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“You weren’t the only one,” Erik says.
“You were just in time,” I tell them. “I was on my way to the wedding.”
“We had less time to strategize until we got here,” Dante says. “Relative timelines, remember?”
“Yes, but where is here?” I ask. I turn around and take in the whole of my surroundings. I can’t help but notice a line of framed portraits along a far wall. The room is average. It could be any meeting room in Arras, but that doesn’t explain how my friends managed to set up in Arras. “Are those prime ministers?”
“You’re in the Eastern Ministry offices,” Dante explains.
“The Eastern Sector was destroyed.”
“Do you believe everything Cormac tells you?” Dante asks. He drags me to a window that overlooks a courtyard. When I spot the elephant fountains, I know he’s telling the truth.
I was here a little less than a month ago, but now it’s been entirely transformed into an Agenda barricade. Only the shell of the room reminds me it was once Guild territory before Cormac destroyed it—or rather, pretended to. “Why would Cormac lie to me? He told me he destroyed the whole sector. He made me watch.”
“To scare you.” Valery’s voice is soft as she speaks. “Fear is control.”
She’s right. How often had I demurred to Cormac’s wishes to keep him calm? I was afraid of the havoc he’d wreak on the innocent people surrounding us. I hadn’t considered that it might be a ploy.
“Cormac severed the sector, which means it will die soon enough,” Dante tells me. “He didn’t have to bother with destroying it. The sector can’t self-sustain for more than a few months without the Spinsters. If the mines on Earth fail, it could be years—possibly decades or centuries—before their loss threatens the entirety of Arras. The Eastern Sector has considerably less time, though, because Cormac left no Spinsters and the looms are mostly destroyed.”
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“That depends,” Dante says, gesturing toward Jost and Erik. “We followed you immediately, but it took us a while to get word to those on Earth. We’re only beginning to get a handle on the situation. Thankfully the Agenda has spread throughout most of Arras, so we managed to regroup quickly.”
“So you’ve been here since the severance of the Eastern Sector?” I ask.
“We arrived not long after. You were already gone. Cormac practically handed the place over. It’s allowed us a safe place to plan, but some of us only arrived in the last few days. Falon got here yesterday.”
Falon glances up at the mention of her name, meeting Dante’s eyes and then quickly looking away. She flips her dark hair over her shoulder so that it covers her face like a curtain. Although Falon was the first person we encountered on Earth, I’d spent little time with her. Now I couldn’t tell if the cold shoulder she was giving us was aimed at me or Dante. She’d made it clear to me the last time I saw her that she didn’t appreciate Dante not keeping her in the loop. If she hadn’t known where he was until a few days ago, I understood her anger.
Dante had been here for weeks, along with Jost and Erik, and I hadn’t even known. I wonder for a moment whether Pryana and the Agenda at the Western Coventry had any clue. Probably not, I decide. The risk to the heart of the Agenda would have been too great. The more important an operation is, the more secret it needs to be, I suppose.
It seems Falon might not have known where Dante was either. I recognize the cold shoulder, especially since Erik is giving it to me, too.
“I have lots to tell you,” I say, trying to focus on something important instead of the ice spreading through my body in reaction to Erik’s dismissive behavior.
“Soon,” Dante says. He gestures for me to join him at a nearby table and as people clear a place for us I see that Einstein and Jax are there, too, discussing a complicated-looking equation scrawled across a sheet of paper. They’re busy making adjustments, each bickering about the other’s changes. It’s quite the sight—lanky young Jax taking on Albert with his lined face and decades of wisdom. Jax worked for Kincaid on Earth, but he’d been using his considerable intelligence to help the Agenda. He might have met his match with Albert though.
“Hello!” I call out, waving excitedly to them. Despite the surprise of all this and of Erik’s strange attitude, I’m genuinely pleased to see both of them.
“My young Whorl,” Albert says, his bushy eyebrows rising with his smile.
“It’s only been a month since you told me I was the Whorl, but I still don’t understand what it means,” I admit as I sink into the chair next to him.
“In time,” Albert says. “There is much to discuss.”
Like why Erik is acting as if he doesn’t know me. Or how the Agenda set up its headquarters in the Eastern Sector without Cormac even knowing about it. I’d especially like to know how they managed to rebound me away despite the security assigned to me.
“I’m sure you have a million questions,” Dante says, dropping into a seat across from me. “But we’re in the middle of an operation right now. We had to adjust our strategy to capture you when we got the intel you’d be rebounding.”
“How did you do it?” I ask. “I can barely go to the powder room by myself these days. My rebound should have been secure.”
“It’s nearly impossible to breach a secure rebound session,” Dante says.
“I know. But if it’s impossible, how did you do it?” I ask again.
“Nothing’s impossible for a Creweler,” a familiar voice says behind me.
