Free The Illusionists by Laure Eve Page B

him about his past, and a boy named Oaker. He stiffened. He had a head-pounding urge to rip those arms away and run, but the arms had felt him change and let him go, carefully.
    Frith was gazing out over the dining hall when he spoke.
    â€˜You need to forget her, White. She chose Wren.’
    That round, passionate face of Wren’s, laughing with him. Ready to change the world. Then twisted with violent hate. White had often punched that face to nothing in his head. Pounded it until it disappeared.
    â€˜Do you think he will come back?’ he said.
    â€˜He won’t Jump here again. I’ve upped security. He won’t be able to try his little dream trick again, now we know. And he sticks out, of course, so he can’t go roaming. The only thing we should worry about is whether he can mind spy on us.’
    White had thought about this. It was easy enough to tell when a Talented was spying on him with their mind. An insistent tickling at the back of his head, like someone running their fingers lightly through his hair. And the feel of it was always particular to each person. He knew Wren’s feel very well; they used to try and mind spy on each other all the time, as a kind of game, though Wren had only got any good at it just before he’d left. Wren’s mind was a kind of sharp, tangy lemon-coloured haze, spray-painted into the air. He couldn’t explain it better than that.
    â€˜I would know if he was here,’ said White.
    â€˜You didn’t know he was visiting Rue.’
    â€˜That is different! I cannot just smell where he has been, like a dog. The only way I would have known about him is if she had told me. Which she did not. But I would know if he was anywhere near
me
. I would feel him.’
    Frith would know, as well. He had asked White for training, once, to see if he could tell whether someone was mind-spying on him – but he hadn’t needed it. Even without Talent, Frith’s senses were freakishly tuned. White’s own tests had shown that a lot of un-Talented could feel it too; they normally attributed it to an air draft, or even a ghost.
    Frith sighed. ‘All right,’ he said.
    â€˜What are you doing about Wren?’
    Frith was silent.
    White turned his head to look at him.
    â€˜What are you doing about him?’
    â€˜Not a lot.’
    â€˜What?’ said White. ‘Why not?’
    â€˜He didn’t do this by himself, White. He’s just a boy, and he’s a coward. He was put up to it by his Worlder superiors. They’re trying to poach from us. It’s a compliment, in a way.’
    â€˜They cannot do that!’
    â€˜Yes, they can,’ said Frith. ‘This is politics. We hurt them, they hurt us. We won’t do as they say, so they try to screw us. That’s the game.’
    â€˜So this is just  …  the end of it, then?’
    â€˜I’m protecting you. Just as I always have. That’s all you need to know.’
    Frith’s voice had an edge.
    It was useless for White to argue. It got him nowhere. He’d get a sunny smile, hiding the ‘don’t push it’ darkness underneath. Then Frith would shut down, and leave.
    And what could White do in the face of that?
    A big fat nothing, that was what.
    A big, fat, useless nothing.
    If he were determined, courageous, reckless, and all those other words that heroes were made up of, he would just leave, wouldn’t he?
    He’d go find Wren, somehow, with no real idea of where he was, just that he was somewhere in the world, an insistent tangy yellow ache in the back of White’s head. He’d find a way, though, because that was what determined heroes did.
    He’d find Wren, and they would face off with each other. They would fight.
    It would be brutal. Nasty. Near misses and crunching bone. Maybe they’d fight with their minds, forcing each other into the nothing blackness that existed between Jumps. They would fight there in