‘Why do you have Jack’s knife?’ demands Emory, marching towards him. He looks up blankly, putting the memory extractor to one side.
Thea pauses in her work, her eyes flicking between them.
‘Why were you going through my things?’ he asks, in a low, dangerous rumble.
‘This knife was on my husband when he drowned,’ continues Emory, ignoring his question.
Hephaestus rises up in front of her like a vengeful deity. His eyes have the same glitter of madness in them that doomed the vulture in the yard.
Clara desperately tries to pull Emory back. Normally, her mother’s good at adapting to the shifting winds of people’s emotions, but not when there’s a question she wants answered.
‘I found the knife on the beach,’ says Hephaestus.
‘It’s not rusty, and the wooden handle isn’t swollen,’ argues Emory, shaking herself free of Clara’s grasp. ‘This hasn’t been anywhere near the water.’
Emory’s staring up at him angrily, her head barely reaching his chest.
It’s not merely that he’s bigger than her, thinks Clara desperately. It’s what’s underneath all of that muscle. His face is twitching dangerously, like there’re things crawling around underneath it.
‘I repaired it.’
‘It’s identical to the last time I saw it,’ she says, staring into his face. ‘And the blade matches the stab wound in Niema’s chest. Why are you lying? What are you hiding?’
Hephaestus’s hand shoots out, catching her throat.
His grip tightens, causing her to gasp in pain, as she’s lifted bodily from the floor, her legs kicking at the air.
The knife clatters on the tiles.
‘Mum!’ screams Clara, tugging at Hephaestus’s arm, trying to free her.
Hephaestus is staring at them blankly, empty of any emotion. It’s like he doesn’t even realise what he’s doing.
Clara shoots a desperate glance towards Thea, whose face is slack. She’s talking to me in her thoughts.
‘Help her!’ screams Clara, her words echoing around the lab.
Hephaestus’s grip tightens, as Emory gasps her last breaths. Thea’s voice comes from behind them, sharp and dry, betraying absolutely no concern whatsoever.
‘You’re about to kill our best investigator,’ she says.
Hephaestus’s eyes come alive again, his face finally registering the woman he’s choking. He opens his hand, letting her drop in a heap.
Emory gasps, clawing for air, while Clara hugs her protectively.
Hephaestus stoops to pick up the knife, weighing it in his hand, before returning to the memory extractor.
Clara feels Emory stiffen. She tries to get back to her feet and resume the battle, but Clara holds her tight, placing her lips to her mother’s ear.
‘I can’t lose you,’ she whispers.
Emory sags, the anger running out of her.
‘Go,’ says Thea, waving them towards the door. ‘And the next time I see you, you better have a suspect for me.’
FORTY-FOUR
Putting an arm around Emory’s shoulders, Clara tries to sit her shaking mother at one of the communal tables near the kitchen, but Emory shakes her head vehemently, gesturing towards the gate and the dark sea beyond.
‘I can’t believe he did that,’ says Clara, speaking in a hush. ‘He just … he didn’t even …’ She runs out of words immediately.
Blood is rushing in her ears. Nobody in the village has ever been assaulted before, and she doesn’t know how to react. She feels like she wants to run away, warn everybody, shout and hide, all at the same time.
‘Why didn’t you stop him, Abi?’ Clara demands, finding vent for her anger. ‘I walked past the boundary this morning and you immediately took control of my body to march me back. Hephaestus was hurting my mum and you didn’t do anything.’
‘As I told you earlier, I can’t control humans,’ I explain. ‘I can hear their thoughts, and my words have influence, but that’s all. You’re wrong, though. I asked Thea to intervene and she did. If she hadn’t, your mother would now be dead.’
And humanity would be doomed.
‘It’s okay, Clara,’ croaks Emory, squeezing her daughter’s hand reassuringly. ‘This is good, this had to happen.’
Clara looks across at her, surprised by the fierceness of her tone.
‘I didn’t understand humans before,’ says Emory, her voice still hoarse from being choked. ‘I knew they were different from us, but I didn’t realise how different. I didn’t understand their relationship with violence. How easy it is for them. How casually they can employ it. I was stupid to go in there, like that. Hephaestus has secrets and he’ll hurt us to keep them, whether the island’s in danger or not. That’s valuable information. That helps. We have to assume Thea has the same mindset. We’ll go more carefully now.’
It’s cooler beyond the gate, the sea breeze swirling in the air, salty on the tongue. It will be curfew soon, and the sea is a velvet blanket, under the darkening sky.
Clara’s staring at her mother, dubiously. ‘What are we going to do about Dad’s knife?’ she asks.
The villagers aren’t materialistic and will happily share anything with anybody, but it’s offensive to Clara that Hephaestus possesses something of her father’s. She feels like she’s let him down somehow.
‘Put that aside, for the minute,’ says Emory, wincing as she touches her bruised throat. ‘Thea knows Hephaestus has it, and she’ll know my questions are valid. If nothing else, the knife will make her doubt him. Hopefully, she’ll start asking the questions we can’t.’
Clara looks at her mother admiringly. ‘How are you capable of thinking that way?’
‘It’s not hard,’ she replies, abashed. ‘Whatever comes naturally, you just do the opposite.’
‘So, what’s next? Do you want me to take you out to the lighthouse?’
‘It’s too dangerous to row out there in the dark. I need you to run those soil samples you took from the farms, while I look around Thea’s room.’
Clara tenses, wary of her mother antagonising another elder so soon after running afoul of Hephaestus.
‘I should come with you,’ she says.
‘I need you in the lab, where you can keep an eye on Thea. If she tries to leave, distract her.’
Two minutes later, Emory’s descending the circular staircase into the old munitions silo where Thea’s been living. Electric lights burn in alcoves, but their fierce glow makes Emory uneasy. They’re too bright, too steady. There are no shadows, no softness. If she stays down here too long they’ll strip the flesh from her bones.
Arriving at the bottom of the staircase, she finds the air thick with potpourri, probably to mask the smell of damp, mouldy concrete.
She sniffs. Then again. One of Liska’s concoctions, she thinks.
Everybody in the village has a hobby that they indulge in their free time, whether that’s making candles or carving animals. On Sundays, the villagers take these things from dorm to dorm, laying gifts at their neighbours’ doors as thanks for any help, or kindness, received the last week. Naturally, the elders receive the most tributes, even though they contribute the least to village life. It’s always bothered Emory, but nobody else seems to mind.
The silo’s sparse by the usual colourful standards of the village, with only a handful of decorations to soften the grey walls. For furniture, there’s an old camp bed, undoubtedly salvaged from somewhere in the village, a set of drawers and an architect’s desk covered in sheets of complicated equations.