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Chapter Eighteen - Theo

D aylight, Theo argued six days before, is a better cover than nightfall at times. Whereas during the night guards will be on high alert, they will relax in the sun, and grow tired and lazy. That, and Theo’s rebels, poorly trained as they are, will at least be able to blend into the crowds. This is why, at midafternoon, his newly trained group of rebels rise from the dark tunnels into the too-bright world of the Abraxi District.

Training the Siacchians was no easy thing. The first few days had been focused on impressing into them that they would not suffer some great drop in intellect if they raised a hand against another – even if they were learning how to throw a punch. Theo found an unlikely ally in Damian. At first, Theo found the man annoyingly underfoot. Damian would trail Theo and, to Theo’s ears at least, only echo what he had already said. If Theo were giving advice to a woman about how to perform a hold so one might not escape her grip, saying, “Just squeeze tighter. Don’t be a coward,” Damian would appear behind him and say, “You’re doing a great job, Ambria. This will prevent future bloodshed.” A Kiteran would spit upon hearing such encouragement, but Ambria brightened – and listened.

Theo saw then that it should not be himself who should lead the charge into the heart of Cesscounthe. It had to be a Siacchian. It had to be a person that the rebels trusted.

It had to be Damian.

This means that now, as Theo and his rebels enter the Abraxi District, it is Damian who heads their charge. Theo has only heard rumors of what the Abraxi District looks like. He works hard to keep from gazing about like a fool at the fine glass windows of overflowing shops, the looming streetlights made from gleaming metal, extinguished during the day. The people match perfectly with their finely cleaned streets, wearing ghost-silent silk slippers. Even the very air smells expensive; perfumes and scented candles, fine chocolates and coffee.

Thankfully, Theo and his rebels blend in well enough. Their stolen clothes whisper across the cobblestones as they walk in groups of twos or threes. There are nearly two dozen of them total, and they move with the casualness Theo trained into them days before, their shoulders forcefully relaxed, conversation low and quiet.

They’re performing far better than expected.

Damian leads them through the Abraxi District. Theo trails half a step behind him, the cobblestones unforgiving through the thin soles of his new shoes.

The day is bright and golden. Not a single cloud darkens the sky. The streets are, as expected, relatively crowded, filled with students wearing red frocks or older folks making their way along the narrow streets. Most are likely working as Council members or as highly-paid artisans. There is only a guard here and there, and, just as Theo predicted, most are distracted by drink, cards, or both.

“Here,” Damian whispers, drawing to a pause. Two blocks down, the scattered pairs and trios of the rebels trailing behind them slow.

The shops have faded to houses hidden by high walls. Gates emblazoned with family sigils block the entrances, towering high above Theo’s head.

Damian pauses at a small, dark doorway. He presses his shoulder against it.

Locked .

Damian’s brow furrows, but he quickly wipes any panic from his face. He waits and the crowds thin. When a final student rounds the bend, leaving the street empty but for a pair of sleepy guards posted half a block away, he presses his lips together and braces himself before he shoves against the door.

The impact releases a small burst of dust. The door remains closed. Damian grunts with frustration.

The guard halfway down the street pauses, lifting his head. Theo leans against the wall and tries to think casual thoughts. “Hold,” he whispers to Damian.

They don’t have to wait for long. The guard scratches his beard, yawns hugely, and returns to conversation with his fellow.

“What do we do?” Damian barely moves his lips as he speaks.

“If we can’t go through,” Theo’s eyes dart to the walls, assessing their height, “we must go over.”

Damian widens his eyes, but before he can protest, Theo is moving. The guards have both fallen into drunken laughter, one pointing at the other over a deck of cards, their backs turned. It’s the best chance they’ll have.

“Brace yourself,” Theo says, and thank Wolf Mother he has trained these rebels to obey without questions, for Theo is already racing forward. He scales Damian’s body – a foot here at the man’s hip, and then his shoulder, and heaves.

His fingers meet the top of the wall. He dangles only for a second, space yawning between his feet and the ground, before Theo pulls himself up. Muscles left weakened from travel and imprisonment groan, but he is running out of time. The guards will see him at any moment.

He muffles a grunt with his teeth as he throws a leg over the wall – and drops down to the other side.

He freezes, waiting, but is met only with silence on both sides of the wall.

It is only as he opens the lock on the door from the other side that he curses himself. He should have let Damian do this – though Damian seems not to mind as he enters the opened gate.

Theo casts one last glance over his shoulders. Ten rebels are scattered across the cobblestone at his back. Three break away to follow him, while the remaining seven spread out to keep eyes on the streets. The roads might be empty now, but it’s important they remain vigilant.

Who knows how loud Linne Lockehart might get when we threaten her with death.

