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Current Mood

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pensive

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Heavily warded and strongly enciphered:

Séverine is alive and writing letters to her brother that no-one else can read. Liane is alive and here. Getting letters from Rosenthal the younger. Which begs the question of who else may or may not know that Sevvie's alive. I like to think Vince would tell me. But he outranks me and I'm not a fool.

The thing about Sevvie is that she was always right about Martin, and I should have listened.

But Martin was right about Sevvie a few times as well. Which still confuses me. I like to think she told me the truth, but I know for damn sure that it wasn't her general policy. We talked once, about what it was like to lie for a living and what it was like to know that your father was not really your father and know that he didn't know it. But only the once. Because she really fucking hates to talk about anything real.

I don't know why I was so hard on Liane. I know she was mostly Albrecht's beard, except for once in a while when Peter wanted to play with them both, and I can't imagine he was easier on her than Martin... That must be what reminded me of Ianthe. Because Ianthe would never act the way Liane is acting about Rosenthal's letters. I shouldn't let her use gated dispatch to send him Rosenthal mash notes...but it makes her so happy.

I like Valeria. She understands a lot. But she's not as good at not caring as she thinks she is. She and a couple of other people I know have got that in common.

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Current Mood

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numb

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Heavily warded and strongly enciphered:

I'm almost settled in. I still can't believe that Kyteler sent me here. I won't say I don't want to be here; it's better than a lot of the alternatives.

I wrote to Ianthe. I wonder if I should have written to Jenica.

I don't miss Martin any more. I barely remember Claire. Should I feel guilty about that? But I'm glad Ianthe is all right. Séverine was right and I hope she's okay, wherever she is.

Alessio Malaspina, who is sometimes hard to look at--I don't want to know what took off his leg, don't want to think that could ever have happened to me, feel guilty it didn't and guiltier for being glad of it, but at least he's in love and someone is marrying him--says I'll get to meet her brother at the wedding.

I wish I could tell her he's here. She wondered about him.

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Current Mood

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numb

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Heavily warded and strongly enciphered:

Maybe Séverine is right that I’m compulsive. If it takes one to know one, she would. If I wrote to her and told her she was right, would she forgive me? I shagged Martin’s girl. Her name is Jenica. She still won’t tell me her family name. She shags like a dream, fast and hard, with an amazing little twist in her hips. It’s like fucking a dangerous animal. I liked it. I don’t think I really like her very much, but I liked fucking her.

I miss Martin. She says she knows that, or I wouldn’t want her. But I think maybe I do like her, sometimes. I admire her, anyway.

I think she fucked Sevvie, too. Goddamnit.

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Current Mood

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pissed off

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Heavily warded and strongly enciphered:

We have been played for fools. The entire operation has gone down in flames. It’s all Martin’s fault and he’s dead. Martin’s little…girl killed Urielle-Marie de Kernoël, the Germans killed Martin and everything is completely cocked up. There are multiple sets of insurgents!

Jenica Popescu killed Urielle in her own sacred grove, which is exactly what Kyteler told us to watch for, only she’s not with the enemy. She’s a fucking hunter. I didn’t know they came that young! All she has to say about that is that Martin didn’t know either. Little bitch.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think she and Sevvie planned this and that Martin’s death was not an accident either. But Sevvie is gone like the wind and Thibault thinks Jenica—that’s the girl’s name—killed her too. I told Thibault that it would take someone a whole lot tougher than that to kill Sevvie. But Martin? Martin is dead, I keep saying that over and over.

Rosethorn says we have to get out of here, but I think he’s more worried about his own skin than anything else. He does agree with me that Jenica didn’t kill Sevvie, that Sevvie’s gone to ground somewhere else. Thibault is backing him up on the getting out of here front and he outranks me, so I really don’t feel like arguing.

The numbers were all on our side. I don’t understand what happened. I just know I don’t want Thibault to make me tell the old man about this. She killed the girl we were sent here to save in her own sacred grove. Rosethorn says it was a warning to collaborators, and a way of turning the land against its enemies, and all sorts of other things. Rosethorn is a fucking vampire, and he’s scared of these people, whoever they are.

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Current Mood

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annoyed

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Heavily warded and strongly enciphered:

I don’t know what I am going to tell the old man, but we’re still no closer to bringing that wretched de Kernoël girl back to Britain than we were when Delgardie and Saunders were here. This is not going to help me with my career ambitions.

Martin’s little whore keeps hanging around. She seems like a nice enough girl but she can’t be more than sixteen (then again, this is Martin) and she thinks that because she’s made it alive this far and carries a gun that she ought to be part of this bloody fucked up operation. This is NOT what I fucking signed up for. At this point I’d take Montgomery’s job. I should have taken more runes classes.

Séverine is in cahoots with that girl. I can’t decide how I feel about that. I really did not think I’d see her again any time soon. She needs to get the fuck out of this country and take what she knows to Kyteler, yesterday, but it’s my impression she’s having too good a time with the poetry boys.