The Named (25 page)

Retaliation, I decide, is the best action to get him off the track. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. If I called anything out it’s because I was dreaming, of course. And what
are
you going on about? Obviously I’m not dead. Next time you take to snooping around my room at night, don’t wake me, OK? I like my sleep.’
I get up on my knees and snatch the notebook from his hand. ‘Give me that! It’s just a stupid poem I wrote, which I don’t appreciate you reading. I wouldn’t go through
your
stuff, by the way.’

‘I didn’t go looking. You must’ve knocked it to the floor when you fell asleep.’

‘Whatever. You had no right reading my private thoughts.’

He peers at me with a weird look and says softly, ‘Your private thoughts are really strange, Isabel.’

‘I don’t care. At least they’re mine. Now can everyone go back to bed?’

Jimmy quickly agrees. ‘What a good idea!’

‘Not till I get some answers,’ Matt says stubbornly.

‘I’m tired, Matt. Whatever you’re so hyped up about can wait till the morning.’

Jimmy tries again. ‘Everything looks different in the morning, Matt. Why don’t you go to bed?’

Matt gives Jimmy a hard stare and yells at the top of his voice, ‘I don’t take orders from you!’

Everyone goes silent. Matt’s resentment of Jimmy’s position in our household has become more evident every day. I catch Jimmy’s look and try to tell him with my eyes to back off, I can handle my brother, especially now that I have the notebook tucked under my pillow.

Mum gives Jimmy’s hand a little yank. ‘Let’s go, honey.’

They leave. Matt turns his back on me and walks to the window. He pulls up the blind, revealing an almost full moon, and suddenly my room glows with brilliant light. In my exhausted state this light is too much. Instinctively, I raise my hand to cover my eyes. Matt
notices. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing, it’s just the glare.’

He looks around the room, then out the window to the night sky. I suddenly realise how he must see the room – dark and mostly in shadows. He points to the sky. ‘But it’s only the moon.’

I lower my arm and try not to squint. ‘I’m just tired, OK? Now what’s eating you? Why did you come into my room in the first place?’

He plonks down in the green plastic chair, making an annoying squeaky sound. ‘I want to know what’s going on.’

‘Nothing. I was just in a deep sleep, that’s all.’

He looks at me with half-closed eyes and a puzzled frown. ‘I meant what’s with you and Ethan?’

‘Oh.’ I have to relax before I make him suspicious for no other reason than my own stupidity. ‘Well, it’s still the same answer – nothing. Nothing is going on.’

‘You can’t spend as much time with someone as you do with Ethan, almost every day, and it not mean anything.’

After what just happened, with Ethan saving my life – though I’m not real clear on the details ’cause my head’s in a bit of a mess right now – I think our relationship is finally taking off. The time we spend training in the hills around the lake is incredible, the most fun I’ve had in a long time. As for our trips into the past, nothing can surpass those adventures. Even getting stabbed in the chest doesn’t deter me. Instinctively, I run my hand over the place Ethan’s dagger recently pierced. Matt misreads the action.

‘When are you going to admit the truth, Isabel?’

I glance up at him and he says, ‘Look at yourself.
You’re worse than a love-sick puppy.’

Withdrawing my hand, I tug the quilt up around my knees and chest, and take the moment to form the words necessary to get Matt off my back. ‘Look, Matt, Ethan and I are just friends working on a project together. That’s the truth.’ Well, part of it, that is. A project so huge that I hope we’ll be working together for a long time. But that’s not what Matt needs to hear. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Matt. I really like Ethan. He’s fun and not at all the weird person you make him out to be.’

He starts to object. I hold my hand up and cut him off, crossing the fingers of my other hand beneath the quilt. ‘But I realise now my obsession with Ethan was just a childhood crush.’

Matt nods, seemingly content I’m telling the truth. I sigh, finally relaxing, and decide to get Matt right off the subject before he drills me with more questions. ‘I looked for you earlier. Were you with Rochelle tonight?’

‘I was for a while, but she said she was tired and wanted to go to bed early, so I went over to Dillon’s. I thought he might know something about you and Ethan.’

‘Why would you ask Dillon about me and Ethan?’

‘That’s simple: you’re not telling me anything. And oddly enough, Dillon has kept being friends with Ethan, and friends talk.’

