Finally, the full message was revealed. She read through it several times. It gave no hint about the sender’s identity or any other clues that Amber could see. But the final line seemed cryptic enough to warrant a closer look.
My last point is the most important of all.
“Last point,” she muttered, the only sound in the room Jesse eating his breakfast a few chairs away. Last point. It had to mean something, because the sentence before it was too benign and random.
Her eyes went to the period at the end of the sentence. What if…
Following her hunch, she pasted the final few words and period into a different program and enlarged it. Bigger. Bigger still. Until the black pixel dots began to reveal some kind of image embedded inside it.
Her breath caught. “Jess.”
Jesse dropped his pastry and hurried over to peer at the screen. “What’ve you got?”
“Look at this.” She showed him the cryptic line, then toggled to the screen where she’d blown up the period. Magnifying it even more, she stopped, staring at it in stunned disbelief. Holy shit. What did it mean?
Reading over her shoulder, Jesse let out a low whistle and straightened. “You better go wake Kiyomi up.”
****
Kiyomi woke to a wet nose snuffling at her cheek. She opened her heavy eyelids and groaned, exhaustion and pain weighing her whole body down. “Karas, why?”
Marcus snapped his fingers and the dog immediately jumped off the bed to sit at attention next to it, staring up at him. Ears perked, tail wagging, an adoring look in her eyes.
“Down,” Marcus ordered. Karas’s ears flopped. She stared at him with a pleading expression. “Down,” he said, more firmly this time, and she sank down onto all fours on the floor with a dejected sigh.
Kiyomi grimaced as she gingerly turned onto her back to look at him. The blinds were drawn over the windows on the far wall but it was bright enough in the room to see his face.
He lay on his side, facing her, and reached out to stroke a finger down the side of her face. “Did you sleep?”
“A little. You?”
He nodded, studying her, then lifted his arm to glance at his watch. “Time for your next dose.” He sat up, ignoring her protests, and it hurt her to see the way he winced as he reached for the bottle of pills and the water glass next to the bed.
She pushed herself up with her good arm and leaned against the headboard to take them from him. Being sliced open sucked. The wounds on her ribs and forearm burned, but the deep one on her upper arm was the worst by far. “Now you,” she told him, handing back the water glass.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” And there was no reason for him not to take the pain relief now that they were safe at home.
His jaw flexed. “I don’t like the way they muddle my brain.” He took the glass from her, set it on the bedside table beside him, and turned back toward her.
She could tell he was still angry about what had happened. They needed to talk this out. “I had to go after him when I did,” she said quietly. “If I’d gotten there even a few seconds later, I’d have missed any chance to get to him.”
Marcus averted his gaze and started petting Karas’s head, since she had propped her chin on the side of the bed at his hip. “I almost didn’t get inside in time.”
Sliding her free hand across the bed, she reached for his, curling her fingers around it. Needing the contact. She couldn’t stand it when he was angry with her, especially now. “But you did, and I’d already injected him anyway. I’m okay.”
Something raw and vulnerable flashed in his eyes. “You’re far from okay.”
“All right, I’m banged up, but alive. And I’m going to be okay.” Eventually. She hoped.
She wiggled her swollen fingers, winced as the motion pulled on her incision. She had stitches along her ribs too. Hopefully Tarasov was suffering more than her.
Her phone buzzed. She grabbed it from the bed beside her and read the message. “It’s Amber. She’s found something, and says she needs me to look at it ASAP.”
“Tell her to come up.”
“No, I’m sick of lying in bed. I want to move around a bit.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, paused a second to steady herself when the room spun a bit. She’d lost a lot of blood yesterday. Her body was still trying to stabilize itself.
A grunt sounded behind her. She glanced back to find Marcus struggling to his feet, reaching for his crutches. “No, you stay. I’ll—” She stopped at the hard look he gave her. She hadn’t meant to wound his pride. She just hated to see him hurting, and it was worse knowing it was because of her.
They found Amber and Jesse in the breakfast room. The couple looked up from Lady Ada, and the identical expressions on their faces set Kiyomi on edge. “What is it?”
“Come see this.” Amber pushed the laptop toward her. Jesse rushed around to pull out chairs for them.
Kiyomi sat and read the message on display. “Is this it?” It made no sense.
“No. Check this out.” Amber brought up another screen and zeroed in on the period at the end of the sentence.
When she enlarged it enough for the image to materialize, Kiyomi inhaled sharply. “A microdot.”
“Yeah, but not just any microdot.” Amber kept magnifying it.
The pixelated blob began to reveal its secrets. And the final image was stunning.
A crow with spread wings holding a sword in its talons. And beneath it, a scroll bearing the word Valkyrija.
The Valkyrie symbol. A badge of honor earned only by those who had graduated from the secret, elite program. Each of them had it either tattooed or branded on their left hips.
A series of numbers was tucked inside the upper and lower halves of the circle it formed. The whole thing was encased by a wreath made of what appeared to be ivy. Interspersed with the letters of Kiyomi’s name.
A sharp pain lanced through her. She swallowed, refusing to believe what she was seeing. It was a trick. A fucking cruel trick. This couldn’t be real. Someone was fucking with her.
“What?” Amber demanded, staring at her. “What does it mean?”
She could feel the weight of Marcus’s and Jesse’s stares too. She shoved her emotions aside and focused on the problem at hand. “They’re coordinates. Plus a date and time.” She indicated the coordinates with a tap of her forefinger.
Amber immediately reached past her and typed the numbers into a program. “Bourton-on-the-Water.” She looked at Kiyomi. “That’s only four miles from here.”
Kiyomi nodded, something tight and hard settling in her chest. “And the meeting time is ten-hundred tomorrow.”
“You’re not going,” Marcus said in a low voice. “It’s a trap.”
She shook her head. “Maybe. But I have to be there. We need to see if anyone shows.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not telling us something?” Amber said.
Because I don’t know if I’m right. And because it seemed impossible. “I don’t know anything yet. Except that I have to be there.”
“You’re not going anywhere alone,” Marcus growled, bristling beside her.
“No,” she agreed, putting a hand on his arm to reassure him. “But I am going.”