Fic: Web of Fate, Chapter 12
2026-08-09 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rodoTitle: Web of Fate
Fandom: Carnival Row
Author:rodo
Chapter: 12/17+E
Length: 4,712 words (77,000 in total)
Rating: 16+
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Worldbuilding, Adventure
Characters: Rycroft Philostrate, Jonah Breakspear, Vignette Stonemoss, Runyan Millworthy, Darius Prowell, Absalom Breakspear
Pairing: Philo/Vignette
Warnings/Labels: war, and mentions/occasional depictions of associated atrocities; canon-typical fantasy racism
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to Amazon, of course
A/N: I started this story in August 2021, and I finished the draft in 2022, so this was all written prior to the second season. So some of the worldbuilding contradicts what was shown in season 2. Still, I had so much fun re-reading this lately that I thought I’d polish it up some more and post it anyway, in case some of you will like it as well. Since it’s an AU, the plot of the second season is not that relevant anyway.
Summary: A year after the attempted assassination of Chancellor Absalom Breakspear, The Burgue is at war, and it’s not going well. In order to break the stalemate at the front, some unlikely soldiers are recruited to fight in a place nobody expected, and Philo and Jonah find themselves caught up in it against their expectations.
Chapter 12: Bitter Goodbyes
The Year of the Martyr 647
Numbers and equations were flashing through Jonah’s brain. Words, quotes, and aphorisms were running him ragged. All the teachers his father could hire flogged him with knowledge and lessons. His head was swimming. It was torture, self-inflicted though it was. He could do no more.
“I need a break,” Jonah said, because those words had been all he’d been able to think about for the past however many minutes. His father was barely recovered, a war was looming, and all anybody thought about was him actually finishing his studies before Austery.
Runyan Millworthy, to his credit, didn’t attempt to push through the immovable fog in Jonah’s brain. He just gave him one of those long, calculating looks that made him feel as if he had no secrets.
“I think you might be right, Master Jonah,” Runyan finally agreed. “You haven’t been able to pay any attention to what I’ve said in the past five minutes. And while I appreciate that you’ve finally discovered your zeal for studying, there is a limit to everything. Sometimes, we need time to rest and reflect.”
Jonah eyed his teacher with amusement as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as if he was trying to bask in an imaginary sun. As if he were sitting in a park or a garden, with not a care in the world. “Is that a master’s wisdom?”
Millworthy smirked. “It is a student’s. I was young once, too, if you can believe it.”
Strangely enough, Jonah could. Millworthy was anything but stuffy, unlike Symes and the other tutors. It was hard to believe that he and Symes were the same age and even friends.
“So, what will we do then?” Jonah asked.
“The same thing we always do when we run into a wall or fail at a task. Recover, rest, then try again. Hawethorne’s romantic poetry will wait. It has for three hundred years. Now, we lean back and think of nothing until you’re ready to learn again.”
*
The mood was bad, even a week later. Jonah couldn’t say it surprised him. They had limped back to the mimasery in a miserable state. On the way, they had lost Fulton, bringing their total losses up to four dead. The injured were much more numerous – fifteen in total, with another four who had been left in the mimasery to recover from their wounds from the raid on the Pact camp. At least all those who were still injured were expected to recover, and nobody had lost a limb, barring a finger and three toes. Still, the four dead hung over everybody’s heads. They had been friends, maybe even lovers, and this was the first real setback that they had suffered since arriving in Tirnanoc. Jonah knew it had only been a matter of time, that it had been inevitable. War was war. Things never went as smoothly as they did in stories.
That wasn’t to say that the mission had been a complete failure. The mine was unusable, with the tools and entrances buried under rubble, and most of the miners freed. The Pact would need new mining engineers, new slaves and new men to rebuild it. They had been dealt a blow that would echo back to Mesogea. Antimony’s White Ravens had gained a couple of recruits as well, and Berne had even opted to stay with Jonah and his men – he was the fae that Jonah and Masterson had hauled to safety when an almost literal mountain had been collapsing around their ears.
All in all, a success, if you went by the Burguish officers’ handbook and the report Jonah had written. You couldn’t expect to make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and winning a war meant sacrificing soldiers. These kinds of losses had been factored into the generals’ calculations when they’d been sent to Anoun.
The problem was that, despite their training, none of their men was a real soldier. They weren’t even veteran resistance fighters or hardened criminals, with a few exceptions – people who had become accustomed to violence in their lives. They were just normal people. Pampered Burguishmen, despite everything, who had taken the losses as a sign of a complete and utter failure. None of them had wanted to come. They had been drafted for this mission despite their shortcomings, and the little motivation they had arrived with had evaporated in the dust of the crumbled stone forest. Jonah couldn’t say he blamed them; he was a pampered Burguishman himself.
The mood was getting to him. It was a palpable thing. When Rycroft Philostrate and the two marroks wandered into the command centre where Jonah had taken refuge, they did so with frowns on their faces, even though they looked as if they hadn’t had much of an opportunity to talk with the others yet. Their clothes were dusty, their boots caked with dried mud, and they smelled as if they hadn’t bathed in weeks. Of course, the dark faces could mean that they had failed as well, but Jonah doubted it. Philo was the golden boy, after all. In his case, failure would have likely meant death. He really should be the legitimate son of the Chancellor and Jonah the bastard critch. That would suit both of them much better.
“Did your mission go well? Any useful intel?” Jonah asked.
Philo nodded and put a bundle of documents on the table while the two marroks added a couple of hand-drawn maps to the pile. Caerfyd Castle. There were probably faerish maps around as well, or former occupants who remembered the citadel well. But all their information predated the occupation. Jonah doubted Antimony had expected this much from a half-blood and two marroks, so an unwanted and unwarranted sense of pride grew in his chest. After the past week, he didn’t dare to quash it – he needed hope, much like the men.