‘And what did Dillon tell you?’

He shrugs dejectedly. ‘Nothing really.’

My head shakes. My brother is obsessed – with suffocating me. But I don’t want to encourage this line of conversation. ‘You’re way too serious for someone your age, Matt. You gotta get a better life.’

‘You could be right,’ he sighs. Pulling himself out of the chair, he leans over me. ‘I’m sorry I scared you earlier. I shouldn’t have tried to wake you. It’s just the words in that notebook kind of gave me a creepy feeling I couldn’t shake.’

He sounds so melancholy, and to get his mind off the notebook, I wrap my arms around him for a reassuring hug. ‘That’s OK. It was waking to the sight of your face that scared me half to death.’

He hugs me back, a rare sibling moment we haven’t shared in years. ‘Well thanks. How nice of you to say.’

As he draws away, a familiar scent hits me, sending a chill through my entire body. ‘What’s that smell?’

As he straightens, he sniffs the air. ‘What? Do you mean that flowery scent?’

I nod but don’t speak; my tongue feels as if it’s doubled in size. The whiff of that flowery aroma reminds me too much of the scent left behind by the assassin in Abigail Smith’s bedroom. I work some moisture into my mouth and try to swallow. ‘Yeah, that perfume. Why do you smell of it?’

He shrugs and moves to the door. ‘It’s not perfume. But if you like it, I’ll try to get you some. It’s Rochelle’s eye drops, for her allergy. She swears by it, says it works like a miracle on tired eyes. It does too, I tried some myself today.’

I force myself to breathe. ‘Oh, really?’

’Yeah, she has it specially made by some out-of-town herbalist.’

I watch, speechless, as his jaw slides right, then left, a nervous gesture he’s perfected over the years. And then he says, ‘It’s made from some sort of unique flower. A giant iris, I think.’

Chapter Thirty-five

Ethan

This week I train Isabel harder than ever before. We even practise our landings.

‘We’re going back to see King Richard II.’

‘I thought you said we can’t go back to the same time twice?’

‘The
exact
same time. But Richard is thirty-two now.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, and …’ I have to tell her about Dad and how the Tribunal want him to come back and finish his mission – and deal with Marduke. I tell her most of what Arkarian explained and how Dad has to make sure Richard goes on his planned trip to Ireland.

‘But we could do that, couldn’t we? Why drag your father into this, when he obviously doesn’t want to?’

‘Apparently he made a blood oath with John of Gaunt to protect his son Henry. And then there’s his unfinished business with Marduke. The Tribunal wants Dad to finish the duel. They say it’s time Marduke was put in his place, before any other innocent lives are destroyed.’

She catches on quickly. ‘Like mine. They’re thinking of the threats he made, and his presence in Abigail’s bedroom when he tried to kill me.’ She shivers all over as if wild horses suddenly trample her grave. ‘There’s something really creepy about all this.’

I hope it’s her sixth sense and not a flashback. Arkarian says it would be bad for Isabel to remember the grey world and how close she came to death, that it could kill her adventurous spirit.

‘So when do we leave?’ she asks.

‘Tonight. But don’t be surprised when you don’t go straight to the Citadel. Arkarian is having us all meet together in his chambers first.’

‘And your father, will he be coming too?’

‘He doesn’t know anything – yet. I’m supposed to be the bait to lure him to Arkarian.’

‘And just how are you going to do that?’

I don’t tell her, ’cause I’m not so sure myself. ‘I have to come up with something to stun him into realising the truth about me, but in a way that will make him angry enough to either want to protect me or want to kill Arkarian. Either will suffice. All he has to do is call Arkarian’s name to get into his chambers.’

‘That’s
all
he has to do?’

‘Well, he has to do it with feeling. That way Arkarian will hear him.’

She frowns deeply, like she’s recalling a troublesome thought. I’m about to ask what that look means, but she waves me away, lifting her sword with two hands, raising it into position. It’s still difficult for her, but she’s making heaps of progress since we’ve been working her upper arms with weights. ‘I get the feeling I’m going to need this skill before long.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘When we fight Marduke.’

She stuns me into silence for a moment. ‘But …
you
won’t be fighting him. The duel is between Marduke and my father. There are rules about this sort of thing, rules even Marduke must follow.’

