by Emily Shore
“It’s the same, you know? It doesn’t matter where we are: Glass District, graphicker studios, carousels, the Temple. Our bodies are still being used.” She lifts her head, but examines her fingers. “Our mouths, necks, arms, breasts, bellies—legs pulled apart to expose our insides. Wealth doesn’t discriminate just like poverty doesn’t. We don’t get rich, handsome princes in here. We still go for whoever has the biggest paycheck because in the end, we still owe Owl.” They always will.
Swallowing, I summon up the nerve to ask one more question. “What do you do about it?”
Nightingale takes one glimpse at me before focusing out the window. “I sing.” She gestures to her temple. “In here. I go to my music room and I sing.” Nightingale’s coping mechanism.
“It’s obvious what yours is…” Nightingale smiles, pointing to my sweet tray.
Up until now, I hadn’t realized it, but she’s right. I barely eat any normal meals. Dinners and lunches go untouched, but sweets are my indulgence. My Bliss.
When I glance out the window again, I see him. And I leap to my feet.
Just as I’d predicted, Luc’s resolve has finally crumbled or withered enough for him to take a break. There he is, crossing the bridge and hurrying to his bathhouse. I head for the door.
“What are you doing?” Nightingale asks while I skirt across the hall.
I turn the knob. “It’s my last exhibit. I have a right to see whatever he’s planning.”
“Wait and ask him, then,” Nightingale advises.
“Why would I ever do things the simple way?”
Besides, Luc has kept his distance the past few days, fraying what little remains of whatever twisted relationship we have. He would never show me. This time, I won’t be surprised by snapped ropes, an underwater viewing center, or invisible cables to make me fly with swans. Because I will know.
If Sky were on duty, he wouldn’t allow this, but we’re right in the middle of a shift change, and I seize the opportunity.
Once I reach Luc’s door, I place my hand against the opaque glass, feel the hum of the screen next to it, waiting…hoping…will it work?
I hear a click, and the door nudges open. After everything, Luc is still so trusting. When I first arrived, he’d set it up this way so I could reach him whenever I needed. But the last time I was in this room, Luc’s bed had cradled a dead Raven. Back then, the room appeared haggard. Now, not one stitch is out of place. Despite having taken his meals in here, the room only smells like fresh linen. Not one curtain is ruffled, the bed is made, there is no dust on the hardwood. But there is certainly chaos, albeit organized.
All over the room are sprite lights of me in the exhibit. Or rather…versions of me since they are sketches. I notice a digital wand sitting on the table next to his bed. The kind with a built-in laser with terabytes of storage.
In one sketch, I stand in the center of naked, spindly trees. What looks like dust and feathers fall from the ceiling. And me, in the very center. Two ropes hold my body. There is nothing on my skin but ropes of pearls, and swan wings on my back. I touch a wing and it flutters, the sprite light responding to my gesture.
I tap another sketch. This one is animated. There I am, walking along the surface of the lake—iced and white as angel arms—while thick, white furs keep me warm. Then, the furs are removed just as the ice cracks and pits me into the water.
I wade through each sprite light. Nightingale is right; his genius knows no bounds. If Luc wants, he can keep the flame of my exhibit burning long into the night. It’s not just his gift, it’s his obsession. His identity.
All the images choke me, overwhelm me; I’m locked in a screen.
No, I refuse to think of myself as a victim. I’m not a slave. Closing my eyes, I hold my breath. In my mind, these are real. Paper. I crouch—the fairy with claws ripping them into a million pieces and turning Luc’s room into one giant hamster cage. I could make ink bleed, paper wet and soggy. Or I could set them on fire. But I can do nothing to these but twirl my fingers through the lasered sketches. I focus on my eyes, on my expression. He’s captured it well. Too well.
Each and every one is like a star. Over the past few weeks, I haven’t lost an iota of Serenity, but she’s more now. Swan feathers have fused with the lightning. Indestructible, they don’t singe. Unlike my mother, I haven’t lost myself in the Aviary—I’ve found myself. Even when I crawl out of the tunnel, I will take Swan with me.
Over Luc’s bed, footage plays over and over on the ceiling, like a lullaby with no sound. Transfixed, I sink onto the mattress and watch. All from my exhibits, my preparations, and even footage of me lingering in the glass sculptures…it’s all there. Just as he’d promised, he was always watching me.
“I saw you come in.”
I curse under my breath. Sky is far too quiet for one so tall. I hear him curse, too, but he does it more openly than me. He reaches up and taps a finger to a moving image of me, studying it before dropping his hand. “Looks like I underestimated him.”
“I did, too, at first. I haven’t for a while now.”
