When I did finally get to sleep, I dreamt of London burning. I was eleven years old again, terrified by the blistering heat of the flames, the acrid stench of smoke, and the piercing sound of people screaming. My brother was tugging at my arm, shouting at me to run, but my legs wouldn’t move.
I woke up covered in sweat despite the cold, and had a moment of confusion wondering why I was fully dressed, but then the memories of yesterday flooded back. Of course I was still fully dressed. With off-worlders in the next room, and Julien threatening to set fire to my door, I’d been reluctant to take off my boots let alone risk changing into night clothes.
I regularly had nightmares about the London firestorm, but the one last night had been far worse than usual. I blamed Julien for that. I glanced at the dawn sky outside my window, realized I’d woken up late rather than early, groaned, and rolled out of bed. I should be making plans, but my sluggish brain didn’t want to think. I collected oddments of clean clothing, unbolted my bedroom door, and found all three off-worlders were on their feet and looking expectantly at me.
My apartment had been my safe refuge for six years. No one but myself had set foot in here since Hannah had been banned from the top floor of the Resistance wing. Now my head was full of horrendous dream images, and three invaders had taken possession of my living room.
I fought the urge to retreat back into my bedroom, picked my way between the heaps of cushions and bedding strewn across the floor, locked myself in the bathroom, and reluctantly stripped off my warm clothing to wash. The icy water shocked me fully awake, banishing the last aftermath of my dream.
I took my time getting dressed again, went out of the bathroom, and headed back through the bedding obstacle course to toss my spare clothing into my bedroom. I locked my bedroom door, then went over to the door to the corridor and listened for a moment. Everything seemed quiet outside.
I turned to speak to the waiting off-worlders. “I’m going downstairs to find out what’s happening. You stay here. I’ll lock the door when I’m outside, then you bolt it from this side, and you don’t open it again for anyone other than me. Understand?”
Tad and Braden looked at Phoenix. The frustrated look on Tad’s face gave me the impression that Phoenix had given him a forceful lecture about keeping quiet.
“We understand,” said Phoenix.
I turned back to the door, but froze as I noticed something was missing from the shelf by the door. No, not missing, but moved, as if someone had picked it up to look at it and then put it back in the wrong place. It was a small picture of my father, dating from when he was nineteen. I’d had it since I was a child in London. Back then, I’d looked at it and been reassured by how much my famous father looked like Seamus. Now that resemblance was an uncomfortable reminder of my renegade brother, so I kept the picture here rather than in my bedroom, but I still didn’t like the idea of other people touching it.
I carefully restored the picture to its rightful place at the centre of the shelf. “For chaos sake, tidy up in here,” I snapped.
“We will,” said Phoenix hastily.
I unbolted the door, opened it just wide enough to slip through the gap, closed it behind me, and locked it before looking round. There was a broken bottle on the corridor floor, a souvenir of Julien’s visit last night, but nobody was in sight.
I kicked the pieces of bottle to the side of the corridor to be dealt with later, and headed to the roof for my morning routine of saluting the flag. The minute I opened the door to the outside world, I was hit by a torrent of freezing cold raindrops.
“Chaos!” I’d already decided it was too dangerous for the off-worlders to go hunting or fishing today, and I’d have to stay here and guard them myself since I didn’t trust anyone else to do it, but I didn’t want everyone else in the alliance stuck indoors because of the weather as well.
I spent a few minutes standing out in the rain, saluting the flag and studying the sky, then went back indoors and headed down to Reception. At first glance, everything seemed normal. Most people were sitting at tables and eating, but a few were still queuing up for their breakfast. I was looking round the room for Machico, when Hannah’s voice came from beside me.
“Blaze! You promised to talk to me yesterday evening, but you went upstairs for your meeting with Donnell and never came back down again.”
Hannah had obviously been lurking near the Resistance staircase, waiting for me to appear. I reluctantly turned to face her. “I’m sorry, but you must have heard there was trouble yesterday evening. I couldn’t come downstairs even for five minutes to eat.” I looked wistfully in the direction of the cooking fire.
Hannah completely ignored my heavy hint. “People are saying Donnell had an argument with the off-worlders and then went off and got drunk. Did you manage to talk to him about me before that?”
I couldn’t keep dodging this issue any longer. “Yes, I’ve talked to Donnell about you.”
“Is he going to make me a full member of the Resistance?” she asked eagerly. “Are we going fishing together again?”
“I’m sorry but the answer to both questions is no.”
“But why?” demanded Hannah. “If you could get Donnell to invite Raeni into the Resistance, then you must be able to get him to confirm me as a full Resistance member as well.”
I stared at her. “What makes you think I got Donnell to invite Raeni into the Resistance?”
“Everyone knows you arranged it. The women were all gossiping about it while we were fishing yesterday. Natsumi said that you’d told Donnell about Raeni’s good character, and that was why he invited her to join the Resistance.” Hannah shook her head. “Forget Raeni. What matters is that you can persuade Donnell to make me a full member of the Resistance at last.”
“No, I can’t,” I said. “Donnell’s memory of what happened six years ago is rather different to yours.”