She will have given birth almost two weeks ago now. Being human, she will likely still be weak and recovering – which explains her absence from the emergency Council Meeting the rebel spies caught wind of earlier this morning.

Theo steals through the small door, his footfalls silent as he crosses from the cobblestone to the pale yellow grasses of a small yard. Damian hides in the shadows, his back pressed to a tree, but before Theo joins him, he takes a breath.

This is Luka’s home.

The courtyard is just large enough to house a babbling fountain. A small metal table sits opposite a hunched, leafless tree, the perfect size for a Cesse board. If Theo were to close his eyes, he could easily imagine Luka here, bent over a particularly complicated game, brow furrowed with concentration.

Theo pictures a different life, one where he was born here, in Cesscounthe. One where he might have sat across Luka – Luka would gaze at him with those clear blue eyes, so surprised and pleased to meet his first real rival. Perhaps Theo would have met Luka’s parents, shaken his father’s hand, hugged little Cassian.

But instead, Theo is with the men who break in through the side door. Instead, Theo is here to press the cruelest knife they could find in the rebel’s storages to Linne Lockehart’s throat and kill her to assume control over the Council.

That is, if everything goes according to plan.

Theo slinks into the shadows by Damian’s side, pressing his back against the cool stone wall. Two men and one woman join them–Eryn, Bathen, and Lyra. The best of Theo’s trainees these past six days. None have mastered their wolf, but they came as close as any untrained hopiar could ever hope to doing so after less than a week of practice.

All three are breathing hard, nervousness written in clear lines across their faces.

“All clear?” Damian’s eyes flicker to the street.

Lyra nods.

“Block the exits,” Damian orders, breathing life into Theo’s commands.

Eryn and Bathen move to the front door while Lyra circles around to the back. They creep like shadows across the dead grass, and disappear into the well-trimmed shrubbery.

Damian waits until they’ve gone before he moves again. He creeps as quietly as snowfall, making his way to the door Bathen guards before testing the knob. When it creaks open beneath Damian’s soft hand, Damian exchanges looks with Theo.

Theo considers the height of the sun – yes.

We’re on schedule.

Assuming the other half of their team is just as timely, they’ll be breaching the afternoon Council meeting by now, hands empty but knives sheathed at their sides, while they speak to the remaining Cesscounthe leadership.

Theo at first pushed for the Cesscounthe Council’s death. He was unsurprised by the Siacchian rebel’s knee-jerk, “Absolutely not!” in response. He was surprised by how little persuasion it had taken for them to agree to scaring their leadership. It helped that they knew Linne Lockehart would be isolated.

It shouldn’t be hard to talk Cesscounthe leadership into a deal without her in the middle of things.

After all, Siacchians are well known to go to great lengths to avoid violence.

Well, your average Siacchian, that is.

The Lockehart house is quiet and sunlit as Theo enters. The floorboards shine beneath his soft boots as he creeps into a dining room. The table is made of gleaming, pale wood. Polished dishes rest at the corner of a metal sink. The distant smell of cured meats and some sort of sauce hovers in the air –someone’s lunch.

Linne Lockehart is, as they suspected, still here.

Theo and Damian switch places now they are out of the rebel’s eyesight. Theo leads the charge as they snake through the house, and he tries his best to ignore the clear signs of Luka’s childhood (the trophies Luka won,though all are recent; a switch casually leaning against the back of the door, stinking of cleaning fluid; the textbooks peeking out of a room that probably belongs to Cassian).

Theo’s mind wrestles with the images; Luka, a perfect child, surely. And Linne Lockehart, the mother to raise a hand against him.

The next door yields another set of chambers, ending with a distant bedroom. Larger than the child’s rooms Damian and Theo just searched. Theo takes a tentative step forward.

“He’s not in there,” Damian says, catching Theo’s bicep.

Theo resists the urge to snap his teeth, instead yanking his hand free from Damian’s grasp. He allows himself the briefest of moments to take in the empty quarters, inhaling deeply.

The scent is faint, but impossible for Theo to mistake.

This was Luka’s room.

Slumped candles perch atop of tables, blue and green and heavy with the scents of pine and cinnamon. Neat lines of textbooks mark the walls. A Cesse board, match incomplete, sits behind a blue wall, and Theo is filled with the ridiculous urge to make a move –to challenge the Luka of the past, the Luka who lived here.

Instead, Theo checks the next door.

The room’s contents again drag him to a stop.

A baby stares up at Theo from a cradle, round face scrunching as it wakes. Wisps of black hair quiver on its forehead. It rubs at impossibly red cheeks as it gurgles in confusion, little hands searching for the person who entered its room.

“So the spies were right. She did give birth,” Damian murmurs at Theo’s back.