“And when were you going to enlighten me?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
Sky curses again. “Not to this degree. Damn, Ser, how could I have known you would be this good?”
“What are you talking about? You wanted this to happen. You planned—”
Sky holds up a hand. “I didn’t intend for it to go this far. He’s in love with you! I’ve been making plans. Arranging things, hacking the system, plotting out escape routes, but if Aldaine is this obsessed—”
When we hear the low hum of the door responding to the hand behind it, Sky resumes his guard position as Luc enters the room.
No! What did Sky mean? Is he still getting me out? I can’t ask.
Luc takes one look at me, bristles, and puckers his mouth before glancing at Sky.
“I was reporting to her room for duty when I saw her come in here,” Sky says.
Luc narrows his brows, stalking in a direct line to me.
“You always welcomed me here from the first moment you let the screen read me,” I remind him.
“Leave us,” Luc says.
“No,” I protest and try to walk past Luc, but he hems me in, using his eyes to imprison me.
Sky hesitates while Luc addresses me. “I saw you in the window, Serenity. You came here just after I left. Don’t try to pretend with me. Is this what you wanted to see?” He raises his hands, motioning to my surroundings.
When I say nothing, he asks, “Are you satisfied?”
My eyes wander toward the images, and Luc seethes once more. “Answer me!”
Behind Luc, Sky has tensed, and I notice his hands curl into fists. I know what will follow if Luc threatens me, if he so much as touches me.
So, I keep my voice soft as down. “Which one will you choose?”
Luc relaxes his shoulders. “I’ve already chosen. I keep the final renditions safe elsewhere.”
That is why his visit outside was so brief. He wasn’t going to his retreat to rest. He went there to finalize.
“No, I will not show you.” He demolishes any aspirations I have to the contrary. “No one sees it other than me. And Dove will only know how to prepare you when I tell her just before the unveiling. It’s the only way the performance can fulfill itself. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“Are you going to say anything else?”
I narrow my brows, suspicious. “What should I say?”
“Say you will play the part of the Swan. Is that all it is? Pretend?” Luc touches me, but his fingertips shy away, hover above my arm. “How can my Swan fly if she is so numb?”
My fingertips trace one sprite light like a carousel. “I never fly. I fall, I swim, and then I sink. And I’m never numb.”
29
T h E Fi N a l E x h i B i t
I enjoyed getting painted. One of my artisans was a plump older woman who’d birthed thirteen children for the
Centre, the highest on record in the past fifty years. She made me feel comfortable. Her body had endured so much I didn’t mind when she painted mine, nor when she pasted the white gemstones in swirling patterns on my breasts. Hilda wasn’t even soft, and I liked that. Her fingers were able and focused on their work, her mind on the art and not on me. The lack of attention was apparent whenever she twisted me one way or sharpened her eyes against my thigh to determine the best angle for the paint or jewels.
I think of Dove, and the contrast. Even at her age, Dove is beautiful. Though slender and strong, her body probably never had luscious curves.
I realize this is the last time Dove will decorate me.
Save for Gull’s return from her sabbatical, nothing else has happened. Everything happens tonight. After what I said the other night, Luc escorted me back to the bedroom before arranging a private meeting with Sky. I hope and pray Luc didn’t beat him, punish him for my invasion.
Immediately after my final exhibit, the real auction will commence. All other claims before this night will be rejected in favor of the high bidders.
Force will be the highest.
I’m almost finished with my mother’s journal. She is good. No information about their secret Sanctuary activities, no names of girls they’ve helped; everything is about me, Sky, Kerrick, and her time in the Temple. Sometimes, the words are like miniature spears, but I know I have to read them regardless. If Force ever finds me, I need to prepare myself. If Sky doesn’t succeed, I will enter the Temple by the end of the weekend.
If we don’t get out, will I become the new Unicorn?
“How long do I have?” I ask.
“One hour until the exhibit opens. Bidders are already arriving. Some want to see the display in person. Others who have entered are content to watch a digital display. Owl is giving the present bidders a tour.”
What? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Before Dove can loosen the straps on my white dress and take a paintbrush to my skin, I jerk my body up and scramble across the room with Sky shrinking the gap behind us even more than usual when I open the door to the hallway. I stop just before I reach the stairs, choosing to only peek my head around the corner. It doesn’t take but a moment to spot him entering the Nest Wing with Luc. Of course he’d get a private tour. Private as can be with his level of security.
Nothing about my father exudes order. From the untucked collar of his black shirt, to the white scarf casually draped around his neck, to the dark hair he keeps pulled back in a top knot above his head. Even the way he walks is light and without care, like he’s stepping on spun sugar. Force is a man who doesn’t play by the rules. No, he doesn’t even know what rules are, and I suspect that is why the Syndicate is as powerful as it is. The saying ‘no honor among thieves’ is an apt statement for my father, one he very well could’ve coined. No honor among thieves, rapists, abusers, or sadists.
