Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) (49 page)
Read Thorns of Decision (Dusk Gate Chronicles) Online
Authors: Breeana Puttroff
“Yes, he’ll be back soon.” Stephen glanced across the room at Mia, who had come in and begun folding some of Quinn’s clothes. She hadn’t been planning on taking anything with her on the trip – and now her shoulder hurt too much for her to even think about carrying a backpack, but she’d let Mia work anyway, suspecting that her real motive was to have little bit more time in these last hours with Thomas.
“Mia, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Charlotte was asking for you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Mia said, bobbing her head toward the rest of them in apology, and ducking out of the room behind Stephen and Nathaniel.
“I wonder what’s going on
now?
” Thomas said, setting down one of Quinn’s shirts he’d been folding for Mia, and looking at the closed door.
Quinn sighed. The pain, the lack of sleep the night before and the nervousness she’d been battling for hours now had started to get the better of her. She felt completely drained. “Probably something else cataclysmic. Maybe Tolliver’s just arrived.”
Thomas chuckled. “Probably. It’s starting to get that bad around here, isn’t it?” Though he was joking, she could see that he was anxious, too.
She looked down at William. “How are you doing?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You made this look easier than it is.
Ow.
”
She coughed. “Right. I’m sure people would line up around the block to do this after watching
me
.” William wasn’t going to have any clean handkerchiefs to take back to Bristlecone with him after that. She’d ripped one of them completely in half when Nathaniel had first stated the injections that would raise part of her tattoo. Somewhere in the middle of it, she’d nearly thrown up.
Ben had lied. “Quite painful” didn’t cover it. Excruciating might have been closer. She wasn’t going to tell William right now, but it wasn’t hurting any less as time went on, either.
And yet, she’d done it. Though it was hurting now, the biggest thing she was feeling was pride – pride that she had done something that she was so afraid of, pride that she’d made a decision and gone through with it.
For William’s sake, though, she almost wished that he hadn’t been there to watch. Most of his color had vanished after seeing that, and it hadn’t come back yet. She suspected it wasn’t going to until after his was done.
Understanding the true implications of the tattoos had made her think – she had spent a good part of last night really weighing whether she should do it or not, put a permanent mark on herself, put her trust in something she didn’t fully understand.
But after she’d gone to bed, for the first time since she’d received the pendants, she’d dreamed. As often was the case, she couldn’t remember fully what it was about when she’d awakened, but she remembered seeing herself with the tattoo. Another image had been flickering through her mind as well. One so familiar that she couldn’t be certain it had actually been in last night’s dream, or if it was just a memory. The image that had appeared in her dreams hundreds of times before, all the way to the earliest dreams she could remember.
It was a vision of a perfect white rose, more perfect, more beautiful than any flower she’d ever seen when she was awake. And far more dangerous, too. The whole stem of the rose was covered in thorns. So sharp that their edges glimmered in the sunlight, the thorns spiraled up the stem from the very spot it emerged from the rich, black soil to the base of the luminescent bud.
And now she understood. This trip home, for her, was supposed to be time to distance herself from all of this, to take stock and look at her life at home, and really make a decision, but after that dream …
The rose had been in her mind all morning, so vivid that when she closed her eyes, she could actually catch a faint whiff of its perfume.
When Nathaniel had grilled her again this morning, several times, about how serious the decision was, how she didn’t have to make it now, it hadn’t been difficult to tell him that she knew. She’d close her eyes, and the rose would flicker there, and the certainty would come.
William, for his part, hadn’t wavered. He already knew what he believed, whom he trusted, which side he wanted to stand with in this battle. Although she’d checked herself several times, making sure that her choice had nothing to do with his, his absolute steadfastness had made it easier for her, steadied her.
She wasn’t ready to say anything – wasn’t ready to admit the truth even to herself … but part of her already knew. Her decision to join the Friends of Philip had been a decision of far more than that.
“I meant the tattoo part, Quinn. You were awesome; for a few minutes there I thought that maybe people who get them for fun weren’t completely crazy. This hurts. I’m really about to change my mind on the other part.”
“You can’t,” Thomas said. “You’re too far into it now. You’d be trusted far less with an unfinished symbol than just not having one in the first place.”
“I know. I keep telling myself that. This is just a bad time to take a break.”
Quinn rubbed the back of his hand sympathetically. She leaned down to kiss his cheek, stopping to whisper in his ear, “It does give me a chance to enjoy the view unobstructed, though.”
