Crewel

by Gennifer Albin

  ‘So why are we cutting a ribbon here?’ I ask Cormac as he escorts me to a large brick building. I look for the telltale sign that will indicate what its purpose is, but I can’t find it due to the audience surrounding the structure.

  ‘It’s their new academy,’ he answers, placing one hand on my elbow and guiding me firmly to the front door.

  If it wasn’t for his arm propelling me forward, I would have stopped on the spot.

  ‘I’m cutting a ribbon at an academy,’ I say, turning to him, ‘in Cypress.’

  Cormac keeps his gaze on the path in front of us and doesn’t respond. Suddenly I’m remembering why I hate him. So that’s why I’m here. As a reminder of what I’ve done. The threat isn’t lost on me. Looking out over the crowd, I wonder why they’re so placid. The Guild must have fed them a lot of lies to keep them from turning on us. Did they say it was an accident, like the story Amie told us about Mrs Swander?

  Even if they did, the people here are too complacent. There’s not a single person with a hint of rage or pain flashing across his or her face.

  And then it hits me. They don’t know what happened.

  ‘What did you do to them?’ I whisper.

  ‘Why would I do anything to them?’ Cormac asks with feigned innocence.

  ‘What do they think happened to the academy?’ I ask, unwilling to play his little game.

  ‘That’s not the point, doll,’ Cormac says with a smirk. ‘This isn’t about them. It’s about you.’

  By this point, we’re at the door and he hands me a pair of giant ceremonial scissors. Sadly, they’re heavy and dull. All for show. But maybe if I aim just right . . .

  Cormac’s grin fades, and he steps back. Not in fear, but to let me know he can see what I’m thinking and that it won’t work. He’s saved from me trying by another man, from the looks of it an official, who strides over.

  As soon as Cormac turns to speak with him, an older woman approaches, eyeing me interestedly. She’s not a Cypress citizen. Her age shows in her withered skin and silver hair, but even with the marks of time all over her, I see no sign of the deep, honey skin and silky black hair the citizens of Cypress share.

  ‘You’re Cormac’s escort, then?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying to hold my chin up.

  ‘Shameless,’ she mutters, as I realise that she’s older than anyone else I’ve met. Even in Romen, basic renewal patching assures everyone a relatively youthful appearance, but this woman’s skin is as brittle and wrinkled as old paper, despite the layer of cosmetics she wears. She has to be here with the Guild, maybe she’s even a Spinster stationed at the Northern Coventry, but she’s clearly not taking advantage of the renewal patching available.

  ‘Loricel, I see you’ve met my escort,’ Cormac says, returning to my side.

  ‘Yes, and I think it’s shameless,’ she tells him solemnly.

  ‘Adelice,’ he says, ‘allow me to introduce Loricel. Keep your hands back. She bites.’

  ‘Watch yourself,’ Loricel warns, ‘or I’ll rip your ass right out of Arras.’

  ‘We have a love–hate relationship,’ he says to me. ‘Adelice is our newest Spinster. Her aptitude tests are off the chart,’ he tells her.

  ‘So you’re the one that has Cormac’s attention. He hasn’t been so interested in the Western Coventry in years,’ she says, squinting to look more closely at me. There’s a sparkle of something – respect, maybe – in her eyes now. I can’t help returning her interest. This is the woman I’ve heard of in bits and pieces from Enora. The Creweler. I’m finally meeting the most powerful woman in Arras, and I’m not sure what to say to her.

  Before I can respond, a guard dressed in full Guild regalia approaches, and Cormac leans in to talk to him. With the chatter around us, I can’t hear what he’s saying, but it doesn’t stop me from trying.

  ‘So are you enjoying yourself?’ Loricel asks me.

  ‘No,’ I say, distracted by my eavesdropping.

  Loricel raises one eyebrow, revealing a map of wrinkles etched along her forehead, and laughs. ‘Good. You’re exactly what they said.’

  ‘And that is?’ I ask, trying to keep the curiosity I feel out of my voice.

  ‘Smart and foolhardy,’ she says. ‘It’s a great combination for making conversation, but not the best for staying alive.’