Hannah’s expression changed to one of alarm. I’d already guessed she’d lied to me, but it was still depressing to see her guilt confirmed in her face. I could imagine how the lies had started. Hannah would have been trying to justify what she’d done, and bent the truth to make me sympathize with her. Once she’d started lying, she had to stick with her story, and after six years of repeating it, she probably half believed it herself.
“We need to have a long discussion about what really happened back then,” I said, “but we can’t do that in a rushed few minutes in a public place.”
Hannah gave me a calculating look. “We could discuss it if we went fishing together.”
“I won’t be going fishing today. Donnell isn’t available, and there are problems with the off-worlders, so I’ll have to stay here to guard them.”
“Chaos take the off-worlders.” Hannah spat the words out in pure exasperation. “If you, Tad, and Phoenix aren’t fishing today, then what happens to me?”
“I don’t understand.”
She gave an impatient sigh. “Natsumi and Himeko will go fishing together again, which leaves me without a partner. I could have gone fishing with Tindra, but Donnell’s partnered her with your precious Raeni.”
“Perhaps you could join up with one of the other fishing pairs?”
“If they won’t even speak to me, they certainly won’t let me join them as an unwanted and useless third person for a whole day.”
I had to admit Hannah was right about that. “If someone in the other divisions is short of a partner, then you could fish with them.”
“Going fishing with someone from another division will make the Resistance even more unfriendly to me.”
Hannah was right about that too. “Well, you’ll have to help out in the vegetable garden today.”
“Seriously? You want me to spend the day picking wintereat leaves like an infant?”
I was losing patience with Hannah. She knew I’d just found out she’d been lying to me for years, she must realize I’d be upset about that, but she was still making demands on me. “I’m sorry, but there’s
nothing I can do about this. I can’t be in two places at once.”
“And you’d rather be with the off-worlders than with me!”
Hannah turned and stalked off. I started moving after her, but stopped. There was no point in me chasing after Hannah. The only thing that would calm her down now was if I agreed to go fishing with her, and I couldn’t do that. Hannah was only in danger of suffering an unpleasant day, while the off-worlders were in danger of suffering an unpleasant death.
“Blaze!” Luther came hurrying up.
I held back a groan. I’d been desperate to get rid of Luther as fast as possible last night, so I’d agreed we’d talk this morning, but I’d just had one difficult conversation and didn’t need another.
“I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be discussing our wedding plans with Donnell as soon as he’s … back.”
I opened my mouth to say that Luther should ask if I wanted to marry him before discussing our wedding plans, but he kept talking over the top of me.
“Machico says he needs to speak to you right away.” He pointed at where Machico and the four division leaders were standing by the front glass wall looking out at the rain.
I saw Machico start walking towards me, and hurried to meet him halfway.
“Have you talked to Donnell?” I asked urgently.
“I called in on Donnell half an hour ago, and gave him a quick update on events,” said Machico. “He’s a little unwell at the moment, but he should be around this evening.”
“What about Julien?”
“You don’t have to worry about Julien causing you trouble today. I’m keeping him locked up until Donnell is able to talk to him.”
I nodded. “I thought it would be a bad idea for Tad to go fishing today, but if Julien is locked up …”
Machico shook his head. “I don’t think Luther, Aaron, Vijay or Weston are likely to try murdering anyone, but it’s safest if you keep all three off-worlders here today. Once everyone else has gone hunting and fishing, you can bring them down to eat and help out with some jobs. I arranged for your evening meals from yesterday to be saved for you.”
He paused before speaking in a louder voice. “The question is whether anyone goes hunting at all. We’re just deciding that. Come and join us.”
He headed back towards the group of division leaders. I hesitated, but Machico paused and beckoned to me, so I reluctantly went to join him.
“We were discussing whether the weather is good enough for us to hunt,” said Machico. “What do you think, Blaze?”
Why the chaos was Machico dragging me into this? I didn’t know what to say, and all my instincts were telling me I shouldn’t be saying anything anyway, but then Major’s voice called out.
“We’ve five men here. Why are we asking a woman’s opinion?”
The words stung me into speech. “I’ve just been up on the roof. You can only see clouds from this side of the building, but there is clear sky moving towards us. The rain should be stopping any minute, and it will stay dry for at least two or three hours after that.”
When I finished speaking, I looked at Machico, but he didn’t say anything. I’d started to realize he used silence as a tactic, pushing other people to speak and tell him what they were thinking, but why would …?
“We should definitely go hunting then,” said the youngest of the division leaders, Ghost of Brooklyn.
“I don’t think it will stop raining at all,” said the Manhattan leader, Wall.
There was a weirdly tense few seconds before Major spoke for Queens Island division. “I expect it will rain all day.”
Everyone turned now and looked towards Ice, leader of London division. Again there was that strange tension in the air, and I noticed Marsha had moved away from her knife tables to watch what was happening here.
“The rain seems to be stopping,” said Ice.
“We’ll go hunting then,” said Machico, in a brisk voice. “We’re short of leaders today, so we’ll be running with four larger than usual hunting groups.”
