by Devon Monk
She opened my door.
“I want my brother’s pocket watch,” I said.
She shrugged and handed it to me. I tucked it immediately into my duffel.
“This way,” she said.
I followed her to the door beneath the awning and into an elevator. We didn’t say anything on the short ride.
When the elevator opened, she waved her hand, indicating I should step out into the room.
I did so.
Plush was the first word that came to mind. Plush furniture, plush blinds framing the windows that looked over the city that rolled out at its feet. Plush greenery and flowers. Plush carpet. Even the fireplace crackling away with real wood was polished marble and gold.
Plush.
Helen strolled past me. She was my height in the heels she wore, her dark straight hair cut in chunky bangs that highlighted the heavy makeup around her eyes. She’d taken off her coat and wore a fitted silver tank top that enhanced her toned arms and the silver stitches down them.
“I hope you aren’t too disappointed with me,” she said without a lick of sincerity. “But orders are orders.”
“Did you take my brother?”
“That’s a question you can ask Reeves. Or I suppose you could have asked Neds years ago.”
“What? What does Neds have to do with this?”
“You didn’t know?” she asked with a cruel twist of a smile. “He’s been working for us all these years. Spying on you, out on that dirty little farm of yours.”
That couldn’t be true. Not Neds.
“You didn’t think he was working that farm for the money, did you?” She raised one eyebrow and gave me the up-and-down. “Or the company? One late-model stitch and her crazy grandmother? I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.”
She could bad-mouth me all she wanted. She could bad-mouth Neds. I knew him. I had lived with him for years. I’d seen his good days and his bad days. And no judgmental galvanized was going to make me change my mind about his character.
If he told me everything over the past two years had been a lie, that he’d been spying on me for House Silver or whatever, I’d believe it. But only when those words came out of his mouths.
“Is my brother here or not?” I asked calmly.
She glared at me. What had she expected? Hysterics? Yeah, well it took more than a few accusations to ruffle my feathers.
“This way.”
She crossed the carpet, making no sound over the thick fibers. To all appearances, she didn’t care if I followed her or not.
I took note of all the windows, halls, doors, and anything I might be able to use as an escape route if I needed one.
“Here.” Helen stopped outside a sleek silver-plated door. “Reeves is waiting for you.”
She opened the door but did not enter the room.
I pulled back my shoulders and walked right on in. I’d faced down nearly every kind of dangerous beast the scratch could cook up. I could handle one overly entitled man.
“Hello, Matilda. Please have a seat.”
I’d expected the room to be dripping in silver. Not only was it smaller than I’d thought it would be, it also leaned toward dark leather and rich redwood in the desk, wall shelves, and carved ceiling tiles. The carpet was a tight black-and-silver-checked design, and a bank of three door-sized windows to my left looked over a balcony and the city in the distance. Cloth-shaded lamps on the walls made the entire space feel comfortably intimate and warm.
The man, Reeves Silver, stood behind the desk, pouring two tiny cups of coffee. His hair was startlingly white, cut short and clean, no beard. He had the build of a swimmer: wider shoulders and a long, lean torso. He wore a silver sweater and slacks.
Since I hadn’t moved, he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Please. I thought you and I could have a cup of coffee and get to know one another.”
He placed one cup on his side of the large redwood desk and the other nearer me, in front of the two pale wood-and-silver-cushioned chairs tipped invitingly toward the desk.
“I’ve come here to get my brother, Your Excellency,” I said. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time. If you’ll just tell me where he is, I’ll be leaving.”
“I assure you, he is fine,” he said, as he pulled out the dark leather chair behind the desk and sat. “Didn’t Helen tell you he is fine? This won’t take but a moment, Matilda. You have my word on that.”
I didn’t believe him. I sat anyway, hoping it would hurry things along.
He took a sip of coffee from the delicate china, his eyes the color of arctic ice.
I took a sip of my coffee. Rich, warm, and sweetened with dark sugar. It was the finest I’d ever tasted.
“I do want to apologize for this invitation,” he said. “Stealing you off the street. But I wanted a chance to meet you without interference.”
“You mean without anyone at House Gray knowing?”
“Anyone at House Gray or any of your galvanized friends. I prefer uninterrupted time when I’m first meeting someone with whom I assume I will be doing business.”
“Business?”
“Have you been informed of the gathering tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I brought you here before that event to make you an offer that would benefit us both.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in moving to any House. I’m claimed by House Gray and I’d like to stay that way.”
He just smiled. “Why don’t you listen to my offer, and then make your decision? Tomorrow all the Houses will gather. What I want is for you to let things play out as they may.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your presence is already drawing lines between the Houses. But the game the Houses play is a very old one. The pieces have been in place for more years than you have been breathing. You, Matilda Case, are fate’s twist, chaos’ card stacked in the deck between the Houses. We all want you. We all want to use you.”