“This one should go to the White Ravens as soon as possible,” Philo explained, pointing at two of the folders. “It’s intelligence the general collected about their operations – nothing leading to us yet, I checked – and this one might help her weed out Pact spies.”
Pact spies – Jonah hadn’t even thought of the possibility. Berne seemed friendly, but he was a stranger… no, that way lay madness. Jonah took the folders and skimmed over the files. Philo was right. The White Ravens would do more with this information than they could.
“Fetch me Primrose,” he told one of the marroks, Hargrave. “She’s the fastest. She’ll get this to them in no time.”
The man saluted sharply and left with precise steps, making Jonah feel out of place, as if this were a regular military operation with regular soldiers, somewhere back home. None of the others ever got the salute quite right, except these three. Some didn’t even try.
“And this,” Philo said, pointing at the next folder on the pile, “contains information about the camps they’re running. Some are indoctrination camps. Their purpose is to force the fae to convert to their brand of the Martyrite religion.”
“I thought they didn’t think the fae were even in possession of souls,” Jonah mused as he opened the folder. God’s noose, neither did half the clerics in The Burgue, but at least those didn’t expect the fae to pray to anyone but their heathen gods and saints. It was a topic of vigorous theological debate in some clerical circles – Symes had covered it once, when it became a political issue.
“They don’t. But they’ve identified the fae religion as a possible catalyst for an organised insurrection. They’re targeting mimas, especially. That happened in the Willow Ground as well. Mimas, haruspexes, any old woman that looks at them sideways… anything that could possibly contradict their worldview. And then there’s the experiments. They use the converted fae as spies sometimes – but I’m not sure how effective that is – or to run these experiments on. They sell them as a way to gain a soul, to gain salvation.”
A strange way to get saved by the Martyr. Getting turned into a guinea pig at best and a monster at worst. Not all the “subjects” were indoctrinated, it seemed, only the ones that were expected to remain lucid. The eerie pleas to the Martyr kept echoing through Jonah’s mind.
“All that, just to turn the fae? Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill them all and be done with it?”
The cold calculation in his voice caused Philo’s face to harden. He took a couple of notes from his pockets. Scraps of paper, drafted letters, and telegrams.
“They’re trying to perfect a method of optimisation, I think. Their ultimate goal is to use it on themselves. That’s why they started infecting their people with the wolf’s curse. It’s why they developed the catalyst. You know the Pact – never happy with what they have, no mercy for people who don’t abide by their neat little ideas of what a human should be.”
Jonah had heard the tales, of course, but he’d dismissed them as propaganda. People always exaggerated their enemy’s worst qualities, especially during a war. Now it seemed that maybe they had understated just how monstrous the Pact was. Turning people into some sort of critch, twisting the Martyr’s teachings until they were barely recognisable, that wasn’t new. These things happened everywhere, to some degree, thanks to the wolf’s curse and people’s imagination. This scale, however, was something else.
Jonah, Philo and Prowell went over the other information they had gathered as well. Troop strength – less than they had thought – transport routes and missives. All useful, including Philo’s suggestion to tap the telegraph lines. It was frustrating for Jonah just how good Philo was at this. Especially since Jonah had cocked things up.
“Sir?” Philo asked once everything was said. “How did the raid go?”
Jonah hated to be reminded. “It went,” he ground out between clenched teeth. Then he waved his greatest asset and annoyance off to reunite with his love and gossip with the others. He wanted to be alone and pretend things weren’t terrible for just a little longer.
*
Jonah received another piece of good news that evening: Ash Greenstone had spotted the Aquila on the horizon. He was quickly dispatched to catch up with Primrose. She’d make sure that any of the fae they had saved could take them up on their offer and get passage off this godforsaken continent. Before it was time for dinner, Jonah made the announcement in the main hall, and it had the desired effect on the men. Finally, there was good news. And apparently some of the half-bloods had put in requests for comforts of home when the ship had left – a bottle of their favourite hooch, cookies, even magazines, now long out of date. It didn’t matter: any news of home was welcome.
With the morale boosted, Jonah felt as if things were going well again. He was looking forward to a glass of whisky to celebrate later, and it even made his dinner of hardtack and fish stew go down easier. They had intelligence, successes to report and supplies coming in. His father would be proud, or at least not disappointed.
“Sir?” The timid voice had become familiar to him by now, but Jonah really didn’t want to deal with the boy right now. He didn’t want to see his good mood turn to ash.
“Yes,” Jonah replied, a little tetchy. When he looked up, he peered straight into Thomas’s watery eyes, red-rimmed from all the crying. His face sported a pathetically patchy excuse for a reddish beard, and he clutched the hem of his jacket, worrying at it. Then he shifted from one cloven foot to the other like an overgrown schoolboy.
“Can I sail back on the Aquila?” His voice was quivering. Jonah wanted to roll his eyes; he looked so much like the pucks that used to serve his family when they’d cocked up colossally. Absalom Breakspear’s wrath was legendary. Jonah hadn’t inherited it, of course. He hadn’t inherited anything of his father’s. Curiously, Philo didn’t seem to have it either. Or maybe he was just better at hiding it.
“No,” Jonah answered simply.
The lip beneath the scraggly moustache quivered. Tears were running down his cheeks. Thomas was an expert at emotional manipulation. Or at least a natural.
“Please, sir, I can’t—”
“No,” Jonah repeated firmly. “That is my last word.”
The eyes of all the men were on him, and Jonah felt it keenly. He was tempted to look back, but it would be a sign of weakness, one he couldn’t afford. The silence that had spread through the room was a heavy one as well. Hardly anybody chattered during the rest of the meal. Jonah could practically see them contemplate their chances of getting home. They all wanted to go. If Thomas could manage it, so could they. The rest of the fish stew tasted like mud, and the biscuits like dust. Jonah had barely enough time to put down his spoon when a figure began to loom over his seated form.
