by Tessa Elwood
I step forward and the words are out before my brain catches up. “Make you a deal.”
He doesn’t turn. “Shoot.”
“I don’t want . . .” But the words sound stupid in my head and they’ll be worse on my tongue, and I can’t not say them because I’ve already started and why did I come out here at all?
“Me to touch you? Got it,” he says a half second before I get out, “Us to hate each other.”
Shadows shift and I feel it. The full weight of his attention.
“No, I mean Emmie said it wasn’t—that the agreement said we could wait until, that it wasn’t expected yet.”
A lower, less icy, “What?”
My face burns. “Not that we won’t know each other at some point, but we don’t now, if you don’t mind, if we could just wait—”
“No.”
Oh.
I hug Emmie’s cloak, soak in what’s left of her scent. Gingernut and confidence. She’s good with boys. I’ve gone out some, mostly with Jordi before the Blight, but it didn’t last that long or go that far but the kissing was nice. Not scary.
Not like this.
Eagle swears half under his breath, then says, “Yes.”
“What?”
“Earlier.” Slow and careful. “Before. What don’t you want?”
I tug my sleeves over my fingertips, twist the ends. Emmie’s coat, Emmie’s place. She’d know what to say.
She wouldn’t have said anything to begin with.
“Us to hate each other forever.” I raise my head. “That’s a really long time.”
The night soaks up his expression and I slide a step back. “Never mind, I’ll just—”
“Deal,” he says.
I freeze. “What?”
He pushes off the rail and walks straight toward me. I lock my legs so they don’t back up. But he doesn’t try to tower, or even slow down as he passes by.
“You should get ready. They’ll want us in an hour.”
REPRISAL
“YOU ARE DESPERATELY IN LOVE,” SAYS LADY Westlet, her hair a wide cape brushing her sleek shoulders. She radiates blue and silver, a skirt billowing over long legs that float across the floor. She could be Emmie’s age or mine, crisp and sparkling in the pink sunrise through the curtainless windows.
The summons came in an hour exactly. Eagle is clairvoyant.
Dad stands near the end table, wide-legged and with one hand behind his back. Lord Westlet leans against a yellow cabinet and examines his nails. Neither speaks as the Lady points a long graceful finger at the son who could be her mirror image, despite the scars. Eagle’s fresh suit matches her perfect dress and the meticulous room with its symmetrical bamboo rugs. Eagle leans into the couch’s white cushions while I sit on its very edge, smoothing my wrinkled skirt.
I had nothing to change into.
“You’ve been corresponding secretly for months.” Lady Westlet swishes past, sketching the outlines of our past in the air. “Terrified of the consequences. Breaking your father’s lockdown. Consorting with the daughter of the enemy.”
They consider Fane an enemy?
She bends over us with wide red lips. Eagle isn’t human; he doesn’t retreat.
“Love letters.” Mint and petals. “Last year, while Eagle rebuilt his strength in the medicenter, you two wrote almost constantly.”
“Wrote?” I ask. “I wouldn’t have wrote.”
Her lips thin as Eagle straightens, and spiders dance under my skin.
“I’d have been there, at the medicenter. You can’t just write. What if the medics kept him drugged or messed up his meds or—”
“Enough.” Lady Westlet taps my nose. Steps back until the window washes sunlight through her hair. “Then came the perfect chance. You,” she says, waving at me, “drugged your sister and stole her marriage robes, while you,” she continues while smiling at Eagle, “waited happily for your bride. No inherent betrayal or treachery, only two children in love.”
“And you think they’ll buy it?” Dad asks with careful neutrality.
From his corner, Lord Westlet flicks invisible dust from his sleeve. “Let us hope so, Fane, for your sake.”
“People will always ‘buy’ love,” says the Lady. “Especially of the forbidden variety. The feeds do love a good scandal. Besides, why else would our dear Fane jeopardize an alliance he claims so desperately to need?”
