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  Commander Fodder nodded slowly, but he stayed quiet for a long time. He had an intense frown on his face. One that made him look stern, rather than thoughtful. Rae had seen it enough times by now to recognize that he was just working things through.

  After a few minutes, he turned his probing gaze to her. “So, you and Mr. Wardell simply… willed yourself free of her binding power?”

  Rae flushed again and nodded at her shoe. It was the part of the story she most dreaded having to tell. In a way, she was glad that she had a practice run doing it with Fodder, before having to present it to the rest of the Council.

  Because, the truth was, it wasn’t just a matter of strength of will. Samantha had provided some powerful motivations for breaking through at the precise instant that the both of them did.

  She even provided a prop…

  “Well, the thing is…she took my engagement ring.” Rae automatically started fiddling with the thing the second she said the word, well aware that Fodder’s eyes were locked onto her the entire time. “I know that probably sounds like a rather adolescent reason to push through, but it wasn’t about the ring. It was about the symbolism of it.” She drew in a deep breath, and forced herself to look into his eyes. “She took my entire life. My identity. My family, friends, and home. When she took that ring, she was threatening to take Devon away as well. And I couldn’t…I wouldn’t let her do that.”

  Fodder stared for a moment, then nodded again. Filing away everything useful for later analysis and evaluation. Keeping his personal opinion hidden safely behind that impenetrable frown. “It doesn’t sound like an adolescent reason at all,” he concluded, pushing stiffly to his feet. “It sounds like you drew strength from those things most important to you, and used it to overcome a set of ink the likes of which I’ve never seen. If anything, you are to be commended. You, and Mr. Wardell both.”

  Unlike Rae, he seemed to have no trouble switching between first and last names depending on whether the situation called for it. He seemed to have that mysterious line that Rae was always searching for well in hand.

  “There’s just one thing that I don’t understand,” he said as he picked up his jacket. “The house you went to... you said it belonged to a man named Elias? One of your father’s…er, patients?”

  A cold shudder ran through Rae’s arms, and she nodded as goosebumps trailed down them. She was grateful he’d chosen an ironically innocuous word to describe it. Aside from herself, Anthony Fodder was the only other person in the world who had seen firsthand the atrocities that Simon Kerrigan had perpetrated.

  “How did you know his name?” Fodder asked curiously. “Or rather, how did your father know which man was the focus of your search?” An echo of that same shudder rippled through his shoulders, but he was quick to get it under control. “All I can remember is a sea of faces…”

  That, at least, Rae could answer easily enough. “Julian drew him for me. When I showed it to my father, he gave me a name.”

  Fodder looked up in surprise. “Julian?” There was a strange tone to his voice. One that Rae could have sworn sounded almost protective. “You took Mr. Decker with you back into your father’s mind?”

  “No, no, no.” She quickly shook her head, realizing that it wasn’t that easy an explanation after all. “Julian was able to…what I mean is…I asked him to look back through my mind. To a specific face that held my complete focus. Once he saw him, the drawing was easy enough.”

  Simple enough words, but they made little sense. Fodder simply blinked, frozen with stunned incredulity as he tried to wrap his head around it all.

  “You’re saying a boy whose gift is to see the future…went back into the past?”

  Rae bit her lip, suddenly feeling as though she might have spilled a trade secret before Julian was ready himself to let it go. “It was more like he made a psychic connection. Took a step inside my mind, so that when I saw Elias he was able to see him, too.”

  “Well that’s…” A look a sheer wonder danced across Fodder’s face before he cleared his throat and got himself under control. “That’s very convenient.”

  Another merciful word. Almost as good as patients.

  “Are you staying for dinner?” Rae asked as the two of them wandered out of the study and back down the hall. For their final night in Kent the gang had gone all out, assembling a farewell feast that would do that grand house proud. “There’s plenty of room, and I know Molly and Luke would be glad to have you.”

