Delusion (31 page)

“Now give it to me!” Hildemar breathed as the old woman’s head nodded to her breast, gently as sleep.

Arden abandoned himself.
This is not me,
he thought.
Only Phil can return me to myself. And if she won’t
. . .

Hildemar sighed, shuddering and ecstatic, then drew herself up, her eyes luminous. “Even an old harridan like her makes me feel a thousand times stronger. Did you taste it?” She licked her lips and touched the great opal that danced with a more vibrant fire. “Now that you have a feel for it, you can do that whenever you like. The commoners—they’re ripe fruit for your plucking.” She kissed him, and he could feel the Essence swirling in her, unnaturally vibrant, raging like a fever.

If I had that, I could defeat you,
Arden thought. He looked across the gathering, and the life forces seemed to tug at his will with a siren song.

No, only for Phil would I do such a thing... and in so doing, I would certainly lose her.

“To victory,” Hildemar saluted him.

“To victory,” Arden echoed weakly as Hildemar took her leave, walking through the wall.

Arden remained, shaking and as empty as if Hildemar had drawn away a part of his own soul, still hidden from all the world...except for the pair of wide blue-green eyes framed by tumbled scarlet hair that bored into him for one more instant before she ran onstage to bow, whisper a word into Fee’s ear, and dash off into the frozen white night.

I
should have killed him then,
she told herself as tears froze on her cheeks.
How had I not known who that woman was?
Rapp’s description came back to her—the stunning woman with the
Sonnenschein
hair, bedecked with opals. She was the wicked demon who’d tortured Rapp, who had infiltrated Stour to lure gullible magicians with her promises and wiles, who no doubt murdered Rapp for failing to kill Phil. Or—Phil’s old suspicions rushed back—had Arden do it for her.

Oh Arden, Arden, how could you do it?

At least he hadn’t seen her, and she could place the responsibility into another’s hands. She didn’t have a great deal of faith in Rudyard’s ability to take action against the Germans, but he had a history of secretly getting rid of rebellious magicians. As soon as Rudyard heard this, he’d do what he did with errant journeymen and have Arden eliminated.

The tears came harder, and she swore to herself they were only tears of fury.

I’ll tell Rudyard, and then I’m leaving. I’ll be eighteen in a few months, and then I can be a Land Girl, or a Wren, or work in a munitions plant. Anything to get away from here. I’ll rent a place for Fee and me. She won’t care where she lives; her whole life is waiting now, and she can wait anywhere.

If anyone had asked her, she would have said she’d never feel anything again. All the same, after ten minutes of dragging herself through the deepening drifts, she began to shiver violently. She’d only thrown a light evening coat over her stage dress, and her shoes were silver ballet slippers.

I can’t get word to Rudyard if I freeze to death first,
she thought, as pragmatic as if she’d never felt love’s life-altering touch. She changed her course to stop at Weasel Rue, only slightly out of the way to Stour.

He doesn’t know I heard him, and he didn’t see me, so I have enough time.

He had seen her, though. He had no inkling that she’d overheard any of his plotting with the Fräulein, but he saw her rush offstage into the swirling snowstorm, and without thinking of the consequences, only knowing that he had to, he pursued her, as the wolf leaps for the baited hook strung in the tree, in the lust for what sustains him. He needed to be close to her, needed the reassurance of her presence, after what he’d done. He couldn’t tell her anything, of course, but if he could only hint, with a look if nothing else, that she must wait, and all would be well, and if she would only answer that with a look of her own, however banal their conversation might be...then he might be able to survive the next few days.

Just out of sight, he trailed her through the snow, a quarter mile behind.

Phil let herself into the farmhouse and collapsed just past the threshold, exhausted from rage and bitter disappointment. She couldn’t feel her fingers and wished she couldn’t feel her toes, because they were suffused with a pulsing pain. The fireplaces were all out, and the abandoned house was almost as chilled as the outside. She knew she needed to get warm, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

The door swung open behind her, and she looked up gratefully. Phil had never dreamed Fee would follow her, the darling! But it wasn’t Fee.

