Page 13 of Siege of Shadows

It was Belle. “You three, come with me.Chae Rin,” she added sharply and, being the gentle girl that she was, picked up a pebble off the sandy floor and threw it hard at Chae Rin’s forehead. The Effigy awoke with a start, swearing the typical profanities I’d gotten all too used to during the past few weeks. She looked as subtly murderous as she always did whenever I had to venture into her dark jungle of a room in the morning and force her awake to start our training.

“Director Chafik has some information to show us in Communications,” Belle said.

“Is it about the dead guy?” I asked, admittedly with little tact or respect for the dearly departed. “Or the flash drive?”

Belle quickly looked over her shoulder to where Chafik was waiting by the front entrance of the building. “I haven’t given it to him. Not yet. Just a feeling.”

“But—”

“Don’t mention it to him either until I decide what to do.” She straightened up. “Come, let’s go.”

None of us much liked being bossed around, but we stumbled hot and groggy out of the car anyway.

“Not feeling the new arrangement,” Chae Rin, never one to let her displeasure go unnoticed, grumbled as she shut the door behind her. Lake shrugged and obediently went ahead of us. I was about to follow when Chae Rin grabbed the short sleeve of my T-shirt. “Look, I know back in that hospital after France, I was the one who said we should stick together, and we all agreed. And that’s fine, but are we really just going to let Belle call the shots?”

“Isn’t that what she’s been doing?” My nonchalant shrug couldn’t mask the weary sliver of dread in my voice.

“Hey, guys!” Lake called to us just as she, Belle, and Director Chafik were about to enter the facility. “You coming?”

“Yeah, we’re coming!” I called back with a little wave. “Give us a sec!”

“You know as well as I do, kid.” Chae Rin peered over at Belle and Lake as they disappeared through the entrance. “Something hasn’t been right with Belle since—”

“Since she almost wished for Natalya to take over my body for good.”

Chae Rin straightened up and sighed. “Since she found out Natalya’s death wasn’t a suicide like the Sect had told everyone it was.”

And that the Sect could be involved. I was the one who’d seen her death scene myself in my dreams. The perks of having other Effigies’ memories live on inside you.

Perhaps that was why Belle wasn’t keen on handing over the flash drive.

“We have to cut her some slack,” I said quietly. “This isn’t easy for Belle. She’s going through stuff.”

“Like none of us are?” Chae Rin shook her head, exasperated. “I’d ask why you’re so willing to overlook her bullshit, but then you are her number one ass-kisser, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“That’s not it!”

“It’s not? Then what is it?”

I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her why my fingers were curling with guilt. Why my heart beat a bit heavier with dread every time I saw Belle.

I hadn’t told Belle yet about the memory Natalya had shown me in France. I hadn’t told anyone.

Chae Rin flicked me right in the middle of my furrowed eyebrows—a soft flick, thankfully. With her strength, she could have caved my skull in. “Come on, you can’t tell me you’re one hundred percent comfortable with this. You saw what she did in that hideout.”

I did. But it was all the same. After our penultimate run-in with Saul two months ago, we’d decided that we had to work as a team from now on if we were going to be able to face the challenges up ahead. Well, every team needed a leader. That was Belle. I guess. It wasn’t a verbal agreement. We didn’t shake hands or anything. It was just... understood. Belle had the most experience out of all four of us. Unlike Lake and Chae Rin, who had only become Effigies in the past two or three years, nineteen-year-old Belle had somehow managed to survive fighting phantoms for six years. For an Effigy, that was pretty damn massive.

It was the Seven-Year Rule. Belle had told me once before. A little saying among the Sect. If you could survive more than seven years fighting monsters, you had either spent your life hiding or honed your skills enough to become a godlike fighting machine. Natalya held the world record, having spent fourteen years battling as an Effigy. Only fourteen.

Effigies didn’t live long. The truth of it still terrified me.

“Regardless, she’s the best equipped out of all of us for the job. Besides, it’s not like it’s a dictatorship. If she gets out of line, we can do something about it,” I told her, but I wasn’t too confident about that.

“Yeah.” Chae Rin’s expression darkened as she cracked her knuckles. “I’lldo something about it. Better believe it.”

Great.I sighed as Chae Rin went on ahead. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with. An Effigy brawl was the last thing anyone needed. But these days, despite our “arrangement,” you could never really know when one bad day would get us there. We were a team. We were supposed to be. I kind of wanted us to be.

Maybe “team” was too strong a word.

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