Theo forces himself to blink to reality. He can allow himself to soften over these echoes of Luka, but such weakness can lead to his downfall if he slips in front of Linne Lockehart. If she is as vicious as she was all those months before, he knows he must prepare himself for the terrible weakness wolf’s bane brings,

But Linne Lockehart doesn’t spring from the darkened corners of the room. Instead, the baby coos again – well, more of a cry than a coo this time, cheeks growing redder as it thrashes.

“Hush,” Damian hisses from the doorway, but his lackluster reassurance is clearly doing nothing to calm the child.

Theo huffs and steps into the room. As he reaches down to quiet the child –a twig snaps.

Theo stiffens, ears straining.

The noise came from outside the house – from a boot.

All of the rebels are wearing soft-soled shoes.

Before Theo can raise a cry of alarm, a voice sounds from his right:

“Please, I know you’re here for Linne and myself, but don’t hurt the child.”

Damian yanks his kitchen knife from its sheath, eyes wild, and lunges toward the speaker –

Theo catches Damian’s arm before the weapon’s point can pierce the wide gaze of Carlo Lockehart.

Carlo shakes before them, half a head shorter and made all the smaller by his hunched, cowering frame. He doesn’t dare blink, staring up the length of the blade to Damian – and then Theo. His mouth parts, but no words emerge.

Finally, he manages to say, “Please don’t hurt the child.”

At Theo’s back, the baby gurgles again, merry despite the violence about to take place at the foot of its crib.

“ We don’t kill children,” Damian growls.

Theo tightens his grasp on Damian’s arm. He keeps his words calm as he orders, “Sheath your blade.”

The muscles in Damian’s forearm flex beneath Theo’s fingers – before Damian grits his teeth and withdraws. Theo releases him.

“Someone is outside,” Theo says, not looking away from Carlo. “Make sure the others are well.”

“We came here for Linne Lockehart,” Damian says, voice boiling with barely contained anger. “But her husband stood by while she ripped families apart. Are you getting soft, Wolf-Born?”

Fur rolls down Theo’s forearms, but he doesn’t look away from Carlo. When he speaks, his voice is even softer than before, but deadlier. “I told you that you need to trust me,” Theo says to Damian. “I’ll handle Carlo Lockehart. You don’t need to get blood on your hands.”

Theo more senses the fight go out of Damian than he sees it. Damian says, “Use the code if you need me,” and then vanishes back into the house to investigate the noise from outside.

The baby cries again behind Theo, louder now, more insistent.

“P-please,” Carlo whispers. He doesn’t look away from Theo’s stare, but there is no challenge in his eyes. Only fear.

Theo takes half a heartbeat to examine his mate’s father’s face.

Yes, he can see Luka there – in the upturned corners of Carlo’s eyes. In the marks of laughter outlining his lips.

But Luka would never allow such monstrosities to befall impyassi and stand by.

No, Carlo is rotten in all the ways that Luka glows. Even his scent is polluted; his hands reek of chemicals. Luka said his father was a doctor. What a terrible irony considering the lives he has ruined.

Theo’s hands tighten into fists as he continues to stare, his teeth grinding together. Only the distant but all too familiar memory of returning to his parents’ homestead and finding scorched, withered bodies halts his arm.

I will never forgive Cathalan for what he did. Not really.

Will Luka be able to forgive me?

For a monster like Linne, probably. But for this –

There’s no point in Theo pondering that question; he already knows the answer.

That’s why he sent away Damian.

The rebels want blood – and that, unfortunately, is a promise that Theo cannot fulfill.

“You knew we were coming?” Theo asks. He measures each word out with the perfect amount of promised violence.

Carlo raises his hands. His fingers shake. “Linne… after hearing the Kiteran war-cries, she suspected they had… that they had betrayed her. I don’t know where she’s gone.”

Kiteran war cries.

Theo and the rebels must have missed the shouts while they were in the underground tunnels.

If a Kiteran war camp is closing in on Cesscounthe –

Then Luka is here.

Theo mentally lunges for the bond between himself and Luka – for so long, the sensation of his mate was as faint as a long-since cooled hand resting on his chest. But now Luka burns brightly. Theo’s heart warms.

But there is something tangled in the feeling – something wild and angry and –

Luka is afraid.

“Where is Linne Lockehart?” Theo asks, icy realization seizing him.

Carlo’s eyes flicker past Theo’s shoulder before he replies.

It’s then that Theo realizes the baby’s irritated gurgles have gone eerily quiet.

His hands fly to his blade as the door to his right slams open – and Kiteran soldiers explode inside, screaming threats, axes and swords drawn.

Before Theo can demand an explanation, Carlo lunges, something glinting in his fist –

A syringe?

The device sinks into Theo’s neck with a brief spark of pain – and then his body goes slack and the world drops away.