by Julian North
“Why?” I wondered. “We’re kids. Even Kris is just eighteen.”
Anise glanced at Alexander, who wore a heavy frown. She turned back to me. “Take my family. We specialize in surface research—projected yields, disease progression, mineral depletion, weather analysis, water tables…blah, blah, but the Masford-Jayson family has over a trillion dollars in capital to allocate, and they buy our services to help them in their business. They, in turn, are salivating to get closer to the Foster-Rose-Harts, but Gillal couldn’t score an invitation to this party to save his life.”
“But you have one,” I concluded.
“Alexander and I go way back,” Anise said, a bit too proud.
The white-gloved waiter arrived with three sparkling glasses balanced on a tiny tray. “Klos d’Ambonnay,” he pronounced, as if the name spoke for itself.
“Pulling out all the stops, Alexander,” Anise remarked as we took our glasses. She placed her original depleted drink on the tray. “You’ve never offered me champagne from the last of the protected French estates.”
“Cheers,” Alexander said as if he hadn’t heard her.
I tapped glasses with these two highborn, the sound blending with the piano’s music. I raised the bubbling liquid to my lips. The taste was like the music: smooth, flowing, elegant. I wanted not to like it, but that was impossible. The memory of my first sip lingered; my mouth demanded more.
Anise watched me drink, a half-grin on her face. To Alexander, she said, “She’ll do.” She raised her glass again, draining the remaining contents in a single gulp. “I’ll see you both around.” She put a too-familiar hand on Alexander’s arm before letting it slide away as she departed.
Anise slid the door closed as she left. We were alone with the piano player, the alcohol, and each other.
“Why does everyone defer to your sister? What is so special about her?” Does her power go even beyond trilling?
Alexander shut his eyes for a moment, as if weary. “Kris just has a way about her. She gets what she wants without seeming to have ever wanted it. Those who fall afoul of her, they seem to find mysterious misfortune. People sense there may be a new order coming.”
“You don’t approve?”
Alexander scanned the room. The waiter seemed too far away to overhear us, the pianist was occupied with his music. “I know her better than anyone. She was my protector for many years.” He let go of a laden breath. “I miss the person she was.” Those shining eyes dimmed.
“What happened?”
Alexander searched my face with cautious eyes. Then he shook his head. I didn’t press further.
“I’ve listened to Mozart, and Bach, but I’ve never heard a piano played live before,” I said. “It’s lovely—as is the champagne.”
“But?”
“But this isn’t my world. And it’s dangerous to forget that.” I put my glass down on a nearby table.
“Dangerous for whom?”
“Both of us,” I said, my voice only a bit above a whisper.
“Daniela, that is what…I want to speak of. Although I don’t quite know how.” He motioned to the sofa. I gladly rested my legs. My feet ached. “I believe that, as different as we are, there is something inside…” He stopped speaking, swallowed, then began again. “At the track the other day, you spoke of what you felt inside, when you run…”
The door slid open. Kristolan glided in like a swan swimming through a pond. The barely translucent fabric of her dress shimmered like sunlight on the water. I looked for Drake. Somehow, Kris had given him the slip. But in his place was Mona Lisa Reves-Wyatt, lumbering along with something akin to menace. Alexander and I both stood.
“Alexander, people have been wondering where you were hiding,” Kris chimed. “And Daniela, I’m so happy to have you with us tonight. I’m pleased you took our conversation to heart.”
“Our conversation?”
That smile flashed at me, dazzling and warm, steel hidden underneath. “We spoke about not giving up on Tuck, about giving the place a chance. And now you’re on the track team, and here, with Alexander.”
She laid a hand on mine. Her skin was hot; its warmth ran through my body.
“I remember that. Thank you for all you said and did,” I heard myself say.
Kris kept her hand on me as she turned to Alexander. “A brilliant choice, brother. I’m so pleased.”
“Pleased?” I managed.