“I would like a word, sir,” Philo said in clipped tones when Jonah looked up in question.
“Very well,” he replied. He led the way to the command centre, where he got a strange sense of deja vu. They had been here before, and it hadn’t been pleasant. This time wouldn’t be either. At least Philo hadn’t made a public scene like before. When Jonah turned, Philo was tense, his jaw squared and his lips pressed together.
“I know what you’re going to say, Philostrate, and the answer is still no,” Jonah said. He clasped his hands behind his back in an effort to keep control of his emotions.
“Sir, with all due respect—”
“Nobody who says those words has ever meant them,” Jonah drawled. A muscle in Philo’s jaw twitched.
“Thomas is seventeen. He wasn’t made for war. Louisa meant the world to him, and you dragged him on a mission he wasn’t ready for. He can’t do this.”
“He has to!” Jonah barked. “We all bloody well have to, whether we want to or not!”
“He’s a child!”
“He’s seventeen! Good Burguish lads at that age are signing up for the army, and they’re dying in the trenches, fighting the Pact. What makes him so special that he should get out of this war for no good reason?”
Philo stepped a little closer, and Jonah realised he had as well. They were far too close to each other now – Jonah could see the evening light reflected in the flecks of colour in Philo’s irises. His face took up most of his field of vision.
“He lost his best friend in the world. Louisa was like a sister to him. The closest thing to a family he has ever had. He’s been crying ever since she died. Did you even notice? Do your men mean that little to you still?”
Of course, Jonah had noticed. You had to be blind and deaf not to notice all the snivelling. He’d even decided to let the boy sit out the next mission, and maybe the one after that, until he recovered enough. He wasn’t heartless – and he didn’t like Philo’s accusations one bloody bit.
“Oh, I think I understand what this is about now,” Jonah sneered.
“It’s about a boy who shouldn’t be at war!”
“No, it’s about you not being able to deal with your girlfriend getting hurt.”
Stonemoss was among the worst hurt, at least among those who had survived. Her fingers and toes were all still attached, but her left wing had been trapped under a fallen rock when she’d flown into the mine to save herself from the collapsing stone pillars. She’d assured everyone she’d make a full recovery and that she’d been hurt worse, but even a week later, her wings were still pinned to a thin wooden frame that forced her to shuffle awkwardly through the narrow passages of the mimasery. She’d received more than her fair share of bruises, too. The one around her left eye was only now beginning to fade from purple to yellow. Philo loved Stonemoss to a frankly ridiculous degree. Of course, he blamed Jonah for her getting hurt.
“This isn’t about Vignette,” Philo growled, fury blazing in his eyes.
“Isn’t it?”
For a moment, a silence stood between them, sharp enough to pierce flesh. Then Philo took a deep, laboured breath and straightened himself. Finally, he took a step back. “Yes, I think the mission was reckless. Detonating the explosives… you’re not a seasoned soldier. Millworthy isn’t either. Explosives are dangerous. Any veteran worth his salt will tell you so. But it could have been a lot worse, and I’m well aware that war means risks. We wouldn’t have had to lose Louisa and the others, but we did. We need to deal with it. We can. But Thomas can’t. He wasn’t made for this.”
And the fool thought any of them were? Thomas was where he had to be. This was a war, not a trip to a country estate. “He can’t leave,” Jonah said again. “He’ll stay, and you will accept it.” Saying the words felt like spitting acid, somehow.
Philo stared. And kept staring. Eventually, something twitched over his face that Jonah couldn’t place. It was as if something had broken. In Philo, in Jonah, between them, it was hard to tell. They had been uneasy with each other since the beginning; that was nothing new. But now, that uneasiness had turned into antagonism, or so it seemed. Maybe that was what they had been meant for since the beginning. One prophecy, and only one man to make it come true. Jonah cursed his mother and her madness. This was all because of her.
After this long, tense moment, Philo nodded curtly, then stormed out, notably without his usual “sir” and salute. When he was gone, Jonah felt his entire body relax – he hadn’t known he had tensed up so much. With a sigh, he let himself fall back into his chair and tilted his head backwards, trying not to think about whether or not he’d just ruined everything. He wished Runyan were around. Right now, Jonah really needed his advice and support.
*
The next morning, Jonah went to the command centre with bleary eyes. He’d barely slept because of a diffuse sense of disquiet that he just couldn’t shake, and consequently, he was in a rotten mood. Especially since he’d decided to skip breakfast in the main hall as well. He longingly thought back to his days in The Burgue, when he could have simply stayed in bed for the entire day, pleading illness. Now he had reports to write, a captain to speak to and potentially the White Ravens to deal with again. It gave him a new appreciation for his father, who must have dragged himself out of bed, counter to his body’s wishes, again and again. Jonah had never noticed, but that was what being a son was like – believing the lies your parents told you until you were old enough to figure out the truth on your own.
Jonah had expected the command centre to be empty. He’d been wrong. At the desk sat Runyan Millworthy, hair as wild as Jonah had ever seen it, deep bags under his eyes. He must have returned in the night, and if Jonah had slept little, Runyan had slept none.
When Jonah cleared his throat, Runyan’s eyes darted over to him, frantic, almost manic or insane. “Ah, Master Jonah!”
“Lieutenant,” Jonah reminded him dryly.
Runyan smiled in embarrassment. “I apologise. I’ve been wanting to speak to you.”
The sentence set Jonah on edge. Nobody ever came to you with good news and those words on their lips. Bad news was the last thing he needed after last night.
And so Jonah sighed. “Out with it.”
For a moment, Runyan eyed him, trying to figure out what he had missed. Then he turned away and picked up a sheaf of papers, waving it in front of Jonah’s face like it was the folio of a play and they were still in Balefire Hall, talking literature. “I need to return to The Burgue. This is too big to just send a report – it could change the course of the war if we play our hand right. And there are threads of something else in there that need to be followed up on. I can’t do that here.”
