Ashes of Twilight (25 page)

21

Heads need to cool
and Peggy and Adam have a wedding to get ready for. I’m still uncertain about the tentative truce I have with James. “I’ll take care of him,” Peggy assures me as she hugs me good-bye. “Will you come?”

“I’ll try,” I say. I look over at Adam and James. Adam has James by the water and is talking intensely to him. James shakes his head no. It frightens me to think of what James might or could do. All he has to do is tell someone that Pace is below and the entire village will be out searching for us.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure he doesn’t follow you,” Peggy assures me. “Your secret is safe.”

“Lucy knows,” I say. “If she comes down you can talk to her. She can help. She wants to help.”

“You could have told me,” Peggy says. She looks over her shoulder at James and Adam. “But I understand why you didn’t. We’ll meet you tomorrow morning at the stable. We’ll figure something out.”

“Not tomorrow morning,” I say. “Tonight is your wedding night. Day after tomorrow.”

Peggy once more looks over her shoulder at Adam. “I think sooner is better than later where James is concerned.”

I have to agree. “Tomorrow morning then.”

Pace waits for me at the tunnel. He lets me go first. I crawl through, almost expecting him to be dragged back by James, but thankfully he is right on my heels. When we are both through I put a finger to Pace’s lips so he’ll remain quiet and pause long enough to make sure we’re not being followed. I can hear them talking on the other side but can’t make out the words.

“Let’s go,” I say to Pace and lead him quickly away. I stop at each twist and turn, checking the tunnels and carefully listening. My head is pounding from my wound and I’m dizzy and nauseous. I have to stay on my feet or else Pace will be trapped in the darkness. It’s the middle of the morning and I know there will be people about. I can’t relax until we are both safely back in our cave. Finally, after what seems like hours, we arrive and I sink down onto the quilts with a grateful sigh.

“I’m guessing James is the one you were supposed to marry?” Pace joins me on the quilt.

“How could you tell?”

He touches the cut over his eye. “It felt kind of personal when he was pounding on me.” He twists around and grabs the lamp. “I need to get a look at your cut,” he says. He pushes my hair back and holds the lamp up while he looks. He touches it with his finger and I wince. It hurts.

“How bad is it?”

“Deep and swollen. You should have it stitched closed but…” He picks up the mirror and holds it before me. “See?”

I make a face as I look. The side of my face has already turned a vile yellowish green and the inch-long cut is raised and jagged. “I will probably have a horrid scar.”

Pace puts the mirror aside and very gently and tenderly kisses my temple by the cut. Just that slight touch makes it throb, but I appreciate the thought behind it and I lean in to him.

“Take this off,” he says and tugs on my jacket. I let him guide my arms out and then he moves down to my feet and pulls off my boots. He picks up the curtains from the neat pile I’ve made in the corner and places them on the quilt for a pillow. I watch him, as if from a distance. My head is throbbing. “Lie down,” he instructs and I do so. “Do you feel like eating?”

I shake my head no and just that simple movement is enough to make me want to cry.

“Hey, we’re missing someone,” he says. “Cat isn’t here.”

“He’s probably out looking for something to eat,” I say. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

“Hope he knows how to fish,” Paces says, or so I think. Maybe I just dreamed it. All I know is that I closed my eyes and everything went dark.

*   *   *

“Wake up, Wren.”

“What?”

“Who am I?”

I reach out my hand. It’s hard to open my eyes. I don’t want to open them. He grasps my waving hand and squeezes it. “You’re Pace.”

“Good. You can go back to sleep now.” I want to ask him why he woke me but my mouth doesn’t want to open. I hear a rumbling sound and realize that Cat must be back and once more I fall asleep.

*   *   *

My head still throbs when I wake up again, but not as bad. The pain is more centralized around my temple. I touch it tentatively and feel a lump the size of an egg.

“You’re alive,” Pace says. He’s sitting cross-legged with Pip on his shoulder. Cat lies by his side with his tail twitching.

“Barely,” I groan. “How does it look?”

“On you? Beautiful.” He grins. “And like you lost a fight.”