He rolled his eyes, but squeezed her hand. William was taller and lankier than Thomas. It was easy to forget how much physical labor he did, and overlook how muscular he actually was. His lying across her with no shirt was her one consolation for the pain she was in.
“I’m still going to do it, even after watching you two today,” Linnea said. “If I ever do have to see Tolliver again, I want him to know exactly how I feel.”
Thomas nodded. “Me too. You can come see
me
without a shirt then, Quinn.”
She blushed – both Thomas and Linnea could be relied upon to hear
everything
she didn’t want them to hear.
“And what would Mia think of that?” she struck back.
He shrugged. “She spent so much time with me when I was sick in bed that she’s probably bored of the sight by now.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. Thomas was an impossible, shameless flirt, but she had to love him for it anyway.
The door opened then, and Nathaniel and Stephen came back into the room, both of them looking anxious. Nathaniel sat right back down on his chair next to the couch and picked up the tattoo needles.
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked.
Stephen took a seat across from them. He was silent for a moment, watching as Nathaniel started back up with the tattoo. Quinn saw his hand drift absently toward his chest, to where his purple shirt covered his own fresh mark. “We have a problem,” he finally said.
“Clearly,” Quinn said. “What’s going on now?”
The way everyone’s attention snapped toward her at her remark told her that her tone had betrayed just how badly today’s events had stretched her nerves.
Almost everyone, anyway. Stephen and Nathaniel didn’t seem to notice, which scared her even more.
Stephen sighed. “A little while ago, Simon and Marcus rode down to the gate, just a routine surveillance run, as we usually do. They’ve just returned.”
William’s shoulders tensed underneath her, and she suddenly felt like she’d swallowed a rock. “And?”
“There is a large group of Philothean refugees camped out in the entire area. The gate is surrounded.”
Quinn frowned. “More Friends of Philip?”
“No,” Nathaniel said, shaking his head. “Marcus isn’t sure who this group of people is, or how – or why – they made their way here, but they seem to be ordinary citizens.”
“And I don’t suppose we can just go strolling through there and disappear through a gate that doesn’t exist,” Thomas said, standing and beginning to pace.
“Can you ask them to move?” Quinn asked.
“We could, possibly, but it would take time … and – and we’re not sure how easy it would be to do so without raising some suspicions.”
Ice water replaced the blood in her veins. “Why do you think they’d be suspicious?”
Stephen closed his eyes; dark gray streaks had appeared under his cheekbones and on the sides of his neck. “Because we’ve also just found out that Gavin may have known more than he should about William’s – and your – comings and goings, Quinn. It’s possible that Tolliver knows something about the gate.”
“And it’s terribly coincidental that people would show up in that same area right now,” Nathaniel added, not looking up from his work.
Quinn’s eyes widened and her heart sped to a manic pace. “So what does that mean?”
“It means we’re not going to Bristlecone,” Linnea said.
The quiet whirring of the tattoo machine ceased. “No, we’re not. Not now and maybe not anytime soon.”
The Story Concludes in Blooms of Consequence, Available Now.
Book Four: Blooms of Consequence
The first four books tell a complete story, but further adventures with Quinn Robbins, and William, Thomas, and Linnea Rose continue, beginning with:
COMING SOON:
Book Six in The Dusk Gate Chronicles (currently untitled)
Look for it in April, 2013
And an all-new story:
Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter
Late Spring, 2013
Dear Readers,
Thank you so much for your time in checking out The Dusk Gate Chronicles
If you would like to find out more, or chat with me and other readers of The Dusk Gate Chronicles, you can do so in a number of ways.
My website is at
www.breeanaputtroff.net
I am often on Facebook, and respond to messages and posts at
www.facebook.com/duskgate
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You can follow me on Twitter. I’m @bputtroff – usually chatting about my writing progress, and other silly stuff.
I also have a newsletter, where I send out stories, news, and sometimes exclusive content. My newsletter subscribers even got to read deleted scenes from the first draft of Blooms of Consequence – in the very earliest draft, William, Quinn, Thomas and Linnea
did
get to go for a visit to Bristlecone. I never, ever, use my newsletter list for spam, but I do occasionally send out prizes, especially Dusk Gate swag, to readers just for being part of the list.
If you’d like to subscribe to the newsletter, you can do so at this link:
Again, thank you so very much for sharing your time with me, Quinn, William, and the rest.
Reviews of any kind are always appreciated, and help other readers know whether they might enjoy the books. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Breeana Puttroff