Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(121)

“Besides,” Jessie added wildly, “Vasily followed Natalya around months ago. You think we wouldn’t find this place? You think we’re that stupid? Huh?”

Behind me, Belle stirred, her hand twitching against the floor.

“Calm down.” It was Rhys who spoke, saying words he’d probably said thousands of times before. He didn’t need to be able to see her face to feel her sudden frenzy. For a moment, it seemed as if Jessie had listened, her hand relaxing due to habit alone before she steeled herself and pressed her gun harder against Rhys’s skull.

“He’s right, Jessie. There’s no need to worry. This time, Maia will come with us.”

“Come with you where?” Chae Rin said. The other four were starting to come out of their dizzy spell, but I knew they couldn’t fight because I couldn’t fight. Whatever surge of power we’d felt in that mysterious room had once again disappeared under the influence of the inoculation dart Vasily and Jessie had hit us with. Our strength and our magic were gone for now.

“To Saul. The preparations are almost done. But we need you, Maia. You’re the last piece of the puzzle. There’s something you know that nobody else does. Even if you don’t know you know it yet.”

Marian’s frantic plea to Alice played back in my memories, her soft cries just an echo deep in my consciousness: “For only in calm can you hear them speak.” Miss Alice, we can go to those lands. We can ask them for one last wish! I can take you! Let us go together! If we do, we can finally end this!

“And what exactly is he preparing for?” Shakily, I got to my feet. “Is it Project X19?”

Vasily hid his shock much better than Jessie, who gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on Rhys’s neck in retaliation.

“For you to ask that question means you know a little, but not enough,” Vasily answered.

“I know the Sect is fractured. So is the Council. I know whichever part Baldric was terrified of is the part working with Saul—and working with you two.”

The flash drive we’d given Uncle Nathan—the one we’d taken from Philip—pointed to the Sect. The nanotech Mellie had injected into my neck was a similar model to the one in Jessie’s own. Baldric was right in thinking there was a connection between Saul’s soldiers and the Sect.

But why would Saul work with them? During our battle in France, Nick had told me that both he and Alice wanted the same thing: the rest of the stone so he could grant some wish. Marian knew where to find it. But that couldn’t have been all. What else did he have in store?

“How did they recruit you, Vasily?” I stared him down. “You don’t have any powers, so you weren’t in the Silent Children Program. Neither was Rhys.”

“The job was offered to me one day by a close associate,” Vasily said simply. “I didn’t think twice.”

“Because you wanted to help Saul?”

“This is much bigger than Saul. It’s not about the Sect, either. It’s about the whole world, Maia. It’s about changing the world.” Vasily slipped both of his hands into his pockets. “We’re making a world where poor girls like you don’t have to fight anymore. You can throw away your ‘duty’ and live your lives. Don’t you want that?”

Vasily was sincere, as sincere as when he’d stared pale-faced at the image of his mother, broken by the same cruel system that had abused him.

“The only way you can do that,” Rhys said, struggling against the pressure of Jessie’s arm, “is if you destroy the Sect.”

“The Sect should be destroyed, Aidan,” Vasily said, his voice rising dangerously, his face alight with quiet anger. “After everything they did to you. To me. To . . .” He swallowed his next words, but I already knew what he wanted to say. His mother. “We’re nothing to them, agents and Effigies alike. We have to build something greater. This is the only way to do it.”

Silently, he walked through the rows of suited armor, his gaze as sharp as the towering crystallized phantoms watching over us with their slitted eyes.

My feet felt weighted as I stepped out to the middle of the hall, directly in front of him, my back facing Patricia’s portrait. I had no magic, not enough training to go up against a monster like Vasily. But I wasn’t going with him without a fight.

Neither was Belle. I hadn’t seen her pick up the spear that had fallen next to me, but she had it firmly gripped in her hand as she stepped out from behind the suits of armor.

“Vasily.” She let the tip of the spear drag against the marble floor with a loud scratch as she walked. “Tell me again. That you followed Natalya.”

Rhys’s eyes met mine, secrets whispering silently between us. Belle still had the special volume in her hand, but not for long. She threw it to the side and it skidded across the floor until it came to a stop against the suit of armor. Belle was readying herself for battle.

Vasily laughed. “Who? Sorry, did somebody mention her?”

“Tell me.” She pivoted on her feet, facing the trio.

“Belle!” Lake got up, though she stayed where she was, her eyes nervously darting between both poles of the room. “Calm down!”

“Did nobody tell you?” He gave Rhys a sidelong look, delighting in the way Rhys’s jaw set. “She’s nobody. You should know that by now. Important to no one. I can’t even remember what I did or didn’t do to her.”