by Tessa Elwood
The Lady glares, but he doesn’t notice. He hasn’t looked at anything but me since the Lady herded us into his office.
I sit on the very edge of the wood chair. Hands on my lap, shoulders back, toes curled tight.
Eagle’s somewhere, behind me, maybe, or by the door.
The Lady cocks her head, then returns to the desk—leaning behind Lord Westlet to grab a small black remote. “Yes, I’m loading it now.”
She points at one of the landscapes, and its moody purple mountains dissolve into a digital wall-screen. She scrolls through menus and folders and loads the one she wants.
The picture fills the frame.
A boy in profile, scars hidden from view, leans close to a girl who stares up like he’s the only soul in the world. He’s touching her hand, the light is warming her skin, and any moment now he’ll kiss her—or maybe he just did.
They look so happy.
I feel sick.
Dawn breaks over Lady Westlet’s face. “Everywhere. I want this everywhere. What price did we agree on? Never mind, double it. And clear your schedule—I do not care what it takes, this is your pet project from now on. Understood? Excellent. I’ll send their itinerary.”
She drops the flipcom on the desk and mirrors her husband’s stance. “Your miracle, my lord.”
Prickles skitter down my neck, build cities under my skin.
I am desperate to spring, to lunge for the remote and erase any and all trace of that shiny girl with my face who’s happy and loved and hasn’t broken anything.
Eagle watches the Lady. “Itinerary?”
“Detailed.” Lady Westlet winks, then pushes off the desk. “But nothing too drastic. A few trips to the port, an event in the city—something low-key, a club maybe—and, of course, she’ll join you on your walks. All of them, morning and evening. One of your many, mutual enjoyments.”
“And you will hold hands,” Lord Westlet adds to his son. “The entire time. In fact, anytime you are outside these walls. As far as the orderlies are concerned, you eat, sleep, and breathe together.”
“Should we also make passionate love in the woods?” asks Eagle with no emotion at all. I sink deep in my chair.
The Lord smiles. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
Eagle might be joking. His father isn’t.
Lady Westlet sighs. “And have half-naked pictures of our future Lady popping up on the feeds? Really, dear, show some foresight.”
“The Heir was our foresight. Our one justification to make this alliance tenable. And now?” Lord Westlet flicks a hand at me. “This.”
I grip the edge of my seat. Force my eyes up to meet theirs.
Except Lady Westlet picks at her sleeve while Eagle maps the carpet.
“Eagle,” says the Lady. “I think now would be an excellent time for a walk.”
EAGLE’S FINGERS BARELY GRASP MINE. HE CUTS A straight line through the House complex, ignoring the interconnecting stone pathways that tangle without leading anywhere. There’s no grid, no order to the lazy spirals and flowerbeds. The cluster of curved, half-moon towers are planted like haphazard trees. Sugary florals tangle with acrid needle bushes until my nose is dizzy from the mishmash. I’m lost in ten minutes, but Eagle never breaks pace. Another ten minutes and we reach the smallest tower on the very edge, set apart from the others. Nondescript. Without soul.
Eagle opens the door.
“Did you live here? Before I came?” I ask.
“No.”
I didn’t think so.
He lets me go as soon as we’re inside. Once the elevator pings open, he’s out of the lift and across the room.
“Eagle?”
He stops, hand on his door.
“Who are the Electorate?”
He glances at the Lady’s scarf. “Didn’t your father explain it?”
“Probably. To Emmie.” I pull off the scarf, unpin the shiny medal with its silver leaves. Step forward and hold it out. “I told you. He didn’t know.”
He shakes his head and enters his room.
My hand tightens on the medal, but I don’t throw it through the window or even at the couch—which is close and safe and wouldn’t hurt it. Much.
Instead, I wrap the medal in the scarf and lay it on an end table.
Eagle’s door reopens and he holds out a wide blue digislate—much nicer then the tiny gray one Emmie had. Heavier, too, screen glowing with images and text.
“The Electorate,” he says and closes the door.
