Lili St Crow - Reckoning

I never asked for this . It was too late, though. This was what I had.

Everything inside me shifted sideways another little bit and settled unexpectedly. I wasn’t used to the whirling sensation fetching up against something, but it did. It held fast, like catching your jeans on a stubborn nail.

I killed Sergej . Yeah, Christophe helped . . . but I was the one that did it.

But it wasn’t just that. I’d bled to buy Dibs and Christophe some more time. I’d done the right thing. It was what Dad might’ve called “findin’ out where ya iron’s at” and Gran would have just nodded with the particular line to her mouth that meant she was pleased.

I had done that. The nail I fetched up against was knowing, without a doubt, that I’d done them proud.

The Council room was silent and breathless, no windows, just the door to the antechamber with its couches and fireplace. I always thought djamphir would want some light and air, until I figured out that it was too easy to take a shot or send a sucker through some plate glass.

My fingers fumbled with the laces. I could almost feel Hiro staring at me. My hair fell down, curtaining my face. I couldn’t hide forever, though, and when I had my shoes tied I looked up. “Sergej.” The name didn’t burn now. It was just a word. “He thought that, too. That I was maybe one of them, I think.”

They exchanged a Significant Look. Bruce’s shoulders hunched a little. “Hiro and I will be there.” He sounded, of all things, defensive. “There is nothing to fear. You won’t see Augustine, but he will be there too. There will be others, in Shadow. You’re safe now.”

“Until there is another to take Sergej’s place,” Hiro murmured.

I froze, staring at him. Well, it had to be too good to be true, didn’t it? That was the way adulthood rolled. I was beginning to get the idea.

“Yes,” he continued, pitiless. “There are always more, Milady. We have barely managed to hold them back. Now, with the nosferat confused and the Maharaj perhaps willing to come to an accord . . . we could do much more. You are young, and it is not right to ask, but we are asking.” He put his hands together, as if he was about to make one of those funny little bows of his. “We would even beg you, svetocha . Help us.”

My head dropped forward. I stared at my hands. My fingernails were bitten down, just like my mother’s. I smelled cinnamon, a thread of warm perfume drifting up from my skin, and I wondered if they smelled it too. The touch brushed inside my head, soft feathers. “Where’s the rest of the Council? Alton and Ezra?”

Bruce let out a short, pained breath. “Alton was in Houston. Ezra was coordinating in Atlanta. Neither of them have reported in.”

“That’s not good.” My fingers tightened. My hands turned into fists, knotting up in my lap, an ache sliding up my bones and settling in my shoulders.

“There’s still hope. Dru—” Bruce, pleading, and all of a sudden I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I’ll do it. I’ll talk to them.” I didn’t recognize my own voice, that new, flat, grown-up tone. “If it’s that important, I’ll do it.”

There really wasn’t any choice. If— when Graves came back, I was going to have something to show for all this. And all of them—the dead who had struck through me to end Sergej—pretty much demanded that I step up, and keep stepping up, for as long as I could.

For as long as I had to.

So what if my heart was cracking? I looked up, scrubbing at my cheeks again, and blinked. Took a deep breath, then put my palms flat on the table and pushed myself upright. Rolled my shoulders back and settled them, and I didn’t have to even look at Bruce to see the relief written on his face. Hiro dipped forward—one of those little bows of his, and it was a wonder how he could look so damn respectful while he was doing it. Respectful, but completely aware of his own kickassery at the same time.

I couldn’t help myself. Every time he did that, I bowed back. When in Rome, right? And he smiled each time, too, a patient grave smile. I suddenly realized why it was familiar—because Gran had smiled that way sometimes too, when I’d done something that must have reminded her of Dad.

And there was another new thing: it didn’t hurt to think of them. Well, at least not as much. The ache was still there, but it just . . . it was different. Less sharp. I’d done what I set out to do, right?

Some part of me must’ve thought that would fix everything. Things just don’t get fixed, though. Things get broken, and sometimes they stay that way.

You just have to glue them together and hope it holds.

“Fine,” I said again. “All right. Let’s get it over with.”

After all that,the Maharaj were pretty much anticlimactic. It was in the huge, glass-roofed room I’d been in once before, when Christophe was on Trial and Anna had emptied an assault rifle at me. This time I sat in the high-backed, red-hung chair on the dais, and the shadows around the edges of the room were full of the staticky sense of something watching that told me there were not just one or two djamphir doing the little “don’t look here” trick they’re so fond of.

The sleek seal-headed Maharaj boy who had poisoned me actually got down on his knees; the other two—dark-eyed, proud-nosed, both with the same gold earring and the same scent of spice and dry burning sand—swept me bows that were right off an old pirate movie.

Leander—and yes, I remembered his name; he’d poisoned me, you don’t forget that—begged my forgiveness in between a long string of foreign words. He even called me “Rajkumari Faulk,” and I twitched like I’d been stuck with a pin.

Because “Faulk” was Gran’s maiden name.

Bruce had warned me, so I let Leander get all the way to the end before accepting with a nod that was supposed to be queenly but was probably just scared stiff instead. At that point Hiro moved forward, and they eyed him the way cobras might eye a mongoose. There was some diplomatic blather, a schedule set up for further talks, and the “provisional agreement” was that the djinni- children and the Order were allies against the nosferat and other things.

I just had to sit there, gripping the chair arms, braced for anything that might occur. Anything other than what actually happened.

The Maharaj bowed twice more at me, backed away about ten feet, and bowed again. Then a djamphir teacher I recognized materialized out of thin air with the familiar sound of nasty chattering laughter and escorted them out of the room.

I managed to cover up the violent start that gave me. But only just.

And then it was done. Piece of cake.

I was at Christophe’s bedside when he woke up that evening, as dusk filled the windows and the Schola began to wake up as well. Benjamin, his dark hair still emo-swooped across his forehead, was right outside the door, standing guard. It was like I’d never left.

Except everything was different.

“Relax,” I said as soon as Christophe’s eyes opened, pale cold starving blue. “Everything’s copacetic. The Council debriefed me and there’s another diplomatic thingie scheduled for tomorrow.”

He blinked, staring up at me. It was a private infirmary room, windowless and bare except for the bed. Wulfen and djamphir both heal pretty quickly. If you’re hurt enough to need the infirmary, it’s really bad. But also, Christophe didn’t have a room of his own. He moved around a lot, kept things hidden.

I could see why.

His eyes were very blue. He blinked, once, and it was like a light switch flicking. I could see the thoughts sliding together inside his skull. “The Maharaj.”