Page 116 of The Light Within

“Noir thinks—”

Cinn cut her off with a splutter. “Noir’s in on this too?!”

“What do you meanin on this? This isn’t a joke. We’re a team, working from facts. And Noir presents a solid case that the umbraphage emergence is in direct response to this.” Eleanor gestured wildly to the room at large, appearing for a moment like a crazed old lady.

Cocking his head at Julien, Cinn became lost in thought. “Huh. That kind of tracks, right?”

“So, what now?” Julien asked Eleanor, who’d finally sat down again.

“What?”

“You obviously brought us here for a reason. What do you want us to do?”

Eleanor stared at him like he was an alien. “Lie low and stay out of trouble!”

A groan sounded from beside him—Elliot shared Julien’s feelings.

“And I only brought you here because Malik did such a poor job observing you, he made matters worse.”

Malik shuffled on one foot, a sheepish grin crossing his lips.

“Are you aware my father tried to snatch Cinn from our hotel room in Paris? And then sent a car to run us off the road? All after he wanted Cinn’s ‘help’ with something.”

Eleanor leaned back in her chair. It took a fair few seconds before she replied, “No. That’s interesting.”

“It’s notinteresting!” Julien raised his voice to her. It was one of the few times he’d ever done that.

“No, no, sorry. You’ve misunderstood me. I meant that Noir would be very interested to hear that. I’ll see what I can do about getting someone stationed near your house.”

Cinn’s metal chair shot forward with a loud scrape. “I’m not having a bodyguard.”

“That’s good, because I can’t give you one.”

A sudden, piercing beep interrupted Cinn’s next words, erupting from one of the machines with an urgent, grating rhythm. The sound was sharp and relentless, echoing through the room with an intensity that commanded immediate attention.

Malik shot across the room like his life depended on it. His hands flew over a console, tapping and swiping with a speed and precision that was almost impossible to follow. Symbols and numbers flashed on the screen, an incomprehensible blur. Diagrams and charts followed, with Malik’s face a picture of fierce focus.

“What’s going on?” Elliot jumped up to stand behind him.

Eleanor rose to her feet with the energy of someone who’d just climbed a mountain, and was about to climb another one. For a moment, she and Malik consulted the screens, murmuring about fluctuating pressure systems and much more Julien couldn’t quite catch.

“I think it’s alerted them to rising levels of climatic activity,” Darcy informed them, once it became clear Eleanor wasn’t going to turn around.

“This is bad,” Eleanor said, pressing her fingers against the screen.

“How long, ma’am?” murmured Malik.

“A couple of days? Three at most? Sound the alarm at dawn. We’ll need to prepare teams. Maybe we’ll finally get something this time, with events of this magnitude all happening at once.”

Julien jerked his head towards the ladder. Whatever Eleanor and Malik were discussing, he doubted Eleanor wanted to explain it to them.

“We’ll be off then.”

“I’ll be in contact,” Eleanor threw over her shoulder.

Elliot looked like he was going to reach for Malik’s arm until he caught Julien watching him, Julien’s eyebrows raised in a daring sort of way. Elliot’s expression darkened into a glower, his arm dropping before he marched to the ladder.

The climb back to ground level was a quiet one. Everyone was either stunned into silence or as tired as Julien. His eyes drooped by the time they reached the heavy metal door and spilled out onto the pavement. Julien glanced at the corner shop exterior. The revelation of finding Eleanor in some sort of secret AP basement had aged him about twenty years.

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