by Tosca Lee
In an instant every misgiving I had about tonight turns to cold, clammy fear. I follow his gaze to the bank of screens as they zoom in and then coalesce into a single image: Luka, searching the crowd in the cavern, no doubt for me.
“They never have quite the same . . . rapture as the Progeny at court.”
How long have they known? Is it possible that they know what Luka is, or has been? Sweat rolls down the inside of my kimono.
“He’s not a part of this!”
“Why don’t you hear us out?” Nikola says. This time I get up and sit when he gestures toward the chair.
“You came for protection. For you and your sibling. We don’t care that he’s common. Do what you like. But safety comes at a price. Recover what you buried and give it to us. Do that, and we will protect you from any ramification the Historian may visit on you. The entire court will. You will be its queen.”
The truth hits me like the flash of a strobe. They’ve let me come to court just long enough to taste safety. But they never intended to let me stay. And now they won’t hide me unless I resume whatever mission they thought I was on.
They don’t want me. They want my mother. But if I was ever like her before, I definitely am not now.
I’m shaking so hard that it’s an effort to merely sit still.
“Ivan himself said that if I had found the diary I wouldn’t have stopped until I ended this,” I say through clenched teeth. “And unless there’s something someone hasn’t told me, that’s the only hope there is!”
“Is it?” Nikola says strangely.
“What more can there be?” I demand.
“That . . . is what we would like to know.”
“What makes you think I found anything at all?” I say. “Maybe I was tired of this game. This whole life. Maybe I just wanted to live. Did you consider that? Wanting to actually live?”
“No. It was the last thing you cared about. Just living.” Nikola says it like the word is dirty. “Tell her.”
“Tell me what?”
“Something happened before you disappeared,” Tibor says, giving up his pretense at madness altogether. His entire voice changes, dropping in tenor. “For more than a year, you were fanatical. Obsessed. You wanted to know everything about your mother. Anyone who knew her. Wanted anything that was hers. It was unsafe for you and Nikola to meet, though you visited court in Budapest on several occasions with Katia and Andre.” He looks down, seems sad at the mention of their names.
He shrugs. “Not because you were in love with life at court, or because you wanted safety. But because it was your mother’s life, or so you thought. But then something happened. Two months before you disappeared, you began to change. I thought that the Utod way of life had begun to wear on you. Some of us do go crazy, you know,” he says wryly, looking up. “You began to stay away more and more. You became secretive. You were gone for weeks at a time without a word. When I saw you, you were exhausted. Preoccupied. I could see it in your eyes. You were on a holy quest.”
“Don’t pretend you knew anything about me,” I say. But I’m calculating. By the time frame he’s talking about, I knew what Luka was.
“Oh, but I did know you,” Tibor says intensely. For the first time I realize that his eyes are a turbulent gray glittering with intelligence. That there is something wounded about his expression.
No. If he says we were involved, I think I’ll actually vomit.
“You don’t even know, do you? He didn’t tell you.” A soft laugh. “My brother—my true brother—was your adoptive sibling. Your protector. You and I were family,” he says.
“What?”
“You don’t even know who I’m talking about, do you?” he says, sounding suddenly disgusted.
I glance from him to Nikola.
But then I do know.
“Ivan,” I whisper.
“You broke his heart!” Tibor shouts. “What right did you have to leave as you did? To let him think you were dead?”
And the answer is: I don’t know.
My mind is reeling, tilting like a madhouse. Why would I do that—to Ivan, a sibling sworn to protect me?
“He defended you,” Tibor says. “To the court, to me. He never stopped protecting you. Saying you could only have good reason, that you were shielding us all even as you disappeared. I called him a fool and worse. Ivan died without ever knowing what your disappearance was for!”
I feel sick, hearing those words. Amped as I am, it’s all I can do not to lean over and vomit.
“You have two great objectives at this moment,” Nikola says. “The first is to stay alive. The second is to recover what you knew. For your own survival. For ours. The Utod cannot survive another generation in this age of digital surveillance, of DNA genealogy. This generation will end it—all of this, once and for all . . . or die. You are the key to that. You always were.”
I reel away, tug on the obi around my waist, trying to breathe.
I cannot do what they are asking. Even if I wanted to, what do I have to work with? A single key, a cryptic line. And while my bond with Ivan is a revelation to me, it does not come as a surprise. His contact was the only fail-safe I left myself. Now that he’s gone, anything he might have known about me or my so-called mission is in the Historian’s possession along with the rest of his memory.
Ivan tried to warn me before he died. And I chose not to listen.
Sick guilt washes over me again. Not just for his murder, but for what I must have put him through with my disappearance, the news of my death—the phone call out of the blue announcing my resurrection just a week ago.
And what have I been doing ever since? Dressing up and raving myself into a stupor each night and making love to my former hunter.
And the sad truth is this: I might even be able to give Nikola what he is asking for now, had I defended Ivan half as well as he defended me.
“Recover what you knew,” Nikola says, “and we will keep you and your common sibling alive.”
But I hear his implied inverse much more clearly: Fail and both will die.