“But he didn’t,” I say. “It was—”
“You?” Lord Westlet pushes off the cabinet and crosses to the ornate mirror on the far wall. Adjusts his collar. His face is reflected large against the backdrop of us. “The Heir was an asset. You are not. Therefore, we must convince the Electorate that you are.”
“The Elec—?”
His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “Fane stands with us in all things. You are our proof. You will do what we tell you, when we tell you, and love whom we say. You will show yourself faithful and keep the Electorate happy, otherwise all food shipments are forfeit. Is that clear?”
They all turn to me. Lady Westlet’s arched brows. Eagle’s scarred rivers of expressionless ice. Dad’s disowning eyes and mouthed yes.
My yes, is as silent as his. I swallow and repeat, “Yes.”
“No, my lady.” Lord Westlet moves from the mantel. He places a cool finger under my chin and lifts my face. “Your father has no power here. This bargain is between you and me.”
My fault, my amends.
“I am faithful. I will be.”
He brushes a stray tear away with a smooth, wide thumb. “None of that,” he says. “I am not heartless. Your father won’t leave empty-handed. Let’s see, shall we say a third of the first promised shipment?”
“Westlet,” Dad drags out the name, clips it off. A war between restraint and desperation. “I cannot supplement even base supplies with that.”
The Lord’s eyes never leave mine. “You can for a few months, after which you’ll receive the second third—should our new dear daughter prove faithful.” He traces my cheek with gentle fingers. “And you will prove faithful, dear, will you not?”
I straighten. “You have my word.”
Lord Westlet’s smile drifts between crystal and silk. “And rest assured, I’ll hold you to it.”
“YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT URNATH.” EMMIE DOUSES MY head in gel. I sit on my hands on the bed that’s now mine, while she stands by my knees and feathers my hair. I need to be pretty for the press conference and Emmie volunteered. “Or Decontamination. Or how bad fuel rations were, or how our uleum ran out, or ecoflux, or the food shortage or—”
“They want to know how much I love Eagle,” I say, “not what a ration token looks like.”
She pulls back. “Not just the reporters, anyone outside the Westlets. Galton can’t know.”
“She wouldn’t. How could she? Lady Galton isn’t here.”
Emmie yanks at the strands behind my ear and I squeak. “Because there’s no lockdown here! Everything you say could get back to her. Did you even read the blood bond agreement before you hijacked it? Lockdown doesn’t end until our House is stable enough to fend Galton off. Dad says not all the Electorate are loyal to Westlet. If you run your mouth, Galton will hear.”
I twist away so she doesn’t uproot my whole head. “What do you mean, the Elect—?”
“All it takes is one, Asa. One person, one word, one leak, and our lockdown is busted. Galton will know exactly how easy we’d be to invade. Then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you not only starved us out but had our planets gutted, too.”
I am holes with no structure, and still the weight presses in. Her eyes widen like she doesn’t know where her anger came from or how to take it back.
Taking it back won’t make it any less true.
Without the promised shipments, Dad will instate full rationing like Wren had to. Which will be okay for a while, until it isn’t.
I’ve put my whole House in quarantine, with no Decontamination to get us out. Wren would kill me
.
Better me than her.
Emmie rubs her forehead and sighs. “Look, Dad’s staying off your back. But you have to promise me that you will not get chatty with people. No stories. No random conversations. No nonrandom conversations. In fact, just don’t talk.”
“If you’re done,” says a voice that isn’t Emmie’s. “We’re needed.”
We both jump and Emmie spins. Eagle fills the doorway.
“Don’t you knock?” Emmie asks.
“It was open.” He deliberately steps into the room and opens the door wider. Gives her room to pass.
Emmie straightens. Eagle either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
“Don’t.” I reach out, brush her arm, and her glare transfers to me. I brace for the volley. The next truth.
“Fine.” She shakes me off and walks to the door, passing Eagle like he doesn’t exist.
“Emmie—”
“I’ll check on Wren.” She disappears, and the don’t forget dies on my tongue.
Eagle waits until the elevator pings. “You ready?”
I nod.
He steps into the room and the light from the window catches his face. Makeup, cream, foundation.