  “Yes, I thought I might. If that’s alright.” Fodder’s face softened into a friendly smile as he put the troublesome line away and morphed from associate into friend’s parent. “Seeing as it’s the final one, might as well make a night of it.”

  “You’re always welcome in London, you know.” Rae nodded at the others as they made their way into the kitchen. Three half-empty bottles of wine already stood open on the counter, and the dinner party was apparently already in full swing. “After all, you’re going to have a grandchild there before long…”

  A beaming smile lit up his face, warming it to the point of a thaw, before both he and Rae were cheerfully accosted by the rest of the people in the house.

  “Dad!” Luke rounded the corner, and gave his father a brief one-armed hug before he was handed a plate of potatoes to carry out to the table. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just having a quick word with Rae,” Fodder answered, nodding a polite hello to Beth.

  Rae again. When all afternoon I was Ms. Kerrigan.

  “Good to see you, Anthony,” Molly grinned, and came in for a quick hug herself as she sailed past with a pitcher of cider. “Jules saw you were staying, so we already set another place.”

  Fodder glanced gratefully towards the table before suddenly turning back. “Actually, Mr. Decker is just the man I wanted to speak with.” He glanced across the kitchen, to where Julian and Devon were uncorking another bottle of wine. “Julian, perhaps you would sit beside me at dinner?”

  The cork flew comically through the air as Julian looked up in surprise. He and Mr. Fodder were on polite terms, but they rarely interacted directly. On that note, it was definitely one of the first times that the Commander had ever called him Julian. “Uh…yes, of course.” He visibly resisted the urge to check the future, and forced himself to smile instead. “I’ll meet you out there.”

  Fodder nodded graciously and disappeared along with Beth to the dining room—both of them laden down with endless platters of food.

  “What did you do?” Devon muttered, grabbing some glasses for the wine.

  Julian stared at the spot where the Commander had been standing a moment before. “I have no idea.” He glanced quickly at Rae, as if to ask, What did you do?

  Angel stretched up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss as she flounced past with the bread. “Maybe he’s going to force you to give up the sex of the baby. It’s his grandchild, after all.”

  Rae grabbed her by the elbow, struck with a sudden suspicion. “Do you know?” she whispered eagerly. “Did Jules tell you?”

  For a split-second Angel flashed her a taunting grin, then her face evened out into a lovely smile. “Afraid not. He’s damn loyal, that one. It’s a quality I’ve been trying to stamp out of him.”

  Devon rolled his eyes. “You’re a gem. Have I told you that lately? So glad you’re in his life.”

  “Be nice,” Rae chided with a grin.

  Angel’s eyes danced with devilish merriment. “That’s right, Devon, be nice. Otherwise you might find that Julian gets inexplicably busy these next few days, and all your playdates will be cancelled.”

  Devon opened his mouth with a cold response, but thought better of it at the last moment and swept out to the dining room, leaving the women behind.

  “Playdates.” Gabriel shook his head as he breezed past. “Sometimes I can’t believe the things I hear in this house.”

  * * *

  The dinner was a tremendous success. A perfect farewell to a place that
had seen the gang through some of the darkest days of their lives. They drank, and ate, and laughed, and talked until the late hours of the night.

  There were a few awkward moments, of course. One of them being when Kraigan loaded up a plate of food to bring down to Simon. Another being when Angel loudly recounted the story of the first time Gabriel had tried to sneak wine down into the cave. Even despite her rather inebriated editing, the implied repercussions were still too horrific to imagine. But they still managed to get through the meal in fine form.

  Whatever discussion Fodder had wanted to have with Julian, it looked as though things never got off the ground. The psychic listened attentively for only a moment, before his entire face transformed and he leaned away deliberately. Although the Commander tried to engage him several more times throughout the course of the evening, he was effectively shut down. Eventually he gave up, and the two men simply enjoyed what was left of the dinner in peace.

  When they finally finished, hours later, it was already well past midnight.

