“So you just went off and left him with this woman?” He intended it to be cruel, and it was.
“Seph needed the kind of stability I couldn’t provide. I couldn’t risk anyone connecting him with us. It was the right thing to do,” she added defensively.
“He should have been with his parents. You made that choice for both of us. That wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t fair to Seph.”
“Can’t you see that this is the proof that I was right? Someone’s discovered his parentage, and now he’s paying for it.” Tears slid down her face. “I gave up everything to keep him safe. First you. Then him.” She was unable to speak for a moment.
Finally, fiercely scrubbing the tears away with the back of her hand, Linda asked, “What does Leicester want?”
“He wants me to travel to New York tomorrow, and come alone. He’ll contact me there, and tell me the terms.” He massaged his forehead as if it hurt. “You know he thinks I’m the Dragon. He has for a long time. I’ve let him think it.”
“What if he finds out you’re not?”
Hastings shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Let me go meet Leicester,” Linda said quickly. “Let me talk to him. You know it’s a trap.”
“What makes you think you would be an acceptable substitute?” He shook his head. “He doesn’t see you as a political figure. Leicester just ends up with two hostages instead of one. The message was addressed to me, Linda. If I don’t show tomorrow, Leicester says he’ll mail me another piece of our son, something that won’t grow back.”
Linda buried her face in her hands.
Hastings stroked her back, soothing her. “Besides, I’ve done nothing for the boy in sixteen years. I want Seph to know who his father is.”
Chapter Seventeen
New Threats
Each time Seph surfaced, the pain returned, so he dove deep and stayed there as long as he could. He felt oddly inverted. During his time at the Havens, he had come to fear the descent into the abyss of sleep. Now it was a refuge from what seemed like years of torture at Leicester’s hands.
But hands plucked at him and voices nagged at him relentlessly. “Joseph.” He gave up, opened his eyes, and looked into Martin Hall’s worried face.
“What do you want?” he meant to say, but it emerged as a painful croak. He’d been screaming, as if in a nightmare. But it wasn’t a dream. It was real.
The thought amused him, and he laughed. Unsuccessfully. More of a wheeze.
“Come on, Joseph,” Martin said. “You have to eat something. You’ve been sleeping for three days.” He picked up a sweet roll and waved it enticingly under Seph’s nose. The mingled scents of yeast and sugar turned his stomach.
“Go away, Martin. I mean it.” Seph tried to organize his face into a scowl, but his body wouldn’t obey his commands. He felt as if his skin had been flayed off, his flesh exposed. Even the pressure of the sheet was almost too much to bear.
But Peter appeared on his other side, and together they hauled him into a half-sitting position. Peter gripped his jaw, forced his mouth open, and Martin poured in the Weirsbane. Seph offered only token resistance. It was an established routine by now.
But this time was different. They brought him a basin of warm water, soap, and a washcloth. Peter supported him while Martin carefully removed his sweatshirt and washed the blood from his body. They stripped off his jeans, stiff and stinking of lake water, sweat, and terror, and dressed him in fresh clothes, while he bit his lip to keep from groaning.
“So what’s up, Peter?” he asked, feeling a little giddy. “Do I go to the gallows today, or has Leicester finally decided to surrender to me?”
It was a feeble joke, but Peter lit up anyway. “He’s really p-pissed, you know, because he can’t get anything out of you.”
Seph rolled his eyes. The only part of him that didn’t hurt. “I don’t know anything. That’s why he can’t get anything out of me.”
“But you haven’t g-given in, either,” Peter said, admiration plain on his face. “You won’t link with him. It makes him c-crazy.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t hold out forever.” Seph took deep breaths, fighting down despair. He didn’t need the alumni making him into a hero. Three things kept him going. First, the months of mental and emotional torture at the Havens had desensitized him somewhat. Second, he knew from Peter that surrender to Leicester was only the beginning of a lifetime of torment. And third, he knew that to give in was to betray Maddie’s presence on Second Sister.