  ‘That’s what they tell me.’

  ‘They’re keeping you off the loom?’

  I nod, wondering how she knows that, but then I remember what Enora said about her. As Creweler, Loricel would know everything going on in Arras.

  ‘They’re trying to win you over,’ she informs me. ‘They’ll try appealing to your desires first. Clothes. Power. Parties.’

  ‘And if that doesn’t work?’ I ask.

  ‘Then they go after your heart.’

  ‘Aren’t they the same thing?’

  She smiles and the lines on her face soften. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Most sixteen-year-olds,’ Loricel says, ‘don’t know the difference between love and desire. That’s how they keep Spinsters weaving, and why they test at such an early age. You’re blinded by silk and wine.’

  ‘I don’t care much for wine,’ I say flatly.

  ‘What do you care for?’ she asks, but before I can answer she continues. ‘Because that’s what they’ll go after.’

  My heart beats wildly, and I remember how easily Cormac pulled the surveillance of Amie walking to her new home from academy.

  ‘My sister,’ I whisper to myself.

  ‘They’ll find the others first. They’ll save her for last,’ Loricel says, shaking her head.

  ‘There are no others,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be so sure of that. You might not know who they are, but the Guild does.’

  ‘Why do you care?’ I ask, not bothering to hide my curiosity. She’s nothing like I expected.

  ‘Because I once sat where you are, with a handsome, smarmy Guild official, and no one told me,’ she says, and the lines on her face reappear. With a curt nod, she strides away and disappears into the crowd.

  ‘That old witch scare you?’ Cormac asks, coming back over to me.

  I shake my head. ‘No, she doesn’t approve of me escorting you.’

  ‘She wouldn’t,’ he says.

  I’m forced to smile and pose for the cameras while the Cypress crowd mills about. There’s nothing natural about how they’re acting, and I wonder if they’ve been given Valpron for the evening to ensure our safety. When the ribbon flutters to the ground, I hand the scissors back to Cormac.

  ‘Your point’s been proved,’ I say, my words thick. Something about the audience’s lack of interest makes me feel the shame more acutely, as though I’m hurting for them because they can’t.

  ‘Oh, not yet,’ he whispers.

  I don’t bother to ask him what this means. I’m tired of his cryptic warnings and little jokes, so I turn back to the crowd and stare out across the sea of ebony hair. The citizens of Cypress look so similar, just like Pryana. I must look like a freak to them with my pale skin and fiery hair.

  And that’s when I spot her.

  Pale golden hair that wisps around her ears. A spot of light in the dark. She’s as bored as the rest of them. She’s also one of the only girls here tonight.

  Most of the others were killed.

  But she’s been rewoven, I think, to a more deserving family. And my actions placed her here, with a family that deserved a child in exchange for the one Maela’s hook stole.

  I don’t even think. I dash towards her. This actually elicits a response from the crowd. Men jump back and mothers snatch up toddlers from the ground. I must look insane, flying through the masses, my hair whipping behind me and my ankles barely keeping me straight up in my heels. All that matters is getting to her, and no one tries to stop me. They’re too surprised.

  When I reach her, a woman pulls her close to her side, and I look at her more carefully. Unlike
the others, this surrogate mother regards me with fear. But Amie stares at me with blank curiosity. There’s no hint of recognition in her eyes. The eager greeting, the one she used to give me every day after academy, doesn’t spring from her lips.

  She has no idea who I am.

  ‘Amie,’ I whisper, stretching out my hand, and willing her to remember.

  ‘Her name is Riya,’ the woman informs me, her voice full of warning. ‘She’s my daughter.’

  ‘Her name is Amie,’ I challenge her under my breath.

  ‘My name is Riya,’ Amie repeats, mimicking the woman’s warning. But there’s a sadness in her tone. Not for herself, but for me – for the crazy girl whispering desperate lies in front of her.

  A warm hand touches my shoulder gently.

  ‘Come on,’ Jost says gruffly. ‘We need to go.’

  I look at him, barely able to see him through the veil of tears I’m trying to keep from falling. He leads me back to the waiting guard. Cormac is off somewhere, saying his farewells, but I’m sure he caught my little scene. Just like I’m sure he orchestrated this whole evening.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Jost asks.

