The Book Eaters(111)

“Dev?” Cai whispered. “What do we do?”

Except she couldn’t just walk off. The idea of leaving her friend behind if there were any chance of traveling together filled Devon with such terrible misery. You don’t have many friends, Cai had said, and it was true.

On the driveway outside, Killock wheeled away angrily from his sister and stormed off toward the chapel, fists visibly clenched. Hester, meanwhile, remained on the driveway, the cloud of her breath misting in that winter cold.

“I’m going to investigate,” Devon said, making her mind up. “Maybe she was planning to join us, and he interrupted her.”

“Is that wise?” Mani asked.

“I’d rather know what’s happening and be able to deal with it.” She turned and proffered the suitcase to Mani. “Take my son, take this Redemption, and exit through the brewery’s west-side entrance. Circle round the maze, head north. I’ll meet you at the observation tower on the north side of the estate. Won’t be even fifteen minutes, I’m sure.”

Mani caught her sleeve. “And what if you don’t arrive? How long should we wait?”

“She will be there,” Cai said.

Devon smiled. “It’s all right, love, he’s asked a fair question.” To Mani, she said, “If I’m not there in fifteen minutes, then get to the rendezvous car. Cai knows where it is.” Better if Mani didn’t know the car’s location, she thought; less chance of him panicking and leaving her son behind.

The ex-journalist nodded. “Understood, Ms. Fairweather.”

“Good luck.” Cai gave her a quick hug, and she could have kissed him for not arguing. “I’ll be safe, don’t worry.”

“Be careful,” Devon said. “All right, shoo, the pair of you.”





33

INTO THE LABYRINTH





PRESENT DAY


I call death onto those who don’t know a child when they see a child. Men who think they made the world out of clay and turned it into their safe place, men who think a woman wouldn’t flip the universe over and flatten them beneath it.

I have enough bullets for all of them.

—Maria Dahvana Headley, The Mere Wife

Empty-handed and alone, Devon stepped out of the brewery and shut the door behind her. Snow still littered the gravel driveway. Killock was long gone to his chapel; she chose not to think about what he might be doing there.

Hester remained on the empty driveway, snowflakes settling on the shoulders of her green blouse, flecking her hair. She stood solitary and silent, faced away from the brewery.

Devon allowed herself to walk loudly across the crunching gravel, giving polite warning of her presence. “Hey,” she called out, soft but clear.

“Dev!” Hester turned around. She was carrying the Chanel bag, held close to her chest. “I’m glad I caught you. I thought I might be too late.”

“Too late? What for?”

“Everything and anything.” Hester laughed; it turned into a sob. “You flipped my world inside out and there’s no time to think or—” She pulled a handkerchief out of her new purse and dabbed her eyes, blew her nose. “Can we talk? Just for a minute or two?”

Elsewhere, knights were gathering to bear down on Traquair while Salem slept in a manor far away. Cai ran with Amarinder Patel toward a small observation tower and Jarrow waited with his sister in a dark car by a bridge. But here and now, on this sleepy estate beneath a moonless winter sky, she and Hester were the only two people who existed.

“Yes,” Devon said, stifling the reflex to hand out another feeble apology. “I’m here, and listening.”

“I’m angry at you for all the wrong reasons, and none of the right ones,” Hester said, stuffing the handkerchief away. “I had this hope when we met—ridiculous, I know—that bringing a stranger to this house would change things. That you’d come in like a magic solution and sort my life out. I don’t even know what I thought would happen, only that something would.” She shook her head. “Instead, you made everything more complicated, and demanded that I make an impossible choice.”

“That’s what fairy tales do to us,” Devon said, rueful. “If we grow up thinking that we’re princesses and someone else will rescue us, then we spend our lives waiting for that rescue and never trying to escape ourselves.”

“Which is what the Families wanted, I suppose.” Hester crossed her arms. “I still feel betrayed by what you did.”

“So you should. It was a betrayal,” she said. “I wish I’d trusted you sooner.”

“I wish we both had.”

A garbled cry came briefly from the chapel; they both glanced uneasily in that direction, as if expecting Killock to pop up in the window like a jack-in-the-box. But the shutters were drawn, and her brother did not emerge.

“I don’t know how I feel about the future,” Hester said, twisting away from the chapel again. “But I’m coming with you and Cai, if that offer is still open. For now, at least. Killock won’t be pleased, but I can’t help that.”

“We’d love to have you,” Devon said, too quickly by half.

“We?” The raised eyebrow, inquisitive and indignant.