Waging War (17 page)

It was one of those announcements that would
be greeted either by pin-drop silence or utter chaos. In this case,
it was both. The complete absence of sound happened when all the
breath was sucked out of the room, and lasted just until the first
“no” left someone’s brain through their mouth. It might have been
mine. It wasn’t even what I really wanted to say, but since I’d
eliminated the more colorful expletives from my vocabulary, it was
all I could grab onto in the mass of denials spinning through my
head.

Ava was still focused on me, and I realized
that both Adam and Connor were pale and tense-looking next to
her.

“What did you See?” I managed to squeak
out.

“I Saw it too,” said Adam.

That didn’t make me feel better. Because one
Arman vision wasn’t bad enough? In fact, that they were still at
Elian Manor was entirely upsetting, because whatever the Arman
twins had Seen was important enough to defy their mother’s time
limit on their visit. And no one defied Camille Arman.

Ava’s voice was low and urgent, and everyone
else halted their various denials to listen to her. “You’re leaving
from Bletchley Park tonight. You—” she swiveled her eyes to include
Ringo in her gaze. “—and you.”

“Wait—” Archer started to speak, but Ava
held up her hand to stop him.

“You can’t go. We need you here to rescue
the Mongers’ captives.”

“Why do I need to leave tonight from
Bletchley?” This time I was the one who cut Archer’s protest off
before it could begin. He looked frustrated.

“Because it’s where you’re going, and you
have to direct your Clocking to a very specific time, so you can’t
mess around with location.”

“Saira’s not going without me.” Archer’s
tone was low and fierce.

Ava gazed directly at him, as if she needed
to tattoo her words on his brain. “She won’t be without you,
Archer. You’re already there.”

Another stunned silence blanketed the room,
and a wave of relief washed over me. Archer couldn’t go with me
because he was already there,
not because he was dead
. But
right on the heels of relief was a whirlpool of trepidation about
too many things to contemplate. Ringo was the one who finally broke
the silence when he moved toward the door. “I’m off to find Sanda.
We’ll be needin’ the right kit.” His voice was entirely
conversational, and it sounded odd in a room full of shocked
expressions. He turned to me before he left. “Are ye going as a man
or a woman this time, Saira?”

My eyes were locked on Archer’s horrified
ones, and somehow I was able to get the words out. “As myself.”

Ringo sighed. “So, a pain in my arse, then.
Right. Any idea the exact season and year, Ava?”

Ava’s eyes hadn’t left mine. “Season, no.
You have to figure that out. But the year is 1944.”

Whatever color was left in Archer’s face
fled, and he finally tore his eyes away from mine to turn to Ava.
“How do you know that?”

“It’s in the notebook your professor friend
brings. And it’s because of Tom.”

Ringo slipped out of the library muttering
to himself about clothes and weapons, and my eyes followed him just
so I didn’t have to deal with whatever was going through Archer’s
head.

“I’m going with you.” Mr. Shaw’s sudden
statement to me made me jump.

Ava shot him a stern look that reminded me
of something from her mother’s arsenal. “No, Mr. Shaw, you need to
be here. You’re the one person standing between Logan and Connor
and the Mongers who know they can be used against Saira.”

My eyes found Connor’s across the room. He
looked as sick as I felt, but he gave me a feeble smile anyway.

My mom spoke in that tone of voice she used
when she was being all badass Clocker Head. “Ava, have you
discussed these visions with your mother or Jane Simpson?”

“Ms. Simpson knows. She’s had every vision
I’ve ever had since I first went to St. Brigid’s.”

That was startling news, and I could see it
register on everyone’s faces.

“And your mother?” My mom wasn’t letting up,
even though the revelation of a Seer secret had rocked her a
little.

“She’ll hear it better from Ms. Simpson than
from her daughter.” The calm confidence with which Ava spoke made
my mom’s eyes widen.

“You’ve been tag-teaming her for years,
haven’t you?”

Adam spoke quietly. “We prefer to call it
information flow management.”

I could see respect for both Adam and Ava
bloom in my mom’s eyes. She’d always liked them, but I thought she
finally saw them as competent, politically inclined
Descendants.