It hurt. Millworthy might mean well, but he was still deserting Jonah when he really needed him. The papers were copies of some of the intel Philo had brought them, as well as the scientists’ notes from the prisoner camp. The news of the atrocities might add new fire to the fight for some, but ultimately, The Burgue didn’t care about the fae any more than the Pact did. They would feel good and righteous about fighting an evil enemy, nothing more.
“So,” Jonah said, feeling oddly out of breath, “you want me to let you leave after I very publicly told Thomas that he couldn’t last night? What kind of message does that send, do you think?” That humans were different from half-bloods, even those ostensibly on the same side. Maybe Jonah should have let Thomas go to his doom after all – because there was no way he wouldn’t have ended up in a cell once he was back home.
The darkness on Millworthy’s face made it clear he knew very well what he was asking. “I have to go,” he repeated. “If they’re running these experiments here, who knows what is happening back home. They will eventually need human subjects for some of their experiments. We know what they do to their own men, but they need every soldier. And by now, they are holding hundreds of thousands of men as prisoners of war. Basilians, Ilarians, Leonice and Burguishmen. Who would notice if some of them went missing?”
The thought chilled Jonah to the bone. He tried to picture Charles and Malthus in one of those dark cells, eyes dead before their hearts stop beating. He thought of Barthold’s carefree smile being snuffed out by a fate worse than death. Runyan was right. Jonah still didn’t like it.
“They’ll have people for that. You don’t have to go yourself.”
The long, weary sigh took him by surprise. When Jonah looked, Runyan didn’t just look tired. For the first time, he looked old. “I have to, I’m afraid. I know what I’m looking for. And I’m a spy. This is what I do when I can’t follow my passion and stand on a stage. I’m not much of a soldier. Our last mission taught me that. I’m not much use here. If I go home, it will be better for all of us.”
“That’s not true,” Jonah argued. “You’re invaluable to me here. You know how much I value your counsel. You might not know much about irregular warfare or explosives, but you know the Pact.”
Runyan Millworthy huffed and smiled. “There are others who will be better at that than I, if you let them. Maybe my being here even does you more harm than good. I’m a crutch, and it is time that you learned to stand on your own two feet. I know you. You can do it.”
Jonah sent a glare his way that lacked any bite. He might be right. But that didn’t mean that Jonah could stand on his own feet. And he was as scared of failure as he had been the first day they met, when Runyan had seen through him in ways that even Jonah hadn’t. Failure – it had dogged his every step like a shadow, had hung over his life like a pall. The only way to be rid of it was success, and Jonah feared he would never find that, even if he never cared for his mother’s prophecy. Not truly.
“You mean Philostrate, don’t you?” Jonah asked him. “When you say that there are others who will advise me.”
“Yes. Not only him, but Philo is a good man. He wants this mission to succeed just as much as we do.”
Jonah couldn’t prevent a bitter laugh escaping from his throat. Philo. It was always bloody Philo. “Trust me, that man is no friend of mine. If there is one person in this fucking mimasery who will fuck me over, it’s him.”
Millworthy’s puzzled gaze almost made Jonah regret his little outburst of honesty. It seemed he was still seething from last evening.
“Is there something I don’t know?” Runyan asked.
“Oh, there is,” Jonah confirmed, but refused to elaborate any further.
“Whatever it is, you have to work it out,” Runyan said. “I know the good Inspector better than you, I’d wager. You could achieve great things together here.”
“He doesn’t need me to achieve them, that’s the problem. The men follow him, the marroks respect him. Even the fae turn to him when I’m not looking, because he is one of them. I’m only included as a courtesy.” Or at least that’s how Jonah felt half the time. He’d seen Philo and Hastur together. Seen how the others all looked up to him. What Jonah tried his hardest to achieve fell to Philo without him lifting a single finger.
“They all need The Burgue – the supplies, the support. And they know it. Out here, you’re The Burgue. They know that too. Whatever you’re worried about, Jonah, I think it’s all in your head.”
And with those words, Runyan left Jonah to stew in his thoughts and insecurities.
*
Jonah watched from the cliffs as the Aquila departed again, hold emptied of enough weapons to outfit half a rebellion, as well as ammunition, explosives and provisions. Instead, she carried some of the fae that had lost everything. And she carried Runyan Millworthy and Jonah’s reports and letters. Some of the men had written letters too – heavily censored, of course. Jonah didn’t walk up to the cliffs often – he didn’t like the stiff breeze and the feeling of being exposed, but he thought this occasion warranted it.
Then he heard the heavy tread of boots behind him, jolting him out of his reverie. He’d called the man up here, on Runyan’s advice. No matter what, they would both have to get along, whether they wanted to or not.
Rycroft Philostrate came to a halt beside Jonah. He looked the same as always. Scruffy, wearing a suit that had seen better days and a shirt that needed a wash. He stared after the ship, too.
“I know you don’t like me. I don’t like you either,” Jonah began. “But it seems we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be.
Jonah wondered if he should pat Philo on the shoulder, but decided against it. It would only make things even more awkward than they already were. Not that the ensuing silence was much better.
“Why was he allowed to go?” Philo asked. There was still anger in his voice.
“Technically, he isn’t part of the company. He’s only an advisor,” Jonah said. “Besides, he isn’t going to leave the war. Millworthy thinks there might be camps in Mesogea, too, where they experiment on men. He’s gone to investigate.”
Something twitched in Philo again, even though Jonah didn’t see him move a muscle. Maybe it was just a trick of the light. It would all be so much easier if he were easier to read, Jonah thought. At least then, he would know where they stood. A side effect of being half-blood, he thought. Philo could hide everything. It was in his nature.
“Have I made myself clear enough?” Jonah asked.
Philo nodded.
Nothing was solved, but at least there was that. Jonah had no idea if they would ever get past this. If he could ever make an ally out of Philo. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want to. The simple truth was that Jonah didn’t know how.
