“Not all of us are anarchists,” I said quietly. “Lots of folks are, but not everybody.”
“What about you, Hayli?” he asked. There was no smile, no humor, no sweet mischief in his face now, just a dangerous coldness that bit my heart. “Would you want to see my head on a revolutionary’s pike?”
“God, no!” I cried, more fiercely than I’d intended.
“At least that’s something,” he said, his eyes dark and pensive as he studied me. Then he smiled and backed a step with something like a little bow. “Well? Come on.”
He jerked his head toward the corridor.
“What’re we doing?”
“Well, we’re stuck. We’re in a top-secret scientific laboratory. And we’re both a bit too curious for own good. So? Let’s go exploring. We’d better at least try to find a way to open that door.”
I tracked close behind him, praying with every step that we wouldn’t run into any other scientists. Toward the end of the hall we reached a double door that led into a wide laboratory, a bit dim and cold. Unnervingly silent. The thick tables were strewn with brassy devices of all different sizes, but all a bit of the same shape. Nobody else was inside, which got me both strangely relieved and oddly terrified at the same time.
“D’you know what those are?” I asked, touching one of the brass tubes.
“Microscopes,” the prince said, casting a scant glance at the device. “They’re for viewing things that are too small for the eyes to see.”
I bent over the thing and pressed my eye against what could only be an eyepiece, but I couldn’t see much besides a blurry mess of lines and blobs. Didn’t seem particularly useful to me. Maybe it was broken. It had some little knobs and wheels stuck to the sides of it, and I thought maybe if I wiggled one of them…
“I wouldn’t touch that,” Tarik said.
I dropped my hand, turning a bit red.
“Though, if you wanted to take the samples from the different microscopes and switch them around, I’m sure I wouldn’t stop you.”
I gawped at him, but he just smiled and kept right on walking. Stars, he was a rogue, that one. A few tables away he stopped and picked up a piece of paper, studying it a few moments until I joined him. He flapped it at me, letting me take it and get a goggle at it, but I couldn’t make horns or heads of it. There were lines and numbers and symbols I’d never even seen scrawled all over it.
“What is this?” I asked. “Dan’ even look like Cavnish to me.”
“It’s scientific notation,” he said, taking it back.
I was just glad he kept staring at the paper, because I’m sure I was blushing, feeling so ignorant. “D’you know what it says?”
“Not a clue,” he said, smiling. “Looks important though. Maybe I’ll keep it.”
He folded it up and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“You just pinched that…that…”
“Borrowed, really.”
“Your Highness?”
“You should call me Tarik,” he said. “All my friends do. Well, some of them do. Or, I suppose a few do. It’s rather annoying, the ones who don’t…” He stopped and glanced at me, and must have realized that he’d gone chunnering on when I had a mind to ask him something, because he kind of cleared his throat and said, “Yes?”
I wanted to smile, but my heart was too sick for it. “I think they’re ganna do something to the mages. I heard them talking…”
“Who, the scientists?”
I nodded. “Dr. Kippler. Your father. I’m sorry, I dan’ want to sound treasonous. But…they dan’ even think we’re human. So they dan’ think it’s a crime to off us when we get in the way.”
He sort of laughed and arched a brow at me. “I doubt that very much. They may not like your kind, but I don’t think they would execute anyone for it. I suppose herding you off to the corners of society is bad enough, but at least you can live in peace.”
“Peace,” I snorted. “And I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. They’ve done it before.”
The smile faded from his face. “When?”
My throat tightened, and for a minute I couldn’t breathe because I was afraid it would turn into a sob. “When I was five.”
“Who…who did they kill?”
“My mum and dad,” I whispered. I closed my eyes. “And it was all my fault.”
I couldn’t breathe, even if I’d wanted to. My whole body shook. I couldn’t see Tarik, couldn’t see the lab. All I could see were their faces…their beautiful faces…
I cleared my throat, trying to drive back the burn of tears. Oh, God, sometimes I missed them so much. Missed that great, drafty old house and the little hunting hounds that Dad pretended to despise. Playing under the apple trees with my friend—I couldn’t even remember his name now—and whispering to him that I had a secret…that I could fly.
I don’t even know how it all ended. I just knew that one day Mum and Dad never came home from a dinner party, and next thing I could remember was Nanny taking me to the court house, standing in the back of the room and watching the men in their red robes and wigs yelling at each other and all the people in the gallery whispering hatred and accusations behind their hands. And my mum, standing in front of all those people, with all those faces around her, somehow seeing me there at the back in Nanny’s arms.
I could still see the movement of her lips, shaping one word, “Run.”
“Hayli,” Tarik said, startling me from my thoughts with the gentleness of his voice. “You were five years old. How could it be your fault?”
I clutched my arms tight against me. Oh stars, I’d never wanted to think about it. How I’d run and run and run, always trying to get away from the memory…
“Because I told the secret,” I gasped. I couldn’t look at him. “It was their secret and I told it. I told the secret!”
He drew a step away from me, finally dragging my gaze to his face. He looked stricken, more than I would have expected.
“Oh, God,” he said. “No.”