“Why?” I breathed. My heart was starting to pound again. He wasn’t talking to me in a threatening way. If anything, he seemed more amused than angry.
“Everyone has their reasons,” he said with a smile. “I will tell you mine. You are the key to a very old story. One that most people do not believe. But, then, I enjoy getting to the root of stories. Especially if there is a profit to be made.”
He waited, drinking his coffee.
“What story?” I asked.
“The end of the world. The fall of the Houses. And all that entails. Everything has its end. It is the cycle that allows for new beginnings. New opportunities. In this story, you are the one who will decide the fate of the world.”
“There isn’t a story with me in it,” I said. “I think you’re reading into me much more than you should. All I want is my brother returned to me and both of us returned to House Gray. I promise you I have nothing to do with anything else.”
“No piece knows its place on the game board, nor its future,” he said. “It knows only the square it occupies and the touch of the hand that controls it. I want a promise from you, Matilda Case, daughter of Dr. Renault Case and Professor Edith Case. Whatever happens tomorrow at the gathering, do not get involved. Let the game play out as if you were not a part of it. Watch, but do not act. If you can promise me you will not interfere with my story, I will give you a great gift.”
“What gift?”
I didn’t believe he was really going to give me anything. I’d seen more than my share of salesmen in the past, and Reeves Silver was just a salesman who had all the power and all the time in the world to make people buy what he was selling.
“I know where your brother is.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said. “Where is he?”
“I will show you, though if you speak of it, Matilda, I will change my mind
as to which piece you are playing on my game board. You will fall from rook to pawn.” He tipped his cup, took another drink. “Betray me, and I will remove you from the board completely.”
I wasn’t an idiot. I recognized a death threat when I heard one. I nodded.
“House Orange holds him prisoner.”
I heard him—really I did. But the tightness in my chest wouldn’t allow me to answer. Hope was a painful thing.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I make it a priority to uncover the yearning of every sinful heart,” he said. “I do not promise what I cannot deliver.”
I stood. “Then deliver. Take me to him.”
Pure delight glinted in his eyes. He’d gotten what he wanted out of me. And while it rankled, I didn’t care what I’d have to do to save Quinten.
He stood and stretched out his hand, palm upward. In his palm was a silver coin with the image of wings pressed into it. There was a small hole at the top of the coin, as if it were intended to be worn on a chain.
“This is a personal token. It entitles the owner to one favor granted unconditionally by me, House Silver. You can use it now or keep it for the gathering. People want you, Matilda. People will do anything to have you. While I, on the other hand, am offering you my assistance.”
He tapped his wrist.
The wall behind his left shoulder became a screen.
An image of a white-walled room pulled into focus, though the recording was shaky.
“This is a room in House Orange,” Reeves said, as he watched me. “A room Slater Orange thinks is unable to be tapped by any House or device. He is wrong, of course.”
The recording device panned from the ceiling down to the center of the room.
“Oh,” I said, the sound escaping me as if I’d been punched.
My brother sat on the edge of a bed, cuffs on his wrists and ankles connected by chains to the walls. He was tapping his fingers, two fingers together in the signal for House Brown. Morse code.
S.O.S.
He really was in trouble. A prisoner.
“Do you know where that room is?” I asked, my mind racing through solutions, options, resources.
“I do.”
“Can you get to him? Can you free him?”
He hesitated. “It wouldn’t be easy.”
I met his gaze and held out my hand. “I won’t get in the way of your House games.”
He tipped his hand and dropped the silver coin into my palm.
I stood and pushed the coin across the desk with one finger. “Free my brother and bring him to House Gray alive, by the time the gathering is over.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“That is the personal favor I want from you, Reeves Silver. If you want me to stand aside and let your games play out, you bring me my brother.”
“If I agree,” he said, not touching the coin yet, “you will say nothing of our agreement. You will say nothing of anything that has transpired between us.”
“And if I do?”
“I will tell Boston Sue to kill your grandmother, Lara Unger Case.”
His smiled like a fox that had just caught dinner by the throat.
Boston Sue was working for him too. My stomach hit my knees, but I didn’t let it show.
“I agree to say nothing of our agreement to anyone.”
“Good. I will see that Quinten is returned, alive, to you immediately after the gathering,” he said. “Look for him there.” He plucked up the token with long fingers.
“And my grandmother?”
“As long as our agreement stands, she’ll come to no harm. Helen will drive you back to the city. It was a pleasure doing business with you, Matilda Case.”
I walked out of the room, wanting to be as far away from him as quickly as I could. If he owned Boston Sue, who else did he control inside House Brown? I didn’t know who I could trust anymore.
Helen was on the other side of the door. “This way.”
We strode back to the same elevator.
“Why do you care for him?” Helen asked when we were alone.
“Quinten?” I asked. “He’s my brother.”