I think of Claudia’s statement just this morning about running away to China and wish now we had gone immediately. Why didn’t we leave?
The passports, of course. The ones we have so far been unable to get replaced by Tibor’s lackey Jester.
And then I let out an incredulous exhale.
“You,” I say. “You had our backpacks stolen.”
Tibor shrugs, like it’s some joke I’ve taken too personally. “So what?”
“We are prepared to do far more,” Nikola says.
“Yes, like die. I heard you,” I snap.
He leans forward.
“Every few years, there are stories,” he says quietly. “They show up in the news, much abridged, of course. Tragic deaths, suicides. The real circumstances circulate through the underground. Of Utod, on the run from hunters. Men and women valuable to the Historian for their memories of names, faces, the whereabouts of other Progeny. Let alone the location of something so singular as the diary. Progeny who, facing impending assassination, fell into gravel crushers. Dove off cliffs. Ate bullets that destroyed their brains to protect such details from harvest. I loved Amerie. I was her sibling for nearly a decade. It was my job to protect her. But it was my job as well to protect those she knew. The fact that so many lives were not immediately taken upon her death is no coincidence. The fact that you lived to learn who you are is no accident. That was the depth of her commitment, Audra. And that is the depth of mine. To you, and to our kind.”
“My mother drowned,” I say slowly. “Her body was found in the Danube.”
“Her body was found in the Danube. But she did not drown. She had been doggedly pursued for weeks. It had gone too far, she said. And she was right. I found her before her hunter could, which was by then only a matter of time. I protected her—and those she loved—as I had sworn to do. I made certain she died a hero, unwilling to become a villain in death.”
; I am very still, the echo of his whisper in my ears.
“You’re saying . . .”
But I don’t need him to repeat it.
I am staring my mother’s killer in the eye.
“And so I make you another promise. If you cannot find the thing that caused you to disappear, which I believe was something greater, even, than the diary . . . or if you will not find it . . . we will do you the favor of killing you before a hunter can.” He glances toward the television screens. “But we will dispense with those closest to you first.”
27
* * *
For the first time I wonder if it’s possible that I faked my own death not just to escape the Scions but to avoid being killed by my own kind.
Get out.
Get Luka, Claudia, Piotrek, and run.
My life, right now, is at least precious to them. But if Nikola suspects for a minute what he is, Luka will never step foot outside this court alive.
I force myself to ignore the television screens. Tibor and Nikola, I know, are waiting for an answer from me. The right one. Never mind that I have no way of finding what they want aside from a key that could open anything from a mailbox to a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. I need to get the others out alive, but Luka and I will never escape Europe without new passports.
Tibor sits, stone still, against the wall, his eyes sliding this way and that. But his gaze is very, very lucid as it darts between Nikola and me.
Is it possible he had no idea that Nikola killed my mother?
“So you’ll protect us if I give you what you want.”
“Yes.”
“And kill me before you’ll let a hunter take me if I fail.”
“If it comes to it.”
“But kill my friends if I refuse.”
Nikola is silent.
“How can I do what you’re asking when you haven’t been completely honest with me? You say you care about Utod survival. But all you really want is power.”
Nikola actually laughs. “You’re young. You know nothing about power or the decisions that go with it. The consequences. I tried to convince Amerie to terminate you in the womb. You made her vulnerable. But she would not be dissuaded. When you were born, she took you to a foundling box in a Budapest hospital where women with unwanted children or, in her case, children they could not raise for obvious reasons could be left anonymously. She knew you would be cared for, adopted out to a good home. And that, God willing, one day you would find your way to her again.
“But everything she did from that point on . . . it wasn’t for any of us. It was for you. The hope of you. You were her ruin. And she was nearly ours. When you found us the first time, a whole generation reared on whispers of her believed themselves inspired. And they were! They would end this war. I thought, here at last is the fulfillment of everything Amerie fought for. I was willing to accept I had been wrong. Then you disappeared, and the underground shattered in your wake. Do you think I reveled in being right?”
“Ivan believed in her,” I say, daring to glance at Tibor.
“Ivan has always needed something greater than himself to believe in. God. The universe—these, I will grant him. But I have never understood his blind faith in you,” Nikola says. “It killed him in the end. Yes, I ended Amerie to save us all. I will answer to God with full knowledge. But you killed Ivan in ignorance. Tell me, which of us is worse?”
But this is not about Ivan, who is already gone. It’s about Claudia, whom I dare not abandon again. And Piotrek, wholly committed to her. And Luka, who gives his loyalty too staunchly.
“What I had was so dangerous I thought it best buried forever,” I say slowly. “Knowing that, are you sure you want it found again? I may not be the reincarnation of my mother, but I’m also no idiot.” I slide a glance to Tibor.
Nikola chuckles. “Look around you. The court is full of misunderstood genius in every form. It’s in our blood. We are a court of savants. Brilliant. But shortsighted. I cannot allow you to ruin all that we worked for a second time. Nor for those inspired by a face—your mother’s, yours—to be so misled. Find it, whatever it is, and deliver it to me. I will do what must be done.”
