Suyana didn’t apologize. Diplomacy wasn’t always politeness. “I’m dog food to the IA. You have more to gain turning me in. Why would I believe you’re sheltering me?”
There was a second where Grace seemed confused, as if she was casting about for the sort of insult Martine would give, if she were here. Then she gave up.
“Yes, you’re worth more dead,” she said. “But if I’ve got this right, you’ve been shot, you can’t even walk straight, you’re blacklist, and you break into a place full of enemies to warn someone you hardly know.”
Now she was facing Suyana over the roof of the car, eye to eye. She looked serious. She looked honest.
Grace said, “That’s why.”
Something skittered over the roof of the car; Suyana caught it, wondered how tired she was to be catching projectiles. Careless. If it was a grenade, she deserved it.
When she opened her hands, she was holding Grace’s comm.
“In case you think I’ll call the cavalry,” Grace said, and sank into the car. It was enormous; the United Kingdom could afford the best.
Suyana gripped the phone tightly, and followed.
Inside, she started shaking—fatigue. Relief. She crossed her arms, embarrassed Grace might see.
Grace was looking studiously out the window. Suyana would take what she could get.
Dawn was edging over the roofs, and it was light enough to make out faces in the crowd, but Suyana didn’t look as the car pulled away; there was no one left to look for.
× × × × × × ×
Times Suyana Sapaki had met Grace Charles:
At her welcome reception the night before her swearing in, when the Big Nine showed up and had to shake hands with all the new inductees.
During a Women in Politics brunch in New York for teenage girls who won a contest, two years into Suyana’s tenure. Everyone gave a statement about how much they loved being a woman in politics. Grace talked wryly about how not everything about being a politician is photo shoots and free food—“Though you should take advantage whenever you can,” she said, gesturing at the stacks of pastries on the tables, and everyone laughed. Suyana’s was a piece Hakan had gotten approved by someone, about how her involvement in IA politics had opened her eyes to a better world than the one she’d come from. She hadn’t read it ahead of time (no point); she had to take a sip of water twice to get through it. When she sat down again at the head table, Grace had handed her a pastry and a Bloody Mary.
In chambers during session, a few times, exchanging careful greetings in the halls.
The annual Gala, when Grace waited until about midnight to start acting sloshed and making loud, laughing conversation with C-listers who didn’t understand why they’d been granted the chance but told every joke they had ready. Suyana had offered Grace a glass of water, the first time, and the act had dropped as Grace raised her eyebrows and took it. She hadn’t tried it on Suyana since.
Three open houses Grace threw, over the course of three years. She’d gotten four invitations from Grace this year, but had gone only once; if a C-list said yes to every invitation, it looked like grubbing. Then the explosion had happened back home, and the UARC had fallen off the map, and she’d have gladly grubbed at whatever invitations came, if any had come. Grace’s had been first, six months after the explosion; Magnus looked like he was going to cry from relief when he opened it.
In chambers, that morning, when Suyana had voted the way she’d been told, and at the tone of her voice Grace had turned around, just for a second, and looked her right in the eye.
× × × × × × ×
“I’d like to see the lights, please, Paul,” Grace said to the driver, after they were on the avenue.
He nodded. Grace pressed a button on her armrest, and a tinted-glass panel rose between them and Paul, until it looked like they’d fallen back into night.
Suyana rested a hand on the door.
“If you’re thinking of jumping, don’t,” said Grace, her archness back in place. “It’s just the signal that I’m bringing a girl to the annex.” She glanced over, as if she was daring Suyana to disapprove.
Suyana said, “You get an annex?”
A tiny smile flickered across Grace’s face, and vanished. “Woman does not live on official quarters alone.”
“When we’re in session I live in a hotel room, and it’s nowhere I’d bring someone back to,” Suyana said.
“Colin negotiated it for me a while back. It’s out of the surveillance radius.” She shrugged. “If I don’t let anything interfere with politics, everyone back home is willing to subsidize me seeing a girl or two on the quiet.”
“So what, you having a private life depends on you doing what they say?”
She’d meant for it to sound sympathetic, persuasive, but she was too tired, and it came out the way she actually felt about it.
Grace, who wasn’t as tired, and was excellent at hiding her real meaning, looked her over. “I’m fortunate enough to be in a position within the IA where I can have some influence over my country’s well-being, and I’m willing to be discreet if it means I’m better able to enact change.”
Must be nice.
“I did a public service announcement a few years ago,” she said. “It was about the importance of agriculture to the global economy, and I thanked America for its contribution. American Farming, Worldwide Growth.”
Grace blinked, impassive.
“They had to film it in a wheat field outside Chinon two years back, because the American agricorporate outpost they built outside Aurum back home was burned to the ground, and they couldn’t get enough money to build it again. The Americans were threatening to embargo the UARC because of it. That’s why I had to do the ad.”
Suyana had visited Aurum and toured the outpost with Hakan as an undocumented affair of state, a month before it burned down. She wondered if Hakan had hoped to match her with Ethan back then, too.
She gave Chordata the layout and security notes to destroy the place without loss of life.
