Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
I don’t know what to think. The first time I felt the pain in my head was in the lift in the North Tower in Middle England when we were trying to find Rom. It felt as if my head was in a
vice that was tightening slowly. I’ve felt something similar each time I’ve used the teleport but it has been getting worse. Opie has used it more than anyone but he’s fine and so
are the others who have been through it. It’s only me that seems affected by the pull.
I take the teleporter box out of my pocket, running my fingers along the back panel where it is still warm. I have thoughts of dunking it in the bucket, letting it fizzle and break so it cannot
hurt me again, but force myself to put it away.
Why is it only me affected?
Even now I can feel the itching at the back of my head, as if someone is rubbing the bottom of my neck, tickling and teasing.
The more I stare at myself, the worse I feel, so I crouch over one of the buckets and scrub at my skin until every speck of blood and mud has gone.
When I leave, I walk straight into Opie, who is standing outside the door.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, more aggressively than I meant.
‘Making sure you’re okay.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you? It can’t be normal to bleed like that.’
I push past him, heading back towards the medical room. ‘I’m fine.’
Another scream ricochets around the corridors. ‘The doctor said he wants the room clear. You’ll only be a hindrance in there.’ I turn, furious, but Opie takes my hands before I
can say anything rash. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Imrin needs time to recover. He’s safe now. There’s nothing you can do.’
He’s right but I don’t know what else to do with myself. Opie leads me towards our room where Jela, Pietra and Hart are waiting. I am barely through the door when the two girls throw
themselves at me, clutching me tightly. ‘We watched on the screens,’ Jela says with a mixture of excitement and amazement. ‘It switched itself off and we didn’t know if you
were going to be back.’
They release me but I feel shattered. If I didn’t want to see Imrin, I would go to bed.
‘Why didn’t you tell us your plan?’ Pietra asks.
I shrug. ‘I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of it.’
‘But there were so many people . . .’
I grin half-heartedly. ‘What can I say? I’m popular.’
‘The last thing we saw was you saying the King wouldn’t let you blow the bomb up. Everything went black after that. What happened?’
‘Basically, what I said. He let me go.’
‘Just like that?’
‘More or less.’
Everyone looks at me as if I am crazy. ‘There must have been more to it than that,’ Hart says.
I shake my head. ‘He’s selfish and arrogant. He only cares about himself. Given the choice of saving himself or killing me, he’d save himself every time. I told him that if he
did anything to me the bomb would go off and kill us all. He watched me walk away and didn’t do a thing.’
Jela answers for them all. ‘That’s . . . amazing.’
No one says anything for a while and I can feel my eyes wanting to close.
‘Where did Frank get the explosives?’ Pietra asks.
I smile wearily and shake my head. ‘There were no explosives. It was just some old piping we found.’
‘It looked real.’
‘It was meant to but everyone only panicked because I said the word “bomb”. If I’d said I was going to unleash a hoard of killer chickens, it wouldn’t have had the
same effect. I never would have taken explosives there, not with so many people around.’
Jela is staring at me, squinting, trying to figure out if I am okay. ‘What if they had just shot you? Or speared you?’
‘They wouldn’t have.’
‘How do you know?’
I turn away, not wanting to answer. ‘I just know.’
They all look at each other but I don’t give anyone a chance to reply, standing and saying that I’m going to visit Imrin.
I move quickly along the corridors until I reach the medical room. The doctor scowls as I enter but Imrin is awake. One of his eyes is still closed, mottled with black and purple marks, but his
other is twinkling. Someone has found him some new clothes, and aside from the bruises on his face and his damaged eye, he looks as I remember him.
‘Hi,’ I say, my heart jumping slightly. There was a time when I didn’t think I’d see him again.
‘Hi.’
‘How are you?’
‘I feel great.’
We stare at each other for a few moments and I know he’s thinking the same as I am. We’re remembering those early days in which we got to know each other. The promises we made, the
plans we had. None of them led us here.