Archer held his hand out to me. “I need to
talk to you,” he said quietly.

We slipped out of the library as Mom and Mr.
Shaw continued their conversation about Family business. I gave
Connor’s hand a squeeze as I went past him, and the look in his
eyes was equal parts worried and grateful.

Archer pulled me into a sitting room lit
only by wall sconces that cast interesting shadows from the
decorative plasterwork on the walls. He sat me down on a gilt chair
and brought another one closer so he could take my hands. His
expression was serious.

“We were working with the SOE in 1944, and I
spent a lot of time in France with one of their agents who was
running the French resistance fighters at the time.”

I met the worry in his eyes with confusion.
“What’s the SOE, and why are you so serious?”

“The Special Operations Executive was formed
by the British government to run espionage, sabotage, and
reconnaissance in occupied Europe. Some of them trained in
codebreaking at Bletchley Park, and I got to know Nancy when she
was there.” Archer’s expression was wary, and it sent red flags
waving in front of my eyes.

“Who is Nancy?”

“She was the agent I worked with in
France.”

“Why are you telling me this, Archer?”

“Things were different during the war. I
just didn’t want you to be surprised when you see me then.”

I tried to say the words I was thinking, but
they wouldn’t go past my rapidly constricting throat. Why tell me
about Nancy? What was she to you? Those words got hung up in my
brain where I could see them floating in the air like unexploded
bombs.

Ringo knocked at the open door, and I was
suddenly very glad for the interruption. His eyes met mine. “We’re
ready,” he said quietly.

I let go of Archer’s hands and stood up.
“Okay, let me just run up to my room. I’ll be right back.” My voice
was working again – kind of. Ringo looked at Archer oddly, as if to
ask what he’d done to me, but I rushed out of the room and was down
the hall before I could hear them say anything.

My room was quiet and peaceful, but the
silence was doing nothing to calm my pounding heart.

What had Archer said before, when we sat on
the roof and talked about marriage and sleeping together? That no
matter what else had happened in his life, he had only ever loved
me. Did that mean something else
had
happened. Something
with Nancy, maybe?

I shuddered and turned my brain to the
business of packing for war. What does someone bring to a war?
Weapons, of course. I slipped the daggers Archer had given me out
of their case and strapped them to my ankles. My new oxblood boots
probably weren’t WWII regulation, but too bad - they were awesome
and I wasn’t leaving them behind. The Shifter bone, because being a
Cougar could be useful if I needed stealth … or teeth. A tin of
green medicine and a mini Maglite, because I didn’t travel anywhere
without either one. And clean underwear. Leopard print thongs with
tiny pink bows, because they were the most unlikely undergarments
for war ever invented.

And because Archer knew someone named
Nancy.

I was making stuff up – I knew I was making
stuff up. Archer hadn’t said anything about Nancy other than she
was an SOE agent and he worked with her in France. But the fact
that he pulled me out of the library to sit me down and tell me
about her freaked me out. Why did I need to know that? What was he
preparing me for?

I shoved my meager supplies into a leather
satchel I’d swiped from Archer a few months before, grabbed a black
Sharpie from my art supply drawer, and closed my bedroom door
behind me.

Sanda met me in the hall. She was carrying a
silver tray with a note on it, like something out of
Downton
Abbey
, and her expression was unreadable as she held it out to
me.

“What’s this?” I picked the letter up off
the tray.

“There’s a young woman in the front parlor.
She says she’d like to see you alone.”

That got my attention. I slit open the
envelope and pulled out a handwritten card on thick Italian paper.
It read
I need to talk to you. ~Raven

The shock must have been obvious in my eyes
when I looked at Sanda. “Seriously?”

Sanda’s words were casual. “Do you know,
Miss Millicent used to receive male callers in the front parlor
when she was young. Her parents could sit in the back parlor and
feel very confident that she was being chaperoned.”

In other words, someone in the back parlor
can hear every word that’s said in the front one.

I said solemnly, “I think I left a book in
the back parlor that I might need. Could you ask Archer if he would
get it for me?”