“IF IT WASN’T A TRICK, THEN WHY HASN’T FANE ENDED HIS blackout?” asks the elegant brunette, smooth voice over-high from the digislate’s speakers. It’s “Dravers” of Finch and Dravers—a commentary news program that most of the other network feeds refer back to, and seems to be everyone’s favorite.
Finch raises bushy eyebrows—disheveled wrinkles to her polished charm. “You mean in the three days since their union?”
Two days. And a half, counting this morning.
The living room couch smells like it was unwrapped last week, but it’s still much more comfortable than the desk chair in my room. And this way Eagle can see me and the slate and knows I’m not stealing it. It is right here and he can have it back whenever he wants.
He just has to ask first.
“For thirteen years we’ve had no trade, no contact—and now he has our Heir, while his youngest daughter will be our future Lady.” Dravers shakes her head. “How is that acceptable?”
“He offered his Heir,” Finch says mildly. “And even the youngest Fane has only the Heir and Lord to contend with. As opposed to, say, a conclave?”
The Electorate.
At home, Dad is power, but here power is spread about. Governance is a collaborative effort between several families. Lord and Lady Westlet don’t seem to rule as much as mediate—though they have power enough to seal a blood bond in secret, and it must have been secret because everyone was blindsided. Or pretending to be.
“Electorate” isn’t an official title or office. It’s about money. Who controls what industry, who married who when. If Miss Manufacturing Mogul is still talking to the Lord of Textiles, or if this up-and-coming financial mastermind is really the illegitimate son of that agricultural power. Who could devastate which particular aspect of the economy, and by how much. Most can’t decide whether or not they like each other, let alone Lord and Lady Westlet. The only person they all seem to get on with is Eagle’s younger brother, Regamund. Or Reggie-the-hacker-who-isn’t-Electorate.
The elevator pings and Lady Westlet materializes.
“Surely you can’t begrudge our future Lord the love of his life?” pips Finch, and I reach for the sound buttons on the digislate’s side.
“When it means placing personal gratification over our future prosperity? Yes, I—”
I switch the slate off and dump it on the cushions. Drop my feet to the floor, my hands to my lap, and sit up straight. “Good morning, my Lady.”
Nothing about her grim mouth says good morning back. She scans the room, then yells “Ea-gle,” high enough my ears fizz.
I sink deeper into the couch.
“No, you don’t, my girl.” The Lady snaps her fingers, points, lifts. “Up.”
I scramble to my feet as Eagle’s door opens. He’s got his scary look on—nondescript black clothes that fade into his skin and make the scars scream murder. “Yes?”
The Lady tips her head. “Ah, so you are here. Wasting away indoors when it’s such a beautiful day. Perfect walking weather, don’t you think? Especially when I am paying no small fee to have Jeffers and his camera wandering the grounds.”
They could be talking about the weather. The kind with hail and sleet.
“It’s on the itinerary,” prompts Lady Westlet.
Eagle blinks from me to the digislate to his mom and doesn’t say a word.
Oh.
“Verbal communication, darling,” says the Lady. “I hear it’s all the rage.”
“I stole his digislate,” I s
ay.
The Lady leans back on her heels, and suddenly I’m the center of the world.
“I don’t have one anymore?” My voice slides up an octave, and I try to pull it back. “So I stole his.”
Eagle closes his eyes.
The Lady floats closer, glitter and sunshine. “Then I suggest you either keep up with his missives or give it back.” She circles behind to press me toward Eagle. “Walk.”
FAMILY
“M’LORD!” MARKEN, THE HOUSE GARDENER, runs up between the knotty vines and tangled trees, his frame twice mine and Eagle’s together. “M’lady!”
I stop and so does Eagle, our loosely knit fingers stretching in the peppered sunlight. Our hands are back to back, the last two fingers woven. Touching as little as possible without seeming to, which makes the Lady happy.
Marken stops, a little winded but not much. “My Lord is looking for you both.”
I wince. Eagle doesn’t, but then his hood swallows everything so it’s impossible to tell.
