by Dylan Steel
“I meant no disrespect, of course, Mr. Bennick,” Grayson said in a low voice, switching to a more formal address. “Things obviously did not transpire as I assumed. But I’m simply at a loss as to why you would allow such a betrayal to stand.”
“You are certainly mistaken if you think her actions have gone unaccounted for, Edward, simply because you and I have different approaches to discipline.” An undercurrent of warning filled his tone.
His deliberate use of the benefactor’s first name again didn’t go unnoticed either. It was a statement—a reminder of his status. Neither Weston nor his methods were to be questioned, not even by another benefactor.
Sage shifted her gaze back to the floor, clenching her teeth together as the two men talked about her as if she didn’t exist—as if she wasn’t standing right there too. But she knew she couldn’t say anything. This was part of the charade.
“Of course. I should have realized…” Grayson trailed off, allowing himself another long look at Sage before returning his attention to Weston. “Well, my apologies for the misunderstanding on my part.” He wet his lips, flicking one last lingering glance over Sage’s curves. “But do let me know if you tire of your style of discipline. I’m sure we could come to some other arrangement regarding your wayward pair.”
“I can assure you that will not be necessary,” Weston said coldly, dropping all pretenses. “I have always handled what is mine and have left you to yours.”
“That you have.” Grayson tipped his head in a sort of nod, then made his way back across the room.
Sage’s heart wrenched in her chest as she saw him reach Pippa and clamp his hand around her elbow, forcibly dragging her along with him toward the exit. She bit the inside of her lip and looked away before tears could come to her eyes.
This. This was why the Lawless were a worthy cause.
“Come, Sage.”
Weston extended his arm, and she took it readily. She didn’t want to spend a minute longer in this place than was necessary. She didn’t know if Grayson had fully believed Weston’s explanation, but he didn’t seem to want to argue the point, and that would have to be good enough.
She couldn’t help taking in her surroundings as they made their way through the vestibule. Her breath caught in her throat when she noticed Nic keeping to the edge of the room, watching her as she walked arm in arm with her benefactor.
His eyes met hers with a flash of confusion and pain. The last time she’d seen him, he’d risked everything to get her a forged bracelet. No doubt he was wondering why she was still Mr. Bennick’s slave.
Of course, she couldn’t tell him what had happened. She couldn’t tell him that she’d tried to escape and gotten caught, that the bracelet he’d gotten for her turned out to be unnecessary, that she wouldn’t be running away again. And she couldn’t tell him not to worry about her, that Weston really did want to protect her.
Sage looked at him sadly and shook her head slightly, then dropped her gaze to the ground. Better if he thought there was no hope for her—for them. Maybe he would finally give up and move on. Maybe he could forget about her and be happy with Carnabel.
Her stomach clenched at that thought. Though her feelings for Nic were long since gone, destroyed by what he’d done to Everett, the idea of the two of them together still bothered her.
And something told her he wasn’t about to give up. He’d betrayed Eprah to get her a counterfeit bracelet. She clearly meant more to him than she had realized.
But for her safety now, she needed him to forget about her.
Weston held the door open for her, and her eyes flicked back to Nic’s as she turned to step over the threshold. Determination had replaced the sorrow etched on his face.
She sucked in a breath, realizing the truth.
He wasn’t going to forget her.
5. PATTERNS
“You think it was staged?” Sage blinked at Weston in disbelief.
“Undoubtedly.”
Weston’s hand fell to the small of her back, guiding her into the room in front of him. Unlike the last time she’d visited his bedroom, she was welcome now. In fact, she was being hurried inside. Neither of them had bothered to change after returning from the city, and Sage was still wearing one of the fancy dresses reserved for Founders’ Day.
“You know something of the man, Sage. Do you honestly think he would’ve allowed his speech to be interrupted so easily?” He scoffed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they rehearsed it down to the second.”
“But wouldn’t someone have had to tell Kai? He wasn’t the only one backstage. Someone would’ve noticed that he hadn’t actually received word of—” she trailed off, noticing the skeptical glint in Weston’s eyes.
“It is not beyond Mr. Gaztok’s abilities to set up multiple players in his game, both backstage and at Nicholas’s side. Nor is it beyond his reputation to command silence from those he uses. I can’t be sure if he orchestrated the timing of Nicholas Pruitt’s death or whether he simply designed the timing of its publication. But make no mistake that he was behind it.”
Sage fell silent, contemplating what he was saying. They’d already suspected foul play in the Quorum member’s illness. It made sense. And Weston had an annoying tendency to be right about these things. He’d been a part of the secret world of Eprah’s elite far longer than she had.
Something else had been bothering her all day, though—something much more personal. She’d been too nervous to give voice to it on the ride home, but Weston’s complete lack of commentary on the matter had driven her curiosity insatiably high. She swallowed hard, changing the subject.
“Do you think Grayson believed you? About me?” she added, as if he wouldn’t automatically know what she was talking about.
