Page 73 of Destroyer

“Writing the letter is your job,” said Archie, sniffing. “Mine is to simply be pretty. My presence alone infuses you with inspiration.”

Ru fixed him with a withering gaze, fighting the smile that tugged at her lips. “It does, does it.”

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, rolling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling, his delicate features drawn together in thought. “Trying to sort out what the Children expect from us. Why they’re hovering about, asking questions, and so on.”

“What the regent wants, you mean,” Ru muttered. “I’d give my right arm to know.”

Archie snorted. “At least donate the left one, your right arm has that adorable cluster of moles.”

“You’re actively hindering my progress at this point, Hill.”

He turned his head to grin at Ru, his eyes alight with the full knowledge of how much he was irritating her. “Surely, by now your brother will have come to some conclusion, spied on the correct people. I thought he kneweverything.”

“So did I,” said Ru, “but he never warned me againstyou, so…”

Archie laughed, closing his eyes for a moment, brown lashes brushing against his cheeks. “Don’t make me fall in love with you again, Delara.”

She tried hard not to roll her eyes at that. He had never loved her, just as she’d never loved him. What he felt for her had always been pure infatuation. “Don’t make me kick you out of my room forever,” she tossed back. “What’s brewing in that unknowable mind of yours?”

“Oh, nothing,” he sighed. “I haven’t come to any true conclusions. Only… mulling, I suppose. Testing ideas. But I’m convinced of one thing, and it’s that these Children aren’t scientists.”

“That much is obvious,” said Ru. “Every question they ask about our progress…”

“We offer a lie and they buy it, I know,” Archie said impatiently. “What I mean is, they’re not looking for a purely scientific breakthrough. If they were, they’d see right through our nonsense. And then I thought, well I suppose they must be quite eager to witness the first ever proof of magic in Navenie.”

Ru tilted her head, thoughtful. “But they haven’t once alluded to magic,” she said slowly, voicing her thoughts aloud. “They ask rudimentary, irrelevant questions. Physics, mineralogy. We’re not the only ones hiding something.”

“I never told you this,” said Archie, still gazing up at the ceiling, his expression far away, “but when I was very young, my mother took me to one of those ancient temples. I don’t remember which, or where — somewhere near the sea. It was terribly wet, I do remember that. My socks were absolutely sodden at the end of it. But something about it was deeply intriguing to my young self. A strange, decrepit building where people came to speak to beings who lived in the sky, thousands of years ago.”

“Where are you going with this?” Ru asked, tapping her quill on the parchment. “Should I be writing this down?”

He laughed. “What I mean to say is, these religious types are different from the rest. They see things, believe in things that we don’t. Maybe what the Children are looking for is something we can’t even put into words.”

“Archie,” Ru said, her words drenched in exasperation. “I’m touched by this revelation, thank you, but… theletter.”

He rolled over onto his side to face her again. “Just list a series of random facts and statistics. Whatever we’ve said to the Children, repeat it to D’Luc. He won’t know the difference.”

Letting out a long-suffering sigh and tucking her hair behind her ears, Ru set about penning the letter while Archie watched, peering at the parchment. It was utter nonsense, outlining the stone’s physical properties in great fictional detail.

Because no matter the strength of Ru’s connection to the artifact, no matter how many measurements she took, the artifact would not reveal itself to her.

The black stone was a restless creature waiting in the darkness of her mind. And even while it might send her a comforting touch, resonate with her on some deep emotional level, always at the core of her was fear. And a pang of something else. Something painful, bitter. A memory of Lady Maryn’s horror-stricken face.

* * *

Two tedious weeksof research passed, neither much different than the first. Ru and her team continued their work, and the Children continued their questioning. The lies and misdirection set Ru’s nerves on edge to the point of near breaking. And even some experiments’ results, with a bit of planning and foresight, were faked — less for the benefit of the watchful, emotionless eyes of Inda, Ranto, and Nell, and more for the benefit of Lord D’Luc’s letters.

Late in the third week of studying the artifact, without so much as a hint that it might be anything but a black rock, the Children approached Ru, their glazed eyes fixed on her in the cool of the dungeon.

“Miss Delara,” said Inda, “we would like to make a request.”

Ru stopped scratching pointless notes with a pencil, standing and turning to face the trio of moon-faced Children. She could feel Fen’s crackling gaze on her and heard Archie and Gwyneth set down their pencils, pausing to listen.

“Yes?” said Ru, the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to prickle. “What sort of request?”

Inda gave a slight, slow nod as if to indicate that she had heard Ru and appreciated the response. “We would like you to conduct a new experiment.”

“Sorry,” said Archie, from across the room. “Ru makes the decisions here.”

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