Chapter 11: A Different Coat | Chapter 13: Sanctity and Sin
Fandom: Carnival Row
Author:
rodoChapter: 12/17+E
Length: 4,712 words (77,000 in total)
Rating: 16+
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Worldbuilding, Adventure
Characters: Rycroft Philostrate, Jonah Breakspear, Vignette Stonemoss, Runyan Millworthy, Darius Prowell, Absalom Breakspear
Pairing: Philo/Vignette
Warnings/Labels: war, and mentions/occasional depictions of associated atrocities; canon-typical fantasy racism
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to Amazon, of course
A/N: I started this story in August 2021, and I finished the draft in 2022, so this was all written prior to the second season. So some of the worldbuilding contradicts what was shown in season 2. Still, I had so much fun re-reading this lately that I thought I’d polish it up some more and post it anyway, in case some of you will like it as well. Since it’s an AU, the plot of the second season is not that relevant anyway.
Summary: A year after the attempted assassination of Chancellor Absalom Breakspear, The Burgue is at war, and it’s not going well. In order to break the stalemate at the front, some unlikely soldiers are recruited to fight in a place nobody expected, and Philo and Jonah find themselves caught up in it against their expectations.
The Year of the Martyr 647
Numbers and equations were flashing through Jonah’s brain. Words, quotes, and aphorisms were running him ragged. All the teachers his father could hire flogged him with knowledge and lessons. His head was swimming. It was torture, self-inflicted though it was. He could do no more.
“I need a break,” Jonah said, because those words had been all he’d been able to think about for the past however many minutes. His father was barely recovered, a war was looming, and all anybody thought about was him actually finishing his studies before Austery.
Runyan Millworthy, to his credit, didn’t attempt to push through the immovable fog in Jonah’s brain. He just gave him one of those long, calculating looks that made him feel as if he had no secrets.
“I think you might be right, Master Jonah,” Runyan finally agreed. “You haven’t been able to pay any attention to what I’ve said in the past five minutes. And while I appreciate that you’ve finally discovered your zeal for studying, there is a limit to everything. Sometimes, we need time to rest and reflect.”
Jonah eyed his teacher with amusement as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as if he was trying to bask in an imaginary sun. As if he were sitting in a park or a garden, with not a care in the world. “Is that a master’s wisdom?”
Millworthy smirked. “It is a student’s. I was young once, too, if you can believe it.”
Strangely enough, Jonah could. Millworthy was anything but stuffy, unlike Symes and the other tutors. It was hard to believe that he and Symes were the same age and even friends.
“So, what will we do then?” Jonah asked.
“The same thing we always do when we run into a wall or fail at a task. Recover, rest, then try again. Hawethorne’s romantic poetry will wait. It has for three hundred years. Now, we lean back and think of nothing until you’re ready to learn again.”
The mood was bad, even a week later. Jonah couldn’t say it surprised him. They had limped back to the mimasery in a miserable state. On the way, they had lost Fulton, bringing their total losses up to four dead. The injured were much more numerous – fifteen in total, with another four who had been left in the mimasery to recover from their wounds from the raid on the Pact camp. At least all those who were still injured were expected to recover, and nobody had lost a limb, barring a finger and three toes. Still, the four dead hung over everybody’s heads. They had been friends, maybe even lovers, and this was the first real setback that they had suffered since arriving in Tirnanoc. Jonah knew it had only been a matter of time, that it had been inevitable. War was war. Things never went as smoothly as they did in stories.
That wasn’t to say that the mission had been a complete failure. The mine was unusable, with the tools and entrances buried under rubble, and most of the miners freed. The Pact would need new mining engineers, new slaves and new men to rebuild it. They had been dealt a blow that would echo back to Mesogea. Antimony’s White Ravens had gained a couple of recruits as well, and Berne had even opted to stay with Jonah and his men – he was the fae that Jonah and Masterson had hauled to safety when an almost literal mountain had been collapsing around their ears.
All in all, a success, if you went by the Burguish officers’ handbook and the report Jonah had written. You couldn’t expect to make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and winning a war meant sacrificing soldiers. These kinds of losses had been factored into the generals’ calculations when they’d been sent to Anoun.
The problem was that, despite their training, none of their men was a real soldier. They weren’t even veteran resistance fighters or hardened criminals, with a few exceptions – people who had become accustomed to violence in their lives. They were just normal people. Pampered Burguishmen, despite everything, who had taken the losses as a sign of a complete and utter failure. None of them had wanted to come. They had been drafted for this mission despite their shortcomings, and the little motivation they had arrived with had evaporated in the dust of the crumbled stone forest. Jonah couldn’t say he blamed them; he was a pampered Burguishman himself.
The mood was getting to him. It was a palpable thing. When Rycroft Philostrate and the two marroks wandered into the command centre where Jonah had taken refuge, they did so with frowns on their faces, even though they looked as if they hadn’t had much of an opportunity to talk with the others yet. Their clothes were dusty, their boots caked with dried mud, and they smelled as if they hadn’t bathed in weeks. Of course, the dark faces could mean that they had failed as well, but Jonah doubted it. Philo was the golden boy, after all. In his case, failure would have likely meant death. He really should be the legitimate son of the Chancellor and Jonah the bastard critch. That would suit both of them much better.
“Did your mission go well? Any useful intel?” Jonah asked.
Philo nodded and put a bundle of documents on the table while the two marroks added a couple of hand-drawn maps to the pile. Caerfyd Castle. There were probably faerish maps around as well, or former occupants who remembered the citadel well. But all their information predated the occupation. Jonah doubted Antimony had expected this much from a half-blood and two marroks, so an unwanted and unwarranted sense of pride grew in his chest. After the past week, he didn’t dare to quash it – he needed hope, much like the men.
