Page 63

5 January, 1994

T he last fortnight had been a blur of exorcisms, successes and failures, and studying their processes until the wee hours of the morning when Sonder and would crawl into bed together. Sometimes, they would sleep wrapped in one another’s arms. Sometimes, they would expend the rest of their energies via their sexual appetite for one another. Sometimes, they would stare at the ceiling and speak in whispers about their fears, their dreams, their lives before they met.

I want to drown in this love, darling, he’d told her one morning when she apologised for hogging the bed.

Every moment with him had become her new most treasured.

Wrapped in a towel, looked in the full-length mirror in her room that was essentially only used as a giant closet now. Her attention was drawn to where she’d tucked a Polaroid she’d taken of Sonder weeks ago and tucked it into the mirror’s edge. His hair was in disarray even more than usual because she’d driven her fingers through it just before, his car windows all fogged up. Starving, he’d dragged her out to the city for food and a night for them to be normal. He wore a maroon knit jumper over his collared shirt where they sat tucked in a dimly lit corner booth.

The night had been perfect. No Plague, no exorcisms, no Society breathing down their neck. Only the man she loved hiding his face with his hand when she pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped his photo. But he was grinning behind his blurred hands that only managed to cover half of his face before the flash. The smile that sent peace flooding her heart. The smile of the man she would do anything to protect.

“ A stór !” she heard him call her, his voice climbing the stairs from the ground floor. “Your coffee is getting cold!”

She kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to Photograph Sonder’s lips. “Coming!” she called back and went to dress.

The last vestiges of her trepidation from waking in the grove yet again slipped out of her like faerie mist the moment she stepped into the kitchen and Sonder greeted her over his newspaper like he did every morning. The constant that settled her.

“Good morning, darling.”

She smiled, her gaze dropping to the front page of the Irish Independent, and her heart stuttered. A gasp escaped her, and Sonder pulled the paper to his chest, looking down at it.

“Ah, yes. Quite the cover story today, isn’t it?”

“Is that a drawing of us?” She came forward and snatched it from his hand.

“It is, indeed.”

There they were, immortalised in printer ink by sketches that were far, far too accurate for her liking. Sonder was there in his trousers, a button-up, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a sweater vest, while was in her signature skirt and tweed blazer look. Thank Christ they had the plague doctor masks on. “Even the shoes are accurate!” she said, her voice hitting a pitch only dogs can hear.

“Lydia Callahan had a very keen eye the other day. She’d be my guess for who spoke to the forensic sketch artist.”

was still gawking at it when a loud crash came from the foyer. Sonder was on his feet instantly, Gibbs’s voice cutting through the tension. “Oy! Are you lot up?”

“Christ!” Sonder shouted back, storming for the sitting room. “Haven’t you ever heard of fucking knocking, you eejit?”

But Gibbs’s voice was drowned out by the shrill ringing of the telephone on the wall of the kitchen. answered it just to make it stop ringing, the chaos too much.

“!” The voice on the other end was urgent.

“Professor Vasilios?” she questioned, unsure if she was correct.

“Marguerite, please,” she corrected. “But yes. You need to turn on the news immediately.”

Sonder crashed through the kitchen door. “We need to turn on the news!”

hung up on Marguerite and followed Sonder and Gibbs to her room, where they repeated the night they’d stood there and first saw Lisle speaking to a news crew about them.

Only this time it was international news.

An American woman in a navy suit sat at a newsdesk, the sketch of and Sonder plastered on a screen behind her. “A pair of masked individuals have spent the last months curing the Plague that has run rampant in Dublin for nearly seven years. No one can verify who they are or how they’re doing it. But we at CBS News have spoken to several of the cured patients and they sing high praises for these masked heroes.

’s stomach roiled.

Sonder looked away, his lip curled in disgust. “Turn it off.”

Gibbs flicked off the television, and they all three stared at each other. “I think we’re going to need that help now,” Sonder said quietly.

The phone in his office rang and he went to answer it.

Gibbs swallowed hard. “He means for me to start helping, doesn’t he?”

nodded, but there was a banging on the front door before she could answer. “Jesus, what is this chaos?” she mumbled. “That’s probably Vasilios.” But how could she have made it to Murdoch Manor so quickly?

The knock came again, more urgently, and opened the door.