Wren’s specialist tried that once, at the medicenter. Brought a wig to hide her skull.
“No.” I’m on my feet, head shaking. “No, they can’t, no.”
I cross the room and this time Eagle backs up. “What?”
“This.” I wave at his face, slathered as mine feels. “Makeup? You should have said no.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yes, but I’m faithful.”
“You think you’re the only one?”
I try to make the words fit in my head. “But you’re the Heir. You don’t have to be anything.”
He only moves to the door. “They’re waiting.”
“It won’t take long.” I grab his sleeve and tug him toward my spot on the bed. Push him down. “Stay.” Then I run into the small bathroom off my bedroom and dig around in the cabinets. All the brands are odd, but cream remover looks the same everywhere and there are washcloths in the drawers.
“What are you doing?” Eagle calls.
“Fixing it.” I come back in, arms full.
“No,” says Eagle.
“Yes.” I cross the room and dump the lot beside him on the bed.
He is on his feet, a whole world taller than me. “No.”
“Yes. You survived! You get to eat breakfast with your family every day and dinner with them every night. When people look at you, they should see courage—literally—in your skin, and face the idea that you didn’t give up when they probably would have. You’re awake and standing and if they don’t realize how amazing that is, then you can just blame me.”
His eyes are huge and mine wet and all that mascara Emmie spent so much time putting on is probably dripping everywhere. But everything’s wrong enough already. This won’t be, too. I cross my arms and lift my chin.
And Eagle sits down. Just like that.
I’M NOT PRETTY ENOUGH FOR LADY WESTLET. SHE looks us up and down and tells Eagle, “I could have sworn they said you were ready.”
“They did,” says Eagle.
“And this is ready?” she asks.
I open my mouth, but Eagle says, “Yes.”
He crosses the airy room to the wide paneled window and gently parts the curtains. I don’t know where we are exactly, but silver arches crisscross the high ceiling and elegant bluegrain chairs circle the inlaid tile floor. It’s the kind of room to impress guests, with windows that likely open to the main veranda. Where the newsfeed reporters are.
“This is nowhere near ready.” Lady Westlet rubs long fingers over my gelled head, flicks the tufted strands behind my ear. “Is this the latest fashion? In Fane?”
Actually, it is in places. Some people who weren’t Decontaminated shaved their head in protest. Or maybe solidarity. Except their hair always grows back thick and full. Ours doesn’t.
Which the Lady must already know, because Dad had to have told them about the Blight.
“Pity.” The Lady sighs and lets go. “Your sister has such an excellent sense of style. Never mind. We’ll just have to . . .” She grasps my shoulders and spins me around, grinning like a kid. “Oh, I am brilliant.”
She skips away, if elegance is capable of skipping, and retrieves something from a glass bubble case along the far wall. “Turn around.”
I do. So does Eagle, watching from the window. The Lady wraps a scarf around my head, then pins something to it by my right ear. A metal flower or light medallion. “Tight enough?”
I shake my head, test the hold. Nothing moves. “I think so.”
“Excellent.” She pulls me across the tile to deposit me in front of Eagle. “Voilà! What do you think?”
Nothing, or everything. His tight face says both.
“Never mind.” Lady Westlet fluffs the ends of the scarf. “Your father-in-law will love it.”
LADY WESTLET SELLS US. SHE STANDS ON THE VERANDA between the potted bellflowers, dress swishing orange and silver. Eagle and I sit to the left of her empty seat while Lord Westlet and Dad sit to the right. The press crowds the wide steps and soak her in with the kind of adoration Dad commanded before the Blight.
Do you want me on my knees? Because I will beg.
No. Not now, not ever. We are our House, and our House stands. Lord Westlet says he isn’t heartless—and I’ll hold him to that.
The Lady weaves history in bowstrings. I am love made flesh and bone. Eagle the Special Guard hero who sacrificed life and limb during a disaster relief mission. We met by chance on a border station between our Houses, and began a friendly correspondence that bloomed into beauty. Apparently Dad’s newsfeed lockdown didn’t extend to high-level military communication satellites, and since Eagle’s the Heir and I’m a Daughter we were able to hack channels and sneak messages. We wrote constantly while he recovered. I’m what brought him back to life.