She stares at me as if deciding whether to say anything or not. I get the prickly sensation she’s keeping something from me. ‘He may want to kill your father, Ethan, but he tried to kill me. I say that gives me grounds to enter the duelling arena.’

I grab her wrist while it’s still in the air. ‘You’re not going anywhere near Marduke again!’

‘If only that were true! I’m not that naive, Ethan, and neither should you be. Wake up. Marduke brought me into this duel when he tried to murder me. And because he did it to get at you, you’re connected now too. It’s like Marduke is trying to draw as many of the Guard out as he can. Perhaps his thinking is to eliminate us while we’re vulnerable. Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘Well, the Tribunal sure is in a desperate hurry to deal with Marduke.’

‘Why do you think that is?’ She goes on to answer herself. ‘Because the situation is growing out of hand, that’s why, and the Tribunal knows it. How many others has Marduke linked to this duel? Hmm? If he can weaken the Guards here, at the site of the ancient city, then he and the Goddess are way out in front. He’s doing her a favour by pursuing his quest for revenge.’

She drops these thoughts on me like a bomb, but apparently there’s more to what she’s been thinking about. ‘Tell me, how well do you know Rochelle?’

The question surprises me and I stare at her for a second. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Don’t go getting all defensive,’ she says.

‘I’m not. Why would I be?’

‘Just forget it.’

I grab her arm, stopping her from lifting her sword again. ‘What are you talking about? And why did you ask about Rochelle? You know I can’t stand that girl.’

She stays quiet for a minute, looking at me like she’s seeing through to my soul or something. Her face suddenly goes a subtle red colour like she’s been out in the sun a little too long. ‘I think she might be … I think she could work for Marduke.’

The words penetrate, but I can’t believe she said them. ‘That’s rubbish!’

She lunges for my arm as I turn away. ‘Ethan, think about it. Remember the scent that lingered around Abigail Smith’s assassin, and how we both recognised it, but couldn’t place it?’

‘You’ve got it wrong, Isabel. Perfume can’t transfer with the soul.’

‘I know that! But Rochelle uses some sort of eye drops.’ She waves a hand in my face. ‘Eye drops, Ethan, that are made from flowers.’

‘What?’

‘Matt told me.’

Something inside me starts to boil up like a pressure cooker with the lid on so tight no steam can escape. Why can’t everybody leave Rochelle alone? First the Tribunal jumped to conclusions because of Rochelle’s rough childhood, now Isabel is making huge leaps because of some stupid scent we picked up in the past.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just leave the girl alone, OK?’

She stares at me, and for a second I swear her eyes begin to swell with glistening moisture. But before I can make any sense of this, she turns away and starts acting like we never had this conversation. She lifts her sword easily this time with her two small hands, mumbling at me, ‘Let’s get on with this training.’

And so we train the rest of the afternoon, but cloaked in a tension-filled silence. By the time we call it a night and head home, I’m weary with exhaustion, unable to stop thinking of Isabel’s accusations about Rochelle and Marduke. And now I have to prepare myself to confront Dad.

The walk from Isabel’s house to mine takes longer than usual tonight as my feet feel as if they’re weighted with lead. I take the time rehearsing some ideas. The one thing I don’t want is to cause Dad any further pain. I’ve seen what effect losing Sera had on his life. But when I finally arrive home and find Dad staring fixedly at the television, all the subtle plans I’d been forming fly out of my head.

This is his life now – no life at all.

Is that a way for a member of the Guard, or even an ordinary man, to spend his days, as if living in slow motion?

I always wanted a father I could look up to. Other boys had them. Apparently I did once. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be that man – the man my father was supposed to be. And as I stare at his motionless form, a shiver darts through me: could this be my life one day – stationary and gripped in fear? It’s this image that makes me say the words, ‘Sera was murdered by
Marduke, and now he plans to kill Isabel. Only you can stop him.’

His shoulders jerk. He slowly turns, looking like a corpse dead three days, his face drained completely of colour. ‘What did you say?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I know all about you, Dad, and your otherworldly life. The fact is, you have to finish your mission, then confront Marduke, and get this whole extraneous war with him over with before innocent lives are lost.’