“ Emmy ?”

“ ?”

They traded befuddled looks.

“What are you doing here?” opened the door wider and pulled Emmy inside, shoving down a pang of guilt that she’d hardly kept up with Emmy at all since she’d been expelled.

“I followed Gibbs,” she explained, gawking at the manor’s lavish foyer. “He’s been acting so strange lately. Cagey and dodgy. So I followed him here.” She paused her slow circle, mouth agape. “Where is here , anyway?”

Sonder came around the corner, and Emmy’s eyes widened as she slowly turned them on . Apparently, his presence was a sufficient answer.

“Oh, hello there,” he said casually, sliding his hands into his pockets and looking to for an explanation.

“She followed Gibbs here.”

“Where the fuck are you two?” Gibbs’s voice came from the sitting area. “Marguerite is on the phone again .”

Sonder growled curses and stomped off. grabbed Emmy’s arm and followed him.

“Marguerite?” Emmy whispered, struggling to keep up with ’s frustrated pace. “Professor Vasilios? Ow, quit squeezing me so hard!”

“You can’t just follow people to strange places, Emmy.” She gently pushed her friend to sit on the sofa.

Emmy scoffed. “You fucking disappeared from the face of the planet, . I’ve barely heard from you for two months, and you want to talk to me about being in a strange place?”

sank into a chair. “Fucking hell,” she muttered, scrubbing at her tired eyes.

“You all seem very stressed,” Emmy said absently, looking at Gibbs and Sonder arguing over who should talk to Marguerite and back at . “Did I walk in on something?”

“,” came Sonder’s voice as Gibbs stomped away. “A word?”

pursed her lips and looked at Emmy. “Stay here and don’t wander off, all right?”

Hands in the air in a show of surrender, Emmy leaned back on the sofa and picked up an old copy of Laboratory News , flipping the magazine open.

With one last wary look over her shoulder at her friend she hadn’t seen in far too long, followed Sonder into the billiard room.

“Shall I get a candlestick?” he said cheekily as she entered and shut the door.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“We’re in the Billiard Room. . .”

Lost, blinked at him.

“The film. . .”

“ Clue ?” She screwed up her face. “Are you making a Clue joke right now?”

“Evidently, it didn’t land.”

“I thought you didn’t watch movies.”

“I never said that.” He shook his head. “Never mind. What is Vasilios’s assistant doing here?”

“I don’t know. She said Gibbs was acting strange, so she followed him here.”

“Right. Well, first things first. My phone call was Lynch.”

’s heart climbed into her throat.

“He saw the newspaper and the international story.”

“Oh fuck.”

“The Agamemnon Council and the Trinity Administration would like to hold a private hearing for each of us.”

“Please tell me why you’re so calm,” she demanded, angry that he wasn’t sweating or crying or throwing up like she was about to.

“Because there’s no sense in hiding who we are now, and there’s nothing they can do to us.”

“Nothing they can do to us? Sonder, that’s insane. There is so much they could do to us.”

“Not true.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently rubbed up and down her arms. “They want the glory. They chose a hearing because it won’t involve the Garda and they won’t try to stop us. All they want is to try and get us to be their face—give the Society and Trinity the honour of looking like they finally cured the Plague.”

“I don’t understand how that’s good.” She didn’t mean for her words to come out so sharply, but she couldn’t quite help it, either.

“If we can get in their ear, they might let you back into Trinity.”

broke away from him. “I told you I don’t care about that.”

“—”

“ No . We have more important things to worry about right now.” She started pacing, fiddling with the ends of her sleeves. “We need to train help. We need Gibbs and Vasilios as boots on the ground.” An idea struck her and she stopped. “Emmy is Marguerite’s TA and my friend. Maybe even she could help.”

But she could tell by Sonder’s face that he hadn’t jumped subjects like she had. “, I’m not saying we have to side with the Society or play their games, I’m only saying?—”

“We can talk about that later,” snapped firmly. She knew her age was showing, her idyllic, na?ve mindset, but she didn’t care. They didn’t need goddamn Agamemnon. They were fucking Achilles.

Sonder sighed but nodded, clasping his hands together in front of him and sitting on the edge of the billiard table. “Gibbs and Marguerite I can get behind. I don’t know Emmy.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him up. “Then come get to know her.”