Meade found me at the Tower of London, standing over the Traitor's Gate. He had the strangest smile on his face as he joined me, leaning into the railing.
"I met Caitie here," he said. "Months ago, now. Are you alright?"
"I don't think so," I replied, feeling a little like I was standing on the deck of a boat, letting the current toss me around like a rag doll. Not even the current of the Thames, strong and steady right before, could reassure me.
Meade nodded slowly, like he understood, and maybe he did. Meade must have had to see his brother in a hundred different disguises, but it was always his brother underneath of it all. Rian, when he was dead, wasn't coming back, and everyone knew that. Meade didn't have to live years mourning him, years looking back and asking what he could have done to make things different, only to suddenly have him show up in the middle of a trial of the most dangerous killers Helford ever manufactured, not recognizing me or my father, talking about how Helford had planned for him to be a weapon all along.
I both pitied Meade and envied him for that. At least he could live with the reassurance that the dead stay dead, and I would keep constantly looking over my shoulder, always getting proved wrong in the worst ways.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. It was just too much.
"Whoa, hey, enough of that," Meade said, a dash of panicked as my breathing started shifting toward hyperventilation. "There's no need for that, yeah? Just breathe. There are worse things."
I let out a distressed whine.
"Okay, yeah, bad thing to say, I know. You still alive?"
"I feel sick," I whispered, closing my eyes. The waves were even louder that way. "Am I overreacting? Would you react like this if it was . . .?"
"Hell yeah," Meade replied easily. "I'd probably be worse. So far, you haven't vomited, so that's a good thing."
Meade wasn't necessarily my first choice in a personal cheerleader, but his demeanor was good enough to help me center myself. Meade wasn't used to having to console people, either that or he wasn't used to being the person people went to when they needed consoling, but I could see what he was, however awkwardly, trying to convey to me. I saw the concern on his face, his eyes pinched tight in the corners. Meade and I might have started off our alliance strongly disliking each other, but now it was almost a surprise to realize that we were friends more than we were simply allies. I trusted him in a way I hadn't before, and I liked to think that he at least tolerated me, to come after me like this.
Once the truth hit the courtroom, after a moment of silence where the whole world seemed to stand still, it erupted into chaos. Valerie's gasp sounded to me the loudest, but maybe that was because she was next to me, and everything was starting to feel like it was happening through water, everything numb. Meade spun in his seat to look at me, eyes wide and comically shocked, looking more honest than he had almost ever. From the front of the room, Milton, who had been holding a file of papers, had dropped it, sending dozens of white sheets flying. My father was frozen like stone, sustaining the hit like I was. As if in third person in my own mind, I noticed Matthew turning slowly in his seat to observe the chaos, looking morbidly curious as to why it might have meant so much.
But I couldn't feel it. Valerie was saying something to me, mouth moving quickly and eyes frantic, and Meade's hand was pressing hard on my shoulder, but I didn't feel or hear or see any of it, not for a long moment. It happened slowly, like my own mind was refusing to process it that final step. And then it hit me, and all I could hear was the sound of rapid gunshots, the blurry image a woman I now knew as Naomi Addams standing before my family with a gun raised, the sound of my father's screams cutting through the sound of the street.
As if in the back of my mind, I thought about Matthew Hartman's words, It could be anything from abduction to a car accident to a murder attempt.
I felt like I was going to be sick.
And then, almost before I wanted to be, I was on my feet. The courtroom, which had turned to tense mutterings, was startled, people turning to me with wide eyes, some even exclaiming in surprise at my sudden movement. I stared at Matthew Hartman, feeling the wildness in my eyes, the distress that must have been in my face. And then, as I stared, waiting for that final blow of realization, Lys turned to look at me, eyes sad, and I remembered the way she had looked at me when the information about the Changelings came to the open, how she had looked at me and then quickly looked away like the sight of me had burned her.
I turned, and I bolted out the door.
I wasn't sure how long I had run, but it was long enough to hit the Thames and keep going, long enough that, by the time I came to a halt at the Tower of London, my chest was burning and my eyes stung and it felt like I couldn't run anymore, like a force was trying to tug me back. And, I guess, if the universe wanted to be ironic, Traitor's Gate is where it should have stopped me, with how much I think about Caitie Alastair.
I must have stood there for hours before Meade had showed up. It felt like I had been there a long time, with my feet and back starting to strain from standing, but my thoughts had been racing in such a way that it seemed like I had only been there minutes. I looked up to find that it wasn't just rain clouds that were pressing down on London, turning the world darker.