I exhale a long breath through my nose as though about to answer against my better judgment. “Ivan’s last act was to get my fail-safe to me. I’m surprised he never gave it to you, Nikola, after he heard I was dead.”
I let the insinuation hang in the air. I need Tibor to doubt him—enough to help me.
“A good thing,” Nikola says. “Or I would have no need of you now. You have one week.”
“Fine. I’ll need passports, money.”
“You don’t need passports, as you will not be leaving Europe,” Nikola says. “Money, you will receive before you go. We will keep the commoner.”
Panic surges up within me.
“Did it ever occur to you that I have a common sibling for a reason? He, at least, won’t give up his memory of me to the Historian if he dies!” I say it with far more conviction than I feel.
“Yes, you have a point. Keep your sibling. You see how easy this is? You act as though we are enemies, when, in fact, we are here to help.”
“I never needed your help the first time, Nikola.” I get to my feet. I need to get Luka and the others out of here.
“Enjoy your last night at court,” Nikola says. “I trust when we speak next you will have much to tell me.”
But I know as far as he’s concerned, our conversation won’t be over until I hand him the thing locked away by the key—probably along with my own head.
* * *
It’s all I can do to move evenly past the guards, to keep from running down the tunnel.
To gaze steadfastly at the camera until I’ve passed beneath it.
The minute I enter the thundering cavern, I throw myself into the mob in search of Luka.
I’m painfully aware of the cameras—can see them now in the corners, on the wall, perched atop a bank of lights. The eyes that track me, human and electronic.
A hand grips mine and I spin, ready to shove its owner through the crowd, but instead I come face-to-face with Luka.
My breath leaves me in a shudder of relief. I have to force myself not to throw my arms around him even as my legs, jerky with adrenaline, threaten to give out.
Luka nods toward the way we came in. But to leave this minute would be an accurate display of my abject fear. And I just can’t give Nikola that.
There’s another reason I’m unwilling to go. Because I am strangely elated. Yes, what I did was foolish. But we’re all adrenaline junkies here, in some form or another. And after cowering and scurrying from the corner of one country to another, it feels good—so good—to have stood upright for a moment. I am high with the kind of adrenaline that comes with stepping out on a narrow ledge. And by God, while I’m there, I’m going to dance.
I leap up into Luka’s arms and he catches me at the last possible instant, his responses jarred to catlike life, clutching my legs to his chest as I throw my arms toward the lights overhead with a shout.
I have no idea what I’ll say to Claudia. She’ll hate me, maybe, when I tell her we can never come back. Thinking about this only makes it worse, and the need to move more essential until I’m caught up on the shoulders of a fiery phoenix with flames on his mask and arms.
I know that feeling, of rising from ashes. Of stumbling on reborn legs that have forgotten how to stand. Of threatening to set yourself—and everyone around you—on fire.
I thought I had to find answers. I thought I had to find safety. I have neither answers nor safety—less of each, in fact, than before. But I am alive. Right now. And for this moment, at least, I am done with dying. With anonymity, which is its own form of death. My face already conceals more than I will ever remember of who I am.
In the periphery of my vision I spot a camera along the wall. Tibor and Nikola and who knows how many others, monitoring an underground more tightly controlled than the streets above.
&
nbsp; With a sweep of my arm I tear off my mask. Toss it high over the milling mass of Progeny. The gold hairpiece gets flung against the wall. Last of all the wig, hurled directly at the camera. It snags, obscuring the lens. I don’t care if my hair is mashed, or if the scar from my procedure is visible through the patch of hair behind my ear. In fact, I hope it is.
Luka swiftly pulls me down. He’s shouting, and though I can’t hear him, I make out the shape of his words.
What are you doing?
The music drives on, but all around me people have frozen in place like pillars.
I want to announce, maniacally, that the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I laugh, but no one around me is smiling. It is a private joke between fate and me. I will soon be disappearing, for good this time no doubt, and the Historian already knows I am here. The charade, at least for me, is over.
Luka tugs me toward the exit. Farther back, Claudia and Piotrek are worming their way toward us through the stunned mass, Ana and Nino in their wake.
I turn back at the door one last time and, after winking to the nearest camera, bow grandly before Luka drags me out by the arm.
The butler in the cell outside stops us as we make for the main tunnel.
“This way,” he says, leading us in a different direction. He slips a package into my hand. And then we rush through a narrow passage to come up into a decrepit building.
When we emerge onto Visoka Street, I turn my face to the starless sky.
It is raining.
* * *
We range farther through the city than we ever have, Claudia chattering in outrage and then awe at my actions earlier. The outrage, I expected. Even anger. The awe, well, I didn’t see that coming.
“It’s like you gave fear, life, everyone the finger,” she says with relish. “I wish Ivan were alive to see it!”
Me, too.
Claudia talks about how some girl dancing next to her started to scream the minute I took off my mask as though she had seen a dead body.
She might have, I think.
We end up on the edge of the city, where we race up a fire escape, free-climbing the last story to the rooftop to take in the lights of Zagreb. And I know it’s the last time I’ll see them.