It takes me a while to know what to say but then I give him the answer he needs. ‘When we were at the castle, I stole four syringes with the cure that Xyalis told us about. I used one on
Hart and you’ve had the second one.’
He nods, remembering. ‘Thank you. How is everyone?’
‘Faith didn’t make it.’
‘Oh.’
There is more silence. What else is there to say? We can’t look each other in the eye and the lump is in my throat again as I remember the grave we dug for her. ‘Xyalis is
dead,’ I manage. ‘They wiped out Martindale trying to get me.’
I try to stop myself but a cough escapes and then the tears come. The doctor leaves us alone as I tell Imrin how good it is to see him. I apologise over and over for leaving him behind but he
keeps assuring me it’s not my fault. In a matter of seconds, he is the strong one, holding me and telling me it is fine.
‘I can’t believe you came,’ he says.
‘What else was I going to do?’
‘You’ve got . . .’ He stops, tailing off before saying Opie’s name, but I know what he was thinking.
‘It’s not like that,’ I say. ‘I don’t know how things are.’
‘But you came to get me.’
‘Of course!’
‘You walked through tens of thousands of people, looked straight into the King’s eyes, told him to get stuffed, and then walked away untouched with me as well.’
I smile and stifle a laugh. ‘It sounds impressive when you put it like that.’
‘It
is
impressive.’
I shake my head and then pull a chair close to his bed, taking Imrin’s hand and resting my head on his chest. He winces slightly but tells me he’s fine, smoothing my hair. Xyalis
said the formula cured all known diseases. It won’t heal Imrin’s wounds instantly but, from what we saw with Hart, it does speed up the process significantly.
‘Make sure you don’t end up losing them both.’
‘You look tired,’ he says.
‘I’ve had a busy morning.’
He laughs, a wonderful eruption of joy that I’ve missed hearing. My head bobs up and down on his body until he wheezes and checks himself.
‘From where I was, it looked like you were just standing around chatting,’ he says jokingly.
I squeeze his hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re back.’
‘I’m glad I’m back too.’
Even though I am at an awkward angle, half in the chair, half across Imrin, my eyelids feel heavy.
‘Everyone is obsessed by you,’ he adds. ‘They asked me questions over and over. Who were you, where did you come from? They already knew the answers but they’d ask
anyway. They kept asking me what you were trying to achieve.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I didn’t know.’
‘Are your family safe?’ I ask.
‘I think so. If they’d been found, they would have used them against me. My sisters know how to hide.’
‘What else did they ask you?’
‘Where you were, what your plan was, why you hated the King. Over and over. I wouldn’t have told them anything even if I did know.’
‘Who hurt you?’
He sighs, his fingers brushing across my ear. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Who?’
‘The Minister Prime was the worst. He was there every day – he’s infatuated by you. He kept asking if I thought you’d come back for me. He was asking where your army
was.’
‘Army?’
‘I know. I just laughed at him.’
I let my eyes close, willing sleep to engulf me. I feel Imrin’s chest rising and falling steadily before he speaks softly. ‘What now?’
‘Now you rest.’
‘After that . . . ?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What happened to Faith?’
‘Xyalis killed her.’
He pauses, devastatingly. Heartbreakingly. I scrunch my eyes tightly, trying to clear Faith’s face from my mind. I can still feel her life slipping away from her body as I hold her.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it.
He touches my hair, brushing it away from my ears, understanding instinctively that I need to feel him, not hear him. It was only this morning I was holding Opie, kissing him. Now I’m here
holding Imrin’s hand and letting him caress me.
‘Make sure you don’t end up losing them both.’
I hate myself.
I feel my mind slipping, sleep pulling me in, when the door opens with a click. I assume it is the doctor but then I hear Knave’s voice. ‘Silver?’
I shake myself awake, keeping hold of Imrin’s hand. ‘Yes.’
‘Can I have a word?’
He sounds serious and insistent. I haven’t heard him like this since the first time we met, when he took my thinkwatch so he could copy the map from it.
I sigh involuntarily and pull my hand away, rubbing my eyes. ‘Okay.’