  ‘Fine. It was a mistake,’ I lie to him.

  But I can tell from his face that he doesn’t buy it. ‘I have to check on Ambassador Patton. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.’

  I try to let his words reassure me, but they don’t, so I open my own door and slide into my seat to wait for Cormac to be finished with his schmoozing. I’m about to shut my eyes to escape this horrible night when Erik slides into the motocarriage next to me.

  ‘I have to make this quick,’ he says.

  ‘Sure,’ I say, the surprise distracting me for a moment.

  ‘Cormac’s sending me back to the hotel alone.’

  ‘You’re not coming with us?’ I ask, alarmed.

  ‘No.’ Erik looks me straight in the eyes. ‘Cormac’s a powerful man, and it’s stupid of me to advise it, but if he tries anything, knee him in the crotch.’

  My eyes snap open and I have to press my lips shut to hold back laughter. ‘You got it,’ I manage, barely keeping it together. Trust Erik to make me laugh at a time like this.

  ‘Here.’ He presses a thin microdisk into my hand.

  ‘What’s this?’ I ask, carefully fingering the disk before tucking it into my handbag.

  ‘Pop it into the drive on your digifile and it will connect you to me,’ he says. ‘Let me know when you make it back.’

  He’s staring intensely at me as he says this, and I feel my breath catch in my throat. ‘Do you really think . . .’ I begin, but I can’t finish the thought.

  ‘I never know what to think with Cormac,’ Erik says. ‘That’s the problem.’

  Before I can stop myself my hand stretches and grabs his. He squeezes it reassuringly, then drops it, and slips back out of the motocarriage. If I go now, I could catch up with him, but I might get him in trouble. But the alternative – leaving alone with Cormac – terrifies me.

  ‘Ready to go?’ Cormac asks, getting into the seat next to me. Too late.

  ‘Of course.’ I swallow against the dread sitting raw in my throat.

  ‘What did Erik want?’

  I hesitate for a second. ‘He wanted to go over tomorrow’s itinerary since he’s headed back to the hotel.’

  Cormac regards me thoughtfully and then smiles. ‘Attention to detail. I like that. He’ll be advancing out of the Coventry in no time. I want to show you something,’ Cormac says. He avoids sitting too close, and I don’t blame him. I’m sure he knows his plan worked.

  I don’t bother to say anything about what happened tonight, and neither does he. The message was clear enough without him having to spell it out for me. We only ride for a few minutes, but in the dark I can’t see much through the motocarriage’s tinted windows. When we finally stop, Cormac opens his own door and walks around to mine. The driver stays inside.

  As he helps me out, I’m met by a near-black sky dotted with sparkling stars. We’ve exited only steps from the edge of a precipice. In the darkness, I can barely see the valley hundreds of feet below us. Stretching past it, lights blink and waver, marking diminutive cities scattered around the cliff.

  Cormac drops my hand and steps closer to the edge. Stretching his arm over the abyss, he calls to me, ‘It’s yours for the taking, Adelice.’

  I clasp my palms across my bare arms and shiver against the breeze.

  Cormac sits silently in the seat diagonal from me on the ride back, and I wonder if, with all the posing and Cormac’s eager hands on my waist earlier, I jumped to the wrong conclusion when all he wanted was to show me a vista. But after tonight’s charade, I’m not sure what any of it means any more.

  Between holding back tears and the crippling guilt washing over me, I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s exhausting, but as I’m drifting off, Cormac’s voice startles me awake. I snap to attention, but then I realise he isn’t speaking to me. His head is cocked to the side, so I close my eyes again and listen.

  ‘You’ve known about the situation in Northumbria for weeks,’ he says. ‘It shouldn’t take this long to deal with a simple taint.’

  He pauses, and I wish I could hear what he’s being told. Complant convos are too one-sided.

  ‘I see.’

  I peek through my lashes to see that he’s frowning.

  ‘This is getting out of hand. If we can’t find the source, we’re going to have to alter the entire Eastern Sector,’ he says, ‘and, Hannox . . .’

