Altered

by Gennifer Albin

  Dante claims ignorance, but he’s full of information.

  “And those that didn’t have ability?” I ask.

  “They were put into the population to breed more Spinsters.”

  “And Tailors,” I add. “So now the Guild is trying to isolate those genes so that they can replicate them?” I guess.

  “It will be much easier for the Guild to have total control over Spinsters. You’re right, Adelice,” he says. “I think they plan to make a dominant gene that can be spliced into hand-picked specimens. Then they can decide which girls to grant the ability.”

  Girls who are easier to manipulate, I think. Girls who are obedient.

  “My grandmother told me families fought the retrieval squads,” I say out loud. “All those women in the film looked eager to join.”

  Dante’s mouth thins into a tight line and he tilts his head thoughtfully. “You shouldn’t believe everything you see in a film, Adelice, but I suppose you’re right. The circumstances here were terrible during the war, but I think things changed in Arras.”

  “Changed how?” I ask.

  “Nations merged, and laws were adjusted to meet everyone’s expectations. Conflicting national identities merged to create a cohesive whole. Those changes, coupled with resentment over having daughters whisked off in the night with little to no expectation of seeing them again. There was an adjustment period,” he tells me.

  “How do you know about this?”

  “Our family,” he says after a pause. “They took care to chronicle things despite the laws against it.”

  “Were they members of the Kairos Agenda?” I ask. My parents had never told me these stories, even though they knew what I was—they kept this information from me.

  “Not really.” Pause. I can tell he’s holding something back. “They were pacifists. My parents wanted to live comfortably and easily.”

  “Until you showed your abilities?” I ask.

  “It wasn’t my parents who asked me to run. They should have,” he says. Pause. “With the increasing amount of propaganda thrown at them, like the film, for instance, most Arras citizens stopped seeing the danger of the Guild’s absolute control. Bombs weren’t being dropped, so people went along with it, even as the laws got stranger and more restrictive. The Guild required everyone to marry and have children, who could then be tested for the gene. It’s how Arras wound up with marriage laws and skills testing.”

  “So this trait could reveal itself in a male child?”

  “I’m living proof,” he says with a flourish.

  “Then why not use men at the looms?” I ask. The Guild seemed eager to keep women in small boxes, carefully placed on specific shelves. If men could weave, why not give them the opportunity and keep women even more pressed under their thumbs?

  “How powerful would a man with weaving abilities be?” This time he pauses for emphasis. “More powerful than an official without?”

  I nod. “That makes sense.”

  “And at first glance, there’s no problem. But the war the Guild escaped from was fought by men hungry for power. What if a government was put into place to act on behalf of citizens and a young man demanded power from them because of his ability? It would have been disastrous to the peace the Guild had cultivated.”

  “They were no better than those other men,” I say.

  “Intentions are fickle things,” Dante says. “I believe the Guild intended all their rules to safeguard against power struggles and war. If they carefully monitored and controlled the female population with a male government, things could be regulated. Boys with weaving ability remained untrained and away from looms.”

  “Now the Guild tells us only women can weave.”

  “Denying an ability doesn’t make it go away. More boys were born with the gift. Some went away and came back different. Changed,” Dante tells me.

  “Is that why so many Tailors fled to Earth?” I ask.

  “It’s safer for them here,” Dante says.

  “Too bad it’s so much more dangerous for the rest of us with them here,” I say.

  “Not every Tailor is evil, Adelice.”

  “You aren’t,” I say.

  Dante hesitates before he responds to this, running a hand over his cropped brown hair. There’s a pattern to his nervous habits. “I’m not really a Tailor. Not in my heart. I never wanted my skills.”

  “Just like I’m not really a Spinster,” I admit.

  “Exactly,” he says.

  “You can warp, then?” I ask.

  “No, that’s a Creweler’s skill,” he says. “I’m powerful, but not as talented as you are.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Good genetics?” He shrugs, giving me an awkward smile.

  “So both Spinsters and Tailors need tools like looms to manipulate the weave,” I say.

  “No, Tailors can’t work looms,” he reminds me. “Their power is more insidious than that. You know that the true nature of their ability lies in alteration.”

  “Tailors alter objects and people physically. Spinsters use looms to weave and embroider.”

  “Correct,” Dante says.

  “Is that why the Guild is so afraid of Tailors?” I can’t imagine how dangerous that talent could be unchecked. Spinsters can be kept under control by preventing loom access.

  “It’s certainly why they control them so stringently. But never forget that there are Tailors who go along with the Guild. We aren’t all bad or evil, but you can’t blindly trust us either,” Dante says. “If you suspect a man—or a boy—of being a Tailor, keep him at arm’s length.”

  The warning isn’t as generic as he’s trying to make it sound. He’s telling me to keep one particular boy away, but while Dante may not have a reason to trust Erik, I do. I steer the conversation away from Erik, knowing things could get volatile. “How do they find Tailors? There’s no required testing of boys like there is for girls.”

  “Once they understood the true nature of male weaving ability, they started cataloging boys born to parents who had been part of the initial experiments. Many didn’t come back. Cities were segregated so the Guild could attempt to control marriage, ensuring ideal female offspring.”