Kris leaned close to me, as if we were the most intimate of friends. It was like standing next to the sun after a night in the cold wilderness. “The great game is on display tonight. Alliances are signaled by the companions of the heirs. The future leadership of corporations assessed, and the amount of capital allocations negotiated. All desire a turn to feed at my family’s trough, of course. You should know that most of the women here would slit their date’s throat, and yours, to exchange places with you. It’s rather brilliant of Alexander to bring a neutral party. He offends no one, keeps everyone guessing. A fine move indeed.”
My blood went cold. I turned to Alexander, whose face remained statuesque, unreadable. Was he part of this? Kris radiated something that felt like benevolence, but wasn’t. My head cleared, as if waking from a dream. I pulled my arm away from her touch, letting the ice flow through my veins. I remembered my mission: the DNA and the cure.
“Some people just come to listen to music, dance, and enjoy themselves,” Alexander said.
“A few,” his sister replied, batting her eyelashes as the door to the salon slid open and streams of people began to flow in. The laws of social gravity commanded no less. Her minions soon surrounded us.
I exchanged unpleasant pleasantries with at least two dozen highborn with a hundred names I didn’t care to remember. They spoke of me without regard to my presence, much as a rancher might evaluate cattle: “a prize,” “unexpected,” and “unique specimen,” were among the memorable turns of phrase. Alexander made several polite attempts to leave, each of which was thwarted by his sister insisting on someone else we simply must meet. I barely stopped myself from gnawing my teeth and releasing the clorodrine. Instead, I squeezed my fists near bloody. My blood burned. I wanted these people to pay. They would not be my masters.
My glazed eyes barely noticed as yet another stranger came before me. His countenance jerked me back to the present: the new arrival’s face was as white as Nythan’s, his eyes nearly as pale but for the ruby-tinted rings around his irises. He wore his hair long and as black as night, and had donned a suit to match, save for the silvery cravat at his neck. I felt Alexander stiffen beside me.
“Arik…We are so…fortunate that you can join us,” Alexander said.
“Your sister invited me, Alexander.” His voice was deep, slow, and hard. “A taunt, I imagine. Still, I thought it might be nice to see my father’s house. It has been five years, after all.”
“Kris does not taunt, as you well know,” Alexander said. “It’s always something deeper.”
Arik’s lips pulled slightly toward each side. “May I meet the lady beside you?”
“Of course,” Alexander said, though his eyes stayed locked ahead. “This is Daniela Machado.”
Arik gave the deepest bow of any person that evening. “I heard that Alexander had gone to the slum for his escort this year, but I see my sources had it reversed.”
Alexander was in Arik’s face before I had a chance to plant my knee in the young man’s groin. The damn gown slowed me down. Alexander’s hands became fists at his sides.
“I’m afraid I must ask you to leave,” Alexander said.
Kris appeared again, as if out of nowhere, her voice silk, her soul ash. “Is our half-brother misbehaving?” she purred.
“I’m merely speaking what others only dare to whisper behind closed doors, as always,” Arik said. He showed no fear of Alexander, nor any remorse for his words. If anything, he was enjoying himself.
Kris slid between the feuding pair.
“If an apology is required�
��” Kris began sweetly.
I didn’t hear the rest. I left the room, rage pounding in my ears. My hands were tight balls. My anger was senseless. What did I care what a bunch of richies thought about me? I’d been labeled things a hundred times worse. And I was only there with one purpose. Storming off was a mistake. I willed my hands to unclench as I strode down the passage, unsure where I was headed, other than away from Kris, Arik and Alexander. Why the hell had he brought me here? Some kind of sick training, perhaps. It wasn’t enough to see how tough I was on the track. He wanted to see how much highborn abuse I could take. I’d had enough of highborn niceties. I was ready to show Bronx City manners to these pups.
Alexander caught up with me in a room filled with billiard tables and several highborn smoking antique cigarettes as they jostled with long wooden sticks.
“Daniela, please, wait a moment,” he said, coming up in a hurry from behind.
