Part 17 (2/2)
Or maybe just cry.
”Let's go back,” Isaac quietly. His voice made me jump; I hadn't heard him coming up behind me. I looked at him and saw sympathy in his eyes, but also a kind of wariness that hadn't been there before. This place clearly made him uneasy.
”I want to hear what they're saying,” I told him.
”I know,” Rita said gently, ”but we can't do that now. We just can't. I'm sorry, Jesse.”
She tried to put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off. Maybe she was ready to give up, but I wasn't. The frustration of the last two days was a wildfire in my veins, and I had to give it outlet or I would explode.
I started to circle wide around the estate, to see if there was a break in the privacy screen that would at least allow me to peek inside. But the juniper barrier was several rows thick and there was no gap in it anywhere. I felt despair welling up inside me. To have someone who knew the truth about my situation so close by, and yet so inaccessible, was maddening. But whoever had designed this place had done it well; I was not going to be able to spy on Seyer from outside. Which meant . . .
I stopped walking. Yes, there was one course of action that would allow me to spy on her, but it was unspeakably dangerous. How much was I willing to risk?
Rita must have read my mind at that moment. ”Jesse . . . no.”
The bars of the fence were simple and smooth, with nothing to brace a foot on. The sharp, spear-like finials at the top were closely placed, allowing little room for a person to maneuver. I saw nothing in the immediate vicinity that I could push up against the fence, to help me climb.
Even thinking about what I wanted to do was crazy. Absolute, no-holds-barred, bats.h.i.+t crazy. Only a lunatic would try to sneak into a walled estate like this, to spy on women who had unknown mental powers. Maybe the stress of this whole experience had finally driven me insane. But I had to do something or I would explode.
I couldn't climb the fence without help.
I looked at Isaac. He was taller than Rita and probably stronger. Besides which, l was willing to bet money she wouldn't help me climb this thing, while he . . . he was an unknown quant.i.ty.
His face betrayed no emotion. ”Unbelievably foolish,” he said quietly.
”You have a better idea?”
”You understand how bad it will be if you're caught? Excuse me . . . when you're caught?”
”Worse than it is for Tommy right now?” I demanded.
The dark eyes fixed on me. They were disturbingly unreadable. He's alien, I reminded myself. And aristo, to boot. He has motives I can't begin to guess at.
”He means that much to you,” he said at last. A question.
”He's family,” I told him. But how much did that mean to a guy who had abandoned his own family for the company of strangers? Was there anyone he cared about enough that he would risk the wrath of the Seers for them? After a moment he nodded grimly and gestured toward the fence.
I handed over my bag and hat to Rita and looked for a suitable spot. She muttered something under her breath about the stunning magnitude of my idiocy, but took the items. The look in her eyes was plain to read: G.o.d help you if we have to go in there and rescue you.
G.o.d help us all, in that case.
I found a place where the landscaping outside the fence offered some cover, so that my act of insanity wouldn't be in plain view of everyone walking down the street. There was a cl.u.s.ter of trees with thick, heavy branches near the fence, and only if you ducked down low could you see past them. It was as good as I was likely to get.
The fact that I'd decided to do something crazy didn't mean my body was happy about it. There was a knot of fear in my gut, clenched so tightly I thought I was going to vomit. I'd been in a pretty constant state of dread since coming to this world, but this was a whole new level. When you are actively fleeing alien pursuit and being hunted by shapechangers and diving into unknown worlds, you don't have any choice about the matter. They're coming after you, so you run. End of story. It all feels unreal while you're doing it, like everything is just a bad dream, and any minute now you'll wake up and find yourself home safe in bed. But this was different. This was real. This was a conscious choice that I was making, and if anything bad came of it, I'd have no one to blame but myself. This fear was an abyss that I was daring to vault across, without safety net or harness.
But it had to be done.
Drawing in a last deep breath for courage, I wiped nervous sweat from my palms and looked at Isaac. With a grim look on his face he crouched down by my side and offered me his cupped hands to step into. He managed to hoist me up high enough that I was able to get a firm grip on the top rail of the fence, and I swung my right leg over it. Then I struggled to achieve the precarious ballet needed to turn around without impaling myself on any of the spikes. Rita and Isaac watched in silence as I finally managed it, lowering myself down on the other side of the fence as far as I could, and then-muttering a prayer under my breath-dropping the rest of the way.
