‘When I return,’ he said, ‘we will be allies. Nothing more. It will be . . . as if the Guildhall never was.’
It should have been a weight off my shoulders. My life was already too dangerous. Instead, I felt hollow, as if he had taken something from me that I had never known was there. I went to him and buried my face in his neck.
We sat with our arms around each other, holding too tightly and not tightly enough. Once we left this place, there would be no more talks beside the fire. No more nights spent in his company, when I could forget the war and suffering that loomed on the horizon. No more dances in derelict halls. No more music.
‘Goodbye, little dreamer,’ he said.
I almost voiced my answer. Instead, I pressed my forehead against his, and deep in his eyes, a flame was kindled. As his thumb grazed my jaw, I committed the way his hands felt on my skin to a hidden vault in my memory. I wasn’t sure which of us brought our lips to the other’s first.
It lasted far too long for a farewell. A moment. A choice. A mirror of the first time we had touched this way, behind the red drapes in the nest of the enemy – when danger had been everywhere, but a song had still been rising in us both. A song I wasn’t sure that anything could silence.
Our lips parted. I breathed him in, one more time.
I stood up, turned my back, and walked away.
PART II
Engine of Empire
10
Manchester
3 December, 2059
The train glided across the snowbound English countryside. Not that we could see any of it – the four of us were hidden in a small baggage compartment – but Alsafi’s contact had given us a satellite tracker, a requirement for safe passage, allowing us to watch the progress of our journey.
We had met the contact outside Euston Arch station, and she had sneaked us on to a non-stop service after pressing the tracker into my hand. Another member of Alsafi’s network would take us to a safe location in Manchester.
I had decided, in the end, to take Eliza with us, too. She and Tom had long since fallen asleep, but Maria and I were alert.
‘So,’ Maria said, ‘the plan – such as it stands – is to locate this person Danica thinks can help us—’
‘Jonathan Cassidy,’ I said.
‘—locate the factory where the portable scanners are being made, and infiltrate Senshield’s manufacturing process. Find out how they build the scanners. That’s it? That’s the famous plan?’
‘Well, it’s a start. If you want to dismantle something, you should know how it’s put together. There must be a point at which an ordinary piece of machinery is converted to an active Senshield scanner.’ I sighed. ‘Look, we don’t have any other leads. And you never know: we might unearth some information about Senshield’s core, and how it’s powered – and where it is.’
‘Hm.’ She peered at the tracker. ‘Let’s hope Danica got her facts straight this time, or we could find ourselves walking into another trap.’ The light from the screen tinged her face with blue. ‘There’s some information in here about “enclaves”, but I don’t understand it.’
I took it from her and tapped a tiny symbol of a house on the screen. ENCLAVE, the tracker read. LOOK FOR BLACK HELLEBORE.
‘What’s black hellebore?’ Maria said.
‘He’s using the language of flowers,’ I realised, after a moment. ‘Black hellebore points to the relief of anxiety. We must be able to find shelter and supplies where it grows.’
Alsafi must have been preparing for an emergency like this for a long time. Interesting that he spoke the language of flowers, the code the syndicate had used in its scrimmages for years. I had never liked him in the colony, but his work was turning out to be vital to our survival.
While Maria dozed, I occupied myself by studying Scion Britain on the tracker. The territory covered the places that had once been called Scotland and Wales, which were no longer recognised as separate countries; England and Britain were used almost interchangeably by Scion. The island was divided into eight regions, each of which had one citadel, which acted as its regional ‘capital’ –though all bowed to the will of London. The surrounding areas were peppered with towns, villages and conurbations, all under the yoke of Scion outposts. We were headed into the North West region, to its citadel – Manchester, centre of industry.
It had been ten years since I had last left London. It had kept hold of me for so long.
I nodded off against the side of the compartment for a while, my hand still curled around the tracker. Everything that had happened over the last few days had left me hungry for sleep.
At just past one in the morning, the train came to a halt, jolting me awake. Maria took the tracker from my unresisting hand. When she saw our location, she stiffened.
‘Something’s wrong. We’re still forty miles away.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay in your journey to Manchester. This is Stoke-on-Trent.’ I pressed my ear to the wall, straining to hear the muffled voice. ‘Under new regulations imposed by the Grand Commander, all Sciorail trains from London are now subject to regular checks by Underguards. Please accommodate their needs as they move through the train.’
My heart pounded. Had Vance snared us again already? She was always one step ahead – always waiting for us, somehow.
Maria shook the others awake. We gathered our belongings and crept towards a sliding door, which would allow us to steal away without the Underguards seeing. I reached for a lever marked EMERGENCY DOOR RELEASE. As it pushed outward and glided aside, letting in an icy gust of wind, I glanced out of the compartment, searching for oncoming trains. Mercifully, there was no one on the other platform.
‘Now,’ I whispered.
The Underguards were getting close – I sensed them. Eliza carefully turned and swung her legs on to a short ladder, which took her down to the ballast between the tracks.
Footsteps slapped along the platform, and I caught a snatch of voices. ‘. . . why Vance thinks they’re going to be here . . .’
‘Waste of time.’
I went next, followed by Tom. As Maria got out, she grabbed at the door for support, causing it to slide shut.
‘As soon as they leave,’ I breathed, ‘we get back on.’
We edged a little farther down the track, shivering in the frigid air. When the Underguards entered the baggage compartment, we all pressed ourselves against the train and grew still, waiting for one of them to look out and see us. Finding nothing of interest, they soon retreated, muttering about paranoid krigs and pointless work. I motioned to Maria, who reached up to grasp the door – only to find that there was no handle. The only thing there was a fingerprint scanner. We were shut out of the train.
As the Underguards left the platform, a whistle sounded in the station.