Arden closed the door behind him and watched her, dark eyes intent under winged black brows. Not taking her eyes from him, she reached into the pocket she’d sewn into her costume and pinched the small razor blade between her thumb and forefinger.

“I had to see you,” Arden said. “I’ve been—busy—and I wanted to be sure . . .” He swallowed hard. Phil didn’t think he’d blinked once since he entered. “You asked once if we were friends.” He moved toward her, looking so tortured, she longed to take him in her arms. But she squeezed the tiny blade more tightly. “I wanted to tell you that I never—”

“What a liar your face is, Arden,” she said, and sprang.

She slashed at him, raking his chest in a shallow gash, then grabbed hold of the lace at his throat to pull him into a close embrace, her blade striving for his exposed neck.

It was all going as perfectly as a well-rehearsed stage stunt—to Phil’s surprise, because she hadn’t really expected to win—and Arden’s blood would have been soaking the hay-strewn floor, if not for the fact that her benumbed fingers had dropped the razor in her first attack, and she found herself doing nothing more deadly than caressing his bare skin. Still, luck did not entirely desert her, and Arden tripped as he tried to evade her, hit his head on the mantel, and lay dazed.

Her fingers feeling like potatoes, Phil scrambled for the razor. She could have cut his throat—she knew she could have, then, in the heat of passion. But now, as she climbed on top of him, straddling his chest and pressing the razor to the beating hollow at the base of his throat, she wasn’t sure.

I can do it,
she thought doubtfully.
I just have to work myself up again first.

“Clever, am I?” she said, slapping him.
No,
she thought,
it should be a punch. I want to hit him so hard I break my fingers.
“Clever enough to be her servant—or whore to some German magician?” She slapped him again, which for some reason was proving more satisfying after all.
Now all he has to do is curse me or spit or struggle, and in goes the blade.

But he didn’t struggle. He only looked at her, his cheeks cold-flushed, his black hair coming loose from its tight queue. He was memorizing her, possessing every part of her, so that when he returned to the Essence, perhaps some small trace of her might remain with him.

“You traitor! You rotten son of a bitch. We trusted you! I trusted you!” She slapped him again and pressed the knife harder, until the tender hollow welled and filled with blood, a sacrificial spring. “How could you betray England like that?” A renegade tear fell from her eye to his. “How could you betray
me!
Fight, damn it! Fight me so I can kill you!”

“My life is yours,” he said softly, and as if the knife weren’t digging into his throat, he reached up to touch her temple, her cheek.

“Stop it!” She pulled away.

“It has been yours, since the first day we met. I begrudged it to you, until today. Take my life, Philomel.”

The sound of her whole name made another tear escape, to tremble, ridiculously, at the tip of her nose.

“Only promise me you’ll tell Rudyard.”

“Of course I’ll tell him what a foul, scheming cur you are.”

“Tell him about the plot. You must have heard, but did you hear all of it? Within a week, when the magicians are all back. They have ten who can pass through a portal, and another twenty magicians from Stour. They’re going to destroy Stour with everyone inside.”

“Like you almost did? Fool that I was, I thought it was an accident.”

“It was, I swear. Please, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. Just make sure Rudyard knows. He’ll know what to do.”

“Confession? You’ve had a change of heart? It won’t win you mercy from me.”

“You have to leave. You and Fee. She wants to kill you or enslave you.”

“What do you care? You want to give me as a gift to your lover. All that time I thought you cared for me, and I was stupid enough to—”

“To what?” he asked, and perhaps no one in the world, being held at knifepoint, has even looked so radiantly joyous.

“To love you, you bastard!” There, now that she was fully humiliated, she could kill him. Except . . .

“Promise me one thing more,” he said.

What now?
she wondered.
Give that German bitch your love?

“Your fingers. They’re like ice. You may have frostbite. Get them in warm water, or you might lose them.”

Phil rocked back on her heels. Everything she had seen, everything she had heard, told her Arden was a traitor. Every piece of logic her brain sifted through confirmed it. But Fee was right—this wasn’t a matter for thought. A man who cared for his executioner’s well- being with his final breath simply could not betray England, the college, and most important, her.