  “They’ve been successful enough at keeping women under their control,” I say, not bothering to hide my distaste.

  “Spinsters can be powerful, but they allow themselves to be controlled by the Guild. They resign themselves to patterns in return for privilege.”

  Dante clearly doesn’t understand what it feels like to be dragged from your family. I acted out of fear for my safety. I let them cage me in the Coventry for too long because I thought they were in control. I didn’t act because I thought I didn’t have a choice.

  “It’s not always easy to accept that you have power,” I say instead. “Especially when the world is dedicated to telling you that you don’t.”

  “You’re an exception, Adelice,” Dante says. “And that’s thanks to your parents.”

  His words are complimentary. He means them. But his mask slips for a moment, revealing his scars again.

  “They understood,” I say, the realization hitting like a sudden gust of wind on a static day. “They knew what I would face, because of you. Because you ran.”

  “I felt like half of myself in Arras—always hiding my gift instead of embracing it. Here, I thought I might be able to do something with my skill,” Dante admits.

  “How did you find the courage to leave?” I ask.

  “Stories,” he answers in a conspiratorial whisper. “Stories are dangerous and useful things.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE POOL STRETCHES OUT BEFORE ME. A dozen squat white lampposts line the space, their soft glow mirrored in the water below. It’s the indoor pool’s only light source now that no sun shines through the windows overhead. The water is as smooth as glass, gold-flecked tiles peeking through the cerulean surface. Although it’s quiet, I spot a shape moving forward under the water. Erik strokes evenly acr
oss the pool, the barest ripple following him. His hair is a golden halo flowing behind him. I wait by the side, surprised by how long he can stay under the water.

  His head breaks through, shattering the water’s surface. He rubs at his eyes and smiles at me. “Ad, you scared me. What are you doing here?”

  “I see you found swimming trunks,” I say. I’m not ready to address the real reason that I’ve come.

  “Sort of. I’m using the fishing-village version,” he says. His arms perch on the side of the pool, and his eyes are as bright as the brilliant tiles.

  I slip my shoes off and roll down my stockings. “And what does this version consist of?”

  “Sorry,” Erik says, pretending to fan himself. “You’re distracting me. What did you say?”

  I frown at him, sitting down and dipping my feet into the water. It’s warmer than I would have expected.

  “When I was a kid, working the fishing boats in Saxun, we took off as much of our clothes as possible, without revealing our, uh, treasure, and jumped in,” he says, his lower lip inching up into a crooked grin.

  “You have a treasure?” I say, widening my eyes in feigned innocence.

  “You gonna pillage it?” he asks.

  “I walked into that one,” I admit with a groan.

  “Yes,” Erik says, “you did.”

  His finger traces a spot on my calf, leaving a trickle of water on my bare skin, and I swat his hand away.

  “That’s one huge scar,” he says. I frown and look to see what he means. A thin, pale line slants across my leg. “Where did you get it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, drawing my knees up and clutching them to my chest. “It’s probably from my retrieval night. They used a claw to pull me out of the escape tunnel. The renewal patch must have left a scar.”

  “It shouldn’t have,” Erik says, squinting to get a better look at it. I don’t care about the scar. It’s only a remnant of a past life.

  “Erik.” But I stop on his name, searching for the right way to ask him about what Dante told me about the tracking device. It doesn’t take me long to realize there is no right way.

  “You’re going to chew off your lip,” Erik warns me, and I relax my mouth into a tight line. “Just ask me.”

  “I want you to tell me how you wound up at the Coventry, how you got out of Saxun,” I say. The words jumble into one long exhalation.

  “Why?” he prompts, seeming to disappear from the conversation. I know he’s upset. Erik distances himself, asking questions, when he feels cornered.

  “I need you to tell me the truth,” I say in a quiet voice. He’ll vanish entirely if I push too hard.

  “I can’t,” Erik says.

  “Why? I promise it won’t change anything.”

  Erik turns from me and stares up at the glittering ceiling. His arms spread wide against the the lip of the pool, revealing the sharp sinews of his upper body, built by years of handling fishing boats. “You can’t promise that. It will change things between us, Adelice. There are things in my past that I’m not proud of—”

  “You think I don’t have regrets, too?” I ask. “My father was murdered. My mom is a monster. My sister is in Cormac’s clutches as we speak. And that all happened before I got to the Coventry and started messing things up.”

  “This is different. Those things happened to you, Ad.” Erik hesitates, pausing to look at me for a fleeting moment before he turns away again. “The things in my past—they’re choices I made. I can’t blame anyone else for them.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me?” I ask. I swish my feet through the water, watching the bubbles swirl around my toes. I know what he’s hiding, and he has to know that, too. He sees right through my feigned interest. He knows I want to catch him. If Dante’s theory is correct, Erik’s secret breaches our trust completely. If he could be honest now, we can rebuild it.

  But he doesn’t want to.

  Neither of us speaks, the silence extending so long that my toes shrivel and pucker in the water. “I know.”

  “Know what?” Erik asks casually.

  “I know that you can see the strands. I know that you can touch them.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Erik says.

