slowly, looking at her friend. ‘If you’re here, it’s because he wants you to be here. He wants you to tell me what they’re planning to do.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Rhian. ‘He doesn’t know I’m telling you his secrets.’
‘How can you still be so naive? He’s using you. He uses everyone. It’s how Garnet operates.’
‘As opposed to you, who only wants the best for us all? Saint Velody, the queen of everything.’
With that retort, worthy of Delphine, Rhian turned around and walked right back out of the house.
‘You can’t let her leave,’ Livilla insisted. ‘Not if she can help us save Topaz.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Macready, and darted out the door before anyone could debate it. He caught up with her in the alley.
‘Rhian, lass! Don’t huff off like that right when we need you.’
‘Keep your distance, Mac,’ she flung back at him, still walking. ‘Velody’s right. You can’t trust me.’
‘Hogshit,’ he said, and took her hand in his. It was warm, but no one got set on fire. Good result. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘This is my home.’
‘Haven’t noticed you around much.’
‘Do I have to defend myself to you, too? We were all so understanding when Velody got swept up in the Creature Court. Why has no one got the same patience for me?’
‘To be fair, Delphine wasn’t all that understanding with Velody …’
Rhian had no time for jokes. ‘They both have their roles — Velody, Delphine. You, too. Why can’t any of you see that what I’m doing is important?’
He kept holding her hand. ‘No offence, my lovely, but it looks a lot like you’re collaborating with the Power and Majesty who threw us all out of the Creature Court.’
‘Threw you out?’ Rhian snorted. ‘Garnet can’t do that. You did it to yourselves.’
‘Will you listen to what you’re saying?’ Macready said in disbelief. ‘Velody and Ashiol were this close to death.’
‘Their choice,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t have time for all this game playing and duels. The futures have no patience for such things, and neither does the Seer.’
Oh, it was never a good thing when anyone started talking about themselves in the third person.
‘This is pretty much what it’s always been like in the Court,’ Macready said carefully.
‘I know that. Do you think I don’t know that? I know everything, Mac. I have a dozen voices in my head, all telling me the same things, just in slightly different words, and some days I think I’m going to explode with them all.’
Rhian let go of his hand and leaned against the nearest wall, her chest rising and falling with the effort of it. She looked not just weary but old. Far too old for a lass like her.
‘I can see how that would make things hard,’ Macready tried.
‘You don’t see anything. I have it all inside my head. And it’s so important!’
‘Why?’ he asked gently.
‘Because I’m the last Seer!’ Her voice rang out across the alley and she looked horrified. ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to tell anyone that. So many secret … I can’t keep them all straight.’
‘What do you mean, love?’
‘I mean, this is it. I’m the last one. There won’t be any Seers after me. I don’t know what it means — if the city will fall, or if I’m going to be doing the job forever, or what. But it’s hard and it’s heavy and I don’t know what to do with it.’
She slid down the brick wall to the ground. Macready sat next to her. When he took her hand again, she let him.
‘How long have you known?’ he asked.
‘Since the nox Garnet came back. Everything crashed in on me and I saw so much … I’m still trying to make sense of everything I saw. I came to Velody today because I saw that I did. I went to Garnet because I’d seen that, as well. I know everything I’m going to do, and it makes it easier to do exactly that. At least I don’t have to make any decisions.’
‘How do you know the future you’ve seen is a path and not a warning? You can’t let it rule your feet and hands, lass. Fate is something to be fought against. You don’t walk into it like a —’
‘Like a lamb?’ Rhian said cynically. ‘I’m so tired. The voices in my head won’t be quiet, even for a moment.’
She leaned against him, and he let her, wondering when she had last used touch as comfort.
‘Can’t help noticing you’re still not burning me