“We should have walked through the stickybells instead,” I say. “I knew she’d find out.”
Marken’s lips twitch as he nods at a fuzzy green patch on the nearest tree trunk. “You mean that you sussed out the Lurker’s allergy to the moss? I think My Lady already knows.”
The Lurker being Lady Westlet’s miracle photographer, who has lived in our shadow the past week because he has his very own itinerary, which exactly matches ours.
“Actually,” Marken continues, shamefaced, “everybody knows. You have been walking this particular path morning, noon, and night.”
“Only night and morning,” I point out. “Noons are for fittings.”
My clothes aren’t pretty enough or stylish enough, and all much too Fane. Not to mention my hair. The Lady hates my hair.
Marken tips his head, bangs half in his eyes, smile hovering out of sight. “I’ll tell my Lord you’re on your way?”
“Yes,” says Eagle. “Thank you.”
Marken nods and rumbles back up the path and we’re alone.
“Maybe he has other allergies,” I say.
“Unlikely.” Eagle sighs.
EAGLE OPENS THE DOOR TO THE LIBRARY AND THE light fractures. Stained-glass windows soar up and around the wide circular room, each peopled and landscaped in colors I can’t even name.
“Impressive, aren’t they?” says a lazy, liquid voice.
I focus past the color.
Lord Westlet sits amid a cluster of armchairs, under a window with an eagle cresting a full moon.
The real Eagle stands near the center of the room. “You sent for us?”
Lord Westlet waves his glass at the nearby chairs. The wine barely rocks. “Please, sit.”
Eagle does. I don’t.
Lord Westlet curls two beckoning fingers. “Come now, child. I won’t bite.”
He pats the armrest of the chair closest to his. I step slowly forward and sit.
“Better,” says Lord Westlet. “Now, how would you like to fly home for the day? Visit the sister you gave up so much for?”
“Wren?” I scoot to the edge of the chair despite the sarcastic undertone.
Routines are important for coma patients, and I haven’t seen Wren in over a week. Of course I told her goodbye so she knows why I’m gone, but—
But.
The Lord leans back in his seat and crosses his legs. “Of course, Eagle will go with you. And it won’t be an extended family visit—the Lady wants you back tomorrow bright and early for your morning stroll—but there should be time enough to see your sister.”
“My grandparents are dead,” I say.
He blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“They only had Dad, and we don’t speak to my mother. Dad and Emmie are my extended family.”
His expression freezes, and relaxes twice as fast. “Then there will be no need to trouble either of them.”
“You don’t want Fane to know,” says Eagle.
“You mean you wish to become better acquainted with your father-in-law?” Lord Westlet shakes his head. “Besides, I assumed you would rather see your sister.”
More than anything.
“I won’t do anything to her.” I clutch the seat, look back and forth between them. “Whatever you’re planning. I don’t care.”
He sighs. “Child, I have no designs on your sister.”
“Then what are they on?” asks Eagle.
The Lord cuts him a Look. “That is not helpful.”
Eagle doesn’t answer and doesn’t back down.
“Don’t you want to see your beloved’s homeworld?” Lord Westlet’s glass thuds to the table. “Really, Eagle, this is—” He catches my eye, shakes his head. “Something your mother will handle. You will fly to Fane and be back by tomorrow, and that is the end of it.”
“Why?” Me. My voice, my question.
“He is my son,” says Lord Westlet, “but you are not my daughter. Do not think this extends to you.”
“Why?” Eagle repeats.
Lord Westlet’s expression evaporates into nothing. He slowly refocuses on Eagle and leans even farther back.
The walls press close and heavy, and there’s absolutely no doubt where Eagle gets his stare.
“I want you to locate Mekenna’s husband,” says Lord Westlet.
Pictures and articles shuffle through my head. I read about a Mekenna. It’s not easy to tell who’s Electorate and who isn’t, but if it’s Mekenna Solis, then she definitely is. She controls the greater half of Westlet’s biotech manufacturing. She’s also one of the few who seems to back the House family.