A pair of elegantly clad guests turned from their game, smoldering weeds in hand. “Alexander!” one exclaimed, his arms held wide, stick in one hand, cigarette in the other. I kept walking, and Alexander followed.
“Hey, what in all the good names…” I heard the player remark. I felt a familiar hand on my arm. He was careful not to squeeze.
I stopped and turned. Alexander wore a new expression, his face a shade of crimson that I hadn’t thought possible.
“I’m sorry about that, and for how tonight has gone.”
Another couple approached us, hands held up in greeting. Alexander looked at them, then at me.
“We need a conditioned run—now,” he said. “You ready?”
I flashed my teeth. “It’s your course. You lead.”
Alexander took off at something like a fast walk, but the maneuvering was impressive. Anytime a guest appeared who wasn’t deeply engrossed in an alternative conversation, Alexander turned, swerved, or backtracked. When confronted, he offered his deepest apologies while breaking into something close to an actual run. At the corner of a long, crowded hallway, I caught a glimpse of Drake, clad in gold but with gun sights for eyes. Alexander saw him as well. He rerouted us through the kitchen and catering prep areas. We took a dark, creaking stairway downward, then a shiny lift upwards.
“Not bad,” I said, between breaths.
“It’s the least I could do.”
It wasn’t until the lift doors opened that I fully appreciated where I was: the family floor. I had made it. Lights turned on as we stepped off the lift. I heard a high-pitched hum, something at the very edge of my hearing. Alexander flicked his fingers with well-practiced rapidity. Security codes, I guessed. The noise vanished.
I looked around, trying to match my surroundings with the drawings Nythan had showed me. We’d come off the lift into a long, bi-level living room, with screens and couches scattered about. Animated images of dark ocean waves rolled across the walls. The fourth floor. Alexander and Kris had their rooms up here. Landrew’s rooms were on the level above, but there wasn’t any additional security on the interlinking staircase. Or so Nythan believed. He’d been worried about the automated security on this floor, which Alexander had just disabled. If Landrew was truly away, there was nothing between me and success. Except Alexander.
After the constant din of the party, this floor was disconcertingly quiet. Unlike the rest of the house, it resembled an actual home. A digiBook lay on one of the tables, a Tuck skin hung over the back of a chair. Frozen frame images of Olympic runners were clustered on one section of wall. I recognized my hero, Moko Die, among them.
I walked over to the pictures. “I saw her on the net, when I was very young. At the Armory, when she qualified for the Olympics. The look on her face then—it’s the same as in this image. As if she could find no peace anywhere but on the track. It stayed with me.”
Alexander came up beside me, standing close. I felt the heat radiating off his arm. “I used to stare at them all, trying to capture the thought in their eyes. To know what was in their mind at that moment, when they needed everything they had to win.”
I turned my head towards him. “Why?”
Alexander’s eyes met mine. “I wanted to know if they were like us.”
I looked down, afraid to betray my secrets. “What do you mean—like us?”
He waited for me to raise my head again. I didn’t.
“I will be the first to trust then. As my mother would’ve wanted.” He took a small step away from me. “I have something inside. It’s more than just being highborn. It’s something that makes me different. Faster on the track. And more. It is a power that can control.”
I could barely breathe. He can trill. He had laid his secret at my feet. Why?
“What is it you expect me to say?” I managed. I had a mission. Mateo was counting on me.
“I did not bring you here for any of the reasons my sister suggested. Her words are poisoned fruit, as always. So I lay this secret at your feet. I will trust you. You don’t need to say anything, if that trust is not returned.”
My tongue was heavy. I didn’t have any words to offer. Alexander had put his faith in me. But I had more to lose. Nythan’s clorodrine tooth throbbed inside my mouth.
I forced myself to face him. “Why does it matter to you?”
“If you had been told you were chosen…unique among people, would you not want to know if that was lie? If you were really just one of many.”