“I can’t go to the wedding,” I say. “If James and Adam are banged up and I show up with this, everyone will know we were fighting each other.”

“Or you could make up a story about filchers coming below and the three of you beat them up.”

“No, nobody would believe it. But only because it means the filchers got by the guards. We don’t need any more guards in the tunnels.”

“You mean they’d believe the part about you beating someone up?”

I throw my jacket, which was lying on top of the quilts, at him and wince in pain at the sudden motion.

Pip flies straight up in the air and Cat hisses and jumps into the outer cavern. Pace laughs as Pip lands on his lap and ruffles his feathers out. He picks him up and puts him back in his cage.

“I think you need to stay still until you feel a lot better,” he says. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat. Do we have anything left?”

“We can make it through another day, I think,” he assures me.

“I can go to the village later to get food,” I say. “There will be a feast for the wedding.”

“A feast.” Pace sighs. “That sounds wonderful.” He puts out some of our larder on the quilt. “My mother is the best cook,” he continues. “She makes this stew with sausage and apples…” His voice trails off. “I hope she’s still safe.”

“Lucy will let me know if anything happens.”

“There’s not a whole lot I can do about it if it does.”

I can see the worry in his eyes. “Tell me about her,” I say. “Tell me about your life before all this happened.”

Pace sits down beside me and we divide up the food. I make sure his portion is larger. I’m not sure how much my stomach can handle at the moment. Even chewing hurts my head.

“My mother works as a governess for one of the lesser royal families,” he begins. “It’s not a live-in position so we have a small flat on the outskirts of Park Front. She teaches the children their lessons, along with painting, music, things like that. She moves from family to family as the children reach the age where they don’t need her anymore. It was always nice for us because she was always bringing home clothes, toys, and treats—castoffs from the royals.” He shrugs. “It was always just the two of us. When I was younger I was allowed to go with her and study with the royal children. That’s how I learned so much about history and geography.”

“What are they like?”

“The royals?” Pace breaks off a chunk of bread and chews on it. “Just like us, only with nicer clothes, nicer homes, more to eat,” he says after he swallows. “Their lives are nothing but strolls on the promenade and parties and fussing over their dogs and tracing their bloodlines.” He breaks off a piece of cheese. “You know they don’t get to choose their mates?”

“Mates. As in husbands and wives? Why?”

“After all these years and a limited number of families they have to preserve the lineage. So all the marriages are arranged to keep the different bloodlines from crossing each other too much. There’s someone in charge of it. They pick the couples and then negotiate the deal.”

“That’s horrible.” Almost as bad as James’s ultimatum, I don’t add. “I can’t imagine being forced to live with someone. What if you couldn’t stand them?”

“As long as the line is preserved. That’s all they care about. That’s all any of us are supposed to care about.”

I can’t eat much. My stomach is still too weak and my head throbs. So I slide what I can’t eat over to Pace’s side of the quilt. He doesn’t notice, just keeps picking up food and eating as he talks.

“What did your father do?” I ask.

“He was an enforcer. So it made sense that I wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

“How did he die?”

“He fell off the catwalk. He was chasing a thief.”

I know the catwalk. It bisects the dome and runs parallel to the promenade. It is suspended from the girders that support the dome like a bridge suspended in the air. I’ve always wished I could go up there. It is so high and practically invisible when the air is bad.

“That’s where I touched the dome,” Pace says. “One of my father’s friends from the force took me up there when I was twelve.”

“What was it like?”

“Like touching a very thick window or a mirror. It wasn’t hot, and it wasn’t cold. It just was.”

“Did you see anything? Sometimes, when I’m up on the rooftops I see shadows.”

“It was bright. The middle of the day. I thought it was because of the flames but now I know better.”

There is nothing left of the food he put out. We’ve eaten it all. Pace sweeps up the crumbs from the quilt into his hands and lets Pip out of his cage. Pip jumps on his shoulder and nibbles the crumbs from Pace’s open palm.

“So you decided to follow in your father’s footsteps. What do you have to do to become an enforcer?”

“Well, there’s school. And there’s a physical test.”

“Which you passed with no trouble at all,” I tease.