"I don't know what to think," I finally said, for what had to have been the twentieth time. Meade didn't point it out.
"It's a lot to deal with," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "Valerie wanted to come with me, to try to talk you down from whatever ledge you were standing on, but I told her to hang back at the hotel. I figured you wouldn't want to be psychoanalyzed the moment you saw a familiar face."
"Thank you," I whispered.
He nodded, looking out toward the water, and I followed suit. Neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes, letting the rushing of the water fill the silence, letting the tide chip away at the malleable solidity of my life that was now shifting to make room for new possibilities, new questions, new horrors.
Every time I thought it might be over, it never was. It was like waking up from a nightmare to find yourself in another nightmare, and the cycle never ends.
I whispered, "I thought he was dead. God, for years now, I've thought he was dead."
"I know."
"And he was alive—kind of. He was alive and breathing and God, now it's nothing more than wondering what the hell happened that day. It was always something I knew, and then my understanding started changing, accommodating Naomi Addams and then my mother as an assassin, but this—this is so much more than that. Now I can't stop wondering if this was always their plan, to make him look dead so they could steal him away and experiment on him, their last laugh. Hell, now I can't stop wondering if they did the same thing to Chase and we will never know it, because he doesn't know himself, and he's just some operative somewhere wearing another person's face—"
"Stop," Meade said, and I surprised myself a little by shutting up immediately. "You can't think that way, DuPont. You can't, or it'll eat you alive until you start to lose your mind. You can wonder as much as you want, hell you can even dig up bodies if that makes you feel better, but that doesn't bring them back. Just because your brother now knows his real name doesn't mean your brother is back, and he never will be. Helford took that from him just to prove that they could, and he can't get it back. He's Adrian, but he's not. He's Matthew."
I stayed silent.
"You get that, right? Even if they took your other brother, too, he's not your brother. He's as good as his ghost. While I know you would like the closure, would like to know for sure, there will be no record. Lys would be the only person who could tell you for certain, and she didn't bring another person into that courtroom. Is it worth trying to search for a ghost, if you might be colossally disappointed in the end?"
"Yes," I said, and Meade snorted.
"You would believe that way," Meade said, and his tone wasn't exactly unkind, but it was a little more scathing than normal. "It's not realistic, in my world, in our world. And in that world is where you're waist-deep, DuPont. Now pull yourself together."
I felt a flash of anger, and I wanted to lash out at Meade. I thought about punching him, or at least attempting to, but as soon as the passing whim spun through my mind, I just felt too heavy and tired to try. It seemed like too much to accomplish so little. So, instead, I just took a hundred breaths, closing my eyes and counting them quietly, before I opened my eyes again and forced myself to say, "You're right."
I might not have believed the words, not completely, but it was something. Meade nodded, acknowledging that first step, before looking back toward the Thames.
"Your father is back at the hotel," he explained, and I thought about how still my father had sat in the courtroom, like he couldn't let himself believe it. "He has locked himself in a room with Matthew—with your brother. I think he would want you to be there, whenever you could handle it. It's not easy for him, either. And the Changeling is just kind of going along with it, entirely startled to know that the infamous DuPont family neck-deep in the trials is his actual family. I think everyone's recoiling from this, but you'll have to face it eventually."
"I intend to." My voice was a little sharper than I meant for it to be.
Meade, unbothered, shrugged. "Okay. I know stronger people who would break, and run. I suppose I don't have to name drop to make my point."
I didn't want to think about Caitie now. I shoved the thoughts from my mind, banishing them to the background where they could stay dormant, before turning to Meade, taking a deep breath.
"I want to talk to him," I announced, sounding more sure of myself than I really was. If Meade noticed, he didn't let me see that he did—he just nodded and shrugged away from the railing, pausing only to send a wistful gaze back to that spot.
"It's funny, that you would come here," Meade commented, almost like he didn't mean to. I glanced back to it too, knowing the gate that lingered under the ledge, before looking back to him.
"It reminded me of her," I said. "So I stopped."
Meade's mouth twitched. "It reminded her of herself, too."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just started toward the last Tube station I had seen, letting Meade fall into step easily beside me, hands shoved into his pockets. It was cold, I realized finally, the wind tearing at my collar to creep down the back of my neck. I shivered, crossing my arms over my chest, but didn't stop, instead soldiering on, thinking of anything other than the way the guy who was my brother had smiled at the crowd like he knew he was the most dangerous person in the room.
