Ashes of Twilight (29 page)

I untie Jon’s hands and help him to the low bench that runs along the walls of the wagon. “You’ve got to pretend like you don’t know me,” I say. “You don’t know anything about me. It’s all just a coincidence, nothing more.”

“Why?” Jon pulls up his shirt and wipes the blood from his face. He puts his fingers to his jaw and pushes against it. “I think he knocked some of my teeth loose.”

“I’m pretty sure I stomped his down his throat.”

“You killed him?”

It is something I will never escape and can’t deny. It is something that will haunt me for as long as I live. “I didn’t like what he had planned for me.” I can’t understand why tears gather in my eyes and I quickly wipe them away. I cannot be weak. If whoever they are taking me to senses a weakness they will use it against me. I will be strong. I have to be.

“I never really thought they would go this far…” he begins. “I guess I should have known after what they did to your friend.”

“Which is why you’ve got to stay out of it. We don’t want them to know what we’re doing. Pace and I are the only ones they care about right now. I’d like to keep it that way.”

Jon nods. I know he’s frightened. He has to be because I’m scared out of my wits. I can only keep reassuring myself that as long as Pace is out there they’ll keep me alive. Jon moves down the bench and looks out the tiny barred window in the door.

“Can you tell where we are?” I ask. Like Jon, I pull out the tail of my shirt and wipe at the blood on my face, in my hair, on my neck. I look at my shirt when I’m done and wonder how much of it is mine and how much belonged to the filcher they killed. What was that weapon they used? What does it do to kill people instantly? Is that what happened to David? Is he still alive?

“We just turned onto the promenade,” he says. “They must be taking us to the enforcer headquarters. Wait … I think I see Harry,” he whispers. “And Jilly. And your friends.”

I join him at the window. It is hard to stay upright in the jolting carriage. I’m incredibly dizzy and my head throbs with waves of pain. I finally focus and manage to look out. I quickly recognize Adam and Peggy worming their way through the crowds on the streets as they try to keep up with us.

Try as I might, I don’t see any sign of Pace, James, Alcide, or David. I’d like to think they’re safe, but they could very well be in another wagon.

Or dead.

If only there was some way to signal them. I’m afraid if I do, that it will put them in danger. The wagon turns a corner. I’m thrown back on the bench and I stay there, but I still keep watch out the window. Buildings loom up on either side and I realize we are in an alley. I see Adam and Peggy, and then Harry and Jilly pass my line of sight as they stay on the promenade. I see bluecoats following the wagon and then the light gets dim and a door closes behind us. We’re inside. There is no way for our friends to help us.

I hear the clatter of chains and the door opens behind us. Six bluecoats stand before us in the dark. Do they realize I can see them clearly or do they think the darkness will intimidate me?

“Get out,” one says. Jon gets up. It’s impossible to stand straight so he bends over awkwardly. Two bluecoats grab his arms and pull him out. They do the same with me.

We are marched through a door that leads into a long hallway lined with more doors, all of them closed. The two bluecoats with Jon shove him forward and to a flight of stairs. They go down. I stand with four bluecoats by the lift in wait for it to appear before us.

“Where are they taking him?” I ask.

“None of your concern,” one answers.

I don’t say anything more. The only way I can protect Jon is to pretend like I don’t know him. The lift arrives before us with a hiss of steam. One bluecoat opens the door and another pushes me inside. I stumble forward and luckily stop myself before I crash against the back wall. I’m not certain how many more blows to the head I can stand before my skull fractures into a million pieces.

Only two ride up with me. I suppose my risk of flight is reduced now that I’m confined. I know I don’t have a chance of escaping as long as I’m inside. I can only take comfort that my friends know where I am. It might be the last time I see them.

I spread my legs to keep my balance. The two bluecoats face forward, neither one looking at me, and neither one speaking. The lift keeps going up and up until we finally lurch to a stop on the top floor.