“Wouldn’t that break the treaty?” Eagle shoots back.
His father nods toward me. “More than she has already?”
“I’m right here,” I say.
He sighs. “We know that, dear. We live with it every day.”
I straighten. “I do everything you ask.”
“And you will do this.” Lord Westlet’s fluidity returns as he reaches for his glass. “Several of our people were trapped in Fane when your father initiated his lockdown. Orrin was there to visit your rainbow waterfalls, which I do hope were stunning since they cost him thirteen years. I want to know if he lives, how he lives, and how difficult it would be to retrieve him should it become necessary.”
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.
The Lord watches over his bubbly wine, but the only voice in my head is Emmie’s.
“But he could tell everyone about the Blight and the shortages,” I say. “Galton would know.”
“I guarantee that will not happen.”
“Like you guaranteed our food?”
The Lord raises an eyebrow. I can’t hold his stare like Eagle can, but every time I look away I look back.
“Do this,” Lord Westlet says at last, “and at the end of the month when Fane sends the energy schematics, you’ll have the rest of the initial shipment. Otherwise, your House will not see a single crate.”
EAGLE’S FLIGHTWING ISN’T AS BIG OR SLEEK AS Wren’s, but it moves faster. Or Eagle moves faster in it. We’re off-planet in half an hour. Lord Westlet had contacted the border station before we even reached the library, and allotted Eagle enough fuel to get us home and back. We can’t refill on Malsa, I don’t have the energy tokens. Ecoflux isn’t rationed, and it won’t work in uleum engines.
Above the console gauges, stars fill the black beyond the viewshield. An embedded yellow screen follows our tiny blinking dot amid an expanse of stationary ones—less now than earlier. Westlet is double our size and defines most of our border, except for the far east sector where Galton space curves past Westlet to touch us.
Canaline, our last fuel-mineable planet, was in the east sector. We lost both it and the sector when Mom surrounded the planet with Galton war-carriers. Dad had to pull back our borders.
Void fills the wing inside and out. Eagle hasn’t
said anything since we took off.
But then, neither have I.
He taps the console screen and the map disappears in favor of the countdown sequence that will jump us into the Spacial Acceleration Zone. I hate SPAZing. Wren says it’s impossible to feel the dimensional shift as we pop in and out of mind-melting speeds, because it only lasts a second.
A second where the universe hyperventilates at speeds that shouldn’t exist.
The numbers on the console slip from three to two to one. The viewshield flashes white for a heartbeat, and then the stars change. Turn brighter, bluer, the frostlark belt a starry, weaving backdrop as we move toward the cloud-soaked, purple and green perfection of Malsa.
My Malsa.
The comlink flashes white above the console screen, and Eagle hits the button.
“Identity Code?” demands a gravel-ridden voice that promises oblivion if we don’t answer immediately.
Casser could have gone anywhere after Urnath—Dad gave him a medal—but he said after eight months of quarantine and another six of evacuations, flight coordinator was about his speed.
Eagle opens his mouth, but I jump in first. “Zero one, five zero six cadalin.”
“M’lady?” Casser explodes so loudly even Eagle sits back. “What are you doing off-planet?”
My greeting sticks in my throat.
“Off-planet,” Eagle repeats. Or rather growls. “They think you’re on-planet?”
“M’lady?” asks Casser in a wholly different tone.
Eagle knocks his head against the seat.
But Casser has to know I’m married. On Urnath he always knew everyone’s secrets, and our alliance with Westlet is definitely not a secret.
Unless Dad made it one.
“M’lady,” Casser repeats, “is everything all right?”
“Yes.”
No, not remotely.
And Casser knows it. “Right. Of course. Didn’t they update your identity code a while back? Aren’t you a two two nine yellow?”
Two two nine yellow. The Urnath base distress code, for when flight crews coasted in on fumes—their engines blown or out of fuel. Which was every flight, near the end. Casser always wanted to know where Wren found fuel to send them out, when he was absolutely positive we had no uleum left. And every time Wren would sigh explanations that made perfect sense.
