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In the dark chill of the Howe estate, there are whispers.
Kathil presses close to Lils in a dusty back passageway, waiting for a signal. She breathes through her mouth, trying not to sneeze. Getting in had not been a challenge; getting in unseen had been difficult. Almost every corner of this house has bugs or cameras or both, and much of the grounds is likewise blanketed. They had managed, though.
The chill is seeping into her bones, though, and it’s been years since Kathil has had to be patient like this, has had to wait in silence and invisibility for something to happen. She’s back at her old tricks; but this time, she’s helping steal people away from captivity rather than liberating valuables from the rich of Amaranthine.
Up until about fifteen minutes ago, it had been good to stretch those disused muscles. But once they’d found this place to hide and settled in…
The silence of this house is alive. Kathil holds her body still, does not flinch as she hears the edges of voices, tugging at her mind.
The small device she wears strapped to her chest vibrates sharply. She feels Lils tense and knows her own communicator has gone off. Kathil fishes it out of her shirt and looks at the screen.
From: Z
Now.
The icon in the top right of the screen shows no signal. Laica’s dropped the jammers, then, and it’s time to move. They will be out of contact until the jammers are located and turned off, or until the two of them move out of range. For the next few minutes, they’re on their own.
Lils nods to her and leads the way down the passageway. Kathil follows as the sounds of an altercation come to them through the walls, thumps and muffled shouting, and as one they decide that stealth matters less now than getting Nateout. That’s their job; getting Kahrin out is up to Laica and Sebastian.
They break into a run, heading for the room where Nate is imprisoned.
#
They neither speak nor sleep on the boat back to Amaranthine.
On deck, Anders paces and mutters. Nate sleeps, aided by some of Lils’ little helpers. Laica and Sebastian and Kahrin are flying back to Kirkwall, but Kathil doesn’t envy them. After the estate, she would not like to be shut up in a tiny box hurtling through the air.
Whispers are still tugging at the edge of her consciousness, teasing at her memories. She tries to ignore them. Hallucinations, she tells herself. They aren’t real.
Just because she believes to her bones that they are real doesn’t mean that they are. There’s a name for it: drug-induced psychosis, persistent. So she’s been told. Hallucinating voices, the perception that there is something dogging her shadow that wants her to do things—partly the lyrium still resident in her nervous system despite the seven years since she got clean, partly a genetic predisposition, but not real.
She armors herself with memory, building a mental wall brick by brick between her and the voices. The face of her partner, dead for eight years. The thought of reuniting with her dog, who had to be left behind in Kirkwall. The warmth of Lils’ body, resting against her.
If she sleeps, the wall will crumble. So she’s awake in the dark of the ship, resting against Lils.
#
They return to Kirkwall, and to their lives.
The fugitives are reunited with those who will hide them for the moment, until the danger that the Howe poses is past. Kathil picks up Lorn and thanks Cullen effusively for taking care of him. She deals with mail, with phone messages, goes to see Laica.
The voices, when she can understand them, say, eat. So she does not.
They say, sleep. So she refuses.
They say, rest in safety. Gather people around you. Consume them.
She pulls her truck over to the side of the road. “No,” she mutters, and Lorn pricks up his ears where he sits in the passenger seat. “I won’t.”
The feeling of presence presses close and a black wave of fear rises up behind.
Kathil pulls on her hoodie, zips it up to her neck. She pulls her phone and her wallet out of her pockets and stashes them under the driver’s seat. Old habit; stash the valuables before you run, before you expose yourself to the prying eyes and sticky fingers of the world. She has just enough presence of mind to remember to lock the cab of the pickup after she and Lorn slide out.
Then she is walking, her whole body a curve of refusal. If she keeps moving, she can outdistance the voices. Lorn treads next to her. He will keep her safe.
They walk together, woman and dog, and whispers follow closely behind.