~*~*~*~*~
Matthew Hartman was about as intimidating face-to-face as he had been from my vantage spot in the peanut gallery of the Old Bailey. His eyes were just as sharp and alert, reading me like the morning edition of the Metro, expression disinterested but just an act, as I could tell by the pinch of his eyes. He was distressed, more than anything—he didn't know what was going on, all of this a shock to his system similar to how it was for my father and I.
The difference was, he didn't even remember us. He didn't know that he was my brother, and that this was our father. He just knew that one day, he had been a Changeling, and then suddenly he was being suffocated by strangers trying to cling to the person he could no longer remember. I even felt bad for him for a moment.
Meade and Valerie all but had to drag my father from the room, Val murmuring something to him as they went, and needless to say, I saw a Xanax in his future. Before he shut the door, Meade paused to nod toward us, and the lock clicked extra loud behind them.
We watched each other nervously before Matthew—Adrian—said, "I don't remember anything. Your father has been interrogating me for hours, but I really don't remember. Just flashes that don't make sense, and even he doesn't know what I'm talking about sometimes."
"Okay," I said. "What kind of flashes?"
Matthew looked like he was really sick of playing the same game, but he allowed for it anyway. "One of the things I remember the most clearly is a fountain, but he didn't know what I could be talking about."
"Oh," I said, feeling like a horse had kicked me right in the chest. "He never took us to the fountain. Mom did."
Matthew blinked, as if surprised that I remembered something he had never been able to make sense of. I thought about it from his perspective for a moment, wondering what it must be like to think even the little things you knew might have been implanted by Helford, never knowing exactly who you are. It had to have been horrible, living in his head.
As if he could read my mind, his face pulled tighter, tensing, before he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. I, meanwhile, was staring not subtly at all. "So it actually happened?"
"Yeah," I told him, clearing my throat as my voice broke. "Mom used to—a long time ago, she used to take us to this little park when Dad was working, and she used to let us play around with the fountain. It usually just made for more arguments, and we were always getting soaking wet even in our day clothes, but she never minded."
Matthew was quiet, and then he murmured, "She was Helford. One of the rogues."
"Yes. She was."
"So they tried to kill us for it," he said, and nodded when I looked up, startled. "I remember just enough about that. I remember getting shot, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up in this really weird hospital and I had a lot of scars and a lot of strange people were talking to me. They started the treatments not long later, the chaos helping me lose myself."
I didn't say anything.
"We had another brother," he said slowly, uncertainly. "Chase."
I still didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say.
"I don't think he lived," Matthew told me slowly. "For what it counts. I don't think they saved him. Just to make a point, or something. I don't know. I like to believe that's the truth, and that at least he didn't suffer."
"You suffered," I said, treating it like fact. He looked up at me, squinting at me like I was something curious under a microscope.
"You suffered under their hands, too," Matthew noted, "from what I could tell. They like to play with their food, Helford. You just happened to be the one of us that they chose to destroy."
"They didn't destroy me," I told him, and I almost believed it, just enough. They did, really—Helford took everything I knew and turned it on its head, turning me into a twisted version of me that I wouldn't have recognized five years ago. It made me stronger, but it also broke me down, exposing me to an underbelly of a world that I wished I had never seen.
But, where they broke me, I did get stronger, and I didn't take that for granted. Five years ago, I wouldn't have been able to look at a dead body without being sick, and now I didn't even blink. I could stand feet away from my brother who didn't remember he was my brother and I didn't feel so sad that I couldn't breathe. I no longer threw myself into my hope, knowing how hard it hurt to hit the ground.
"They destroyed you worse," I told my brother, less composed than I had intended to be. Matthew looked at me closely, eyes darting around my face, before he nodded slowly, his own façade chipping away to reveal a little more of the real person underneath. Almost like something knocked against the back of his knees, Matthew suddenly sunk to sit on the edge of my father's bed, staring down at his hands. It was then that I realized they were shaking, and I didn't know if it was because he was upset, or from the same tremors I had seen rock Caitie's and Valerie's and Meade's hands, too.
"I suppose they did," Matthew said, without looking up at me, and we sat for a long time in that silence, recovering from the explosion of the day, existing in the horrors of Helford, the one thing we had in common.