The Book Eaters(105)
Victoria reached out and laid a hand on her brother’s arm. “Jarrow … be calm.”
“I am calm,” he groused. “She’s the one being ridiculous!”
“Is that it, then?” Devon’s cheeks stung from the wind, but her eyes were dry as a library shelf. “You’ll just go back to Family life? Live like a peon, shunted from manor to manor. Complicit in trafficking, forced marriage, crimes—”
“It’s better than dying!” he railed, terribly loud on that barren beach. “It’s better than watching you die on a quest you can’t win, for a monster you can’t save. I have Vic to look out for and you’re … you’re a lost cause. Do you hear me? I have a fucking limit!”
“I don’t,” Devon said. “The Family took my limits away. Or motherhood did, I’m not sure.”
“Your defining trait,” he retorted, and she’d never heard him sound so bitter, so calcified. “Being unwilling to abandon your kids is why you’re here, and it’s why you’ll die. Ramsey knows you won’t abandon them and he’s bloody using it against you.”
“On the contrary. I think I can win this.”
“Jarrow,” Victoria said again, louder. She sounded exasperated.
“Just a sec, Vic. Listen, Dev, for the love of fuck! This is not, and never will be, a game you can win!”
“So let’s exit the game,” Devon said. “Stop being a piece. Change the rules.”
Jarrow threw up his hands. “You just said that was impossible.”
“Unless,” she said, “we do what Ramsey wants, to a point. Find the Ravenscars, like he wants. Cai needs them anyway. Then we build your signal blocker, or your Faraday cage, whatever you called it, and take off into the night. With drugs for my son.”
“That’s the most ridiculous plan I’ve ever heard!” He glared at her, dusky skin flushed with fury. “There are a million sodding variables that need to fall into place and I refuse to be—”
“Jarrow,” Victoria said, almost shouting. “We must help her!” She let go of her shawl entirely to shake her brother’s arm, indifferent as the crocheted drape fluttered off her shoulders, tumbling across the beach.
“What?” he said, astonished. “Vic, you can’t be serious!”
“I am utterly serious,” she said, emphatic and deliberate. “We must help your friend, because no one ever helped me.”
Her words might as well have been a sucker punch. Jarrow seemed to deflate, looking suddenly much older than his years and very tired.
“I hear you.” Victoria swiveled up toward Devon, hair fraying loose in the persistent wind. “I hear you, Devon Fairweather, and I know you are right. Love has no cost for our children. Living or dead, here or gone.”
“No cost,” Devon agreed, and extended her hand.
After a moment, Victoria took it. Her grip had strength.
“Gods and demons help us.” Jarrow scooped up a razor-sharp shell, running his thumb along its shattered edge. “All right, Dev. I’m listening. How are we going to play this?”
“By taking one step at a time.” Devon flicked the compass open, turning slowly till the needle faced north, the sea at her back with all its endless strength. “Talk to me about signal blockers.”
31
NO MORE SECRETS
PRESENT DAY
Almost a year since that meeting on the beach, and Devon was again walking to a crossroads of water and earth in search of Jarrow.
She and Cai had slept well, despite the stress of the previous days, or perhaps because of it, and risen very late. She insisted on a shower for both of them, before going anywhere. The bath was well stocked with expensive, if very out-of-date, soaps and shampoos. She poured a few bottles into the water, sluicing days of embedded grime off her skin.
Bath done, emptied, and refilled for Cai, Devon went poking around the wardrobes. None of the jeans or trousers were cut to her size. Something to shop for, while in town. She made do with a tartan skirt—floor length on most women, but just below the knee on her. It looked ridiculous, something an American tourist might wear, and didn’t have any pockets. But it was clean, and that was enough for now.
Morning was tipping towards noon by the time she had set out with Cai, the pair of them ambling hand in hand through the gates of Traquair and down the single main road toward the town of Innerleithen.
Winter still clung to the land in strips and patches, thin fingers of frost grasping at the barren fields and speckling the leafless branches with ice. It was abnormally warm, the sun eroding yesterday’s sleet, yet the sky predicted more snow. Typical English weather.
As the River Tweed came into sight, Cai said, “What did you say to the Ravenscars about us coming out here unsupervised?”
“I told the truth. I’m going shopping in town.” Devon checked her wristwatch: a little past 11 A.M. “And we will go shopping, because we have some things to purchase for our escape tonight. We’ll also happen to drop by the island and pay a visit to Jarrow first.”
“What about Hester?”
“What about her? She knows where our room is,” Devon said uncomfortably. “She could have come by all morning and didn’t. I thought I’d leave her in peace and not be a nag.”