(Except Hakan, who vanished into the teeth of the IA, and whoever had died back home when the American investigators came. Zenaida never told her if the UARC lost anyone in the aftermath; collateral damage, she said, when Suyana asked.)
Suyana said, “That PSA was the closest I’ve ever come to having influence over my country’s well-being.”
The thing went on heavy rotation on worldwide channels and made her shake with anger every time it aired, and had prevented the embargo; it was really the second closest she’d come, which was the only reason she ever got through it.
(Neither thing had helped her sleep since. Hakan was gone. It was her doing. She could live with it—barely—but that didn’t mean it didn’t scrape at her in the meantime.)
Grace was looking at her, her dark eyes steady in the false twilight of the car.
“I can’t imagine telling the IA how you want to be treated, and then being treated that way,” Suyana said, after a while.
The driver turned. They were in an older area of the city now, where nights were quiet. All the shops were shuttered except a florist, just beginning to set out tubs of blooms for the morning.
Grace was looking out the window with a mixture of fondness and distaste as dawn crept over the buildings. She said, “I’ve found it works best if you have a secret you need to keep, and only ask them for things they’re willing to give.”
Suyana glanced down at the mobile in her hands that contained Grace’s expense account and her top-tier database and her personal stylist’s contact and her private-driver intercom and the panic button she hadn’t pressed when she saw a blacklisted operative threatening Martine.
Strange, Suyana thought. The United Kingdom was Big Nine. Grace and Martine and Ethan, and the others who had stable economies and agriculture and militaries not given to coups, sat amid the IA chaos without having to worry that their countries would fall apart underneath them.
(When Ethan’s camp had sent wor
d back that the USA and the UARC could certainly use better relations, and they’d consider Suyana’s offer, a handler had written in the margin: “Ethan thinks she’s lovely. —A. Stevens.”
It was a strange note to write on a contract where a physical-rights clause was on the table. Even Magnus the unflappable had gotten an odd, tight look on his face as he handed it to her. “Congratulations. I’ll tell the stylists not to cut your hair. No point taking chances if he likes you as you are,” in the tone that meant he hoped she’d rise to the occasion.
She’d thought it odd that he’d shown her.)
Grace had never had to pray she could catch the eye of a man in power. The United Kingdom was positioned better. Not that Grace would have had to worry; her dark skin glowed in the pink dawn, and even after a long night her eyes were wide and dark and shining. She had the look of a woman born into power she intended to make good use of.
But there was more than one way to suffer. There were at least two IA boys Grace had dated in the last three years (the boy from Russia who’d since aged out, and someone else, briefly. Suyana couldn’t remember—Hong Kong Territories, maybe). Had those contracts been carefully negotiated with PDA limits that were humiliatingly explicit about Grace’s wishes, or—worse—had she been told to sign the contract as given, and fend for herself?
“Why doesn’t Colin just let you date other girl Faces? The IA has plenty.”
It had no more impact than a numbers game like that usually would. The only scandal Suyana could think of was that the Icelandic Face and the Swedish Face had been together so long people were starting to think those girls weren’t even in a contract.
“Colin and I agreed a long while back that what I do on my own is my own business, and what I do as a Face is the business of the United Kingdom,” said Grace, quietly, as if it was something that was often repeated.
Suyana felt someone in Grace’s position might be bold, and defy what everyone expected. But the dynamics of power were only obvious in retrospect, no matter how high up you went. And since Suyana, at this time yesterday, had been letting Oona the stylist deep-condition her hair for her meeting with Ethan, she had nothing to say about what people were willing to do when they had to.
Since then she’d been shot, and followed, and blacklisted, and on the brink with the people for whom she’d risked it all, and had trusted a liar because she’d been desperate. She had absolutely nothing to say about how badly things could go wrong for you, if you tried to be bold and failed.
“We’re here,” said Grace.
Her hand was already on the door as the car slowed, and as soon as it stopped she was outside and moving. For a moment the light reflected off the windows and caught her dress; she was looking left and right, and the sequins on her dress blazed to life. With the next step she fell back into the shadows, and it was snuffed out, and Suyana wondered how many times Grace had hurried into this building with someone she couldn’t afford to see again.
Grace stood inside the shelter of the lobby, holding the door for Suyana. As Suyana crossed the threshold, she passed Grace’s mobile to her. At the top of the landing, Grace handed it back. She had the start of a smile on her face, as if she wanted to say something kind but knew better.
(They were trained never to give thanks if they were sincere, because if you cared about something, it could be used against you.)
“This wasn’t a gallant gesture,” she said. “This was so you’d have a fighting chance against whoever comes after you next.”
“Wonderful. Thanks.”
Grace grinned in earnest. “Let’s get upstairs. You need to make sure your wounds are all right, and I want to check in with Colin and see what he knows.”
Suyana blinked. This all felt like tripping into a feather bed at the moment you knew you couldn’t take another step.
Please don’t be a trap, Suyana thought, examining Grace’s expression. Just this once. Please just give me enough room to breathe, that’s all.
“All right,” Suyana said.
(It meant, “Thank you.”)
