Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel Read Free Page A

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. We do have wounded, and some of us are House Brown. All right. Stay here a second. I’ll make sure she wants to see us.”
    He got out of the van, and Neds and I sat in silence a bit, the engine ticking off heat in the cooler air of the night.
    “This might be a strange question,” Left Ned said. “But how much do you trust your brother?”
    “Completely,” I answered truthfully. “Why?”
    “Besides I don’t know the man?” Right Ned answered. “He just seems like he’s got an awful lot of things buzzing around in his head and not a lot of it making sense.”
    “He’s been gone for three years. A prisoner.” I had to pause so I could swallow down my anger. “Might take him more than one night on the run to pull himself into civilized manners.”
    “It’s not the manners so much that bother me,” Left Ned said. “Does he seems . . . right to you?”
    “Not to say your brother’s a problem,” Right Ned amended. “We just want to know
you
think he’s in his right mind. That he’s the same man you could trust when you last saw him three years ago.”
    “He is,” I said. “I trust him.”
    “Good,” Left Ned said. “Because if I were thinking of turning us in, it’d be here, now that we’ve reached the mainland. And it’d be at a House Brown safe house like Gloria’s.”
    “Really, Neds Harris? You were a spy for House Silver.”
    Left Ned winced at the tartness of my tone, and I regretted letting the words carry anger. I was tired. I was worried.
    Abraham was as near to dying as a galvanized could be. My brother wasn’t wholly himself.
    “Ex-spy for House Silver,” Right Ned said quietly.
    “I know,” I said, drawing my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry. I trust you. You did just drag our butts out of the fire. I don’t think any of us should be doubting our motives. We’re pretty much all in this together. Unless you want out, which I’d totally understand.”
    “No,” Right Ned said. “My point is that we were spying on you and you trusted us. Just like you trust your brother now.”
    “He’s saying you might not be as good a judge of people as you think you are, Tilly,” Left Ned said.
    “I got that,” I said.
    I stared out at the dark edges of buildings against the night sky, thinking. Quinten had always been a little distracted when he had his head in books too long.
    I was used to his nonlinear trains of thought. But he was my brother. He’d done everything in his power to save me when I was hurt and dying as a child. He’d spent his life protecting me. I knew he was easy to laugh, had a hell of a singing voice, and hated losing at board games.
    And I knew without a doubt that he loved me and would never betray me.
    “No,” I said quietly, “I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone like I’ve trusted my brother. I like you, Neds, even after I found out you’d been keeping an eye on mefor Reeves Silver. But my brother . . .” I pushed my hair back behind my ear with one hand, the stitches that lined my wrist glowing with mercurial light in the darkness.
    “I’ve always trusted him. Looked up to him. He’s a force of genius in my life who never got anything wrong.”
    “He got captured and imprisoned,” Left Ned noted. “Not a lot of right about that.”
    “I know,” I said. “He’s made mistakes, but morally he’s solid. I still trust him. I always will.”
    Neds nodded. “That’s good enough for me,” Right Ned said.
    Left Ned didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure he didn’t agree. But it was nice of him not to say so.
    And, ultimately, we didn’t need trust. We just needed to save the world.

2
    H OUSE O RANGE
    S later Orange knew his enemies, these heads of Houses who gathered in this small, private, fortified chamber. He had once been one of them.
    They were mortals who wielded the power of their station, their Houses, and the world. Mortals looking for the key to eternal life—a key he had