  My heart flutters at this name, but I can’t recall where I’ve heard it.

  ‘Did you get anything out of that guy from Nilus? Yeah, if this thing has spread way up there . . .’ He pauses in response to something Hannox is saying. ‘I don’t think Protocol Two is necessary at this point, but have Intelligence draw up a plan.’

  I’m still watching through barely open eyelids, pretending to sleep, when he leans forward and places his head in his hands. Then he looks up at me and I almost stop breathing. He keeps his gaze on me for a minute, then pours another whisky.

  10

  The morning comes in streaks of purple outside my hotel window. It’s the real sky, something I never see at the compound, where every view is a programmed image. This is the dawn that awakens citizens in Cypress, and for the first time since the motocarriage, I close my eyes. Opening them, I pretend I’m waking up like I might if I lived out here. It’s time to prep for work. I’ll tram into the metro, and perch at a desk waiting for telebounds and coffee rationing. No, I’m prepping tablets for the day’s curriculum. I’ll teach about the seasons. How each serves a function and is carefully timed to maximise its usefulness to food Spinsters. But the lesson fades, replaced by looms and fingers and stone walls. This room is no more real than my life there; both were created by Spinsters.

  I’m not out of bed before a maid comes bustling into the room to clean up.

  ‘I’m so sorry, miss,’ she exclaims, but something in her voice isn’t sorry. Her words sound rehearsed. Of course, I might be getting paranoid at this point, too.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I assure her, slinging my legs out of the bed. ‘I need to be getting up now anyway.’ Especially if I’m going to have a minute to myself before my crew gets here to prepare me for our final rebound back to the Coventry.

  ‘I’ll get out from under your feet then,’ the maid offers, but I shake my head, indicating she should stay.

  There’s not much packing to do, so I order up a small breakfast of scones and tea and plop down to wait in a chair. I’m so used to having someone hovering around me that it doesn’t even feel awkward to have the maid here straightening. I watch her work. She’s about my mother’s age.

  ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ the maid asks kindly.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say with a smile, not willing to betray the hot anger building in my head by saying more.

  ‘Well,’ she starts, but then she stops and a sheepish grin slides onto her face.
‘I’m sorry. I had hoped to meet you. It was very rude of me to barge in on you this morning.’

  So that’s what this was about. Another person eager to see a Spinster or ask for a blessing. It’s not that I mind so much as it makes the guilt bubble up and threaten to spill over. If only she knew I was responsible for the accident that claimed the local academy.

  But I simply hold out my hand to her and say, ‘I’m Adelice.’

  ‘It’s an honour to meet you,’ she says, clutching my hand in hers and not letting go. ‘I thought you might know my daughter. She was retrieved this year as well.’

  ‘Pryana?’ I ask the woman, and her face lights up. That’s when I realise it’s no more a coincidence that we came to Cypress for the ribbon-cutting ceremony than that we stayed in this hotel. The academy. Amie. And now Pryana’s mother. Cormac wants me to see the consequences of my decisions and remind me of how powerless I am without the strength of the Guild behind me. But his plan has a weakness: now I know where Amie is.

  ‘Oh, you do know her! Is she well?’ she asks.

  I do my best to muster up a warm smile, and nod. With the loss of her other daughter, even some news about Pryana must feel like a gift.

  ‘I’m very sorry about what happened here,’ I manage to whisper. Part of me longs to tell her the truth – that I’m the reason the academy was destroyed, but when I gather up the courage to look into her eyes, they stare blankly back at me.

  ‘Sorry for what?’ she asks, and her voice is as empty as her eyes.

  ‘For the academy,’ I tell her, pulling my hand back from hers.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she says automatically. ‘I wish it had been this nice when Pryana was attending it.’

  ‘But your daughter . . .’

  ‘Pryana?’ she asks in a confused voice.

  ‘No,’ I answer slowly, watching her closely. ‘Your other daughter and the academy . . .’

  ‘Pryana is my only daughter,’ she says, but something about her tone is not reassuring. There’s no surprise or amusement at my mistake, but only a mechanical, unemotional response to my apology.