My Pleasure, Darling

15: Quiet Before the Storm

Elise and I sit in a parlour, inside the house, alone. She put Alexandria to bed, and I was secretly pleased I didn't have to do it. I just don't have enough exposure to kids to keep it up all the time. I don't know if what I'm doing is alright most of the time.

We are quiet. I have nothing to say to her. I don't know if she has anything to say to me. My mind constantly wanders.

"You must be tired. Emotionally, I mean."

I sigh with a smile and roll my eyes. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"How was Isaac? When you left him?"

I think back to three days ago, the middle of the night. When the siren in the barracks went off and feet hit the floor before the light had started its second sweep. When we changed in lightning speed and were out of bed in a flash and were out on the hallway within sixty seconds. When people running past ordered me to the Chancellor's room.

I think of my father's face, grave but calm, as he poured over maps and pieces of intelligence I ignored for my own sake. The matter-of-fact look on it when he handed me all of his cards. How he surveyed me, changed into my civvies, and approved of how normal I looked. His eyes and the slant of his mouth when I hugged him goodbye, moments before getting into his Volkswagen.

"Determined," I say, and I think it's the best word. He wasn't sentimental, nor did he shed a tear. In his heart, I wonder if I ever had really been his daughter. Oh, don't get me wrong – he loved me like a daughter, just like I loved him like a father, and there was never any doubt of that. But he was never a natural father, not in the depths of his soul. Isaac Darling was made to be Chancellor-General. It was born into his DNA, and it was what he was always meant to do. "He was very determined."

"I'm sure it was hard to leave."

"It was." I don't feel cold, even though the words sound absolutely icy. I don't feel warm, either. I feel nothing. I feel absolutely nothing.

"You've done well, Lois. To get her this far. If you want me to, I can take her the rest of the way."

My head jerks up at this, and the no is out of my mouth before I can imagine it. She's not surprised by my outburst, but I am. It takes a moment for the concept to sink in before I realise why I'm like this. "No, it's... the Chancellor gave me the task. He meant for me to see it through. I won't disappoint him. Not his last order."

Elise is tearing up, eyes watery, though they never fall past her lashes, and I wonder why. She is crying, and I am not; something is wrong with both of us, surely. "You're a good soldier, Lois Darling. One of his best, I reckon."

The Corps is for vampires only. Being a human meant I failed a lot. I was never up to scratch. The bar was so high. Some accommodations were made for me, but not many. "Doubt it."

"There's more to being a good soldier than physical prowess. Sometimes, the ten strongest soldiers couldn't make up for a single spy."

She's not wrong. I've seen them, at the Academy, those vampires who were not buff, not strong, not fast. But they were quiet, and they were sneaky, and they gathered nuggets of intelligence like they were candy on Halloween, with the understanding that enough knowledge would help them elude danger.

I wonder, with some little bit of snide, how that will save them now, at siege.

That's not fair. I know damn well how it will. They will creep along forgotten tunnels and retake watchtowers without so much as a whisper, garrotting enemies from behind. They will dart across the tall grasslands of the mount to chase paper from one man to another and nobody will ever see them. They will provide backup for the strong men at moments when the enemy least expects them, waiting in the shadows, watching for the opportune moment, the split second in which they have the most to gain and the least to lose. No war could be fought nor won without such men.