There was the soft sigh of held breaths being released, and the group of men split up to rejoin their divisions. I had the feeling something important had just happened, but I’d no idea what the chaos it was.
Luther had been standing nearby, watching us with a confused frown on his face. Now he came hurrying up to Machico. “You can’t do that!”
“What can’t I do?” asked Machico.
“Send out only four hunting groups.”
“We usually have six people leading hunting groups,” said Machico. “Donnell is unavailable. Julien is locked up. If you subtract two from six, then you get four.”
“Donnell delaying sending me out as a hunting group leader was just frustrating when we could send out six hunting parties anyway, but now …” Luther shook his head. “If you send out less than the usual number of hunting parties, and still don’t let me lead, it will make everyone think I’m totally incompetent.”
Machico looked at him doubtfully. “The division men are still mocking you.”
“One of the reasons they’re mocking me is because I’m not leading hunting groups,” said Luther fiercely. “They won’t stop until I prove myself.”
“Chaos knows, I’m on your side over this,” said Machico. “Donnell won’t like it, but he’ll have plenty of other things to worry about when he stops making love to his whiskey bottle, so I’ll send you out if you want. You’ll have to lead a bigger than usual group, but I’ll make sure it doesn’t include any of the main troublemakers. You’re sure you want to do this?”
Luther nodded his head eagerly.
“Then you can take a group to that flooded recreation area,” said Machico. “It attracts a lot of geese at this time of year, and we haven’t hunted there since before the winter fever hit us. Your group will have every chance to bring home a lot of geese, and establish your credibility as a hunting group leader.”
Luther threw a triumphant look in my direction before heading off, while Machico went over to the knife tables and spoke to Marsha. She picked up a belt from the Resistance table, and started dabbing paint on it with a small brush.
Did that belt belong to Julien? Was Marsha removing the white circle that marked him as an officer? For years, Donnell had had a deputy and six officers to help him. Losing his deputy had weakened his position, and if he’d lost another officer as well …
I waited until Marsha finished work and put the knife belt back on the table with the others, then hurried over to take a look. I spotted Julien’s belt, with the bottle that was his personal tag and the white circle still next to it. He was still an officer then.
I was trying to work out if I was glad or sorry, when I saw my own belt. The leaping flames didn’t have a blue planet next to them any longer, but a white circle.
My belt had the mark of an officer on it! Chaos weeping, what was happening here?
“Congratulations,” said Machico’s voice from behind me.
I whirled round to face him. “What have you done?”
“Not very much. There were some interesting developments last night. I just encouraged them a little.”
“What developments?”
“After the scene on the roof, Julien went downstairs and drank an incredible amount of whiskey amazingly quickly. He then started shouting his head off about having to obey orders from a girl.”
Machico smiled. “As you can imagine, everyone instantly realized Julien was talking about you. Donnell has been treating you like an officer lately, putting you in charge of the off-worlders. People originally thought that was because he was too jealous to let another man near Phoenix, but there’ve been a host of rumours circulating about what happened with Raeni, and the outburst from Julien started everyone rethinking the whole situation.”
“Was this just before Julien tried to set fire to my door?”
“That’s right. All four division leaders cornered me, asking if Donnell was planning to give you the vacant officer p
osition. I said that he’d been testing out the public reaction to you, and there’d be a formal vote on whether to confirm your appointment within the next day or two.”
He laughed. “There was a sudden mass exodus as the division leaders took their members off to hold urgent conferences in their own areas. This morning, a random conversation about the weather somehow turned into a pre-emptive vote on accepting you as an officer.”
“There was nothing random about that conversation,” I said. “You set it up very carefully.”
“Random or not, the important thing is you needed the support of two division leaders to confirm you as an officer. I knew Brooklyn division would vote in your favour. They’ve several extremely able women in their ranks, and they’re eager for the alliance to set the precedent of female officers so they can have female alliance representatives. Manhattan and Queens Island were equally certain to vote against a woman. Everything depended on Ice’s vote.”
Machico gave me a jubilant look. “I hoped he’d count the fact you used to belong to London division in your favour, and judge you on your own actions rather than those of your brother, and he did. Donnell has been trying to get the divisions to accept a female officer for years, and we’ve finally made the breakthrough.”
He obviously noticed my expression at this point, because his smile changed to a frown. “Is something wrong, Blaze?”
I looked at where Cage was standing among the Manhattan tables. Yesterday, Donnell had promised to save the vacant officer position for him. Now Cage had watched me take it for myself. It was hardly surprising that he was staring at me with implacable hatred.
Chapter Nineteen
“Chaos weeping, Mac,” said Donnell. “I turn my back for five minutes …”
“Eighteen hours,” interjected Machico.
“Five minutes,” repeated Donnell, “and you create havoc.”
The three of us were in Donnell’s rooms. Machico and Donnell were standing up facing each other, their voices hovering on the edge of outright shouting at each other. I was huddled in my usual chair again. There’d been a crisis every time I sat in this chair before, but today’s crisis looked like being bigger than any of them.