“What you two need is a distraction,” she says, and gets up from the table. “Come on. By the time we get back, Gideon will be up.”
* * *
Someone should tell Jestine that distractions only work if you don’t know you’re being distracted. Someone should tell Thomas too, because he seems oblivious to everything but her; they’re talking animatedly about astral projection or something. I’m not sure really. The conversation’s taken at least six turns since we got off the Tube at London Bridge Station and I haven’t bothered to keep up. Jestine has won him over with witch talk. The fact that she’s an attractive girl didn’t hurt either. Who knows, maybe she’ll help him get over Carmel.
“Cas, come on.” She reaches back and pulls me up alongside by my shirt. “We’re nearly there.”
The “there” that she’s referring to is the Tower of London, the castle-like fortress that sits on the north bank of the Thames. It’s touristy and historical, the site of numerous tortures and executions, from Lady Jane Grey to Guy Fawkes. Looking at it as we cross the Tower Bridge, I wonder how many screams have bounced off the stone walls. I wonder how much blood the ground remembers. They used to put severed heads up on pikes and display them on the bridge until they fell into the river. I glance down at the brown water. Somewhere underneath, old bones might still be fighting their way out of the silt.
Jestine buys our tickets and we go inside. She says we don’t need to wait for the tour guide; she’s been here often enough that she remembers all the interesting parts. We follow her as she leads us through the grounds, telling stories about the fat, black ravens toddling across the lawn. Thomas listens, smiles, and asks a few polite questions, but the history doesn’t quite hold him. About ten minutes in, I catch him gazing wistfully at Jestine’s long blond hair, a hangdog look on his face. It reminds him of Carmel, but it shouldn’t; Jestine’s is shot through with those streaks of fierce red. She doesn’t look anything like Carmel, really. Carmel’s eyes are warm and brown. Jestine’s look like green glass. Carmel’s beauty is classic, where Jestine is mostly just striking.
“Cas, are you even listening?” She smiles and I clear my throat. I’d been staring.
“Not really.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Once. That summer when I was visiting, Gideon brought me and my mom. Don’t feel bad. It was pretty boring then too.” Wasting time like this, my mind turns to Anna. She suffers in my imagination and I suffer with her. I picture the worst, every pain I can conceive of, to torture myself. It’s the only penance I can do, until I get her out.
Behind us, one of the Beefeater tour guides is leading a group of visitors, making wry comments that lift good-natured laughter from their throats, telling the same jokes he tells a dozen times a day. Jestine watches me quietly. After a few seconds, she leads us on, up into the White Tower.
“Wasn’t there anywhere to go that has fewer stairs?” Thomas asks after touring the third floor. It’s full of shields and statues of horses and knights in chain mail and armor. Kids ooh and aah and point their fingers. Their parents do it too. The whole tower vibrates with footsteps and chatter. It’s warm from the June heat and too many bodies, and the buzzing of flies is audible.
“Do you hear that buzzing?” Thomas asks.
“Flies,” I reply, and he gives me a look.
“Yeah, but what flies?”
I look around. The buzzing is loud enough to be the inside of a barn, but there aren’t any actual flies. And no one else seems to notice. There’s a smell too, cloying and metallic. I’d know it anywhere. Old blood.
“Cas,” Thomas says in a low voice. “Turn around.”
When I turn I’m looking at a display case of used weapons. They haven’t been cleaned or polished, and are caked with drying red and bits of tissue. One half of a long spiked mace has a piece of scalp and hair hanging off of it. It was used to cave in someone’s head. The buzzing of phantom flies makes Thomas swat at the air even though they aren’t real. Looking around, the rest of the exhibit is the same. Case after case filled with relics of war, splashed and streaked with red. Beneath one of the knights’ armor, a curl of intestine shows a rubbery pink. My hand strays to my pocket, to the athame, and I feel Jestine touch my back.
“Don’t go pulling that out again,” she says.
“What’s going on here?” I ask. “It wasn’t like this when we came in.”
“Is it the way they were used?” Thomas asks. “Did this really happen?”