“He’s scared of you,” Martin confided. “That’s why he keeps you doped up on Weirsbane.”
“It was so c-cool,” Peter said. “How we came in and you had him smashed up against the wall, and his eyes were b-bulging out. He was practically c-crapping himself.”
Seph dragged his fingers through his resistant curls. “Oh? Then why didn’t you let me finish him?”
“We’re linked,” Martin said. “If Leicester dies, so do we.”
“There’s got to be a way to break it.” Seph looked from Peter to Martin, but they wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Seph released a long, exasperated breath. “Are you guys holding anyone else down here?”
Martin and Peter glanced at each other, shook their heads. “Just you,” Martin said.
So Maddie wasn’t in Leicester’s hands. Where was she then? Stay hidden, he said to himself. Stay hidden until it’s all over.
He plucked at his clean shirt. “What’s this all about?”
Peter looked about warily, as if someone might be eavesdropping. “I think you have a visitor.”
Once he was more or less presentable, they led him back up the narrow stairway and down quiet corridors to the study where he’d met with Leicester the night of his arrival. A half dozen of the alumni milled about nervously. They took charge of him when he arrived, sitting him in a chair and binding his hands to its arms with cord. Seph submitted without protest. The Weirsbane was working, and he had no chance against those odds without magic.
Leicester entered, wearing jeans and a pristine white shirt. He spoke briefly to Bruce Hays and then stood behind Seph, resting his hands on his shoulders. By now, Seph could read the wizard’s touch. Power and excitement and, yes, fear bled through Leicester’s fingertips.
“What’s up?” Seph asked, trying not to react.
“Your father’s come. He’s demanding proof that you’re still alive.”
Before Seph had time to process this, the door opened and Warren Barber entered, followed by another man. It was Leander Hastings.
Hastings advanced quickly toward them until Leicester put up a hand, stopping him several yards away. Hastings studied Seph from that distance, as if assuring himself that he was complete.
Leander Hastings his father. Could it be true? Seph sat pinned to the chair, feet on the floor, back straight, inhaling as if he could breathe in the image before him: the structure of the face, something like his own, but leaner, crisper in profile. The tumbled dark hair, unruly, familiar. The thick brows overshadowing deepset eyes. Seph wanted to fling himself forward. Leicester must have felt his muscles bunch under his hands, because his grip tightened and he said, “Don’t.”
“I’ve come as agreed,” Hastings said. “That was the deal: a trade—me for the boy.”
Seph found his voice. “Don’t negotiate with him! You can’t trust him!” Leicester tightened his grip and new pain laced into him, effectively stopping his speech and bringing tears to his eyes.
Hastings’s expression didn’t change, but rather crystallized, the green eyes like shadowed pools unruffled by any movement of air.
Leicester didn’t seem to notice. “What will the rebels do without the Dragon? No one to pull the strings of the spy network. No one to set traps for the unwary.”
“They’ll manage, no doubt,” Hastings said, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Let Seph go now.” He took a step forward, and Leicester raised his hand again.
“I’ll need to rest
rain you first.” Leicester nodded to the alumni. They converged on the wizard, but stopped about four feet away, as if hitting a wall, unable to approach.
Leicester sighed and flattened Seph’s right hand against the table next to the chair. He isolated the little finger, pulling it away from the others, then picked up a knife from the table, the same as he had used before. Seph watched in horrified fascination, his breathing quick and shallow, his hand pink and vulnerable against the bleached wood of the tabletop.
Hastings saw what Leicester had in mind. “I give,” he said quickly.
“That’s better,” said Leicester.
The alumni shackled Hastings’s hands with a heavy chain.
“The torc.” Leicester nodded to Martin Hall.
Martin opened a jeweled box on the table and brought out a glittering gold band, etched with runes and studded with jewels. He encircled Hastings’s neck with it, being careful not to touch the wizard. Martin’s hands were shaking, and it took him several tries to close it. Once fastened, the metal immediately tarnished and the jewels darkened, like stars blinking out.
