"Lecture," Thomas repeated, and paced a little. It was the sign of very well-done tailoring, Jess thought, when someone of Thomas's size could clasp hands behind his back and not create a wrinkle in the coat. "Lecture, yes, that's better than speech. Much better. And it is a lecture, you're right. I'm simply-"
"Explaining the principles and demonstrating the function," Jess said. "You have it. You'll be all right." He kept smiling. He'd split himself into two halves over the past few days: one half had wolfed down double portions of every dinner and kept them down. Had coldly calculated every aspect of this night and made all the arrangements. That half was howling with rage and anguish, silently. It was more than a little insane.
The other half-the half that smiled and talked and laughed and pretended that everything was all right-that half was a liar. A good one. Maybe the best that Jess had ever been at deceiving everyone, even himself. The only person he'd been able to become real with had been Morgan, and only in secret, in the darkness. Magic and regret and fear, and a longing that only grew stronger with the knowledge that it was all coming to an end.
"Just remember that these are murderous criminals who won't hesitate to kill us and dump our bodies down a well. Talk in small words," Dario said, and shook him out of memory. If Jess and Thomas looked elegant enough, Dario looked . . . well, like Dario, only intensified. He wore a black-and-gold brocade coat that swept from neck to ankles, and beneath that, like Glain, he'd favored a dark shirt and trousers, but he'd added a brocade vest in a black-on-black design that was both decadent and subtle.
Good enough to be buried in, Jess thought, and choked off the thought. The emotion. He needed to be silent inside. And empty.
"He doesn't mean that," Khalila said with an apologetic smile directed at him. Don't; don't smile at me. Of all of them, I can't stand it from you. She looked especially vivid tonight; the beautiful fine silk of her dress-wine red this evening, with a matching hijab with gold embroidery-was far better than what she'd been wearing for at least the past six months. She looked . . . happy. "And he certainly doesn't mean to insult you or your family, Jess."
He felt his lips stretch. He could see from the look in her eyes that it was right, that this empty mannequin was still convincing. "I'm sorry, did Dario say something? I never notice," Jess said. Dario grinned with bared teeth. Friendly, with an edge, as ever. There was a wild light in his eyes, a suppressed panic. And for a terrible moment, Jess was afraid that he was going to say something to upset everything.
He couldn't forget how Dario had looked this morning. For all his talk of chess moves and strategy, cold-blooded calculation and hard choices . . . when Jess had put the final plan to him, he'd flinched. Hard. There's got to be another way.
He'd convinced Dario there wasn't, and he could see the horror of it in his friend's face. He had to believe that Dario was steady enough to do this. He was the only one Jess could trust with it.
The only one, except for the other, vital piece of the puzzle.
"Is Morgan coming?" Khalila asked. "I expected her-"
"Now, I hope," Morgan said, and swept in the doorway. She looked magnificent-dressed in a long, fitted dress in dark gold velvet, with a black velvet jacket that hugged her in soft curves. Her hair spilled down in shimmering curls, and he remembered how it felt, having her hair in his fingers, her lips pressed to his. He didn't want to remember it, but there were some things, sharp things, that cut even through the darkness.
Her smile shattered him into a million pieces, and he had to turn away, to pretend to pick up a book he deliberately knocked from the table, because the reality of this was closing in around him and stealing the oxygen from his lungs. He wanted to scream. Seeing the strength in her eyes, the acceptance, even though she knew what was coming . . . it was harder to take than he'd thought.
Morgan knew. Dario knew. Brendan and Anit knew. But that was all. Everyone else, everyone, would smash into this at speed, and the results would be . . . unimaginable.
Jess swallowed and tasted the smoke of Philadelphia again. Walls closing in. Saw the tower collapsing.
Steady, said the other part of him, the mannequin with the smile and the straight back and the lies. It's almost done.
///
They stood in the huge, brooding, dark-paneled expanse of the great hall, waiting for the others. For Wolfe and Santi, Brendan and Callum Brightwell.