Page 50 of Crewel (Crewel World 1)

Before I can stop myself my hand stretches and grabs his. He squeezes it reassuringly, then drops it, and slips back out of the motocarriage. If I go now, I could catch up with him, but I might get him in trouble. But the alternative – leaving alone with Cormac – terrifies me.

‘Ready to go?’ Cormac asks, getting into the seat next to me. Too late.

‘Of course.’ I swallow against the dread sitting raw in my throat.

‘What did Erik want?’

I hesitate for a second. ‘He wanted to go over tomorrow’s itinerary since he’s headed back to the hotel.’

Cormac regards me thoughtfully and then smiles. ‘Attention to detail. I like that. He’ll be advancing out of the Coventry in no time. I want to show you something,’ Cormac says. He avoids sitting too close, and I don’t blame him. I’m sure he knows his plan worked.

I don’t bother to say anything about what happened tonight, and neither does he. The message was clear enough without him having to spell it out for me. We only ride for a few minutes, but in the dark I can’t see much through the motocarriage’s tinted windows. When we finally stop, Cormac opens his own door and walks around to mine. The driver stays inside.

As he helps me out, I’m met by a near-black sky dotted with sparkling stars. We’ve exited only steps from the edge of a precipice. In the darkness, I can barely see the valley hundreds of feet below us. Stretching past it, lights blink and waver, marking diminutive cities scattered around the cliff.

Cormac drops my hand and steps closer to the edge. Stretching his arm over the abyss, he calls to me, ‘It’s yours for the taking, Adelice.’

I clasp my palms across my bare arms and shiver against the breeze.

Cormac sits silently in the seat diagonal from me on the ride back, and I wonder if, with all the posing and Cormac’s eager hands on my waist earlier, I jumped to the wrong conclusion when all he wanted was to show me a vista. But after tonight’s charade, I’m not sure what any of it means any more.

Between holding back tears and the crippling guilt washing over me, I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s exhausting, but as I’m drifting off, Cormac’s voice startles me awake. I snap to attention, but then I realise he isn’t speaking to me. His head is cocked to the side, so I close my eyes again and listen.

‘You’ve known about the situation in Northumbria for weeks,’ he says. ‘It shouldn’t take this long to deal with a simple taint.’

He pauses, and I wish I could hear what he’s being told. Complant convos are too one-sided.

‘I see.’

I peek through my lashes to see that he’s frowning.

‘This is getting out of hand. If we can’t find the source, we’re going to have to alter the entire Eastern Sector,’ he says, ‘and, Hannox . . .’

My heart flutters at this name, but I can’t recall where I’ve heard it.

‘Did you get anything out of that guy from Nilus? Yeah, if this thing has spread way up there . . .’ He pauses in response to something Hannox is saying. ‘I don’t think Protocol Two is necessary at this point, but have Intelligence draw up a plan.’

I’m still watching through barely open eyelids, pretending to sleep, when he leans forward and places his head in his hands. Then he looks up at me and I almost stop breathing. He keeps his gaze on me for a minute, then pours another whisky.

10

The morning comes in streaks of purple outside my hotel window. It’s the real sky, something I never see at the compound, where every view is a programmed image. This is the dawn that awakens citizens in Cypress, and for the first time since the motocarriage, I close my eyes. Opening them, I pretend I’m waking up like I might if I lived out here. It’s time to prep for work. I’ll tram into the metro, and perch at a desk waiting for telebounds and coffee rationing. No, I’m prepping tablets for the day’s curriculum. I’ll teach about the seasons. How each serves a function and is carefully timed to maximise its usefulness to food Spinsters. But the lesson fades, replaced by looms and fingers and stone walls. This room is no more real than my life there; both were created by Spinsters.

I’m not out of bed before a maid comes bustling into the room to clean up.

‘I’m so sorry, miss,’ she exclaims, but something in her voice isn’t sorry. Her words sound rehearsed. Of course, I might be getting paranoid at this point, too.

‘It’s okay,’ I assure her, slinging my legs out of the bed. ‘I need to be getting up now anyway.’ Especially if I’m going to have a minute to myself before my crew gets here to prepare me for our final rebound back to the Coventry.

‘I’ll get out from under your feet then,’ the maid offers, but I shake my head, indicating she should stay.

There’s not much packing to do, so I order up a small breakfast of scones and tea and plop down to wait in a chair. I’m so used to having someone hovering around me that it doesn’t even feel awkward to have the maid here straightening. I watch her work. She’s about my mother’s age.

‘Is there anything I can get you?’ the maid asks kindly.

‘I’m fine,’ I say with a smile, not willing to betray the hot anger building in my head by saying more.

‘Well,’ she starts, but then she stops and a sheepish grin slides onto her face.

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