“I’m not sure.” His brows furrowed. “But I don’t think it matters. He’d be a fool to doubt what I told him, and he’d have to consider me a fool to be lying about it. It does neither of us any good to revisit the matter, so I don’t expect to hear another word about it.”
Sage pressed her lips together tightly. She hoped he was right. There had definitely been some doubt written on the other benefactor’s face—but what other explanation could he believe? Anything else would be too fantastical—too improbable. It was downright incomprehensible for one of the most powerful men in Eprah to be Lawless or to have given his pair a counterfeit bracelet.
Weston opened one of the doors along his wall and nudged her forward. She paused, looking around in confusion. This was the library she’d sat in for a few minutes, reading one of the old books on the shelves.
“What are we doing in here?”
“Ah. I would’ve brought you here earlier, but you hadn’t made up your mind yet.” He grinned knowingly and reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of jewelry. A necklace with a flat black stone, thin enough to see through.
She glared at him. Her fingers curled into fists. It took a great deal of her willpower not to snatch the necklace out of his grasp.
“I know you think this is yours, Sage. And in a way, I suppose it might be,” he said thoughtfully as he dangled the gem in front of his eye, frowning as he studied it. “Your parents were tasked with guarding this particular relic. They’d hidden it. We thought it had been lost when they…” He stopped, shooting her a sympathetic look for only a moment before curiosity flashed behind his eyes. “I’m still not sure exactly how it came into your possession.”
Her jaw stiffened as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Am I not allowed to keep any secrets?”
“Sage.” He sighed, exasperation in his tone as he said her name. “If there is not trust between us…” He let his words hang in the air, their meaning clear.
“Trust is earned,” she said through clenched teeth.
“It is. Bit by bit. And have I not extended a great deal of it myself? Have I not risked the entire existence of the Lawless on no more than your word? I’ve brought you into the city and allowed you to be surrounded by those
who would give anything to see the Lawless destroyed—all while you were standing beside the very leader they would question and kill. It would’ve taken very little effort on your part to see me brought low to elevate your own standing.”
She swallowed hard, dropping her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she mumbled.
“I know.” He set a finger beneath her chin, gently lifting her eyes to his. Her heart twisted in her chest. A light filled his eyes, turning them an impossible shade of blue. Trust? Hope? Determination? Or all of those things and more? It was hard to tell. “If I didn’t sense that in you, I never would have offered you the chance to be Lawless again. As much as I care for you, you are not the only person I’ve promised to protect. I would not endanger those who have trusted me with their lives for the sake of your freedom.”
Her eyes widened. He really did trust her.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she jerked her head away quickly, blinking. Without another word, Weston turned his attention to one of the bookshelves behind him, allowing her private moment.
Sage licked her lips. Somewhere deep inside herself surged the desire to prove herself worthy of the trust he’d already given her, but that urge warred violently with the years she’d spent forcing down secrets.
Her throat burned with indecision.
“A man at the Center,” she finally blurted out.
“What?” Weston turned back to her with an eyebrow quirked up.
She blew out an unsteady breath. “An old man at the Center. He had the necklace hidden in his things, and he gave it to me. I—” she winced, “—I think he thought I was my mother. He seemed confused.”
A slow smile spread over Weston’s face. “Of course.”
“Of course?”
“Your mother had… a close contact in the Center. It makes sense that she would have hidden the gem with him. But it would have been quite difficult to hide anything there, which is why we didn’t really ever consider looking there.”
Sage nodded. “Kai was looking for it. The next year when I went back to the Center, I wanted to try talking to the old man again, to see if he remembered anything about my mother.” She bit the inside of her lip, looking away. “But he was gone, and Kai was tearing through his old room looking for the necklace. I lied to him and had to alter some of the footage from my previous visit so he wouldn’t find out.”
Weston’s expression clouded. “You altered the footage? On your own?”
“I—” She licked her lips. His tone made her nervous. “Almost. I used one of the Kunbriat to help. But it was part of his trials. He’s sworn to secrecy.”
“Let’s hope he still thinks that’s true.”
Chills prickled along Sage’s spine. “What do you mean?” she asked, her throat suddenly dry.
He shut his eyes, letting out a slow breath. “You’re not Kunbriat anymore, Sage. What leverage do you have over him now?”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t think he’d…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought.
Weston pressed his lips together. “If he hasn’t said anything by now, he probably won’t. He may not even remember it or realize what he saw. But that’s a problem for another day. It’s good you made me aware of it, though.”
Sage nodded, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets to hide their trembling. Her insides were still a bundle of nerves. She found little comfort in Weston’s words, though she hoped they were true.
“Well, now, as interesting is all that is, it still doesn’t explain what we’re doing here, does it?” He smiled gently at her, holding out a book as he changed the subject.
“No,” she said in a small voice, staring blankly at the book hovering in front of her face.
“Focus, Sage.”
He motioned for her to take a seat, handing her the book as soon as she did.
Sage finally dropped her eyes to the book in her hand, and she stifled a gasp as soon as she did. She was holding one of the blank journals from the Archives—one that she’d found and set aside years ago. She looked up sharply.