“This one should go to the White Ravens as soon as possible,” Philo explained, pointing at two of the folders. “It’s intelligence the general collected about their operations – nothing leading to us yet, I checked – and this one might help her weed out Pact spies.”
Pact spies – Jonah hadn’t even thought of the possibility. Berne seemed friendly, but he was a stranger… no, that way lay madness. Jonah took the folders and skimmed over the files. Philo was right. The White Ravens would do more with this information than they could.
“Fetch me Primrose,” he told one of the marroks, Hargrave. “She’s the fastest. She’ll get this to them in no time.”
The man saluted sharply and left with precise steps, making Jonah feel out of place, as if this were a regular military operation with regular soldiers, somewhere back home. None of the others ever got the salute quite right, except these three. Some didn’t even try.
“And this,” Philo said, pointing at the next folder on the pile, “contains information about the camps they’re running. Some are indoctrination camps. Their purpose is to force the fae to convert to their brand of the Martyrite religion.”
“I thought they didn’t think the fae were even in possession of souls,” Jonah mused as he opened the folder. God’s noose, neither did half the clerics in The Burgue, but at least those didn’t expect the fae to pray to anyone but their heathen gods and saints. It was a topic of vigorous theological debate in some clerical circles – Symes had covered it once, when it became a political issue.
“They don’t. But they’ve identified the fae religion as a possible catalyst for an organised insurrection. They’re targeting mimas, especially. That happened in the Willow Ground as well. Mimas, haruspexes, any old woman that looks at them sideways… anything that could possibly contradict their worldview. And then there’s the experiments. They use the converted fae as spies sometimes – but I’m not sure how effective that is – or to run these experiments on. They sell them as a way to gain a soul, to gain salvation.”
A strange way to get saved by the Martyr. Getting turned into a guinea pig at best and a monster at worst. Not all the “subjects” were indoctrinated, it seemed, only the ones that were expected to remain lucid. The eerie pleas to the Martyr kept echoing through Jonah’s mind.
“All that, just to turn the fae? Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill them all and be done with it?”
The cold calculation in his voice caused Philo’s face to harden. He took a couple of notes from his pockets. Scraps of paper, drafted letters, and telegrams.
“They’re trying to perfect a method of optimisation, I think. Their ultimate goal is to use it on themselves. That’s why they started infecting their people with the wolf’s curse. It’s why they developed the catalyst. You know the Pact – never happy with what they have, no mercy for people who don’t abide by their neat little ideas of what a human should be.”
Jonah had heard the tales, of course, but he’d dismissed them as propaganda. People always exaggerated their enemy’s worst qualities, especially during a war. Now it seemed that maybe they had understated just how monstrous the Pact was. Turning people into some sort of critch, twisting the Martyr’s teachings until they were barely recognisable, that wasn’t new. These things happened everywhere, to some degree, thanks to the wolf’s curse and people’s imagination. This scale, however, was something else.
Jonah, Philo and Prowell went over the other information they had gathered as well. Troop strength – less than they had thought – transport routes and missives. All useful, including Philo’s suggestion to tap the telegraph lines. It was frustrating for Jonah just how good Philo was at this. Especially since Jonah had cocked things up.
“Sir?” Philo asked once everything was said. “How did the raid go?”
Jonah hated to be reminded. “It went,” he ground out between clenched teeth. Then he waved his greatest asset and annoyance off to reunite with his love and gossip with the others. He wanted to be alone and pretend things weren’t terrible for just a little longer.
Jonah received another piece of good news that evening: Ash Greenstone had spotted the Aquila on the horizon. He was quickly dispatched to catch up with Primrose. She’d make sure that any of the fae they had saved could take them up on their offer and get passage off this godforsaken continent. Before it was time for dinner, Jonah made the announcement in the main hall, and it had the desired effect on the men. Finally, there was good news. And apparently some of the half-bloods had put in requests for comforts of home when the ship had left – a bottle of their favourite hooch, cookies, even magazines, now long out of date. It didn’t matter: any news of home was welcome.
With the morale boosted, Jonah felt as if things were going well again. He was looking forward to a glass of whisky to celebrate later, and it even made his dinner of hardtack and fish stew go down easier. They had intelligence, successes to report and supplies coming in. His father would be proud, or at least not disappointed.
“Sir?” The timid voice had become familiar to him by now, but Jonah really didn’t want to deal with the boy right now. He didn’t want to see his good mood turn to ash.
“Yes,” Jonah replied, a little tetchy. When he looked up, he peered straight into Thomas’s watery eyes, red-rimmed from all the crying. His face sported a pathetically patchy excuse for a reddish beard, and he clutched the hem of his jacket, worrying at it. Then he shifted from one cloven foot to the other like an overgrown schoolboy.
“Can I sail back on the Aquila?” His voice was quivering. Jonah wanted to roll his eyes; he looked so much like the pucks that used to serve his family when they’d cocked up colossally. Absalom Breakspear’s wrath was legendary. Jonah hadn’t inherited it, of course. He hadn’t inherited anything of his father’s. Curiously, Philo didn’t seem to have it either. Or maybe he was just better at hiding it.
“No,” Jonah answered simply.
The lip beneath the scraggly moustache quivered. Tears were running down his cheeks. Thomas was an expert at emotional manipulation. Or at least a natural.
“Please, sir, I can’t—”
“No,” Jonah repeated firmly. “That is my last word.”
The eyes of all the men were on him, and Jonah felt it keenly. He was tempted to look back, but it would be a sign of weakness, one he couldn’t afford. The silence that had spread through the room was a heavy one as well. Hardly anybody chattered during the rest of the meal. Jonah could practically see them contemplate their chances of getting home. They all wanted to go. If Thomas could manage it, so could they. The rest of the fish stew tasted like mud, and the biscuits like dust. Jonah had barely enough time to put down his spoon when a figure began to loom over his seated form.
“I would like a word, sir,” Philo said in clipped tones when Jonah looked up in question.