Hastings ran a finger under the collar. “Now this is a rare piece, Gregory. Who did you steal it from?”
Leicester smiled. “It came from the Hoard, of course. I’ll actually miss having the Dragon at large. He always gets the blame for everything that goes missing. The curator assured me it would keep you quite docile for the time you have left.”
Leicester’s weight shifted, his grip tightening on the hand on the table. Seph had time to close his eyes before the blade came down. There was a terrible pain in his right hand, and he had to work on it a while, convince himself it was somebody else’s hand and somebody else’s pain, lose his affection for what had been taken from him.
It took a minute, and several deep breaths, but when he opened his eyes he could look at his hand with some detachment. It was not his little finger, but the tips of his middle and ring finger that had been clipped off, across the nail, even with his forefinger. They were bleeding heavily, blood staining the unfinished wood of the table.
Seph took another deep breath, lifted his chin, and looked straight across the room at Hastings. The wizard held his gaze for a moment. His face was impassive, but Seph could feel his anger, like a beast crouching in the room.
Hastings shifted his eyes to Leicester. “I won’t forget this,” he said softly.
“That’s the idea,” Leicester said, smiling. “I needed to verify that the restraints are working. You see, I can’t release the boy after all. I have plans for him.”
Hastings’s eyes flicked from the alumni to Seph, and back to Leicester. “Plans?”
“I’ve offered Joseph a place in my collaborative. I can be very persuasive.” He wiped the bloody knife on Seph’s shirt and carelessly dropped it back onto the table beside him. “Once we come to an agreement, he’ll play a special role in the upcoming conference.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to use him to destroy the conference participants. Beginning with you.”
By the time they reached the cellar, Seph was close to fainting. He remained upright only through the efforts of Martin and Peter, who gripped his elbows. Peter wrapped Seph’s shirttail around the bleeding hand, surreptitiously applying pressure.
Hastings surveyed the cellar chamber, frowning like a guest in a substandard hotel: Seph’s mattress in one corner, his pile of clothes next to it, Leicester’s awful worktable as the centerpiece. The room was cavelike, roughly square, perhaps twenty by twenty feet, with a damp stone floor and a moist, organic odor. One corner of it had been dry-walled into a crude enclosure containing a shower and toilet. Electrical conduits had been run across the ceiling to a light fixture in the center sprouting four bare bulbs that shed a harsh light over the center of the room. The corners were shrouded in darkness.
“Let’s hope the rest of the inn is a bit more comfortable.” Hastings turned to the half dozen alumni who had escorted them down. “We’ll need dressings, bandages, and antiseptic. Bring down some bedding, towels and soap, and a change of clothes for him.” He issued orders as easily as if he were master of the house, welcoming a guest, rather than a prisoner. He turned to Seph. “What would you like to eat?”
Seph shook his head and slid down against the wall until he was sitting against it. He closed his eyes, resting his injured hand over his heart.
“Bring us something anyway,” Hastings directed the alumni. “I’ll see if I can persuade him to eat something.”
“Yes, sir.” The alumni practically bowed their way out. Seph heard a bolt sliding into place on the other side of the door.
“Dr. Leicester’s students are not used to thinking for themselves,” Hastings said. He knelt next to Seph. “Now let me see the hand.”
Seph kept his hand folded tightly against his chest, ignoring the blood soaking into his shirt. “Is it true?”
Hastings sat back on his heels. “I am your father, yes. I’m sorry our first meeting as father and son has to take place under these circumstances.”
“How long have you known about me?”
“I found out about you three days ago. Unfortunately, from Gregory Leicester.”
“Somebody knew about me.” Seph kept his eyes on Hastings’s face, drinking in the detail.
“Yes. Somebody did.” The wizard took Seph’s hand and unfolded the bleeding fingers, wrapped them in the shirttail, applied gentle pressure.