“How did you get this?”
“You remember it?” The corner of Weston’s lips tugged up in a pleased smile. “You already know Eprah constantly monitors its citizens. We have techs who make a point of finding and hiding what we don’t want Eprah to see. It’s not a perfect system, but we are able to learn quite a bit and control some of the flow of information. Not too much, of course, or they’d figure it out and we’d be cut off altogether.”
“That already happened,” Sage whispered, recalling the conversation she’d had with the headmaster in his office just a few weeks before graduation. He’d known about the security leaks, but he didn’t have enough evidence to punish her directly. But considering the way graduation had gone, he’d still managed to find a way to make her life miserable.
“It wasn’t the first time they’ve changed security protocols on us, Sage,” Weston said, putting a hand on her arm reassuringly. “It won’t be the last. We adapt.”
She looked up at him questioningly. Of course he already knew. Why would she even surprised?
“That’s not important right now. What you have in your hand there—that’s important.”
Sage shifted her attention back to the journal. Bound in a dark forest green leather, the book smelled of wisdom and secrets. She cracked it open, gently flipping through its pages. They must’ve exposed the pages to heat, pulling out the writing that it always been hidden there—a technique they’d discovered just after her kidnapping when she’d nearly thrown one of the journals into Beautification’s incinerator in her attempt to escape.
It was no longer blank, but she couldn’t read a word of it. The language was unfamiliar to her, but the script it was written in was beautiful, almost ornate, yet ordered and mathematical.
“We have all the journals now.” Weston spoke quietly, as if afraid to break the spell she was under.
She wrinkled her brow, refusing to lift her gaze as she paged through the book deliberately. “But what does it say?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out.” Frustration seeped into his tone. She spared a glance in his direction. “I was actually hoping you could help us with that.”
Sage frowned. “I’m not exactly a language expert.”
“No, but you understand tech. Patterns. And you’re a fresh set of eyes. You may have ideas we haven’t thought of.” Weston ran a hand through his hair. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to protect the secrets inside these journals, and I’m convinced that means they’re important.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, scanning over the foreign words once again. She traced the lines of revealed ink with her fingertips. Her eyes flicked to his. “Have you run it through any sort of analysis?”
“I have. Several. No luck so far.”
She pursed her lips, tapping her finger along the edge of the pages thoughtfully.
“Mr. Gaztok and others will readily deny that any relic gems can be used to understand the old journals. But I think they’re afraid. I think these are the keys to understanding what’s written in them, but I haven’t been able to figure out how yet.” His jaw tensed.
Weston reached into his pocket again, pulling out another relic. It was the pair of pale blue earrings she’d seen a few times before. He set them in her hand. Sage took one of the earrings and pressed it to the journal, dragging it along the page she’d opened to. She moved it over the paper and then closed the book, rubbing the relic over every inch of the leather binding.
“Do you really think it’ll make that much of a difference? Knowing what’s inside?” She set the earrings down and leaned forward in earnest.
“I hate to leave any advantage to chance. And given how carefully those secrets are guarded, I have to imagine that it’s quite the advantage. We’re not only fighting Eprah, but every person whose heart Eprah has claimed. We can’t free people who don’t want to be freed.”
She shot to her feet and let out a
disapproving snort. “Why not?”
“Besides the fact that doing so—controlling and manipulating the lives of others—would make us no different than them?” Weston shook his head, sadness in his eyes. “Nothing would really change. One coup would soon be replaced by another. Change scares people, and without a good reason to embrace a change, they’ll fight to get back what they had, no matter how wrong and distorted it was.”
Sage stared back at him in disbelief. She couldn’t imagine fighting to reinstate the System of Worth.
“You were raised differently than most,” he said quietly, answering her unspoken question.
“I was raised by the Institution,” she snapped. “You of all people should know that.”
He winced, and she immediately regretted what she’d said. “I do. And I still wish I could’ve changed it. But that doesn’t change the fact that you knew your parents. You can’t tell me you don’t remember anything about what they taught you. You have too much compassion for that. Too much of a thirst for justice.”
“I—” Sage lowered her eyes, not sure she deserved the high opinion he seemed to have of her. She wasn’t sure her parents would’ve been proud of all the decisions she’d made over the years, not the least of which had been betraying Sophia Bennick. “I don’t know how long this could all take to figure out,” she said, changing the subject.
Weston flashed her an odd look before regaining his stoic composure. “You’re welcome to work on it whenever you have the time. The rest of the journals are over there.” He nodded to a section of the shelf behind him. “I keep the relics separate. You’ll need to ask me for those to work on the journals.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you trusted me.”
“I do.” His eyebrows dipped. “But the relics need to be kept safe. They’re irreplaceable.”
“So are the journals,” she argued, “but you’re letting me have free reign of them.”
“Not exactly. You do have to go through my room to get to them. Besides,” he shrugged, “the journals are bigger. It’s harder to accidentally lose one.”
