Chapter 16
Eleanor spread Lucille’s paper on the table in front of the council. “The Assessors won’t change the letters for us, but I’ve got names,” she said. “There are eleven.”
“Good work,” Don said, leaning across to study the list. “What now?”
“I suppose the next step is to go and make ourselves known to these students. Make sure they have our invitation in their minds when they get their letters of assignment.”
“Well, you can’t go to Venncastle, that’s obvious.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you don’t think I can survive visiting a school, we’ve got bigger problems than recruitment!”
“I don’t think they’d kill you,” he said. “But if you go there, two things will happen. First, they’ll ignore you anyway. And then, once you’ve gone, they’ll report your visit and the Empire will know what we’re planning.”
“You don’t think they already know what we’ll do? The Shadows know us. They know we’re not stupid.”
“I agree with Don. You cannot go to Venncastle,” Daniel said.
“Fine. Where does that leave us?” She consulted her list. “Bastion, Hess, Almont 5, Almont 9, Dashfort 2...”
“You should not go to Hessekolenisshe,” Daniel interrupted.
“Why not? Are they going to turn me in to the Empire, too?” Eleanor could feel the frustration creeping into her voice. Why couldn’t she just take the list and work through it? It didn’t matter if the Empress got word that they were recruiting; it would be more surprising if they weren’t.
“No. I should go.”
“Why?”
“They know me. Besides, I am not sure a woman should take any part of this job. It is important to get it right, this first approach.”
“Are you honestly saying I’m going to get it wrong because I’m a woman?” She glared at him, daring him to answer. “Because if you’re going to say things like that where I can hear you, you might want to make sure you’ve drawn your knife first.”
“Eleanor.” That was Laban. “Please calm down. Everyone’s on edge at the moment, but you know Daniel doesn’t think badly of you.”
“I am serious,” Daniel said. “No student will expect a woman to be recruiting for the Association. They may not believe you are who you say you are.”
“If I turned up in your bedroom in the middle of the night, crept up to your bed without even waking you, and I had your entire school record in my memory, don’t you think you’d take me seriously? I didn’t even believe in your school when I was a girl, we thought it was just a myth, but I think I’ve done a pretty good job of pretending to take you seriously.”
“Fine. Go. But if it does not work, remember that I have said this.”
“And what news of the rebels?” Nathaniel asked.
“The word is spreading,” she said. “I told them to stop the mindless vandalism, and there’s certainly been less disruption in Almont over the last few days. We need a few messengers to carry this to the islands. We’ll leave things quiet for a couple of months – that should be long enough to give the Empire a false sense of security – and then we’ll start to consolidate.”
“Consolidate? What do you mean?”
“There are a few rebel areas in the city already, but that’s more of a convention. We need to put some force behind it and teach them how to defend their ground. They need guards and pass phrases and weapons – so if anyone has old blades that you don’t really use any more, we’ll get Harold to smooth off your identifying marks, and we can send them across to the city.”
“And when we’ve consolidated the ground? What then?”
“We’ll take a step back and see what we’ve got. We can start expanding street by street, and when the time is right, we can run assaults against some of the Imperial infrastructure. For now, though, let’s focus on securing what we’ve got.”
She’d hoped to get away without having to talk to Daniel. Aside from bickering across the council table she hadn’t spoken to him since he’d tried to dissuade her from going to the Shadows, and she would have been perfectly happy to continue with that state of affairs indefinitely. Unfortunately he seemed to have other ideas, and came after her as she left the council chamber.
“Eleanor.”
She wondered whether she could get away with pretending she hadn’t heard him, but he’d only follow her to her room.
“Eleanor,” he repeated, quietly.
She turned, mentally preparing herself for an argument. “Yes?”
“If you are intent on going to Hess,” he said, “you should at least let me draw a map for you.”
She was about to snap something about being perfectly able to navigate a school when she realised that, actually, he was right. “Okay, thanks. That’d be helpful.”
“Yes.”
He looked like he was expecting her to say something else, but she couldn’t imagine what. “Well? I said yes, I even said thank you. What are you waiting for?”
“I am only wondering when you might realise that you are not some hero of legend and you do not have to solve everything all by yourself.”
“Probably about the same time you realise we’re not at school any more, and this isn’t a game, and we don’t have time to take turns. We just have to get things done.”
He stepped forwards and planted his lips on hers, gripping the back of her head so fiercely that she had to struggle to pull away. She slapped him sharply across the cheek.
“Do that again and I won’t fight the urge to pull a knife on you,” she said. “Just because you broke us up doesn’t mean you can unilaterally put us back together again. We’re broken. It’ll take more than that to fix it.”
“Then... I apologise.” He looked stunned. “I only...”
“Don’t.” She put her finger across his lips to shush him. “You have a map to draw, and I have to pack. We can talk about this another day.”