Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) - By Paula Flumerfelt Page 0,122

it, but he was hoping that he could at least get the trust as to why the man thought he would make such an unfit leader.

She tilted her head and made a face, thinking. “He said he was going to see that Mina and Elise got home safely, then he was going to go to the Head Quarters. Why?”

“Uh…” He said, mind trying to churn out a decent lie to cover why he really needed to talk to Solomon. “I needed to ask him something, but maybe you’ll know. Because the resistance is so spread out, how did Nathan communicate with all the members at one time? Sending messengers out seems just impractical.”

“Well, that job fell to Josette.” Avanon said.

Mathieu waited for her to continue, but she did not. “And why is that?”

“Don’t know. Go ask her. She’s meditating down by the Emotion Tree.”

“Well, if she did it before, I’ll just leave her to it now...” He said, really not wanting to talk to Josette one-on-one.

Chapter

Eighteen

The resistance headquarters lay on the coast at the borders of the Eastern, Western, and Central Districts. It sat on the top of a cliff, a four-story cylindrical building. The top floor was an office with three floor-to-ceiling windows, and the center one opened onto a balcony; the office was actually something of a war room with detailed maps of Unith and some of the bigger towns, profiles on government officials and some of the higher ups in the Unithian military; the second floor wasn’t technically a floor, more of an open area between the bottom floor and the top, with a staircase spiraling up the walls of the tower and that led to the rooms set in intervals along the stairway. The bottom floor was a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room furnished to seat as many as possible.

Mathieu was standing in the living room, staring at the oversized wild cat sitting in the corner of the room next to the fire place. He was standing between Erik and Jo, Enak just in front of him. It’d been just over a month since he’d been elected as leader of the resistance. The others had thought that he needed to at least see the HQ if he was going to be in charage.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” Kiev said, coming into the room from the foyer, wiping her hands on her pant legs. “How are you boys doing?” She asked.

“It’s hotter than the gates of hell outside, but otherwise I think we’re fairly good. How are you?”

She looked at Erik and Enak before nodding, not all that comfortable with them it seemed. “Just busy.” She tapped her heel on the floor for a moment before she looked up at Mathieu. “I asked you to come here to see something I…found. But where we are going is for you and I alone. The others need to stay here.”

Jo stepped between the two of them. Even though he was shorter than both of them, he looked down his nose at Kiev. “I go where he goes. The other two will stay. Understand me?”

Raising her eyebrow, she shrugged one shoulder. “Fine, Jo. Do as you wish. You are not my responsibility, kiddo.”

Jo grinned brightly at her, “Okay!” He hugged the blonde woman around the waist happily.

“Awe.” She hugged him back, then patted his head. “Let’s get going then. I don’t think Mathieu will want to miss this.” She went to the large cat and pet it behind the ear; it purred loudly, and got up from where it sat. Going to a chair, it hopped up into it. Leaning down, Kiev pulled the rug aside and opened a hidden panel in the floor, revealing a hole barely large enough for Mathieu, and a ladder. “We go down. There is a passage at the bottom.”

Jo laughed in good spirits and volunteered to go down the hole first. Kiev stepped aside to make room for Jo’s childish enthusiasm, following him down. Mathieu went last.

Mathieu wasn’t the biggest fan of small spaces, but he concentrated on taking the ladder one rung at a time, letting the earthy smell fill his nose as he went down. He realized about halfway down the very long descent that the walls of the hole around him were made of dirt with metal fencing keeping it from falling in on them; this did nothing to make him like the small space any better. He couldn’t help but think that the small hole could