Before I leave, I lean over and kiss Imrin on the forehead, telling him to sleep. He promises he will but seems full of life, the same way Hart did. The agony then the elation.
Knave closes the medical room’s door behind us and moves quickly through the corridors without saying a word. I am so used to him trying to make small-talk, wanting to impress me, that
this feels strangely formal. I follow until we reach his office and stifle a yawn as I sit in a seat across the table from him. He fixes me with a stare I haven’t seen too often: he is
worried about something.
‘I need to ask you some serious questions,’ he says.
‘Okay.’
‘When you left Middle England, where did you go?’
It seems like such a long time ago that I have to think. ‘We went to Martindale and then we went to visit X. From there we went to Windsor and you know the rest.’
‘What happened with X?’
In an instant, I feel awake. The door clicks open and Vez appears. He nods towards Knave but says nothing and then closes the door, leaning against the exit and blocking it.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘I mean exactly that.’ Knave clenches his teeth and then continues. ‘What happened when you were with X? You said he gave you a device to help you get the Offerings out of the
castle and then you went to Martindale again.’
‘That
is
what happened.’
‘No one has heard from him since . . .’
The room feels colder than it did. I think this is the first time Knave has called X a ‘him’, so something has happened. I glance towards Vez, who is watching me carefully, one hand
on the knife in his belt.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say. I thought he was going to contact Rom.’
The two men exchange another glance and Knave opens a drawer under his desk, taking out a machete and placing it on the table between us. The blade is gleaming, tapered and dangerous. I know
it’s something Frank has cleaned up and sharpened for them.
‘You know X is very important to this movement,’ Knave says. ‘Rom is reluctant to do anything without running it past him.’
‘You don’t even know his name. How important can he be?’
Knave’s eyes narrow and he reaches across, pressing a button on the monitor on the corner of his desk. It sizzles to life and I recognise the scene instantly. It’s a laboratory and I
can see myself standing on one side with Xyalis on the other. Faith is on the floor and rises like a ghost, thrusting a knife into the cloak-clad man. The footage disappears from the screen with a
plip as Knave grips the handle of his knife tightly, fixing me with a look of such controlled aggression that I find it hard to believe it is him.
‘Now,’ he says. ‘Would you like to tell me why you and your friends killed our leader?’
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ I say.
Knave is unmoving. ‘It
looks
like your friend stabbed our leader to death.’
‘You can’t tell from the angle, but he was pointing a gun at me.’
‘I can’t see a gun.’
‘Where did you get the video from?’
He shakes his head. ‘Tell me you didn’t kill X so you could steal his technology.’
‘His name is Xyalis. He used to be Minister Prime.’
Knave’s gaze flickers towards Vez again. That’s something they didn’t know. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Knave snaps back.
‘The reason he wanted me to go to Windsor wasn’t anything to do with freeing the Offerings – that was my idea. He wanted me to steal part of a weapon for him.’
‘Which weapon?’
I take a deep breath but know I can’t hide it any longer, reaching into the pouch on my belt and pulling out the cylindrical metal container I have felt weighing me down. I hold it up so
they can see but don’t let it go. ‘Opie calls this a blood bomb. Xyalis made it from a sample of the King’s blood. If I press the button on the top when I am near the King it will
boil him from the inside. I’m not completely sure how it works.’
Vez replies instantly. ‘Why didn’t you use it when you were close to him in Oxford?’
‘Because Xyalis said it will kill everyone with the same blood type in a twenty-mile radius or so. He didn’t seem to care about the distance or the number of people. Xyalis would
happily have done that. He wasn’t interested in your rebellion – he wanted revenge on the person who took power away from him.’
Knave keeps his hand on the knife. ‘Is that why you killed him?’
‘I
didn’t
kill him. The only reason Faith did was because it was him or us. He was pointing a gun at me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there was no way I was going to let him keep the weapon, let alone use it.’
‘So you stole it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you destroy it?’
I return the tube to my pouch. It is the question for which I don’t have a good answer. ‘I don’t know. I was going to.’