Last to Rise(46)

“Malaki is quite right,” Perak went on. “Going in daylight would be out of the question, and I’m not about to lose my two best mages. If nothing else, we need them for Glow. Besides which, I quite like having them alive, thank you.”



It’s nice to have someone on your side, especially when he’s in charge. Both Pasha and I let out long breaths at his words – it was going to be our arses on the line, and any reprieve is better than none.



“You should get some sleep,” Perak murmured to me, though he looked like he’d not slept in a week himself. I was sure I could see new strands of grey in his hair and his face looked sallow.



But he was right, so I thought about it. I thought about the office, with the sofa that also served as my bed jammed up behind my desk, and Dendal humming a happy song in the background. I thought about the dreams too, the ones that left me all sweaty with terror and with a hand jammed in my mouth to stop the scream. I needed sleep, but I wasn’t sure any of that appealed.



So instead I half took Perak’s advice and went to see Erlat. I wasn’t expecting to sleep, but you never knew. Besides, she probably had a spare bed I could borrow if I felt like bathing myself in fear-sweat.



Hopefully she’d be here this time – over the last couple of days I’d tried a few times to see her but Kersan kept saying she was “busy”. I knocked on the door and restrained the urge to lie against it. I almost fell asleep in the two seconds it took before a familiar face opened it. Kersan smiled to see me, his clothes pristine as always, his smile perhaps a bit too practised, and told me in his smooth voice that “Madame is with a client. Would you care to wait?”



I would, although the thought of “with a client” always made me come over a bit funny. I’m not sure why but… Instead of thinking about that, about any of what was struggling in my brain, I studied the paintings on the wall, the nudes draped with bits of velvet, their bodies in new and, um, interesting positions. I must have fallen asleep without realising it, because Kersan’s voice made me sit up abruptly and wonder where in hell I was. I levered myself up, sweaty from some half-remembered dream, because the half I could remember was scaring the crap out of me.



Kersan ushered me into Erlat’s room. As always, no sign of anyone else ever having been here. Erlat was her polished self, her dark hair smoothed back into an elegant coil at the base of her neck, her movements slow and sensual, her mouth quick to laugh, at least when she saw me. Yet she seemed worn down somehow, tired and just that little bit frazzled, though she favoured me with a teasing smile and a wink, so whatever had her ruffled couldn’t be too bad.



“Well, if it isn’t my hero.” Her mouth taunted me with an impish grin and she smoothed her dark hair. “Don’t tell me, you’ve come to take me up on my offer. About time too.”



It felt good, better than good, just to be here where I knew my own mind wouldn’t gang up on me, so I let her teasing pass and even, for once, didn’t blush. “Not today.”



A boom-shudder rattled the teacups on the low table between us.



“How long, do you think?” Erlat asked. The question everyone asked of everyone else, the only question. Unanswerable. It was all people would say, could say, keeping everything else under wraps, locked up tight.



When I didn’t reply, Erlat raised an eyebrow and regarded me solemnly. “What, lost for words? That’s not the Rojan I know.”



I couldn’t seem to get any words out – how do you say, “Hey, I think I’m cracking up”? Tell her that I didn’t want to talk about it, any of it, and I most certainly wasn’t telling her what Pasha and me were doing later and what was bound to follow? When I didn’t answer, her frazzled look grew stronger as she sat on the lounger and waved a hand for me to join her. Being Erlat, she didn’t start with what was really worrying her but worked up to it gradually.



“How’s Lise?”



“Well enough. At least she isn’t going stir-crazy cooped up in the lab. I am. Well, when I stay cooped up anyway.”



“I’d bet that isn’t often. Perhaps I have a little good news on that score.” Her smile was wicked, almost secretive, and made me wonder, once again, what she’d been up to. The last time I’d seen her she’d been taking her leave of Perak with a knowing look. I had a funny feeling one of his plans was to blame.



“What have you done?”



She laughed, and the sound of it did me the power of good. “Oh, not much, not much at all. Only, one of my girls, she’s a regular visitor to my friend the Mishan liaison. Remember him?”