“What?” I asked, still hugging myself to keep from shaking.
“I’m so blind,” he said. “And an idiot. I should have known.” He raked his hand through his hair and spun away. “Get out of here, Hayli.”
“But wait!” He hesitated, so I took it as permission to go on. “Can’t you do something to help us? What if they try to kill us all? Who will stop them?”
He stood perfectly still, head up, face cold and calm, a studio portrait. “I can’t help you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I watched him stride away, wondering where he’d go, wondering where I’d gone wrong. What had I said? How had I driven him away?
At the entrance to the lab he stopped and glanced back at me, saying, “I’ll get that door open, so you’d better be ready to fly away, little bird.”
A minute later I heard him say, “Lift this lock-down immediately.”
I raced to the door of the laboratory and found him talking to some grey panel on the wall, which made me think he was rather blithering crazy, until the panel spoke back and said,
“Who is this?”
He caught my eye and winked, then held down a button and said, “This is Dr. Kippler. If these doors malfunction one more time…”
I gulped down a laugh.
“Yes sir. Immediately, sir,” the voice in the box said.
Tarik stepped away from the panel and headed toward the steel door, me close behind on his heels. By the time we reached the door, it was sliding open all on its own.
“That door just opened by itself!” I cried. “It's like…magic.”
He looked down at me through his tousle of dark hair, smiling rather sadly. “It's Dr. Alokin's radio transmitter controlling it, I think. Not magic. Just science.”
“Please…Tarik,” I said, because I knew he was about to leave and I'd lose my only chance. “You've got to be able to do something. We've got nobody. Nobody's ganna take care of us.”
He withdrew a few
steps, then hesitated, holding out his hands. “Look at me,” he said, his voice strained, lost. “What do you think I could do? I'm not a hero. I'm not your hero.”
And he was gone.
PART IV: FRACTURE
Chapter 1 — Tarik
I met Kor out in the palace gardens under the dark of the evening, feeling strange to be talking to him as the Crown Prince, not as Shade. He even offered me a formal bow when he joined me, which made me feel strangely uncomfortable. Especially given the sort of conversation I meant to have with him.
“Your Highness,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I measured him in silence a moment, folding my hands behind my back. “Ever heard of a fellow named Branigan?”
He smirked. “The gossip-girl of the south-streets? Of course I know him.”
“He knows you too. Called you Dreyden.”
Kor’s face blanched. “Branigan?” he asked. “You met with Branigan? Hell, kid, and you’re still alive?”
“You sound more worried about that than the fact he was asking about you,” I remarked, turning my head aside.
“Yes, he knows about me. Of course he does.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Where do you think he gets some of his so-called facts?”
I stared at him, horrified. Horrified by his honesty more than anything.
“You know how it is. You have to give some to get some,” he said. “Half of what I feed him is false anyway, just close enough to the truth to be believable.”
“You’re the grobbing mole,” I said, stunned. “How could you do that? You worked for us. You were on our side.”
“We’re spies, Tarik,” he said. His voice sounded strangely heavy. “Once that’s in your blood, that’s all you live for. You live for the game. Be one step ahead. Dodge one more discovery. Pull the blindness over one more friend, and get away with it. There is no loyalty. There is no friendship. There is only the game.” He shook his head. “It’s what they make us. It’s what they make us do. They teach us to run wild and then expect us to stay on a leash of our own making.”
“You make the mistake of believing everyone like us is also like you,” I said, vicious.
“You are,” Kor said. “I don’t expect you to understand just yet, but we’re the same. Loyalty can be bought, bartered, traded for. Call no man friend whose hands you can’t see, isn’t that what Trabin always says? Everyone has a price. You just don’t know yours yet.” He sighed. “But you will.”
“I trusted you,” I said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t tell Trabin the truth about you? It’s what he wanted to know, after all.”
He tilted his head back. “Go on then. Rat me out too. I’ve never betrayed you. But I don’t think you’ll do it, because you know there’s something wrong here, and you want to learn the truth. And if you turn me in, you’ll leave the streets forever and you’ll never get the answers you want.”
I backed a step away from him, too numb to know what I thought.
“You know you would have done the same,” Kor said. “Maybe you already have. Or are you sinless in this regard?” He turned away. “Just stay away from that man, whatever you do, hear me? Stay away from him. I don’t want to go to your funeral.”
* * * *
Zagger watched me suspiciously as I took a seat from him across my study fire, burying myself in my little-used leather armchair with my feet propped on the footstool. He cleared his throat and stared at the fire, then at me, then back at the fire.
“You’re getting old,” he commented after a while.
I smiled. “You should talk. Why?”
“When have you ever just stayed in for an evening? You can’t have sat there more than three times in the last five years.”
“Well? I am tonight.” I stretched my toes toward the heat and closed my eyes, trying to drive away the knot of confusion in my mind left by Kor’s confession. “Never appreciated it before, I suppose.”
“Oh, I imagine you appreciated it. Just never had the patience to sit still and enjoy it.”
“You have a point,” I said, yawning.
“So, I take it you didn’t find what you were looking for in the Science Ministry,” Zagger said. “Which—what exactly were you looking for?”