She spoke with an equally serious tone. “Of
course, Miss.”

She led the way downstairs, but I beat her
to the bottom on the bannister. I didn’t get even a glimmer of
disapproval. Just a clucking sound and, “Well, if I knew you were
going to do that I could have saved myself the trouble of cleaning
it.”

I forgot to wipe the smile off my face when
I entered the front parlor, a room I rarely used because it was
full of spindly-legged furniture and lots of porcelain. It was one
of the few rooms in this enormous house that made me feel too
big.

Raven, with her perfectly petite frame, and
her perfectly made-up face, perfectly suited the gilt and silk
Louis XVI chair she rose from when I came in. The smile died on my
lips when the Monger-gut hit – always the pleasant side-effect of
being in the same room with Raven’s Family.

“How do you know Cole?” Raven’s tone was
somewhere between an accusation and a demand, and it was exactly
what I needed to give me back my confidence in the face of her
perfection.

“Hello, Raven. So nice of you to drop by.” I
didn’t get close to her. The thought of another tracker being
implanted on me made me shudder.

She ignored the pleasant smile on my face,
which was forced anyway, and asked again. “Cole said you were a
friend of Melanie’s, but I want to know what he’s not saying.”

Fascinating. What was Cole’s game? I watched
her in silence while I decided how to answer, and my eyes dropped
to her feet when she finally shifted uncomfortably. “Nice boots.” I
actually meant it. They were boots I would wear if I had to dress
fancy and still look like I could kick butt.

“Thanks.” She said automatically. My eyes
shot back up to her face. That’s what she had done. She wore her
boots like armor because she was scared. It made me decide to tell
her the truth and let her deal with it however she was going
to.

“Cole and Melanie are friends with one of
the kids your uncle kidnapped a couple of weeks ago.” I could see
the protest rise and stopped it before it could leave her mouth.
“Right after I left them, your uncle tried to take me.”

“You’re lying.” She really believed
that.

“No, I’m not. Seth Walters has kidnapped
over forty people. I thought Cole might have informed him where I
was the day he grabbed me, but he also helped my friends find me,
so now I don’t know what to think, especially since he seems to be
friends with you.”

Raven shook her head. “Cole doesn’t know
Uncle Seth.”

“That’s probably a good thing, considering
he and Melanie barely avoided the same fate as their friend.”

The sneer was back in her voice. “You’re not
making any sense. On one hand you wondered if Cole was working with
Uncle Seth, and on the other, you say he was supposed to be
kidnapped by him? Pick one, although they both sound
ridiculous.”

“Okay, I’ll pick the second one, but only
because Cole’s probably a mixed-blood, which puts him on your
uncle’s hit list.”

She scoffed angrily. “Cole’s not—” her voice
trailed off uncertainly.

Oh … poop. She hadn’t suspected, and I might
have just outed Cole and Melanie to a Monger. I didn’t like the
guilt that prickled at my stomach and I tried to backpedal. “I
don’t actually know for sure. It’s just that everyone else he’s
kidnapped is …” I trailed off lamely.

Raven’s eyes finally met mine again, and
this time, hers were inexplicably filled with fear. “Who else
knows?”

I stared at her. “About Cole? I have no idea
who knows. And it’s really only a guess.”

“No one can.” She whispered. She was
genuinely terrified.

I didn’t like the fear in her eyes. “Raven,
what have you heard about Seth’s plans?”

She shook her head and picked up her purse
to leave. Then she turned to face me, pushing the fear away and
pulling on a cloak of arrogance. “Stay away from my uncle.”

“I didn’t ask him to kidnap me.” I didn’t
like the defensiveness in my tone.

“He hates you, Saira. He blames you for …
everything.”

She swept past me and out the door of the
room. I ran to the door and called after her. “Why aren’t you going
back to school?”

She turned angrily. “So we can’t be held as
leverage.”

A moment later she was gone, and finally the
Monger-gut left too. Guilt still pricked at my stomach for having
outed Cole to her, though, and not even Archer’s voice next to my
ear when he found me in the hall could erase it.

“Are you alright?” He murmured.

“Leverage?” I asked.