She stood up.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She flung the blade across the room. “And why the bloody hell did you have to sleep with her!” she wailed, and covered her face with her hands, shaking in silent, moist dissolution.

In an instant he had her in his arms. She tried to pull away—but she didn’t try very hard.

“You were a spy, I realize that now,” Phil said, muffled in her own fingers, which warmed with her breath. “And you couldn’t tell me, I understand. Oh, but she’s so beautiful, I suppose you couldn’t resist. Seeing you two together—I hated her, I hated you, but I had to look.”

“You saw us?” He blanched.

She nodded, her face still adamantly hidden in her hands. “In your hopper hut. And I know I’m nothing beside her, but—”

“Oh, you stupid, stupid girl!” he said. “It wouldn’t matter if you looked like a hag—you’d be a thousand times more beautiful than her, because you’re
you,
you silly git. You, Phil, gallant and generous and good. And distinctly unhaglike. You, who I love.”

The hands parted a fraction.

“She’s loathsome. She’s vile.”

The hands closed again. “I can imagine, from the way you were fondling her . . .”

“Phil, look at me!”

“No.”

“What would you do to save England, eh?” He pried up her pinky and kissed it. “Would you cut off this finger to save your country?” He lifted her ring finger, and a luminous blue-green eye regarded him. “How about this one?”

“Of course.”

“Would you die for England?”

“Yes.”

“No, you would not, because I would forbid it.” He unclamped a third finger and kissed her lightly on the nose. “Would you seduce a Nazi to save England?”

“Yes,” she said, and waited for him to forbid that, too. “You would let me?”

He nodded. “Because it is only the body, Phil, and the body can lie just as words can lie. The body does what is necessary.”

“Apparently the body enjoys what is necessary,” she said archly, remembering their passionate gymnastics.

He very firmly removed her hands from her face and kissed it. “You, Phil. You have my life. Always. Now, shall we be pragmatic a moment and save the college?”

“No. It’s terribly selfish of me, and I’ll probably get my comeuppance, but please, will you kiss me again first? I wasn’t properly prepared the last time and—mmm.”

But she still wasn’t prepared. Nothing—not her dalliance with Hector nor any of the dozen other boys she’d casually kissed—nothing had prepared her for the stem-to-stern electricity of a kiss given and taken in love. The college had to wait. The whole world had to wait.

“I ought to go,” Arden said, stroking her hair.

“You will, very soon,” she said, standing on tiptoe to explore the beauty of his trapezius with her lips.

“You
do
have to go,” Phil said a long moment later. “But there is tomorrow.”

“And tomorrow.” He discovered the downiness of her earlobe.

“And tomorrow.” She buried her hands in the stygian softness of his hair.

“And . . .” The room felt suddenly chilled.

“
Tomorrow
is the word you’re looking for,” Phil prompted.

“Phil, what I have to do—I may not come through it alive. If I die, remember that—”

“No!” she said, then forced herself to smile. “You will not die. Because I forbid it.”

It was all Arden could do to seem composed and grave when he met with the Headmaster. The scowl that usually came so naturally deserted him. The world was, after all, a rosy place. Outside the wind howled like a heavenly chorus.
She loves me,
he thought,
and so everything will be all right. It has to be.

He told Rudyard the Dresdener plan was almost ready and waited for the call to arms, for the old man to finally be ready to pit his best masters against the intruders. There were only ten Germans, and even if you counted the twenty-odd turncoats, a hundred of the college’s best should be able to defeat them.

Rudyard interrupted his optimistic musings. “Then we will be ready to leave and disperse. When they come, the college will be virtually empty.”

Arden stared at him, dumbfounded. The enemy’s plans were in their hands. It would be a hell of a fight, but since they knew the Dresdeners’ strength and numbers, and would soon know the very hour and direction of attack, their victory was all but assured. He must have misunderstood.

“Is dispersal necessary? After the fighting is over, we can always rebuild Stour. It’s a good location.”

“There will be no fighting,” Rudyard said.

Arden felt his temper begin to slip. “You don’t honestly think you can reason with them, do you? They’re hell bent on ruling England, on killing and enslaving commoners.”