The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,39

own purposes, of course, but he never claimed otherwise. He set me to join an actively dangerous Bolshevist group—as it turned out, one run by Zodiac—and I turned out to have a knack for the game. Between that and Phoebe, who needed a keeper, I managed to believe I was doing something useful while I put myself back together. So there you are.”

Will nodded slowly. He’d asked the question, but the last thing he’d expected was a comprehensive answer, still less one that felt so rawly honest. He felt like he’d stepped into an unseen pit.

They sat for a few minutes in silence. Will had no idea what was happening in Kim’s head, but he’d spent plenty of time with men whose wounds weren’t on the outside, so he waited. Sometimes that was the only thing you could do.

At last Kim shifted. “Sorry. I don’t talk about this very well. I hear what you said to me, and I appreciate it.”

“I don’t mean to tell you how you ought to feel about your brother. Only that, if you go around counting up the cost of lives from what we all did and didn’t do, the numbers aren’t going to be pretty for anyone.”

“Perhaps that’s a reason to count them.”

“True. But then, if your lads had come through, if the Bolsheviks had brought in what they promised and made things better for everyone, wouldn’t it have been worth the cost?”

“Also true.”

Will sighed. “Fucking war.” He looked round at Kim’s huff of laughter. “Well, that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? So when you said you worked for the War Office before...”

“It was true as far as it went. I was on loan. DS—that’s my chief, intelligence men have a fashion of going by initials—sits like a spider at the centre of a web of obligations, occasionally pulling threads. I am a resource to be used, just like everyone else.”

“So if I help you, I’m working for the government, but not getting paid?”

“The Private Bureau very definitely isn’t the government. I doubt most of the Cabinet know it exists: they don’t have to. It ticks quietly away in a corner of Whitehall without anyone paying attention. I’ve a long leash, and a free hand.”

“And authority?”

“In what sense?”

“I just helped you commit a burglary—”

“Unlawful entry, at most.”

“Still unlawful. Are you allowed to break the law? I stabbed a man on your behalf last time; I’d like to know.”

“Murder is not encouraged, and best avoided,” Kim said. “I am absolutely not empowered to break the laws of the land, so I try not to get caught at it. But when push comes to shove, DS protects his own, is owed a great many favours, and knows where the bodies are buried.”

Will contemplated his profile. Kim had been looking ahead throughout the conversation, not once making eye contact. “Do you feel right about what you do?”

“I’ve done things that needed doing. That’s a significant improvement.”

“All right. I see. Thanks for talking to me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it like that,” Kim said. “It rather emphasises how bloody awful I am at this. I’m sorry, Will. You deserve better.”

“I deserve you not to lie to me about what I’m doing. I’ll work with you, but I want to know who I’m working for and against. And something else.” Their hands were still touching, had been throughout all that. Will interlaced their fingers deliberately. “This is a rule for you: you don’t use me to punish yourself. You don’t decide not to talk to me for two months to keep me out of danger or because you’re a terrible person who deserves to be alone, or any of that. I’ll tell you what I deserve, and what I want to be involved in, and I’ll let you know when I’ve done with you, same as you can me. Got that?”

Kim looked round at last. “What does that mean, ‘when I’ve done with you’?”

“Like we said the other day. When I decide I don’t want to keep on, I’ll tell you so, and you can do the same. Only, actually tell me next time, all right?”

Kim gave a half smile. “When you don’t want to keep on. When will that be?”

“How should I know? I don’t know what I’m doing. Nothing’s gone like I thought it would since 1914. And all I can think about is you.”

Kim’s mouth opened. He looked just a little desperate, and just a little hopeful, and then he reached for Will’s head,