It wasn't far, but I landed on rocks that s.h.i.+fted beneath my feet, and my ankle twisted, throwing me to the ground with a loud thwunk. We all froze in place, and I waited breathlessly for the sound of someone coming to investigate. But seconds pa.s.sed, and no one did. Finally I struggled back to my feet. My ankle throbbed but it wasn't broken; I could still walk on it, thank G.o.d. I winced slightly as I stepped forward to part the wall of branches-slowly, oh so slowly-hoping that anyone who saw the motion would ascribe it to the wind.
The estate I could now see was mostly open land, with a single imposing building at its center. It was a large structure, temple-like, with broad marble stairs leading up to a columned porch. A pair of golden statues of Egyptian cats anch.o.r.ed the lower corners of the staircase, and some of the carved figures in the frieze over the entrance looked Egyptian as well. It reminded me of a Masonic Temple I'd once seen in DC. From the center of the roof rose the tower we had seen from the park. Thank G.o.d there was no one out on the observation deck right now, because anyone up there would have a bird's eye view of the entire estate . . . and me.
The open land surrounding the building was meticulously landscaped, and tall flowering hedges of at least a dozen different types crisscrossed the grounds in complicated patterns. I wondered if, when viewed from overhead, those designs had some special significance.
Suddenly I caught sight of two people off to my right, talking beneath a vine-covered trellis. Their faces moved in and out of shadow as they spoke, but there was no missing the gleaming white of Morgana's ensemble or the intensity of their conversation.
They were still too far away for me to hear what they were saying. Heart pounding, I studied the terrain between us, wondering if I could get any closer without being detected. The hedges between us were tall enough to conceal me, at least from the two women. But if someone looked out an upper-story window all bets were off.
Time was running out. Every minute that pa.s.sed meant they were more likely to wrap up their discussion of the issues that interested me, after which spying on them would have little value. If I was going to do this insane thing, I needed to do it now.
I started to creep forward, keeping as low to the ground as possible. For the first few yards there was no cover, so all I could do was crouch-trot to the nearest hedge as quickly as I could, praying that neither of them would look in my direction. My heart was pounding so loudly I was surprised no one inside the house could hear it. Or maybe they could. Maybe there was a Seer watching me right now, like a hawk watches a hare as it moves out into the meadow to forage, waiting to choose the right moment to strike.
Focus, girl. Focus.
Once I reached the first line of hedges the tension in my body eased a bit, and I took a moment to breathe deeply and stretch out a nascent cramp in my leg. Then I began to edge forward once more. My progress was blind, as I didn't dare raise my head over the top of the shrubbery to see where I was going. I just tried to head in the general direction of the women's voices, by whatever path allowed me to do so safely. Now and then I could hear tantalizing bits of their conversation, though still not enough to make sense of it.
...not a good move . . .
...yes, but who . . . ?
...and maybe tell them . . .
...not interested in excuses . . .
Suddenly there was a sharp sound from above. Startled, I looked up and saw that a man was standing on the observation deck of the tower. No! I despaired. Not now! I pressed myself close to the nearest hedge, trying desperately to sink into its foliage, but the dense evergreen branches were too closely packed for that to work. If he looked down he was sure to see me. And then I would have to do-what? What on earth could I do to save myself?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Heart pounding, I watched as he began to circle the tower. When he pa.s.sed out of sight behind it I had a sudden mad impulse to dash for better cover. But that kind of movement might draw the attention of those on the ground, so I just waited, breath held, body shaking, until he appeared again on the other side.
He paused to look out toward the main gate for a few seconds, and almost looked my way, then disappeared through a door leading back into the tower. It shut behind him with a thud.
I allowed myself to breathe again.
Slowly, my whole body trembling, I began to move once more, struggling to focus on the women's conversation. I was getting close enough to make out most of what they were saying, though now and then a phrase was voiced too quietly for me to hear. Finally I found a good hiding spot behind a bank of laurels, and I crouched down to eavesdrop.
”. . . not like it hasn't been done before.” That was Miriam Seyer's voice. Hearing it again invoked chilling memories of the night my house had burned to the ground.
”But not for so weak a cause.” The other woman's accent was the liquid, elegant drawl of Virginian aristocracy, with just a faint hint of Masterpiece Theater. It was a voice rich in confidence and power, suggesting a speaker who could get others to do her bidding without ever needing to raise her voice.
”Master Virilian might not agree with that,” Seyer responded.
An edge of scorn crept into Morgana's voice. ”The Shadowlord is a man of pa.s.sion. Sometimes that outweighs his judgment.”
”Which is why he answers to the Council.”
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