Seeker

“How is he?” John asked, looking at the image of his grandfather on the security monitor. Gavin was in bed, doubled over with a coughing fit, the burns on his chest and arm still bandaged.

“Better than yesterday, not as well as he will be tomorrow,” Maggie answered.

Maggie, somewhere near ninety years old now, with long gray hair and a posture that was still upright, held Gavin’s life in her hands. John had brought her back to Traveler the day he’d left for the estate. She had immediately begun administering Gavin’s antidote at the highest possible doses, but it was taking a long time for Gavin’s body to respond. He was old, and skipping the antidote for weeks had brought him close to death.

With his grandfather confined to his bedroom, John now had control of Traveler. It was true that Gavin’s relatives were fighting in court for authority over the family’s holdings, but Gavin had exaggerated the immediate danger they posed. The poison had made him see enemies at every turn. As if we don’t have enough real adversaries, John thought.

“May I get you something to drink, Mrs. Kincaid?” Maggie asked.

Fiona was seated at a table in the corner, her hand cuffed to a chain, the other end of which was attached to the wall. It left her plenty of room to move about, but there was no question that she was a captive on the ship.

“No, thank you,” Fiona said without turning her head from the window, through which she was watching London pass by.

The sight of the shackle around her wrist made John incredibly sad. Somehow I have to make this happen without hurting her or Quin again. The same words had gone through his mind a hundred times in the last two days, but he worried about his ability to keep Quin and Fiona safe when neither of them would do anything to help him.

He flipped through security channels on the monitor, catching short glimpses through Traveler’s exterior cameras, then watching images from the streets of London below. He had men prowling through the city, following Traveler’s path, waiting for Quin to arrive. She would come for her mother, of course she would.

“Can I make you comfortable in some other way?” he asked Fiona when Maggie had left the room.

“You could remove the handcuff and release me,” Fiona suggested. “That would make me much more comfortable.”

“That’s the one thing I can’t do just yet,” John told her gently. He turned the monitor off and took a seat near her. “We’re just waiting now. I don’t want you to be frightened or ill at ease. Are you hungry?”

“For a kidnapper, you’re terribly polite.”

“I’m trying to remember my manners,” he said, hoping she would smile, but she didn’t.

“Unlike that evening on the estate?” she asked him, her voice cold.

“Yes, unlike that,” he responded quietly, feeling a flash of the dread that always appeared when he thought about that night.

“I’m not hungry, thank you, John.”

In spite of what she said, there was a kind of hunger around Fiona’s eyes. John recognized it from his time as an apprentice. She’d been a wonderful teacher, in charge of languages and math, but by late afternoon, her mind had always been fuzzy.

From a cabinet at one side of the room, he pulled out a crystal decanter and poured a generous helping of brandy into one of his grandfather’s heavy glasses. Without a word, he sat again and slid the glass across the table. Fiona lifted the glass and took a long sip, her eyes not meeting his.

“Even when I was twelve, I felt sorry for you, Fiona—with Briac as a husband,” he told her, hoping she understood that he was sincere. He remembered her very clearly from his early days as an apprentice, her beautiful face and dead eyes. The way she had held herself back whenever Briac was nearby, the softness of her voice that hinted at tears. Quin and Shinobu had always seemed oblivious, but John had understood. He knew what it was to live under a cloud, to have someone near you who cared nothing about your own survival and wished you ill. “Briac treated you like he treated me—we are more alike than you might think.”

“We’re not at all alike, John,” Fiona whispered.

“Don’t say that. I only need a little help. I still believe Quin will understand and help me.”

“Why would she? She’s in no state to help anyone.”

“She’s come back to herself, Fiona. I’ve seen her. Can’t you help me convince her?”

“Do you think kidnapping me was the best way to win us over?” she asked, her voice mocking him.

“I had to take you here so she’ll bring me what’s mine and teach me to use it. She loves you. She’ll bring it to get you back. And then you’ll be free to go.”