If starlight has a voice, it is Lady Westlet’s.
Eagle shifts beside me. “Reggie’s the hacker, Mother.”
“Reggie?” I ask.
He focuses on the crowd, hands on knees.
I inch closer. “Is he the Electorate?”
“Really?” he asks. Disgust and disbelief.
Because obviously I should know already. Should have looked it up on the digislate Emmie only brought me this morning that can’t connect to a network. Allotted research time somewhere between getting married and breaking the universe.
“Is Reggie here?”
No acknowledgment.
“You may not have to make him happy, but if he’s Electorate then I do. Which one is he?”
“They. Reggie isn’t Electorate, not yet, and he’s not here.”
“Children, there are cameras,” says a melodic Lord Westlet from across the empty chair. “I suggest you smile.”
Faithful, I am faithful.
I focus on the simmering Lady Westlet. Ignore the almost tangible drill of Dad’s irritation.
“And now you’re glaring,” Lord Westlet says in singsong. I’m smiling, but I smile wider until my face near breaks. Then the Lord adds, “Let’s try taking her hand, shall we?”
Eagle. He means Eagle.
I shift my left hand closer to his right, palm up. He doesn’t move. Face forward, jaw set, biotech fingers impaling his knees. I’d pry them up, but the cameras would notice.
“Eagle,” says his father in the exact tone as Dad’s glare.
“I’m not contaminated anymore,” I say. “I did the full round like everyone else. You can ask Dad.”
“What?” Eagle asks.
“If you wouldn’t mind sparing us a second?” asks the Lady, who has turned from the crowd to face us. “Your public wants to meet you.”
Eagle stands in one swift motion, crosses in front of me and holds his left hand out. The real one.
Maybe he’s wasn’t worried about contamination.
I reach out, but Lady Westlet adds in an undertone, “Both, dearest.”
Eagle stiffens. Wants to kill something.
I hold out both hands and he latches on. The Lady grins and slides close, lips brushing my cheekbone as she deftly detaches Eagle’s good grip and pushes me into his right side.
“Like this.” She pushes us into the spotlight.
The press doesn’t grill us. No one asks, And how did you hack a super secret, high-level military satellite exactly?, or, So did you ever visit him in the medicenter? Even once? Instead they smile and I smile and Eagle sort-of-glares, and it’s easy to fall into a rhythm of offering answers everyone thinks they already know.
“That is quite the gift,” says a sturdy man near the front, his felt hat tipped askew over red hair. “How’d he earn it?”
“Gift?” I ask.
“The silver honor medal on your scarf, or do you wear it so often you forget?”
I reach for the pin. The clip is a medallion—molded wings and etched leaves like the valor medals at home. Rarely given and only for the hardest things that cost the most.
And Lady Westlet stuck it on my head as if it was some throwaway ribbon.
I grab its smooth edges, ready to yank. Except waxy fingers cover mine.
“Don’t,” breathes Eagle in my ear.
I turn and my nose brushes his. He’s bent down that far, leaned that close.
“But it’s in my hair.”
“We’re making them happy, remember?” There’s something in his face, curling raw through his eyes, and I don’t know if it’s for me or the medal. “Leave it.”
I let go.
“You didn’t know?” the man asks. I jump. Everyone is full of knowing smiles, like we’re the embodiment of kinetic hope.
Me and Eagle.
EMMIE IS RIGHT. DAD STAYS OFF MY BACK. HE LEAVES without saying goodbye.
“Get anything of value?” Lady Westlet asks her flipcom, curls agitated by her long, pacing steps. She’s circled the office eight times, past the framed glowering landscapes and the orange-silver tapestries hanging overhead.
Lord Westlet leans against the heavy desk, ankles crossed, shoes shiny black ravens on the pale carpet. “If he did, it’d be a miracle.”
