Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(91)

‘Every five minutes,’ the voice continued, still shouting. ‘He’s doing it every five minutes. Thrashing about and yelling. I’ll kill him if he does it again.’

‘Get your hands off my brother!’

Luke swung back and forth. He was held up by a fist bunched in the front of his shirt, like a doll in the grasp of a resentful child that wants a better toy.

‘Let him go, Gavar.’

A third speaker, level and calm. Who was that? Luke was released and fell heavily back onto the bed.

A hand touched his temple and lightly thumbed up one eyelid. A blurry, indistinct face loomed in his vision. Was it Abi?

‘Luke? Luke, can you hear me?’

‘Don’t touch him. What were you thinking of, bringing her here, Jenner?’

Luke’s other eyelid was pushed up gently, but Abi’s tone was savage.

‘He can’t even tell it’s me. What have your father and Crovan done to him?’

‘Jenner, you know Father’s orders. Get her out, or I will break your neck then bodily throw her out. Now.’

‘Luke, can you hear me?’

One of Abi’s hands gripped his firmly. The other tipped his face sideways.

‘Blink, Luke. Focus. You’ll be tried tomorrow. Lord Jardine has postponed the wedding. Instead, parliament will sit as a court. You’re accused of murdering Chancellor Zelston. I know you didn’t do it, Luke. But I don’t know how we’re going to prove that before tomorrow. Whatever happens, be strong. We’ll work something out.’

A trial. A court. Murder.

The words floated through Luke’s head. They seemed very far away. Why wouldn’t Abi let him sleep?

‘He can’t even follow what I’m saying,’ he heard Abi say, a sob catching the corner of her voice. ‘You can’t put someone on trial in the state he’s in. It’s a travesty.’

‘It’s a foregone conclusion,’ said Gavar Jardine. ‘There were five hundred people in the room when he did it. My mother was standing right next to him. You both need to go now. And Jenner – think carefully about what you’re doing. We won’t be able to keep her family here after this. She and her parents will be gone by the time he is.’

What was any of this to do with him, Luke thought? He was in a bed – a huge, sumptuous bed. Not a cell, or a kennel. So they’d worked out he hadn’t done it.

Someone had even tucked him in under a soft, crimson coverlet. And it was so warm.

Luke closed his eyes. And slept.

When he woke, everything was muted. The window was a light grey rectangle on a dark grey wall. A faint seam of light stitched the curtains together and fell across the floor. Luke’s head turned to follow it.

On the far side of the room the light traced the outline of an armchair. In which someone sat watching him.

‘Good morning, Luke,’ the watcher said, before pausing. ‘Though it’s not quite morning, and if I’m honest, I doubt it’s going to be good.’

Luke knew that voice. Was he going to get a visit from all of them – all the Jardines? Some to beat him up; some to sit by his bed. Maybe Lady Thalia would be up soon with his breakfast on a little silver tray with a tiny cup of tea.

‘I thought you might appreciate the rest while you can get it,’ said Silyen Jardine, lowering himself casually onto the edge of the mattress. ‘Who knows what kind of a house Crovan keeps up at Eilean Dòchais, but I doubt he torments the Condemned with eight hours of undisturbed sleep.’

‘Crovan?’

And it all came flooding back. The cruel Scottish Equal and Lord Jardine digging in his head. Abi’s voice in the night. Parliament. A trial.

As the confusion of his interrogation and the dark hours that followed it lifted, Luke saw with horrifying clarity what would happen next. He would be tried and Condemned for a crime he couldn’t remember.

‘I’m curious,’ said Silyen Jardine, ‘about who Silenced you. Because I’d wager that whoever it was could tell us a few things. For example, why you pureed the Chancellor in the middle of Mummy’s ballroom.’

‘I didn’t do it,’ Luke insisted, desperate to make at least one of the Equals understand.

‘Oh Luke, of course you did. But who hid your memory of doing it, and why? Who was the real target: Zelston, or my father? There are other questions, too, like did you agree to it, or did they compel you? But I’m afraid no one’s terribly interested in a detail like that.’

‘That’s not a detail,’ said Luke. ‘That’s the only thing that matters. I’ve no memory of . . . of what everyone’s saying I did. There’s just a gap there. A black hole where my memories should be. Someone used Skill on me. That proves I was made to do it.’

Silyen Jardine actually tutted. ‘It proves nothing of the sort. They could have asked you and you said “yes”. Then the Silence would be just a convenient way of concealing both your complicity and your co-conspirator’s role.’

‘Who in their right mind would agree to assassinate the Chancellor with the whole of parliament looking on?’

‘I can’t imagine. Maybe a hot-headed teenager, angry at the system that’s torn him from his family? A boy who’s been radicalized in a slavetown that’s been in upheaval for months? No, that doesn’t sound very plausible at all.’