chapter Ten
Eggs and Blood
Emily abandoned all signs of struggle. She steadied her breathing, face nothing but alert, when a woman on the other side of the door said, “Housekeeping.”
There was no way to know whether we were in danger, or I might have left it be. But this woman might have heard the struggle, the crashing dishes, might have been listening from the hall for some time.
I leaned forward, questioning Emily’s compliance with my eyebrows, but she didn’t move.
I slid from the bed, but hesitated as my shoes touched carpet. I didn’t quite trust her.
“Stay,” I said levelly, walking backward to the entry. She simply stared at me, looking past the finger pointing her down, and breathed.
The maid waited impatiently on the other side of the door. Mr. Smith’s room had been marked for early checkout, she explained. I told her there’d been a slight change of plans, but gave her my assurance she’d have the room within an hour or so. By the time the maid had moved on to clean a room down the hall, Emily had composed herself and sat on the edge of the bed, picking egg from her shirt and hair.
I leaned against the dresser across from her, and then folded my arms over my chest when I realized the dark splatters covering her were blood, where she’d nicked my forearms. The wounds had already begun to close, and I didn’t need to add that particular detail to our discourse. I gritted my teeth. Who sent a steak knife for scrambled eggs, anyway?
Emily looked up at me.
“I know you’re upset,” I said. “But there is more to all of this than your sister.” I didn’t know if she understood that, if her mother had explained the full extent of the prophecy, that the union would decide who ruled, whether or not the game-ending war would play through, but she didn’t react at all to my words. “I had no choice but to take her there. I’ll try to explain it to you, as much as I can, but I can’t let you go, not now.”
She didn’t argue, but I recognized a “why” in her expression.
“They are searching for you now, Emily. Morgan’s men will find you, they will do anything to get to you.”
The idea distracted me, and my hands fell to the dresser to curl over the edge I leaned against. Emily noticed the short stripes of dry blood and looked a little sick.
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, and then realized how ridiculous it was. I rubbed a palm surreptitiously over the worst patch to brush it loose and changed my apology into what it should have been for. “You should have never been involved. If Morgan were to find you, he could pull anything you’ve learned from your mind.” Her eyes came back to mine. “And I’ve already let you know more than is safe.”
“Morgan,” she asked, “he’s different… from the others?”
I nodded. “He’s stronger. There’s never been a commonblood immune to his gift.”
She swallowed. “And Brianna, she’s not immune?”
“We don’t know,” I said truthfully. “He’s not had the chance to try.”
Emily chewed her lip, contemplating this for a very long time before she finally spoke again. “I’ll go with you. I’ll go to save Brianna.”
She moved to stand, but I stopped her. “Not yet.”
“We have to go now,” she insisted.
“There are a few things I need to explain first.”
Her lips were moving in that measured, silent way again, the way they had as the policemen searched for us outside the warehouse. The way they had as she climbed the hotel. I knelt before her, finally able, to some degree, to read her lips and gather a few words. A prophecy.
I was suddenly standing again. She was reciting words in the ancient language, re-memorizing a prophecy. Not our prophecy, but her own. My heart sank in a why me kind of hopelessness as Emily realized my discovery. She looked at once guilty and defiant.
“Tell me,” I said flatly.
Her fingers curled into her palms. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I can’t remember. There were so many.” She glanced up at me again, stricken. “And I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t believe her, Aern.”
“Your mother?”
She nodded.
“Your mother was a prophet,” I repeated, to no one in particular.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
They were wrong about the prophecy. All this time, it wasn’t a daughter of great power, but the daughter of a great power. Did that mean Brianna truly wasn’t hiding a talent as the Division had suspected? Did it mean they were wrong about her protector as well?
“What did she say, Emily?”
Emily shook her head. “Something about the Division. The Taken will die at the hands of the Division.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, desperately seeking the words. “I can’t remember it all. But the Division is bad, Aern. She drilled that into my head over and over and over. We’ve got to get her out of there.”
“They won’t kill her,” I promised. “They have to keep her alive. They have to keep her from the Council.”
“But—”
“That’s why she’s there,” I said. “They need her.”
“No,” she said. “No, that’s not right. Why would they need Brianna?”
My jaw flexed involuntarily. “To get me.”
Emily’s mouth went slack with confusion and I sat heavily beside her. “That’s what I wanted to tell you about,” I said. “Why the Division is after me.”