believe that Jayden had tampered with Quillan’s head right in front of me.

I plonked down in my seat, my mind reeling with a single recurring thought as the other occupants of the room were all released from Jayden’s command. Quillan spun around the fastest, his eyes landing on me and then quickly flicking away to Jayden. Principle Webber was red in the face, but neither of them were showing a proper reaction to what Jayden had said about me being a different breed of Zevghéri.

Jayden had taken away their memories
… it was only a moment—a sentence—but it was enough. Would Quillan still be so sure that Jayden was on our side if he knew?

“Is it so unbelievable?” I questioned. “My ability is nothing, compared to yours.”

“We’ve never seen anything like your healing valcrick, actually.” I waited for him to say more, but he merely watched me. Eventually, he leaned forward, grasping the edges of the desk. “Perhaps your pair—whether the bond is fully formed or not—are the ones taking those pictures of you?”

“Whoever is taking those pictures doesn’t want me anywhere near Noah or Cabe,” I said. I was confused about why Jayden was still alluding to my pair, even though he had declared me to be a different breed of Zevghéri, one without a mark. Even though he had known that I was bluffing when I showed him the fake mark. Was it for Quillan’s benefit?

“So you really don’t know who is taking the pictures?” he asked casually.

“I don’t.”

“Why do you say that they don’t want you anywhere near the Adairs? And why only them? Why not the Quillans?”

“It started about five months ago. I found an envelope of pictures on my bed at home. Cabe and Noah were in most of them, and there were several passages marked up in one of my old books of nursery rhymes. The next few messages were similar: a nursery rhyme and a bunch of pictures. Most of the pictures showed me interacting with Noah or Cabe. They were the first friends that I really got close to at school, maybe the messenger got jealous that I was finally making friends.”

“What were the other pictures?”

“Some were of me sleeping, getting dressed, or showering. Some were taken while I was at work.”

“I see. Have you heard his voice?”

“No.”

“You said
he
. How do you know that the messenger is a male?”

“Oh.” I pressed my lips together, feeling flustered. Here was where things got a little bit tricky, because the messenger
knew
that Noah and Cabe were my pair, and it was the very reason he wanted me to stay away from them. “He has alluded that we… er… belong together.”

“So these are the actions of a single person?” Jayden frowned, his expression eerily similar to one of disappointment.

“I really don’t know,” I allowed, drumming my fingers nervously against the desk. “I always thought so. The Adairs offered to help, and then things got worse. The messenger kidnapped them and almost had them killed, and then there was the bombing…”

“I’ve been filled in on the other incidents in Seattle. Despite the Klovoda’s inability to make successful contact with you, we
have
been taking notice. It proved a tricky situation when the Voda heir himself declared you an untouchable, if not for the obvious evidence of you having been stalked and harassed, we might have suspected you to have bonded with them.” Jayden’s smile wavered, then, and I saw the glint behind it. It was a kind of playful intelligence, soft and blurred around the edges, enticing you to relax and loosen your secrets before the curtain is drawn away and you find the knife between your ribs. “I’ll admit…” he continued, “We haven’t been so concerned about that possibility since Silas reported the kidnapping of Noah and Cabe back in Seattle.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” Jayden’s smile became insincere again; he seemed disappointed once more. “Is it safe to say that this messenger knows you well? After all, he seems to have spent quite a lot of time watching you.”

“It seems so.”

“Well, if you had been bonded to the Adairs, he wouldn’t have tried to kill them, would he? You are aware of how the bonding works, are you not?”

“It would have killed me,” I mused. “I… I don’t really think about that part.”

“Of course you don’t.” Jayden laughed, the sound entirely humourless. “You aren’t bonded to them, so why would
it cross your mind?”