“Very well,” he replied. He led the way to the command centre, where he got a strange sense of deja vu. They had been here before, and it hadn’t been pleasant. This time wouldn’t be either. At least Philo hadn’t made a public scene like before. When Jonah turned, Philo was tense, his jaw squared and his lips pressed together.
“I know what you’re going to say, Philostrate, and the answer is still no,” Jonah said. He clasped his hands behind his back in an effort to keep control of his emotions.
“Sir, with all due respect—”
“Nobody who says those words has ever meant them,” Jonah drawled. A muscle in Philo’s jaw twitched.
“Thomas is seventeen. He wasn’t made for war. Louisa meant the world to him, and you dragged him on a mission he wasn’t ready for. He can’t do this.”
“He has to!” Jonah barked. “We all bloody well have to, whether we want to or not!”
“He’s a child!”
“He’s seventeen! Good Burguish lads at that age are signing up for the army, and they’re dying in the trenches, fighting the Pact. What makes him so special that he should get out of this war for no good reason?”
Philo stepped a little closer, and Jonah realised he had as well. They were far too close to each other now – Jonah could see the evening light reflected in the flecks of colour in Philo’s irises. His face took up most of his field of vision.
“He lost his best friend in the world. Louisa was like a sister to him. The closest thing to a family he has ever had. He’s been crying ever since she died. Did you even notice? Do your men mean that little to you still?”
Of course, Jonah had noticed. You had to be blind and deaf not to notice all the snivelling. He’d even decided to let the boy sit out the next mission, and maybe the one after that, until he recovered enough. He wasn’t heartless – and he didn’t like Philo’s accusations one bloody bit.
“Oh, I think I understand what this is about now,” Jonah sneered.
“It’s about a boy who shouldn’t be at war!”
“No, it’s about you not being able to deal with your girlfriend getting hurt.”
Stonemoss was among the worst hurt, at least among those who had survived. Her fingers and toes were all still attached, but her left wing had been trapped under a fallen rock when she’d flown into the mine to save herself from the collapsing stone pillars. She’d assured everyone she’d make a full recovery and that she’d been hurt worse, but even a week later, her wings were still pinned to a thin wooden frame that forced her to shuffle awkwardly through the narrow passages of the mimasery. She’d received more than her fair share of bruises, too. The one around her left eye was only now beginning to fade from purple to yellow. Philo loved Stonemoss to a frankly ridiculous degree. Of course, he blamed Jonah for her getting hurt.
“This isn’t about Vignette,” Philo growled, fury blazing in his eyes.
“Isn’t it?”
For a moment, a silence stood between them, sharp enough to pierce flesh. Then Philo took a deep, laboured breath and straightened himself. Finally, he took a step back. “Yes, I think the mission was reckless. Detonating the explosives… you’re not a seasoned soldier. Millworthy isn’t either. Explosives are dangerous. Any veteran worth his salt will tell you so. But it could have been a lot worse, and I’m well aware that war means risks. We wouldn’t have had to lose Louisa and the others, but we did. We need to deal with it. We can. But Thomas can’t. He wasn’t made for this.”
And the fool thought any of them were? Thomas was where he had to be. This was a war, not a trip to a country estate. “He can’t leave,” Jonah said again. “He’ll stay, and you will accept it.” Saying the words felt like spitting acid, somehow.
Philo stared. And kept staring. Eventually, something twitched over his face that Jonah couldn’t place. It was as if something had broken. In Philo, in Jonah, between them, it was hard to tell. They had been uneasy with each other since the beginning; that was nothing new. But now, that uneasiness had turned into antagonism, or so it seemed. Maybe that was what they had been meant for since the beginning. One prophecy, and only one man to make it come true. Jonah cursed his mother and her madness. This was all because of her.
After this long, tense moment, Philo nodded curtly, then stormed out, notably without his usual “sir” and salute. When he was gone, Jonah felt his entire body relax – he hadn’t known he had tensed up so much. With a sigh, he let himself fall back into his chair and tilted his head backwards, trying not to think about whether or not he’d just ruined everything. He wished Runyan were around. Right now, Jonah really needed his advice and support.
The next morning, Jonah went to the command centre with bleary eyes. He’d barely slept because of a diffuse sense of disquiet that he just couldn’t shake, and consequently, he was in a rotten mood. Especially since he’d decided to skip breakfast in the main hall as well. He longingly thought back to his days in The Burgue, when he could have simply stayed in bed for the entire day, pleading illness. Now he had reports to write, a captain to speak to and potentially the White Ravens to deal with again. It gave him a new appreciation for his father, who must have dragged himself out of bed, counter to his body’s wishes, again and again. Jonah had never noticed, but that was what being a son was like – believing the lies your parents told you until you were old enough to figure out the truth on your own.
Jonah had expected the command centre to be empty. He’d been wrong. At the desk sat Runyan Millworthy, hair as wild as Jonah had ever seen it, deep bags under his eyes. He must have returned in the night, and if Jonah had slept little, Runyan had slept none.
When Jonah cleared his throat, Runyan’s eyes darted over to him, frantic, almost manic or insane. “Ah, Master Jonah!”
“Lieutenant,” Jonah reminded him dryly.
Runyan smiled in embarrassment. “I apologise. I’ve been wanting to speak to you.”
The sentence set Jonah on edge. Nobody ever came to you with good news and those words on their lips. Bad news was the last thing he needed after last night.
And so Jonah sighed. “Out with it.”
For a moment, Runyan eyed him, trying to figure out what he had missed. Then he turned away and picked up a sheaf of papers, waving it in front of Jonah’s face like it was the folio of a play and they were still in Balefire Hall, talking literature. “I need to return to The Burgue. This is too big to just send a report – it could change the course of the war if we play our hand right. And there are threads of something else in there that need to be followed up on. I can’t do that here.”