  “Well, that does it for me.” Beth tossed her napkin onto the table as she pushed up from her chair. “Goodnight, everyone. We’ll get an early start moving you out in the morning.”

  There was a general murmur of goodnight and agreement as the rest of them got stiffly to their feet and began to disperse for the night. The dishes were thrown out, as no one wanted to bother cleaning them, and Rae quickly conjured a clean stack in their place.

  “Told you,” Angel murmured to Molly as they headed upstairs, “no need to pack.”

  Whatever the redhead said in reply, it went unnoticed as the rest of them headed slowly into the main foyer to walk Mr. Fodder out to his car.

  “Why don’t you just stay in one of the guestrooms?” Rae suggested politely, eying the growing storm outside. “No need to drive back in this. In fact, it makes sense. If you stay, you and I can carpool to the meeting tomorrow morning.”

  By using every bit of political currency she had Rae had been able to put off her official debriefing for two days, but her time was up. The story of what happened with Samantha needed to be told, and the entire government was gathering in the morning to come up with a plan.

  “The meeting tomorrow?” Fodder repeated blankly. A second later, his lips turned up into a wry smile. “I’m sorry, Ms. Kerrigan. But I’m afraid that meeting is only for you.”

  Ms. Kerrigan again. What triggered it this time?

  “You’re not coming?” she repeated in dismay. Over the last few weeks, she’d come to rely upon him quite heavily in terms of matters of state. “Just because I told you everything already?”

  The words came out with a bit more of a pleading edge than she had intended, and for a split second a spark of sympathy softened his eyes.

  “It isn’t just me not coming,” he replied quietly. “The Privy Council called this meeting on their own. No Knights will be in attendance.”

  “Pardon me?” Rae repeated in shock. “When did that happen?”

  Devon put an automatic arm around her, and she leaned into his side.

  “It happened when you weren’t with us, I’m afraid.” Fodder was suddenly brisk, almost angry. Even though Rae got the feeling it wasn’t at her. “Since the defeat of Cromfield, it seems as though many on the Council see no need to continue holding joint governmental functions. It took only your absence to trigger the change.”

  Rae still couldn’t believe it. She had only been gone a few days. Was that really all the time it took for a fledgling alliance to fall?

  “But how could Keene let that happen?” she insisted, reaching out to stop him as he opened the front door. “He would never—”

  “It isn’t up to him,” Fodder said simply. “At least, it wasn’t at the time. Decisions like that are subject to the will of a vote. He may have opposed it, but there was nothing he could do.”

  “There were that many votes against?” Devon asked with a quiet frown. “That many people wanted to split back apart?”

  Fodder held up his hands peaceably, calming the youngsters down. “No one has split back apart. At least, not yet. The alliance still stands. Our two organizations are simply no longer conducting the business of the day as one entity.” His soothing pronouncement was met with a sea of worried faces, and he tried again. “In a lot of ways, it makes sense. We allied ourselves under the threat of Cromfield. Now that he’s gone, there’s little reason to conduct joint matters of state.”

  Little reason?

  Rae glanced up at Devon before turning back to him in disbelief. “What about the newest threat on the horizon?! What about the fact that a single girl was able to wipe out the memory of the entire tatùed community, and as of right now no one knows where the hell she is!”

  Fodder looked at her evenly, and she could tell that even now he didn’t disagree. But his hands were tied just as much as Keene’s had been. If the people had spoken…that was it. “And it was for that very reason that I came over today,” he said quietly. “To hear the account from your own mouth. To make myself available, so that you and I are still open to communication. Even if our agencies are temporarily misaligned.”

  He was a straight-shooter. Rae had to give him that.

  She took a second to register the diplomatic offer, then nodded quickly. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I was just…caught off guard.” Under her breath, she couldn’t help but add, “It was always Carter who took care of these things.”

