Midnight's Twins by Holly Race

Author:Holly Race [Race, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471409172
Google: kN2uDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre Ltd.
Published: 2020-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

28

It looks like my first mission will be my last mission, if what Lord Allenby tells us is anything to go by.

‘We learned that Medraut had taken one of the buildings in Royal Arsenal for his own ends about a year ago,’ Lord Allenby says, ‘and I decided that it would be better to gather intelligence instead of launching some kind of kamikaze offensive.’

Royal Arsenal was once a grid of military warehouses that sit, squat and stately, on the south of the Thames, east of the Royal Parks of Greenwich. In Ithr the warehouses have been turned into apartments, but in Annwn they’ve mostly stayed true to their history, until Medraut came along.

Ollie and I have been excused from training for as long as it takes to retrieve Samson. We go straight to the stables to tack up and ride out of the castle without being stopped. The harkers open the drawbridge without questioning us. They must have been briefed.

I thought it would be liberating to be out here in regular clothing, but somewhere in the past few months the knights’ uniform has become a precious token of affirmation. Ollie rides next to me in silence. When it becomes too much, I fish my helmet out of my saddle bag and slip it over my ears.

‘Hello?’ I say like a numpty.

‘Fern?’ Rachel replies. ‘I was wondering when you were going to get in touch. What’s it like out there with just the two of you?’

‘Weird.’

‘I bet.’

‘Is the road looking clear?’ I ask.

‘Don’t cross the river at Millennium Bridge – it keeps forgetting it exists,’ she says. ‘Otherwise it’s pretty clear, yeah.’

I slip the helmet off again and relay Rachel’s message to Ollie.

‘Do you reckon it’s worth it?’ he replies.

‘Getting Samson?’

He grunts.

‘Lord Allenby thinks so.’

‘You’re going to be using your power a lot. It’s going to be dangerous. I don’t like that we’re not going in together.’

‘It’s part of the plan.’

‘Yeah, I get that I’m needed on the outside to keep a lookout for Medraut, sense if anything’s changing, blah blah blah. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

‘I don’t either. I’d … I’d rather you were going in with me.’ That’s true. Ollie is now so sure of his Immral that even if my half is more useful when it comes to fighting, I think his confidence would reassure me by osmosis.

Ollie snorts. ‘Now you decide to get sappy.’

‘Well, if I die, don’t tell anyone. It’d ruin my image.’

I catch his eye and we smirk at each other. The next moment, anxiety settles on me again like a vulture. Lord Allenby’s plan was as foolproof as a plan can be, given what we know about Medraut’s stronghold.

‘I can’t give you a map,’ he had said. ‘Medraut shifts the layout of the buildings all the time, unpredictably. I’m afraid that’s where you’re going to need to use your intuition.’

As if the job wasn’t hard enough.

When we reach the cover of Canary Wharf’s skyscrapers, I look at Ollie. ‘Time to split up?’

He nods.

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