  “No, I know it does, and I’m hoping you respect me enough to tell me what it means.” I wait for him to rise to my challenge, but he stays silent.

  “I can’t take it back once I tell you, Ad,” he whispers finally.

  “I know that, but I need to hear the truth from you.” My voice is a plea, cracking from the pressure of my warring emotions. “Right now I’m betting my imagination is making things worse than they are.”

  “I doubt it.” Erik scratches the top of his head and pushes out of the pool so he’s sitting next to me. Our feet dangle under the surface of the water, dangerously close to each other.

  “I left Saxun to pursue a career with the Guild,” Erik begins, and I nod to show him I’m listening, that I care about whatever part of his story he’s willing to share—as long as there are answers at the end of it.

  “I wasn’t cut out for fishing.”

  “The pretty ones never are,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood. Erik gives me a small smile but his face stays serious. “What I’ve never understood is how. How did you get the Guild’s attention?”

  “I gambled,” he said. “They brought a friend of mine into service, which is pretty rare, and when they came to Saxun, I approached a Guild official and told him I had something they wanted.”

  “Risky,” I comment. “What was it?”

  Erik takes a deep breath and speaks slowly. This is what he wants to avoid talking about.

  “I showed them I could alter,” he admits.

  Somewhere deep down I had known Dante was right, even if he hadn’t tied it up in a neat bow for me. He’d told me to keep Tailors at arm’s length, and I knew he was talking about Erik, but I didn’t want to believe it.

  “You’re a Tailor?” I murmur in a voice so low that I’m not sure Erik can even hear me.

  “I am,” Erik says.

  My hand flies up and slaps him hard across the cheek before I even consider what I’m doing. “How could you keep that from me?”

  “How was I supposed to tell you?” Erik says, rubbing the splotch of red left by my hand.

  “It’s pretty easy actually,” I say, dropping my voice to mimic his deeper one. “Adelice, I can manipulate strands like you.”

  I know it’s not that easy, but I wish it were.

  “I wanted to tell you, but you don’t know everything about Tailors. Do you know what they do to us?” he asks.

  Dante told me what they do to Tailors. They take them away like Spinsters, but Tailors are controlled even more tightly. The Guild wipes out their families systematically. They imprison them and ask them to do things to people—take away their memories, alter their feelings and personalities—I can’t even imagine what else.

  “I wanted out of Saxun,” he says. “Doing alterations was my ticket. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

  “Does Jost know?” I ask.

  “No,” Erik says quickly. “Ad, aside from other officials and my best friend, Alix, from Saxun, you’re the only person who knows.”

  “Not even Maela?”

  “You’re the first person I’ve ever told.”

  “How did you even discover you could do it?” I ask.

  “We don’t have to trade stories about our first time,” he says. “Like so many first experiences, it was an accident. I have no reason to believe the Guild would ever have known about me if I hadn’t approached them. I thought Alix might tell them, but I couldn’t spend my life in Saxun, especially once Alix was gone.”

  “So you left and did whatever they told you to do?” I ask. I’m making it sound more dramatic than it was, but the betrayal is still raw, each new revelation stinging the tender, damaged skin of our relationship. Even worse, I know I’m judging him.

  �
��I left without saying goodbye,” Erik says. “I was young and careless, and it never occurred to me that I might not see my family again. Saxun didn’t have a lot of Spinsters, let alone Tailors. There was no one there to guide me, to explain my skill to me. I thought I was special.”

  “You thought you would be worth something to them?” I guess.

  Erik nods, a far-off look settling over his face. “I thought I would be somebody. Now I know the best thing I ever did for my family was to leave them like I did.”

  “They didn’t go after your family because you volunteered?” I ask.

  “Alix helped me get access to a grey market Tailor. New privilege card, new last name—no questions,” he says. “They didn’t go after my family because they didn’t know about them.”

  “That’s your face though, right?”

  “Changed the name, kept the sexy,” he says.

  “Why bother?” I say.

  “I didn’t want my family to know where I went,” he says. “I was scared that the Guild would reject me if they knew I was the son of a fisherman.” A dark look passes over his face. “I was being a complete jerk, but it may be the only reason Jost is alive today.”

  “I doubt he’d see it that way,” I say. Erik left his family without concern over how they would feel, and his recklessness saved them. The night of my retrieval I only thought of my family and me. I was too selfish to warn them, and I destroyed them. Funny how selfishness comes in shades of destruction and salvation.

  “He doesn’t,” Erik admits. “Why do you think he hates me?”

  “He doesn’t hate you.”

  “He doesn’t like me,” Erik says.

  I can’t argue with that.

  “You need to tell him,” I say, grabbing Erik’s hand. “He’ll understand.”

  “No,” Erik barks. He clutches my hand so tightly my nerves gasp in pain. “Promise me you won’t tell him—that you won’t tell anyone.”

  “I promise,” I say, and he releases my hand. “But I still think you should tell him.”

  “You don’t know Jost like I do,” Erik says, but the second the words leave his lips, he sighs.

  “Did you do the things the Guild asked you to?” I ask, steering our conversation away from Jost.