“Information,” I said. “And no. I didn’t find it.” I cracked open an eye and studied him curiously. “D’you know Dr. Alokin, Zagger?”
He snorted and leaned his head back. “He’s my uncle.”
I frowned, because suddenly I realized that I didn’t know a thing about Zagger. He’d been there in my shadow my entire life, and never once had I wondered about his family, or where he’d come from, or even if he was happy being my bodyguard. My cheeks warmed with embarrassment and shame.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked, and felt stupid, because he knew that I knew I should have asked.
He shrugged. “We’re not terribly close.”
“But?”
He frowned across at me. “He’s all the family I’ve got.” That made him pause, then he smiled and added, “Well, all the blood family I’ve got.”
I grinned. “Does that mean you’re from Meritac?” I gestured at my own hair. “I mean, you don’t exactly look anything like Alokin.”
“Well, my mother was from Cromis. Alokin was my father’s brother.”
“Oh.” I watched him for a moment, catching the strange light in his eyes, like sorrow or something broken. I hesitated to ask him something so personal, especially when I never had before, but I couldn’t help myself. “How did you two end up in Cavnal? What happened to your parents?”
He leaned back, staring at the fire, but nothing about him seemed relaxed. “We were political refugees,” he said, voice low. “My parents were executed by the state.”
“Good God, what for?” I asked.
Zagger flashed me a rueful smile. “My father married a foreigner. A Cromner, for that matter. It was reason enough for the officials, anyway. There are laws against it in Meritac. They had me targeted next—I don’t remember any of it, I was barely a year old—but my uncle took me and fled the country. He could have gone anywhere, with his skills, and being fresh out of the finest scientific university in the world. A lot of countries offered asylum. He brought me here because your grandfather offered to raise me to be a royal bodyguard, in exchange for Alokin’s scientific work. A lot of the Guard are orphans, did you know? I suppose it makes sense. No family to threaten means a guard is less likely to be blackmailed.”
I couldn’t get past his first sentence. “They killed your parents…because of their marriage?”
I knew that Cromis and Meritac had been hostile neighbors for centuries, but…I never imagined the cost of that enmity for their peoples. To murder people for marrying—it was barbaric.
“There are punishments just as severe for less serious crimes in other countries.”
“But Meritac…they’re our allies.”
Zagger snorted. “What’s your point?”
“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem just. How can we support them if they treat their people that way? How can we call them our friends?”
“Maybe they have a taste for our fine aluminium products.”
That didn’t satisfy me, though I knew Zagger was probably right. For all I’d studied and read and watched, the game of politics was still a mystery to me.
“It’s a curious question,” Zagger added. “Do you think it’s our place to tell other nations what to do or how to live? Even if what they are doing is unjust? Or, even if we do things just as terrible to our own people?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I thought of Hayli, and her parents’ terrible fate—how the word of a five-year-old had been enough to sentence two nobles to death. I said, bitterly, “I know we’ve executed people for mixing magic and titles of nobility before.”
“Yes,” Zagger said, watching me closely. “And just think of how closely you’ve had to guard your secret. Think of the laws that deny basic protec
tions to people like you. I’d say we’ve got a lot on our own conscience.”
“Should we fix our own bad laws before trying to fix anyone else’s?”
Zagger shrugged. “Alokin thinks we ought to fight injustice wherever we find it. I’m not sure. Honestly, I’m not. There’s a reason I wear this uniform instead of that one,” he said, and pointed to the portrait hanging over my fireplace, of my grandfather resplendent in his coronation robes. “But Alokin’s a dreamer anyway. Head in the clouds.”
I thought of that fabulous lightning machine, all blazing in purple and blue at the back of the lab, and hoped with a kind of mad fervor that they’d saved it from the fire.
“The man’s a genius,” I said.
Zagger snorted. “He’s a quirk. But he’s got brains.”
“You don’t happen to know anything about what’s going on in the Garmon Labs, do you? Alokin said something a bit strange, like he slipped and mentioned some kind of project they’re working on. I…I tried to get in but I didn’t find anything that I could make sense of.”
I thought of the paper still folded in my suit pocket, but didn’t have the energy to fish it out. Just remembering the Garmon Labs made me think of how I’d stumbled on Hayli there, and how hard it had been to pretend…to pretend to be me.
“You snuck into the Garmon Labs?” he asked, wide-eyed.
“I didn’t exactly sneak,” I said. “At least, not until I got inside. Anyway, it’s not important. Do you know anything? Has Alokin said anything to you?”
“Those idiots don’t know what they’re messing with,” Zagger growled. I arched a brow, prompting him to continue. He fiddled with his uniform cuffs and said, “I don’t know any specifics, but Pont’s nephew used to oversee the palace waste management, and he showed up sick as a dog one night down in the servant’s hall. He couldn’t say what he’d seen in their dustbin, but it was enough to make him retchy.”
“Can you find him?” I asked. “I’d like to talk to him.”
Zagger shook his head. “Afraid not. He ate his pistol about two weeks ago.”
I flinched. “Stars. Is Pont taking it all right?”
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 50
