The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [161]
“How old were you when you went there?” Grace said, wanting to understand. She liked Vani, was grateful to her. Grace would not believe she was simply a trained killer. To kill; to preserve. Could they really be the same thing?
“I entered Golgoru on my twelfth birthday,” Vani said. “It was late. Most enter the Silent Place when they are no more than ten suns old. But I was of the Blood, and so the Masters could not refuse me.”
“The Blood?”
“Yes. Royal blood.”
“Morindu the Dark,” Grace breathed. “You’re descended from its rulers, aren’t you? You’re a princess there.”
Vani’s smile was beautiful and fragmentary, an ancient vase shattered by the weight of time. “I would be, I suppose, if Morindu were raised again.”
Grace went stiff. And you think I’m going to do it, along with Travis. That’s why you came here looking for us. You think we’re going to help you dig up a city we’ve never heard of on a world we can’t even get to.
“Forgive me, Grace Beckett,” Vani said. “I can see that I have troubled you.” She started to stand.
“Just Grace.”
Vani halted. “What?”
“No Beckett.” Grace looked up. “Just call me Grace.”
The golden-eyed woman hesitated, then it seemed her lips curved in a faint smile, and she sat again. However, once she did, Grace found she had run out of things to say.
“The knight,” Vani said, breaking the silence after a minute. “The man Beltan. Are he and Travis … that is, are they very close?”
Grace laid her hands in her lap. “Beltan loves him,” she said simply.
“And does Travis return that love?”
Vani’s eyes were suddenly dull as stones. Something was wrong, but Grace didn’t know what.
“Why don’t you ask Travis yourself?” she said.
Vani turned away. Grace started to reach for her, but at that moment the door to one of the bedrooms opened, and Travis stepped out. He was wearing the same black jeans and T-shirt, but his head was freshly shaved and his eyes clearer.
“What’s going on?” he said.
Vani said nothing, and Grace searched for words, but she was rescued as Farr and Deirdre stepped from the other room. In Farr’s hand was a small, black-and-silver device.
“I think we’re ready,” he said. “I just need Grace to say a few things into this for the benefit of the police and Duratek.” He held up the device, along with a yellow notepad. “I hope you don’t mind, Grace, but I’ve taken the liberty of scripting your surrender.”
Grace stared at him, and only when he raised an eyebrow did she realize what she was doing—and the reason why.
If this plan succeeds, Grace—if you get through the gate and back to Eldh—you’ll never see him again.
That night a year ago, when Farr first helped her escape the ironheart at the Denver police station, there had been so much she had wanted to ask him. In the chaos since the Seekers’ arrival, she had never had a quiet moment to talk to him. Now, perhaps, she never would.
Farr drew in a breath, as if to say something. However, Vani stepped forward.
“There are some items we will need to prepare the artifact for use,” she said. “Unguents, herbs, candles. Ritual things. I have not had time to gather them.”
Travis rubbed his head and grinned at Grace. She nodded. It didn’t take the Touch to read his mind.
“I know just the place,” he said.
54.
Deirdre stared out the limousine’s tinted window, watching through her reflection as dim images flickered by. For a brief moment, a row of redbrick storefronts were superimposed over the ghostly negative of her own face. She twisted the thick silver ring on her right hand and thought of Brixton.
That Duratek was the cause of the deaths at Surrender Dorothy was not the question. A mysterious fire was pretty much standard corporate procedure for them. Then there was the Electria. True, these days Glinda could have gotten the drug almost anywhere; Deirdre knew she hadn’t. They had given it to her—to bind her, control her. Only then they had decided to discard her.
Arion told me tonight.
Arion?
The doorman. Everyone’s whispering about it. No one knows how, but they’ve gotten themselves a pureblood.