“Awhile.”
“I was going to head over to your place, but Hannah said you were in town. Let’s walk.”
She fell into step with him. He looked … tougher, she decided. Honed. “You’ve gotten all the intel?”
“Yeah, right up to this morning. I’m looking forward to smashing their plans. Ballsy move to bug the White House. Sorry I missed it.”
“It had to be done.”
“Sure it did.” Even as she let a little satisfaction in, he continued. “Too bad you didn’t think of it sooner. We’ve been able to recruit off the rumors—we’re caging them as rumors—Hargrove and White are working toward a deal.”
“If that gets out—”
“We’re not morons, Fallon. We’re saying we got it from a captured PW.”
“Your numbers increased with your alliance with the First Tribe, with Meda.”
“More than numbers. I’ve never seen anyone who can ride or fight on horseback like the First Tribe.” His words might have been briskly delivered, but admiration shone through. “They’re helping train in that skill. We had some troops who could barely sit a horse a month ago. Now it’s, you know, ride ’em, cowboy.”
“You have four hundred and forty-two troops now.”
“Five hundred and three. We added in the last few days. I figured to tell you in person.”
“It’s a good number, and from a remote location.” She stopped to study him. “How?”
“Meda’s got ways of getting word to more First Tribe. I’ve had scouts, myself included, traveling or flashing to where we’ve heard may be some settlements. I can tell you, since we’ve been able to pass along the rumors, recruits have come in steady. We may have more, some ready and able to fight, before the second.”
They walked toward the gardens.
He’d shaved, she thought, for his family visit. And smelled clean, like the snow. The desert sun had given his skin a warm gold color that made his eyes greener.
“Are you ready to come back? To New Hope?”
He looked over the snow, the greenhouses, the playground. The memorial tree. And realized he’d stood nearly in this same spot when Petra had killed his closest friend.
“After D.C. Yeah. I’ve been away long enough.”
“You helped build the army that’ll take D.C.”
“That’s right. I’ll help build more from here, and give my family some time. If I need to be somewhere else, I’ll go somewhere else. But it’s time to come back, for now.”
“Your family misses you.”
“I miss them. I miss New Hope. The desert—it’s an amazing place. But I miss home. But that’s not all I’ll come back for. I told you when I left, I’d come back for you.”
She shook her head. She didn’t step away; that was cowardly. “I can’t think about anything but January the second. Ten thousand depend on me to lead them to battle. And you, Duncan, to lead them.”
“And we will. After, you and me?” He flicked bits of snow off her shoulder. “We have to deal with this.”
“You make it sound like a chore.”
“I don’t know what it is.” He took her arm before she turned away. “I don’t know, but it’s been inside me since the first time I dreamed of you. I’m beginning to think that started with my first breath. I want you, and everyone else I’ve ever wanted? They’re like smoke, just easily brushed away. It doesn’t seem right, but that’s how it is. It’s you.”
She understood that want, because she felt it. “Do you know how much of my life has been laid out not just at my first breath, but hundreds, thousands of years before that breath? Can you understand I might resist having who I want laid out, too?”
“Sure, because I feel exactly the same. That’s why we deal with it.”
She didn’t object when he took her shoulders, pulled her in, took her mouth. She wanted it, wanted to feel again what she’d felt the night he’d left. That heat, that rise.
But when he drew her in, just held her until the heat slid softly down to warmth, it left her shaken long after he stepped away again.
“So.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got the coordinates for the second. We’ve been drilling with the maps you sent. Since we’re too far away for otherwise, we’ll flash the entire five hundred, and two hundred horses. We’ve already started prepping the NMs and horses.”
Easier, she thought, less complicated to talk of battles. “You’re confident you can flash that many?”
“It’s the only way to get there, so yeah, I’m confident. I need a heads-up from you, to me directly, not through an elf. You’re planning to strike at dawn, so we’ll be ready to go two hours before dawn. But I need the go.” His eyes, greener, steady, held her. “Direct from you, Fallon.”
“You’ll have it. We’re going to win this, Duncan, because we have to.”
“It’s a good plan. Freaking bold, and that’s what we need. You picked your base commanders well. I include myself in that,” he added with a grin that flashed on, then off. “Every one of them knows how to lead, knows what’s at stake. When we win, because yeah, we have to, who knows how many DUs we take down with that police state they call a government. Who knows how many magickals we’ll free from containment.”
“They have two hundred in the White House facility.”
“They— What?”
“That’s intel from the listening posts. The scientists who work for Hargrove are trying to create a serum that will sterilize them.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“Hargrove gave them a deadline. If they don’t come through, he wants them exterminated.”
Everything in him hardened and burned. “What’s the deadline? How long ago did this come through?”
“The day after we planted the bugs. He gave them two months.”
“You’ve known this for weeks?” His eyes fired as he raged at her. “You knew this goddamn deadline slaps right up against the strike? And you don’t tell me, or any of the commanders? Because I’d have heard if you had. Who the hell do you think you are?”
“The One.”
“Bullshit on that. Bullshit.” He stormed away, then back again. “You had no right.”
That rage, that storm, blew over her, blew through her, but she held her ground. “Maybe not. Maybe not the right, but the need. If I’d told you, and the others, what they’re trying to do, if I’d told you we learned just days ago they’re forcibly impregnating magickals to study them through gestation, to study the infants born, that they’ve experimented on newborns, how many would break ranks and push an attack before we’re ready, before we can win?”
It sickened him—she could read it on his face—felt her own stomach quiver.
And he looked at her with contempt. “You’re a fucking cold one, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.” Her voice broke, and so did the wall of will she’d so effortfully built. “I’m not. Babies. How many? I don’t know. I didn’t know they had them right in the White House, right there where they once had a bowling alley, a movie theater. They have labs and cages now, and I didn’t know. I stood above them that night, and didn’t know.”