It hurt. Millworthy might mean well, but he was still deserting Jonah when he really needed him. The papers were copies of some of the intel Philo had brought them, as well as the scientists’ notes from the prisoner camp. The news of the atrocities might add new fire to the fight for some, but ultimately, The Burgue didn’t care about the fae any more than the Pact did. They would feel good and righteous about fighting an evil enemy, nothing more.
“So,” Jonah said, feeling oddly out of breath, “you want me to let you leave after I very publicly told Thomas that he couldn’t last night? What kind of message does that send, do you think?” That humans were different from half-bloods, even those ostensibly on the same side. Maybe Jonah should have let Thomas go to his doom after all – because there was no way he wouldn’t have ended up in a cell once he was back home.
The darkness on Millworthy’s face made it clear he knew very well what he was asking. “I have to go,” he repeated. “If they’re running these experiments here, who knows what is happening back home. They will eventually need human subjects for some of their experiments. We know what they do to their own men, but they need every soldier. And by now, they are holding hundreds of thousands of men as prisoners of war. Basilians, Ilarians, Leonice and Burguishmen. Who would notice if some of them went missing?”
The thought chilled Jonah to the bone. He tried to picture Charles and Malthus in one of those dark cells, eyes dead before their hearts stop beating. He thought of Barthold’s carefree smile being snuffed out by a fate worse than death. Runyan was right. Jonah still didn’t like it.
“They’ll have people for that. You don’t have to go yourself.”
The long, weary sigh took him by surprise. When Jonah looked, Runyan didn’t just look tired. For the first time, he looked old. “I have to, I’m afraid. I know what I’m looking for. And I’m a spy. This is what I do when I can’t follow my passion and stand on a stage. I’m not much of a soldier. Our last mission taught me that. I’m not much use here. If I go home, it will be better for all of us.”
“That’s not true,” Jonah argued. “You’re invaluable to me here. You know how much I value your counsel. You might not know much about irregular warfare or explosives, but you know the Pact.”
Runyan Millworthy huffed and smiled. “There are others who will be better at that than I, if you let them. Maybe my being here even does you more harm than good. I’m a crutch, and it is time that you learned to stand on your own two feet. I know you. You can do it.”
Jonah sent a glare his way that lacked any bite. He might be right. But that didn’t mean that Jonah could stand on his own feet. And he was as scared of failure as he had been the first day they met, when Runyan had seen through him in ways that even Jonah hadn’t. Failure – it had dogged his every step like a shadow, had hung over his life like a pall. The only way to be rid of it was success, and Jonah feared he would never find that, even if he never cared for his mother’s prophecy. Not truly.
“You mean Philostrate, don’t you?” Jonah asked him. “When you say that there are others who will advise me.”
“Yes. Not only him, but Philo is a good man. He wants this mission to succeed just as much as we do.”
Jonah couldn’t prevent a bitter laugh escaping from his throat. Philo. It was always bloody Philo. “Trust me, that man is no friend of mine. If there is one person in this fucking mimasery who will fuck me over, it’s him.”
Millworthy’s puzzled gaze almost made Jonah regret his little outburst of honesty. It seemed he was still seething from last evening.
“Is there something I don’t know?” Runyan asked.
“Oh, there is,” Jonah confirmed, but refused to elaborate any further.
“Whatever it is, you have to work it out,” Runyan said. “I know the good Inspector better than you, I’d wager. You could achieve great things together here.”
“He doesn’t need me to achieve them, that’s the problem. The men follow him, the marroks respect him. Even the fae turn to him when I’m not looking, because he is one of them. I’m only included as a courtesy.” Or at least that’s how Jonah felt half the time. He’d seen Philo and Hastur together. Seen how the others all looked up to him. What Jonah tried his hardest to achieve fell to Philo without him lifting a single finger.
“They all need The Burgue – the supplies, the support. And they know it. Out here, you’re The Burgue. They know that too. Whatever you’re worried about, Jonah, I think it’s all in your head.”
And with those words, Runyan left Jonah to stew in his thoughts and insecurities.
Jonah watched from the cliffs as the Aquila departed again, hold emptied of enough weapons to outfit half a rebellion, as well as ammunition, explosives and provisions. Instead, she carried some of the fae that had lost everything. And she carried Runyan Millworthy and Jonah’s reports and letters. Some of the men had written letters too – heavily censored, of course. Jonah didn’t walk up to the cliffs often – he didn’t like the stiff breeze and the feeling of being exposed, but he thought this occasion warranted it.
Then he heard the heavy tread of boots behind him, jolting him out of his reverie. He’d called the man up here, on Runyan’s advice. No matter what, they would both have to get along, whether they wanted to or not.
Rycroft Philostrate came to a halt beside Jonah. He looked the same as always. Scruffy, wearing a suit that had seen better days and a shirt that needed a wash. He stared after the ship, too.
“I know you don’t like me. I don’t like you either,” Jonah began. “But it seems we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be.
Jonah wondered if he should pat Philo on the shoulder, but decided against it. It would only make things even more awkward than they already were. Not that the ensuing silence was much better.
“Why was he allowed to go?” Philo asked. There was still anger in his voice.
“Technically, he isn’t part of the company. He’s only an advisor,” Jonah said. “Besides, he isn’t going to leave the war. Millworthy thinks there might be camps in Mesogea, too, where they experiment on men. He’s gone to investigate.”
Something twitched in Philo again, even though Jonah didn’t see him move a muscle. Maybe it was just a trick of the light. It would all be so much easier if he were easier to read, Jonah thought. At least then, he would know where they stood. A side effect of being half-blood, he thought. Philo could hide everything. It was in his nature.
“Have I made myself clear enough?” Jonah asked.
Philo nodded.
Nothing was solved, but at least there was that. Jonah had no idea if they would ever get past this. If he could ever make an ally out of Philo. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want to. The simple truth was that Jonah didn’t know how.