  This time Fodder’s face softened for real. A wave of genuine sadness shadowed across his face, followed by genuine regret. “Carter used to take care of a lot of things,” he said quietly. For whatever reason, his eyes flickered up to Julian before returning to Rae. “But those things fall on you now.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Rae muttered softly.

  He gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder before making a deliberate effort to lighten the mood. “I’m sure everything tomorrow will be fine. And my line is open any time you like. As for tonight, thank you again for a lovely evening.”

  A murmured chorus of goodbyes echoed back as he went around the circle, bidding each one of them goodnight. “Devon, next time I’m expecting you to cook.” His eyes twinkled as he wrapped a scarf around his neck. “From what I hear, you’ve been holding out on us.”

  Devon flushed in surprise as Rae shot him a knowing grin.

  “Luke, I’ll be back tomorrow to help with the move.”

  His son thanked him, then headed upstairs after Molly as his father slowly made his way back to the front door.

  “And Julian, I hope you’ll think about what I said.”

  The two of them locked eyes and Julian shifted nervously, hovering a bit more on the periphery of the group than he was accustomed to doing. “Goodnight, sir.”

  Fodder’s shoulders fell with a patient sigh before he lifted his hand to wave. “Goodnight.”

  With that, he was off. Leaving a suddenly silent house behind him. The dinner left everyone in fine spirits, but the little conversation by the front door had chilled those spirits down by quite a bit.

  A fissure between the Knights and the Council? After only a few weeks?

  Rae’s eyes clouded as she drifted towards the stairs, trying to analyze the situation from every possible point of view. Was it a good thing? Was it inevitable? Could it be reversed?

  It wasn’t until she got all the way to the landing that she glanced behind her suddenly. “Jules, what was Fodder talking about?” she asked curiously. “Why did he want to sit by you at dinner?”

  Devon turned to him expectantly as well, but Julian’s face darkened and he turned away.

  “Nothing.” Without another word, he turned on his heel and headed up the stairs. “He had nothing to say.”

  Rae looked and Devon and he stared back at her. Nothing to say? Impossible.

  Chapter 6

  The first time Rae had been called before the Privy Council, she remembered being absolutely terrified the entire time. There had neve
r been a more intimidating group of people, and they could not have possibly met in a more intimidating place. Deep in a labyrinth of tunnels, a secret maze built by Henry VIII himself, a teenage Rae had stood—shaking in her boots—under the critical eyes of a circle of men. Each one gifted with more power than she could possibly imagine.

  Now she saw them as a pack of frightened old fools.

  “But I still don’t understand what prompted the split to begin with,” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “Especially given the present climate.”

  An ancient man leaned forward. Someone whose name she continually forgot, but who she remembered being disconcertingly chatty with Victor Mallins back in the day.

  “Madame President, I don’t believe it fair to say there was a split when the alliance was never formalized in the first place. The Council has a long history of standing on its own—”

  “Never formalized?” Rae leaned forward in her chair, wishing they hadn’t put her at the very head of the table, under this unwanted spotlight. It was funny, the table was round so everyone was considered equal, and yet, somehow, she seemed to be sitting in the center with everyone surrounding her, like at the head of a table. Both spots to her left and right were vacant, as if purposely setting her separate. “I hate to disagree, but it very much was formalized. Commander Fodder and I formalized it ourselves, along with…”

  Carter.

  She could never bring herself to intentionally say the name. It slipped out every now and then. It seemed impossible for it not to. But the pain of his death had in no way lessened over the last few months. If anything, every moment like this made her feel his absence even stronger.

  Louis Keene leaned graciously forward for the assist. From his seat at the opposite end of the table, he could see quite clearly when she was reaching her limit. “I think Mr. Malcom’s point is that, while the alliance may have been formalized, it was designed for a very specific purpose. A purpose which you and your team completed with the defeat of Cromfield back at the factory. In your subsequent absence, the question of continuing such a partnership was put to a vote.” His eyes flickered sharply around the room, and several key members made it a point to look elsewhere. “I’m afraid it was shot down.”