“Is that what your sister told you?”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed. He knows what I am. He knows that I know about his sister.
“Yes,” he admitted. “She has grown…dark. She was always ambitious, but not like this. These past years…I no longer recognize her.” He shook his head.
The silence lingered as my mind raced. “Is this the real reason you brought me here tonight? To find out if I’m like you and your sister?” It shouldn’t have surprised me. It shouldn’t have hurt. But it did. Of course he wanted something from me. He was highborn.
Alexander glanced away, then back at me. “I lack Kris’s grace or knack for this game of families. I didn’t think they’d be so cruel.” He sounded angry. “I’m sorry. And for Arik, who is my half-brother but a full jack-A. He was some scheme of Kris’s, I suppose. I asked you here because I wanted to spend the evening with you. Because I’m drawn to your strength. Please believe that.”
I stared into his eyes. “Why do you think I’m strong?”
“I sense what is inside you. A rage, untainted and pure. Free from the corruption of highborn games. I felt it tonight. You took all they had to offer, and stood your ground.” He moved closer. His face, chiseled by a master, filled my vision. I could taste his breath.
Time slowed as the ice raced into my blood. I looked as hard as I could into the endless azure of his eyes, trying desperately to reach his soul and read what was inside him. I felt the power within him, akin to my own. That better world I had imagined on the walk over here seemed so close, so real. I ached to trust him. But I was no fool.
I bit down hard on the tooth.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
I handed the ivory comb holding Landrew Foster-Rose-Hart’s hair and skin particles to a triumphantly grinning Nythan, while Alissa and Lara looked on. Even Lara seemed a little less dour at the delivery.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” she told me. “Finally. If anyone deserves it, it’s the Foster-Rose-Harts.” There was venom in her words.
Nythan fingered the salt-colored strands as if he could read the molecular structure with his eyes. “Took you long enough to get out of there. It’ll take at least half the week to grow the cells we need,” he said. “But there is plenty to do while that is happening. Everything is set up at the safe house to begin breaking you out. We’ll start early tomorrow.”
“Monday,” I told him. “I’m taking tomorrow off. Don’t ping me. I’m not going to answer.”
“This isn’t a part-time gig,” Lara said, anger sparking in her eyes. I wondered why
this mattered so much to her. “We are all risking our lives. We only get one shot at this, and time is running out. You better do your part.”
“I bled for the cause tonight,” I told them. “I’ll be there Monday after practice, Nythan. Kortilla will cover for me to stay out Monday night. I’ll find my own way home. See you.”
I walked out of the apartment without looking back.
I did my best to avoid everyone at school on Monday. Alexander was next to me in Lit, but we didn’t say a word to each other. Even if he wanted to speak to me, Tuck wasn’t the place for it. I took lunch in my lab room and gave a half-hearted effort in track practice. I caught Alexander watching me several times, but we kept our silence. Anise tried to get a few words out of him but failed.
Nythan met me outside the school and led me to a waiting corporate sedan with dark windows. Its interior was gloomy and inundated with artificially cooled air.
“Ready to get back to work, princess?” he asked, his tone petulant.
“How about I press the buttons and you get a shot full of drugs and have your mind manipulated by some experimental machine devised by a sixteen-year-old loon and a glorified medical intern?”
“Touché,” Nythan said, his mocking grin returning. “What happened at the party?”
“I got your DNA sample.”
“You seem angry. Missing Alexander boy?”
I let him see the determination burning inside me, the anger in my eyes. “I’m ready to get into the Ziggurat, and do whatever I have to do to save those people, and my brother. Don’t doubt it. But if I’m going to risk my mind, my honor, and my life, I want to be a full partner. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Your honor?” Nythan asked with a skeptical chuckle.
“Don’t evade.”
Nythan sighed like a parent with a pesky child. I started grinding my teeth. The new one I bought yesterday in BC to replace Nythan’s clorodrine one was too rough. Typical street tooth. “What is it you want to know?”