“You were made of dead people,” she said. “You aren’t really Dr. Case’s child. You aren’t really his sister. You’re nothing more than just a chunk of medical waste that didn’t have the good sense to die.”
I reached over and grabbed her wrist, squeezing just a little harder than necessary.
“Flesh and blood doesn’t have anything to do with family and belonging. Not that you would ever understand that. If you ever let your House hurt my family again or if Reeves Silver betrays me, I will reach down your throat and pull out your pretty guts. And I can make sure you feel every single second of it.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She felt my hand on her arm. She’d feel anything I did to her.
I let go and we rode in silence back down to the car.
29
Alveré Case and his descendants swore to sacrifice everything to correct their mistakes.—2197
—from the journal of L.U.C.
Helen dropped me off a block away from Gray Towers.
I made my way down the sidewalk, watching for hostile movement.
When I was just a few feet away from the slick glass front of the building and the doors that I hoped would let me in, Neds shouldered out from a shadowed overhang and fell into step beside me.
“I’m angry and sick, Ned Harris,” I said. “You don’t want to talk to me.”
“Tilly,” Right Ned said. “Let me explain.”
“All right.” I stopped in the middle of the crowded street. More than one person cursed as they were forced to squeeze past us. “Explain to me why you lied to me for two years, ate my food, worked my land, and falsified our friendship so you could spy on me for House Silver.”
“It isn’t,” Right Ned said, his eyes tight with anger or pain. “That isn’t how it happened. I mean, it happened, but that’s not why. I answered your ad for House Silver. But I stayed—I wanted to stay for you.”
“She won’t listen,” Left Ned said. “You’re a part of House Gray now, aren’t you, Matilda? Working your deals, playing the game. Just like a low-class citizen. Just like us. So before you go judging us off something some dick of a House said we did, get your facts, and get them straight.”
“Were you spying on me?”
“We were,” Right Ned said, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “But we were trying to keep you safe. I understand if you won’t trust us. But we’ve never wanted you hurt or used or involved in this mess. We tried to do right by you, Tilly.”
“What about Quinten? You call that doing right by me?”
Right Ned frowned. “No. We know we failed you. But we’ll do what we can to fix that. To help him.”
If I told Neds what I’d done, the deal I’d made with House Silver, all bets and all favors would be off.
“I hate this,” I said. “I hate this place and I hate these people. You were right, Ned. I should have run when I had the chance. The things they do. The things you’ve done . . .”
And then, before I knew what was happening, he stepped right up to me, brushed his bare hand down my bare arm and pulled me into a hug.
“For all the—” Left Ned muttered, but I wasn’t listening to him.
“I’m sorry, Matilda. Please believe that,” Right Ned said. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
And then he stepped back and walked away, swallowed by the jostle of humanity.
“Matilda! Matilda!” Elwa pushed her way through the crowd, her sharp, short steps puncturing the roiling mass and thrusting her through the crowd like a needle.
“We’ve been looking for you,” she said, catching hold of my sleeve as if to keep me from drifting away. �
�Abraham said he dropped you off an hour ago. Where have you been?”
She hadn’t waited for my answer, but was already tugging me up to the front door of the building, her steps still brisk enough to make me jog a bit to keep up.
She waved a hand impatiently at whatever camera or scanner or other identification device lingered in the clear glass, and the doors opened for us.
I’d never come into the building this way, but Elwa didn’t give me time to take in any details. Maybe marble, certainly clean, unfailingly gray. And then the elevator opened and I was pushed inside and whisked to the upper floors.
“Have you seen him?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Abraham.” She shook her hand like swatting a fly. “No matter. He will arrive in time. Abraham is a warrior, a soldier, a liberator. He knows how much punctuality matters.”
I was ushered out of the elevator and then off to my room, where Elwa grilled me on if I needed food or if anything was wrong, and if I had packed yet, and when I was going to take time to prepare for the gathering.
I finally got her to leave by promising her I just needed a little time to collect myself.
After she left, I pulled a chair up next to the door and sat there with my handgun in my lap.
I was numb, my thoughts scattered and raw. I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to keep Grandma safe. And I most certainly didn’t know whom to trust.
House Orange had Quinten captive. My brilliant brother would have gotten free if there had been any chance to do so.
Abraham was there now meeting with Slater Orange.
But whose side was Abraham on?
Neds were spies, Boston Sue a hired thug.
All I wanted was to get away. But if I broke my deal, Reeves would kill the people I loved.
There was a soft knock at the door.
I got up, stiff from what must have been hours sitting utterly still. I held the gun ready and opened the door.
“I brought you a late supper,” Elwa said, letting herself in, despite the gun in my hand. “And a few things you need to study for the gathering. We’ll be leaving tonight. Soon.” She set a tray with silver domes over the plates down on the table. “Here is information about the gathering and how you will represent House Gray.”