16
Daniel was silent for a long time as the car snaked though the early-morning traffic. If he was smart, he’d be chatting up Bo. Clearly, snaps had screwed Bo over; knowing how it had happened and making sympathetic faces could have gotten Daniel a friend in the organization, and prevented him from making the same mistakes that had led to Bo doing forcible recruit duty on a Friday night.
That’s what you did to sources—you cultivated them, and you milked them for all they were worth, and then you got away as clean as you could.
But somehow he couldn’t pull a good front together. He felt empty and ill, like he’d been punched in the stomach on his way out of Terrain, and his mind clicked to a null value over and over.
“We’ll get out here,” said Bo.
They were on a nondescript corner of a neighborhood of quiet shops and attorneys’ or dentists’ offices. (Daniel’s uncle did his forging from the back of a dentist’s office that had once been an attorney’s office—you could hardly tell anything had changed.)
The hair on his neck stood up. Don’t think about home, he thought. Don’t think about anything that happened before right now. You have nowhere to go. You have nothing to fall back on. Swim or drown.
Daniel looked at the still-closed storefronts and the tidy quadrants of streets angling away from them. “So what, I get a blindfold and you spin me around and just push me along until we’re there?”
Bo curled his lip. “We’re not that kind of organization.”
Daniel shot him a look. “You sure?”
“To your left,” Bo said, long-suffering.
He definitely should have asked what mistake Bo had made that landed him with this backwater beat. Bo couldn’t be older than thirty—he shouldn’t sound eighty. Suyana might think Daniel was the scum of the earth, but Daniel was too good at what he did to get trapped in rookie-babysitting duty, that was for sure.
Daniel slid his hands in his pockets and started walking. The necklace scraped his knuckles, bit into his fingers when he gripped it.
“Stop,” Bo said, in front of a slightly shabby window that read BONNAIRE ATELIER. Two headless mannequins decorated the storefront; one was wearing a hideous wedding dress, the other had on half a blazer that was chalk-marked and missing a sleeve.
Daniel frowned. “Does this fool anyone?”
Bo didn’t answer.
Past the counter was the door to the service stairwell, which Bo locked behind them. Daniel turned and headed down.
“Wrong way.”
Daniel was impressed. It took a real entrepreneur to put the offices of her black-market agency on the upper floors of a building, where surveillance by the opposition was much easier to come by.
That meant she didn’t like being in places where there was only one way out. Worth knowing.
Bo led the way up the stairs, and unlocked the door on the second floor that led into the entrance hall of a flat. It was meticulously decorated. The sitting room had mismatched velvet sofas and tables adorned with lamps and sculptures and stacks of art books. There were sideboards against the walls (one with a television), and a dining table with an upholstered chair at the head of it that looked like a throne. There was a little kitchen that had never been used, and a washroom.
On the far side was a closed door, and just looking at it made Daniel’s fingertips go numb with dread. She could decorate in glamorous disarray all she wanted, but Daniel knew this wasn’t a flat anyone lived in.
It was a war room.
“She’s expecting us,” Bo said, and knocked.
And either Bo must have been higher up on the food chain than Daniel thought or his new boss knew everyone who crossed her doorstep, because Bo didn’t wait for a response before he opened the door, and she was already saying, “Daniel will meet you in the shop, Bo, thank you.”
Bo looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.
Daniel shrugged, cross
ed the rest of the sitting area, and stepped inside.
The room had been meant as a bedroom, once—there was even a fireplace—but it was a stronghold now. There was a monstrous desk stacked on one side with tech; a small chair sat empty in front of it, and behind it, she was waiting.
He’d pictured her in a huge curved chair that turned slowly to reveal her, like a villain in a movie. But it was just an office chair, and she was already facing him, her hands laced together on the desk, her gaze exactly at his eye level even before he was in sight.
There hadn’t been any cameras in the windows of the shop. They must have been in the mannequins, and she’d gauged his height from that. He took it back about the storefront not fooling anyone.
“Have a seat,” she said.
He did. What else was he supposed to do?
She wore bright red lipstick, seemingly an inch thick, its lines perfect; the collar of her black suit curled at the edges, and her hair was pulled back, and if he had to guess he’d put her in her late thirties with the confidence of someone who’d killed that many.
“You must be thirsty,” she said, and set a bottle of water, still sealed, within his reach.
Her voice wasn’t as low as he remembered from the phone call, but he’d been remembering a monster. In this well-appointed office in the early-morning light, the words were alto and round and clear as a bell, and he imagined she’d done her share of recruiting at this desk, with a voice like hers.
But he had no name to put to her voice, because she still hadn’t given him one, so he sat back and crossed his legs like he was actually comfortable, and reminded himself she was the enemy.
“We haven’t met,” he said.
She smiled without parting her lips. “Li Zhao,” she said. “Owner of Bonnaire Atelier, Bonnaire Fine Tailoring, and Bonnaire Workshop.”
Bo hadn’t been a very informative hostage-babysitter. Daniel didn’t even know where the other two places were. One in New York, he guessed; maybe London. Maybe Hong Kong. Maybe it was one name for each continent where she had countless snaps crossing borders twenty-four hours a day.
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