One throws back the metal cage door and the other puts his hand in the small of my back to propel me forward. I stand in a long hall. Elegant lamps alternate between beautiful paintings that lead all the way down to a set of double doors. I can’t help but stare at the paintings as I walk down the hall with one bluecoat in front of me and the other behind. The colors are extraordinary, like nothing I’ve ever seen before, not even in the books in the library. I never realized such riches existed, not even in my wildest dreams could I have conceived of such things. I wonder if Pace has seen paintings such as these. The artist that I know exists in him would thrill at their existence.

I don’t even realize the bluecoat in front of me has stopped until I bump into his back. The one behind me puts his hand on my shoulder and jerks me back and I stumble. I am weak and dizzy and I don’t know how much longer I can go on. I desperately need to rest. I need water. I want to wash away the blood and the grime that covers me. But most of all I need to know that Pace is safe.

The bluecoat before me raps on the door.

“Come in,” a voice says. The bluecoat opens both doors and I’m shoved forward into a large room.

The ceiling is twenty feet above me and covered in dark wood paneling with detailed molding. High arched windows line the walls on the three sides with lamps in between each one, and live trees sit in pots in the light. They are unlike any tree I’ve ever seen, with thick wedges of bark on the trunks and long spiky leaves around the top like an umbrella.

I quickly realize that the room covers the end of the building. The wall behind me is windowless; however, there are doors on either side of the one I came through and books fill the shelves that go from the floor to the ceiling.

The carpet beneath my feet is as plush and as soft as my mattress. In the middle of the room is a huge, ornately carved desk. A leather chair with a high back sits behind it and two deep-red wing-backed chairs are set before it. I’m guided to one of these chairs and forced into it.

I hear a tinkling sound but I can’t see anything as the bluecoat keeps his hand on my shoulder as if he wants to smash me into the chair. “You may go,” a voice says. “But wait outside the door.”

A tall man wearing the dark blue uniform of the enforcers comes around the desk. He sets down a clear vessel that holds liquid. It must be a glass, made from the same substance as the windows. Yet it is so much thinner and lighter than the dome. I’ve heard of them but never seen one. We drink from crocks and tin cups in my world.

His uniform is embellished with the double row of gold buttons and has gold epaulets on the shoulders and a series of gold bands on his right sleeve. He is tall and solid with broad shoulders and thick, lustrous hair that is as black as coal. He sits down in the chair and folds his hands before him as he leans back and stares at me. I see that his eyes are as dark as his hair. They are deep and mysterious, but suddenly they widen and he drops his hands onto the desk as he leans forward.

“Maggie?” he says questioningly.

And that’s when I know I am looking at my father.

26

I
find it hard
to believe that he recognizes me with my bumps and bruises and my face covered with blood. But the fact that he knows my mother’s name is all the proof that I need. “My name is Wren,” I say. “Maggie was my mother, as you well know.” At last I have the proof that I do look like my mother as I was always told.

His face changes completely as he laughs. He looks boyish … almost. His eyes crinkle and dance with some sort of secret joy. Is this what attracted my mother? I can see how it would. He has the same charisma as James. I can feel it already, drawing me in. “Spirited like me,” he says. “I’m glad to see it.”

I won’t be drawn in. Just because he sired me doesn’t mean he has any authority over me. “I’m not.”

He sits back in his chair. “I always wondered if it was a boy or a girl.”

“It?” My anger rises. “
It
is
me
and as I said, I have a name. Given to me by my grandfather who raised me. Wren MacAvoy.”

“Your mother didn’t name you?”

“My mother died giving birth to me.” I watch his face carefully, hoping for something that will make me believe … I don’t know what. An explanation? Something more than acknowledgment that he knew my mother and sired me? More emotions than I can count rush through me and all are compounded by the constant throbbing in my head.

“Perhaps if she had stayed above, something could have been done…” He shrugs his shoulders. “But you—”

“Are not what you expected?” I finish for him. It dawns on me that I am having a conversation with my father and I don’t even know his name.

He places his fingertips together and looks over them at me. “Let’s just say that I did not expect the source of all this trouble to be my daughter.”

“Will it make a difference?”

“That depends. Where is the boy?”

“What boy?”

He picks up a piece of paper that lays facedown upon the desk. “This boy. Pace Bratton. The one you were seen with.”

