Page 103 of Bitter Burn
“Anyway, it was no problem,” he says. “I owed Mark a small favor—there was some nasty business near Malmö last autumn, and I needed to take care of things…informally. It took us all the way to Östersund. Mark was happy to lend his expertise in exchange for a promise to stage an extraction later.”
The remembered words drift across my thoughts:
Did you know it snows in October in Sweden?
So as far back as last year, he’d planned on having Valter rescue us. But?—
“Mark was taken before us,” I say, trying to understand. “How could you have known we’d need rescued? And where we’d need rescued from? And who we’d need rescued from?”
Valter lifts a hand, like oh it was all so easy. “As for whom, he’d told us about Cashel and the saints last year. As for where, he put us on alert two days ago, sometime in the afternoon, and we’ve been tracking you ever since. Once we saw you were in Rome…”
Two days ago, the afternoon… That would have been morning in America.
Mark asked for help before he ever drove to Albany.
I rub my hand down my battered face, considering what the world must look like from inside Mark’s mind. Months ago, he earned this favor, knowing the circumstances he’d need it in, and two days ago, he’d decided those circumstances were looming near enough to send a message to Valter. The layers of his plans, the steps he’s taken to weave himself a path to the middle of Cashel’s web…
I can’t keep up.
“I’m so sorry,” Isolde says, her voice hard. “Did you say you’ve been tracking us?”
“Yes.” Valter looks puzzled. “You’re wearing trackers. Well, you are,” he says to Isolde. “And Mark is wearing one as well.”
Isolde is shaking her head as she palpates her black pants and close-fitting sweater, as she runs quick fingers along the hems and seams. She checks her boots—and it’s as the van turns slowly onto a narrow street and a lonely streetlight winks across the length of her honeysuckle ring that we realize.
She stops unlacing her boots and sits up, holding her hand in front of her face. The ruby sparkles darkly.
And then I remember how he found us at Morois and again in Rome. I remember how strange and beautiful I found his gift of the black and silver ring before I left for Ireland. A cruel reminder that I’d never wear any other kind of ring from him, a constant source of obsession, an unyielding reminder of his attention. A gift I treasured and never took off.
I remember him switching our rings in a closet at Lyonesse, his fingers warm on mine as he gave me his wedding ring to wear, and he carefully slid his own gift onto his finger.
My eyes meet Isolde’s.
“I’m going to kill him,” she says.
Valter is greatly amused by all this. “This is a very Mark thing to do,” he observes amiably. “But it did save your lives tonight, if that sparks any forgiveness. We wouldn’t have been able to find you otherwise.”
“He’s not wrong,” I tell Isolde.
Hot fury tightens her bruised mouth. “He told us there’d be no more secrets. No more lies.”
But what would we have done if we’d known this particular secret? Taken off the rings? And then where would we be? Because there’d been no fighting off the heavy wave of saints that swarmed us and Jago as we tried to make it to the car. There’d been no resisting whatever they’d injected us with to make us abeyant for the journey to Rome. And we’d woken up tied to two steel pipes in a building with bloodstains on the concrete, so the options for helping ourselves then had been rather limited too.
“Sometimes Daddy does really know best,” Valter says with a laugh. “And speaking of Daddy…”
The van has stopped in front of a house with a terra-cotta roof and flaking stucco. Graffiti covers the rusting gate. In the sweep of the headlights from the vans behind us, I see someone standing near the front door…someone with hair the color of beaten gold.
We get out, and Isolde makes it to him first. Whatever she was going to do, he’s stopped her, catching her hand and then spinning her around. He puts his mouth near her ear, whispering.
“I don’t care. You lied,” I hear her seethe.
“I’m happy to see you too, sweetheart,” he murmurs, kissing her temple. “And surely, you’d guessed? You didn’t guess? It’s okay, you’ll know better than to trust a pretty gift next time.”
“Two saints escaped,” says Valter to Mark, clearly enjoying this glimpse into Mark’s love life. From the cage of Mark’s arms, Isolde struggles in vain. “We were careful, but they’ll be after you. I’d move quickly.”
“As quickly as we can,” says Mark. “Thank you, old friend, for coming on such short notice. I know you’re far from home.”
“I don’t know that any favor is enough to repay what you did in Östersund,” Valter says. “But you understand that it’ll be hard for us to get away again, at least anytime soon. I’m already in enough trouble as it is.” He’s smiling but there’s a serious note in his voice. I can only imagine the implications of Swedish intelligence operatives on Italian soil, doing something unsanctioned by either government to satisfy what seems to be a private debt.
