Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)(4)

Ten minutes later, the office door swung open.

Iris kept her attention on her paper and the words she was inking across it, falling into the rhythm of her typewriter, but she could see the chancellor from the corner of her eye. He took his time walking through the room, and she could feel his gaze again as if he were measuring her, measuring Attie.

Iris gritted her teeth, tilting her chin down so her hair would cascade around her face, coming between her and the chancellor’s stare like a shield.

She was grateful when Verlice and his two guards disappeared up the stairwell, but the pungent cloud of his cologne lingered like fog. Iris was just about to rise and pour herself a cup of tea, to hopefully wash the bad taste from her mouth, when she saw Helena wave to her.

“Iris, Attie. I need to speak with both of you.”

Attie stopped typing, rising without a word as if she had been waiting for it. But she chewed on her lip, and Iris knew her friend was just as anxious as she was. Whatever the chancellor had come here to say must have been about them. Iris followed Attie to Helena’s office.

“Have a seat, you two,” Helena said as she settled behind her desk.

Iris shut the door, moving to sit on a worn leather sofa directly to Attie’s left. She resisted the urge to crack her knuckles, waiting for Helena to break the quiet.

“Do you have any idea why the chancellor paid us a visit?” Helena finally spoke, and her voice was strangely calm and cool. Like water beneath a sheet of ice.

Attie glanced sidelong at Iris. She had come to the same conclusion. Iris could see it in her eyes. The annoyance, the worry, the gleam of anger.

“He didn’t like our articles,” Iris said. “The ones you just published about Clover Hill and Avalon Bluff being evacuated, bombed, and gassed.”

Helena reached for a cigarette and then sighed, tossing it onto a pile of paper. “No, he didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t, and I still published them.”

“Well, he doesn’t really have to like them, does he?” Attie said, raising a hand in frustration. “Because Iris and I both wrote the truth.”

“He doesn’t see it that way.” Helena’s auburn hair was limp on her brow. There were faint purple smudges beneath her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept. Her freckles were vivid against her pale complexion, as was the scar on her face.

“What does he see it as, then?” Iris asked, rotating the wedding band on her finger.

“He sees it as fearmongering and propaganda. He thinks I’m trying to drive up my sales with such headlines.”

“That’s rubbish!” Attie cried. “Iris and I were eyewitnesses to the attack on the bluff. We’re doing our jobs as reporters. If the chancellor has a problem with this, then he’s obviously a Dacre sympathizer.”

“I know,” Helena said gently. “Believe me, kid. I know it. You wrote the truth. You wrote what you experienced, bravely and honestly, just as I needed you to. And yes, the chancellor seems to have strings attached to Dacre, willing to dance at the god’s bidding. Which leads me to my next point: Verlice thinks I’m trying to stir up trouble by making people panic and angry. He blames us for the most recent gods belong in their graves vandalism, which was, in fact, painted on his driveway in big bold letters this morning.”

Iris flexed her hand. She remembered seeing that fearless slogan on her morning walk. “People are allowed to have their own opinions and beliefs on divinity, whether they worship them or not. We can’t control that.”

“The very words I said to Verlice,” Helena said. “Which he doesn’t agree with.”

“What does this mean for us, then? Do you want us to stop writing about the war? Should we act as if the gods don’t exist?”

“Course not,” Helena responded with a snort. But her defiance waned as she continued. “And I don’t want to ask this of you two, because you’ve been through more than any of us here can fathom. You’ve only just returned. But if Dacre is making a hard drive to the east like both of you saw at the bluff … then we need to know, especially if our good chancellor is in bed with him. We need to know how much time we have before the god reaches Oath, and what we can do to prepare for it.”

Iris’s heart quickened. She had felt hollow since returning to Oath. She slept but she didn’t dream. She swallowed but she couldn’t taste. She wrote three sentences and deleted two, as if she didn’t know how to move forward.

“You need us to return to the front,” she stated, breathless.

Helena’s brow furrowed. “Yes, Iris. But not exactly as you did before, since Marisol is no longer in Avalon Bluff.”

“How, then?” Attie asked.

“I’m still working on those details, so I can’t quite tell you at the moment.” Helena raked a hand through her hair, leaving it more limp and mussed than before. “And I don’t want answers from you right now. In fact, I want you to take the rest of the day off. I want you to truly think about this and what it means for you, and not just give me the answer you assume I want to hear. Do you understand?”

Iris nodded, her thoughts instantly drifting to Forest. Her brother wouldn’t want her to leave, and dread welled in her throat when she imagined breaking that news to him.

She glanced at Attie, uncertain what her friend would do.