Did it occur to him when my name was put on the paper that I could be Maggie MacAvoy’s daughter? Did the connection ever cross his mind, or maybe he just assumed that we all shared the same names. All the dirty, filthy shiners that lived beneath the dome were the same.

“I have no idea,” I say in answer to his question. “What makes you think I would know?”

He laughs. “As I said. Spirited.” He leans back in his chair and studies me for a bit. “Did my men do that?” He raises a finger and points it at my forehead. I touch it and it comes away sticky with blood.

“It was the filchers,” I say. “And I’m lucky to escape with only this. They promised they’d save me the use of my tongue since you wanted me to be able to talk.”

“Filthy lot,” he agrees. “But they serve their purpose.”

“And were stupid enough to believe you would actually reward them with privileges and a house on Park Front.”

“You would be surprised at the lengths some people will go to when they believe what they want to believe.”

“More so when what they believe is the truth.”

His eyes widen slightly. I’ve surprised him again. “How about the cut on the side?”

“No, that was me. I tripped.”

He laughs again. “I have to admit, my dear daughter, this is the most interesting conversation I’ve had in ages.”

“Just look at all you missed,” I say.

He gets up, still laughing, and goes to a table behind me. He returns with a glass of something amber in color and a wet cloth. “Here.” He hands me the cloth. “Clean yourself up.” He places the glass down in front of me and returns to his chair. He watches me as I wipe my face with the cloth. It feels so good against my skin. Cool and clean. I dab at the place on my forehead until no more blood shows on the cloth. I’d like to look in a mirror and see how bad I look, but I don’t want to show any weakness in front of him. My hands are raw from where I fell forward, and one of my knees feels like the skin has been torn off. The first time I meet my father and I look like a wreck.

“Drink that,” he says.

I pick up the glass and sniff the amber liquid. It burns my nose.

“All at once,” he says.

I have no reason to believe he’d poison me and I’m desperate for some relief from the thirst, although I’m not so certain this will do it. I tilt back the glass and drain it. I choke and sputter but manage to swallow it down. It burns all the way down my throat and lands in my stomach like a charge that’s been lit in the mines.

“What is this?” I finally gasp.

“Whiskey. I know it burns, but it will help you get through what’s ahead.”

That does not sound reassuring. Should I be grateful that he is considerate of me? That in some strange and bizarre way he actually cares? “What is your name?” I ask. “Or is that privileged information?”

“Your mother never told anyone?”

“As far as I know, she didn’t.”

“My name is Sir William Meredith. And as you can see, I am the master general enforcer.”

“Does this mean I have royal blood?”

“It does.”

“Why?”

He knew what I was asking. Even though we did not know each other, we had an instant understanding. I found it annoying but also fascinating. Was it because we share the same blood?

“Your mother was a beautiful young woman. As are you. I found that I could not resist.”

“So you took what you wanted.”

“I always get what I want, Wren. As you will soon find out.” He shakes his head. “Wren. What a strange name. Like the bird?”

“Yes. We have several of them down below.”

“Really?” He looks at me curiously. “Birds down below? I never would have thought it.”

“Oh, my world is quite extraordinary,” I say.

“So why are you so anxious to leave it?”

“Why are you so determined to make sure I don’t?”

He laughs again. “Concise and to the point. It is too bad your mother took you down below. You would have been quite the success on Park Front.”

“As your bastard daughter?” I sneer. “I think not.”

“You’re not really surprised that I didn’t marry your mother, are you? She really expected me to, for some strange reason. It wasn’t until she finally realized that I wouldn’t that she left.”

“Because having a shiner for a wife would have held you back? Because you could either have us or this?”

“I see you have it all figured out.”

“Except for why we can’t leave the dome.”

“Why would you want to leave? Don’t you know that there’s nothing but flames out there? Nothing but fire and destruction.”

“I know that what you say is a lie to keep everyone inside.” I look into his eyes. “I know that you murdered my friend, Alex, because he made it outside and you didn’t want anyone to know.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I realize my mistake. I’ve given away what I know and therefore, given up the fact that I’ve talked to Pace. The smile that graces my father’s lips lets me know that he’s caught onto my mistake also.