Revolution (Chronicles of Charanthe #2)

  *

  Her monthly bleed was five days overdue before she remembered what they’d both forgotten. She barged into Daniel’s laboratory, gave Matt a look which told him he could leave quickly or be painfully evicted, and collapsed into a chair.

  “I haven’t bled,” she said the moment they were alone. “We forgot. I need you to make up some more of this.” She rolled the empty bottle across the bench towards him.

  “Okay.” Daniel nodded. “Relax, there is no hurry.”

  “That’s easy for you to say – you’re not the one with a tiny person suddenly growing inside you.”

  He picked up the bottle and turned it between his fingers, his expression suddenly thoughtful. “Do you not think this is ridiculous?”

  “What?”

  “You travelled across the Empire to find new students, yet we go to these efforts to avoid producing our own children.” He came to stand beside her, put one arm around her shoulders and ran the fingers of his other hand across her belly. “You have the power to give us someone untouched by the Imperial schools. No conditioning to break or recruitment to negotiate.”

  She frowned. “It takes a long time to turn a baby into a useful adult.”

  “This will not be a short war – and there comes an age where even a child can be useful. I could fight long before I was seventeen.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I have never been more so.”

  “Let me think about it.” Images swirled in her head, and she suddenly felt sick and dizzy. “If there’s really no rush with the potion, then I can have some time to think.”

  She’d hoped that ‘time to think’ would mean time to herself, but over the next few days Daniel sought her out more and more often to ask whether she’d reached a decision.

  “You have been thinking enough,” he said, coming unannounced into her bedroom one morning. “What have you thought?”

  “Okay. Fine.” As hard as she tried, she couldn’t find a good excuse to say no.

  “Good.” He nodded, looked a little befuddled, and turned away. “Yes, that is good. Well done.”

  “It wasn’t just me.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his back. “It’s a joint effort, this one.”

  “You have the harder part,” he said. “Though you will have around six months before you have to stop working.”

  “How do you know more about this than I do?”

  “I have been studying you for years.”

  She laughed, remembering some of his more unusual experiments. “Yeah, you have. Anyway, if I’ve only got six months I’d better head back to Almont sooner rather than later. We’ve got a revolution to organise. Do you want to come?”

  “I have work to do here.”

  “Of course you have.”

  “Must you go? I thought Andreas was there.”

  “Yeah, but he’s no strategist. Someone has to steer this.”

  “Take care of our child.” He put his hand on her stomach. “No strong spirits, and no more tonic.”

  “Why not?”

  “Remember when you first tried it, and you thought I had poisoned you?”

  She nodded.

  “That is why.”