He grins and shrugs sheepishly. “This morning was the first time I was ever in doubt about winning a fight.”

“There
was
two of them.”

“I was the fastest of the applicants also. That’s why I was able to catch up to you so easily that first day.”

“Your lungs are clearer than mine. That has a lot to do with it.”

“So that’s your excuse?”

“Okay, I admit it; you can beat me in a footrace.”

“And?” he says mischievously.

“And at wrestling. But I win at swimming.”

“I defer to your prowess in that area.”

“You defer to my prowess?” I laugh and then wince at the movement. “Is that a fancy way of saying I win?”

“Yes, you win.” He grins.

“What about your friend?”

“Tom?” He’s suddenly serious again.

“Yes, Tom.”

“We grew up together. We were the same age. His flat was below ours. His father worked for the administration. His older brother apprenticed with his father. Tom wanted to do something different so he decided to try for the enforcers with me.” Pace runs his hand through his hair. “If not for me he’d still be alive.” His voice breaks. He takes Pip down from his shoulder and into his hand and strokes his feathered head with a finger.

I touch his arm. “I know how you feel. I feel the same way about Alex. It is my fault he went out.”

“How is it your fault?”

“Lucy said that it was because of me, and my independent streak, that she went above. If she hadn’t gone above she wouldn’t have met David. If Alex hadn’t been worried over her he wouldn’t have seen her with David.”

Pace shakes his head. “That’s a roundabout way of taking blame.”

“No more than yours. At what age do we start taking responsibility for our own actions? Sure, Tom was inspired to be an enforcer because of you. But what if he never met you? What if someone else lived above him who wanted to be one? What if it was Tom that saw me with Alex and he was the one who chased me?”

“All right, I understand,” Pace says. “You’re making
my
head hurt now.”

“We’re responsible for our own decisions. It’s that simple,” I say. “We make our own choices and, win or lose, we suffer the results. Saying someone made me do it doesn’t change the fact that we make a conscious decision to do it. That was the last lesson I learned from my grandfather.”

Pace puts Pip back on his shoulder and picks up my hand. He cradles it in his just as carefully as he held Pip. “Did that blow to your head make you wiser?”

“No,” I say. “But it might have shaken something loose.”

Pace lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it, so lightly, so gently that I barely feel it. It’s more of a sensation than a touch. Then he lowers my hand and looks at me with his extraordinary blue eyes. “I love you, Wren. I just wanted you to know that before all the madness starts.”

All my questions, all my wondering, all my agonizing over love, and it is really all so simple when it comes down to it. “I love you too.”

22

“Are you sure
you want to do this?” I look at the faces gathered around me. Peggy, James, Adam, and Alcide. Even though I’d meant what I said to Pace the night before about being responsible for our own decisions, I still can’t help but feel guilty about those standing here with me, ready to take on the bluecoats.

“For Alex,” Alcide says.

“For Alex,” James and Adam echo.

“Lucy said they’d be ready for us,” Peggy reminds me. “That there are others who want to help.”

“Meet us at tunnel three in two hours,” I say. “It leads to Lucy’s.”

“We will be there,” Adam assures me. I wasn’t ready to give up my hiding place yet, so that is why I asked them to meet us. In case we didn’t make it above, I wanted a secure place for us to come back to.

Adam, Peggy, and Alcide turn to go back to the village. James lingers for a moment. I wish he’d go on with the rest of them. I’m not ready to talk to him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.

“Did I do that?” He points with some hesitancy at the bruise on my face.

“It was an accident,” I say. “I fell when…”

“When I attacked your friend.”

“He has a name, James,” I say. “It’s Pace.”

“Yeah, Pace.” James looks around the stables. I don’t know what he’s looking for. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want to look at me. “Wren, if all of this hadn’t happened, would we have had a chance?” He looks at me, finally, and I see the guilt over my wound plainly written on his face, and the things he’s said and done to me. I also see something else in his green eyes that I’ve never seen before, something that I can’t identify. I shouldn’t trust him and I’m not sure if I do. But I’m willing to listen to his apology if that’s what he’s offering.