Page 324 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘You remember that?’ he asks, cocking his head.

‘Kinda.’

‘You were very brave today, Myna bird.’

‘That’s ’cause you taught me, Kestrel bird.’

He smiles. Eats a little more. Feels a tiny bit better.

‘Daddy?’

‘Hm?’

‘It’s gonna get better soon,’ she promises him softly, the way a parent would. ‘The good things are ninvisible, remember?’

‘Yeah, I remember.’ He leans across the table and kisses her cheek. ‘How could I ever forget?’

✴

He avoids Jules.

Not because he doesn’t want to see him.

Want has become a constant physical ache, another pulse beneath his own that he can learn to live with. Every corridor carries the possibility of auburn hair, amber eyes, a clever hand reaching for his heart to expose his stupid lies.

No word in the English language could cover the degree of desperation he feels to just go to Jules and give in, but there are gaps in his days now. Minutes misplaced. Rooms entered with forgotten purpose.

He’s not himself.

And whatever else, his instincts have rarely steered him wrong. If they tell him to leave Jules and Vasily to their own devices, he listens.

If they tell him Holtz won’t survive Penhalyx’s return, he places the man on indefinite medical leave, removes him from the active roster and has Danya relocate him and his wife to an abandoned Branch safe house two states away, off-book.

If they tell him not to ask where Danya takes Holtz, he doesn’t. If they tell him to leave Control while Zaitsev changes the emergency routes and response codes, he goes without argument.

If his instincts say to let Danya spend more time with Jules and Vasily, which he is, then he’ll do it. After the damage he caused, how could he not? They seem deep in serious conversation sometimes.

If his instincts say to keep Blaire busy with household organisation so she’s not worrying about him all the time, then that’s what he does.

And if his instincts tell him to move all his money into accounts Danya controls, beyond Penhalyx’s reach, then he does it because he trusts the deepest part of who he is: a soldier.

Whatever is wrong, he has to trust that part of himself because it carries no ego, no love, no obsessive adoration or wilfully naïve hope.

Only the pragmatic nature of a cynic.

All his instincts are preparing for the worst.

The dread fills his bones.

Less and less does he recognise himself in the mirror.

But he keeps on working. He does his job. He carries on.

It’s January twelfth when the world really, truly ends.

✴

That morning, Jolene messages to say she’ll deliver the things he ordered herself. It’s unusual. She’s never come to the Estate to deliver things, but it saves him driving to meet her in their usual place, so he tells her fine.