“How did you get this, Iris?”
“I have a magical connection to Roman through our typewriters,” Iris began. She shared everything with Keegan, from the beginning in Oath when they were mere rivals at the paper to where she stood now, writing to her husband even though he was Dacre’s prisoner and couldn’t even remember her name.
“I know it sounds impossible, but Roman wouldn’t lie to me,” she finished, surprised by the hoarseness in her tone. She swallowed the lump in her throat, but it only wedged in her chest, and she knew it was the grief she hadn’t allowed herself to process. Grief over Roman being a captive, his mind scrambled by Dacre’s magic. Grief that whatever they once had might not ever be recovered.
She was very good at burying things like that, her anguish and her sorrow and sometimes even the reality of what she faced. But she didn’t quite know how to let them go without losing vital pieces of herself.
Keegan was silent, staring down at Roman’s typed words again. “When did you receive this letter?”
“Yesterday morning. I came as soon as I read it. We drove all night from Bitteryne.”
“Which means we only have another day or so before Dacre attacks, if what Roman says is true.” Keegan rolled her lips together but then glanced at Iris. “Who is we? You said you drove here with someone?”
“Attie and Tobias Bexley.”
“Where are they now?”
“At the barricade in the motorcar, waiting for me to return.”
“Then the three of you must be exhausted and hungry. I’ll send breakfast for you, as well as find you all a quiet room to rest.” Keegan strode to the door and opened it, murmuring to a soldier waiting in the hallway.
Iris hesitated, her eyes drifting to Roman’s letter, still in Keegan’s hand.
“Go with Private Shepherd. He’s going to take you to a room on the lower floor to rest and eat,” Keegan said, glancing back at Iris. But she must have seen the stricken light in Iris’s eyes. The brigadier softened her tone, adding, “Don’t worry. I need to speak to my officers, but I’ll come find you in a little bit, after you’ve rested.”
“Of course,” Iris whispered with a half smile. “Thank you, Brigadier Torres.”
But despite her relief at having delivered the news in time, Iris still found it hard to quit the room, to follow another stranger, leaving Roman’s letter—burn my words—behind to an unknown fate.
* * *
None of them planned to sleep for more than an hour, but after a warm fare of eggs and buttered toast, accompanied by watered-down chicory with no sugar and only a splash of cream, Iris, Attie, and Tobias fell into a deep slumber on the cots Keegan had provided. They had been given an inner room in the factory, one with no windows, and the darkness felt like a balm until Iris was woken by the distant sound of a violin.
It was playing a poignant, lovely song, one that filled Iris with nostalgia, and she rose from her cot and followed the music out of the dark room.
She walked down the hallway, the violin’s melody growing louder, as if she was on the cusp of finding it. She turned a corner and nearly ran into her mother.
Aster was leaning against the wall, wrapped in her purple coat with a cigarette smoldering in her fingers.
“There you are, darling,” she said brightly. “Have you come to enjoy the music with me?”
Iris frowned, unsettled. “Who is playing the violin?”
“Does it matter? Listen, Iris. Listen to the notes. Tell me if you know them.”
Iris fell quiet. She listened to the violin, and while the music curled through her like sun-warmed vines, there was no recognition. She had never heard this song before.
“I don’t know it, Mum,” she confessed, watching a furrow form in Aster’s brow. “And why are you here?”
Aster opened her mouth, but her voice was robbed as the colors began to melt together. Iris felt a prick of fear, watching the features of her mother’s face begin to smudge, until she raised her own hands and saw they were also fading, breaking into hundreds of stars.
“This is a dream,” she panted. “Why do you keep appearing to me, Mum?”
The floor shook and cracked beneath her boots. Iris was about to fall through the widening crevice when she gasped and sat forward, blinking into the peaceful dark. It took her a moment to gain her bearings, but she remembered where she was. She could hear Attie, her breathing heavy with dreams, in the cot next to her, and Tobias’s soft snores on the other side of the room. There was no way to tell the time, and Iris ran her fingers through her tangled hair as she set her feet on the floor. There, she felt it again. A steady rumbling.