“You think the athame is yours,” Fiona said thoughtfully. She drank again from her glass, the cuff and chain weighing heavily on her wrist as she did so. “You’re not the first person to claim that.”

“Don’t talk like Briac, please. You know the athame is mine.”

“That depends how far back you’re willing to look.”

“That athame has belonged to my house for hundreds of years, probably more. You must know that, Fiona.”

“A family becomes a large and twisted tree over hundreds of years, John. Some of its branches reach so far it’s difficult to recognize them. How can you be sure you should have it?” She set the glass down. It was empty.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

For some reason, the word “twisted” made him think of his mother, bleeding on the floor of her apartment, her limbs arranged awkwardly around her body. Suddenly he was losing control of his emotions. “Can’t there be a moment when simple justice comes into it?” he asked her, hating the sound of despair in his voice. “When something is done because it’s right?” He stopped himself. There was no point in moaning about justice to the woman who had been married to Briac Kincaid. She, like John, already knew that life was not fair—you had to make it fair.

He needed a moment to compose himself, so he crossed the room and poured her another helping of brandy. Then he changed the subject. “Why did you choose Hong Kong?”

He handed Fiona the refilled glass, and once more she brought it to her lips.

“We were there while Quin was healing. From the bullet wound. Perhaps you remember that wound?” Her eyes met his for a moment. One of her hands was at her throat, where the faintest traces of a scar were visible. It was necessary, he reminded himself about the wound on her neck. But I went too far that night. Am I going too far now? Is it true what Quin said—am I becoming like Briac?

“I thought we were only passing through Hong Kong,” Fiona continued, “but Quin was very weak for a long time, and when she was better, she wanted to stay.”

John let his eyes drift away from her.

“I imagine you were happy to be away from Briac, no matter where you were—no matter what you found yourself doing.” It had been one consolation to him after that terrible night on the estate—that Fiona had gotten away from Briac. But the informer who’d helped him find Quin on the Bridge had spotted her mother with the yellow scarf of an escort around her neck. That had struck him as a particularly cruel fate.

Fiona’s gaze went back to the window. The Thames was visible now, red and gold in a stray bit of sunlight breaking through clouds toward the horizon.

“I understand why you hated him, John,” she said. “I often hated him as well. He took what we learned as apprentices and twisted it badly. But he was my husband. I tried to be loyal.”

“Why do you use the past tense?” he asked, anger flaring up again at thoughts of Briac. “I still hate him, even more than I used to, if that’s possible. The things he made Quin do …” Then he realized: the last time Fiona had seen her husband was that night on the estate, when Briac was lying wounded in the commons. “You think he’s dead,” he breathed. “You think I killed him.”

Fiona turned sharply toward him, and the look on her face told him he was right. “I didn’t know for sure, but I thought perhaps …”

“I’m sorry, Fiona.” There were no words he could choose to soften the message. “Briac—he isn’t dead. I saw him a few days ago on the estate.”

Fiona set her glass on the table, nearly spilling it as she did. She studied him, the lines of her face growing ugly with a subtle but deep fear.

“Are you— Do you mean to …”

“Am I giving you to him? Is that what you’re wondering? In exchange for the athame?”

Very solemnly, Fiona nodded.

“No. I tried that once, remember? Briac wouldn’t accept anything in trade for the athame, even his beautiful wife.” He said this as gently as he could. “But Briac doesn’t have it. Quin does.”

“He wouldn’t want me now anyway,” she murmured, not hearing anything else he’d said. “I know he wouldn’t.”

John understood then. Fiona was an intelligent and beautiful woman. After leaving the estate, she could have become many things, yet she had chosen to become an escort. She’d chosen a profession that would make her, in Briac’s eyes, untouchable. She had believed he might be dead, yet she’d felt it necessary to protect herself even from the idea of him. By degrading herself, she’d hoped to escape his power, as they all had.

“No,” John agreed, “you are free of him.”