“Who?”
“Your mother.” The wizard spoke matter-of-factly, with none of the drama warranted by this revelation.
“My mother.” And then, afraid he would die in the instant before he asked the question, he plunged on. “Who?”
“Perhaps it’s best to discuss that when you’re out of Leicester’s hands.” Hastings said it as if rescue was just hours away. “He doesn’t appear to know who your mother is, and I would prefer to keep it that way.”
Seph wrenched his hand free. “No. I’ve waited long enough. Gregory Leicester had to introduce me to my father, but you’re going to tell me who my mother is.”
Hastings inclined his head slightly. “All right.” He spun out a gossamer thread from his fingertips, fine as a spiderweb, casting it into a large circle around them on the floor until it enclosed half the room. At Seph’s puzzled look, he said only, “Discourages eavesdropping.”
The wizard massaged his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, as if he were a man who found it hard to give up secrets. “It’s Linda Downey.”
Linda Downey. Who seemed to know him so well, his habits, his favorite foods. Who’d pretended to be his guardian. Who was building a house for them in Trinity.
Nick Snowbeard’s words came back to him. Linda and Hastings were involved, years ago.
Seph scarcely noticed when Hastings picked up his hand again. He felt a slight tingling now, replacing the pain. Hastings pulled a small bottle from a pouch at his belt, uncorked it, and handed it to Seph. Seph took a cautious sip. “Finish it,” Hastings ordered, and Seph drained the bottle. It spread through him, warming him.
Hastings sat down next to Seph, shoulder to shoulder, against the wall, still keeping hold of his hand. The wizard’s strength flowed into him, the pain fleeing before it.
Hastings smiled. “I guess I still have a little power in me, despite the torc.”
“What do you mean? What does it do?”
Hastings shrugged. “It drains power.”
“Oh. They gave me Weirsbane.”
“It seems we are a dangerous pair.”
Seph liked the notion of being dangerous, in league with his father.
Hastings returned to the topic of relationships. “Your mother cares for you very much. She’s been beside herself these last few days.”
“If you say so.”
“She was only trying to protect you, Seph.”
“Right. It was for my own good. Now I understand why I’ve been an orphan my whole life.” They’
d lied to him. They’d all lied to him. Genevieve. His own mother.
Hastings closed his eyes, as if trying to summon the right words. “She wasn’t much older than you when we met. But she’d been through a lot, at the hands of wizards. Have you ever heard of the Trade?”
Seph shook his head.
“It’s an underground slave market, run by wizards, dealing in the gifted. Warriors and enchanters, mostly. Linda was ensnared in it, for a time. That’s how we met. I was already fighting the Trade. She joined me.
“It was a dangerous business. We were always on the move, working our network of spies, living under assumed names. Linda was especially good at it, because wizards tend to underestimate enchanters.
“It’s likely we would have been caught, eventually. But when you’re young, you think you’re immortal. And in wartime, you don’t really think about the future.
“Then she disappeared. I was sure she’d been taken back to the Trade. But in fact, she’d discovered she was expecting you.”
Seph tried to imagine a very young Linda Downey, what it must have been like.
“She knew you’d be a target if our enemies ever discovered your existence. So she gave you up.”
“Why didn’t she tell you?”
Hastings shrugged. “She didn’t trust me to support that decision, and she was right. My family—your family —my father and brother and sister were all murdered by the Roses. No one’s left. I would have refused to give up the only family I have. My son.
“She couldn’t entirely give you up, either. She watched over you, arranged for your schooling, received progress reports. That’s how Leicester and D’Orsay found out about you.”
Seph leaned his head back against the wall. “All my life, I’ve dreamed of this. I’ve finally found my parents, and now . . . Leicester is going to torture me until I agree to link to him. When I do, he’ll force me to murder you, and everyone else I care about.”
Hastings touched his arm. “Courage, Seph.”