From here, it’s hard to determine how old he is. He must have at least ten, maybe fifteen years or more on my mother. Physically, I have so much of my mother in me, like her silvery hair and petite body with plump bust, but never her gray eyes. Do I move like him, too? Like I don’t care if I’m wandering across a sea of eggshells without any consideration to how many I wreck?
Luc leads my father around a corner to a different hallway, and I return to my room so Dove can prepare me.
Naked, I linger before the mirror, watching my caretaker’s eyes, feeling the slightness of the brush like a kiss on my body. Unlike my mother, I am glad Dove pays attention to my curves, because she knows just how to accentuate them. And I know when she looks at my body, she thinks of her daughter. In her eyes, I will always be an infant.
Tonight, she paints my skin in elaborate designs that remind me of embroidered lacework. By dusting my skin in silvery shimmers, she turns my body into a star. While it dries, Dove sees to my hair, for the first time plumping every harum-scarum curl until they are maniacal water serpents rising around my head with their tails restless and wandering down my back.
In the mirror, I am face to face with the intoxicating image of a delicate, sterling siren.
Dove seems to read my thoughts. “You will not be small tonight.”
Two seamstresses arrive with my ensemble for the evening, both of their hands bearing the skirt because it is longer than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. It must be over a hundred feet.
From where it will collect at my hips all the way to its generous hem, the skirt is a serenade of swan feathers. It isn’t one I step into, but it splits apart to twist around my hips where they tie it. I try to step forward, but find it oppressive to move. Pondering the heaviness of the hundreds of feathers, I wonder how I’ll manage a dive.
Finally, they add two enormous white wings, but at least these feel lighter than a cloud.
“You will know what to do when the time comes,” Dove reassures me. “These feathers are…different. Now.” She holds two small white wings but with broad feathers that overlap just at the bottom and curve up toward my neck, which she presses to my breasts. With a sticky substance, Dove adheres them to my skin there, flattening the feathers into place.
To complete the look, Dove corkscrews my hair to one side, fastening it with white pins. Loose enough so my hair will unravel in the water. Her next step is pasting tiny pearls to random areas of my bare skin, my arms, my neck, my stomach, and even my legs because the skirt is slit up to my thighs. Those same pearls she strings around my neck, forming a broad choker. Her last act is the mask of white wings, which she settles on my forehead. The feathery ends fan into the air, gathering on the edges of the holes where my eyes blink.
Finished.
Dove excuses herself just a few minutes until my final exhibit. I walk around the screen. All the seamstresses are also gone, but I am not alone. Not when I open the door to the bedroom into the main room where he stands. He doesn’t suck the air from the room even if his presence is a swinging ball to my chest. No, all he does is spark the lightning inside me.
Casual hands, one lifted, fingers tapping his chin more amused than a hawk cackling over its prey. He strides forward with that same air of delightful chaos. Like his entire body is one network of spider webs and he doesn’t care whose wings get stuck there.
If Sky were here, I could imagine the muscles in his neck tightening, jaw hardening with the same resolve I feel. No doubt Luc ensured this would be a private moment. Father and daughter for the first time.
When his eyes frost across mine, close enough for me to discern their color, it’s then I notice the resemblance. It’s undeniable—the same wintergreen infused in mine. Only Force’s seem more embellished, glittery even, like sugared mint leaves.
I have no armor. I do not guard myself. Instead, I descend into a crouch, almost ready to pounce, but my father’s body is an eerie reflection of mine. He plays my game with the corners of his devilish mouth twisting upward. Delicious as the devil. And my mother is his angel. Except he’s met his match in the bat who flew straight out of hell along with his Unicorn.
When I stiffen from my crouch, he relaxes and nods to me in approval at the gap in our game. “Director Aldaine tells me your name is Trinity.”
I only have one expression for him, and fortunately, my disgust covers any sense of relief I feel at my father not knowing my real name.
“I must admit, it perplexes me. You don’t look like a Trinity to me. And your mother…” He smiles at the word, and the possessive curve of his lips is the strike of the whip, every brutal flick of leather on her skin. “Well, let’s just say Trinity doesn’t seem fitting.”
“Force seems fitting for you, but the other name we call you is even more fitting.”
He folds his hands behind his back, tilting his head toward me. “And what name would that be, daughter?” He emphasizes the word, practically hurls it at me like it’s a shard of glass he can cut me with.
I catch it instead when I retort, “Vampire.”
“Hmm
…” He muses on the name for a moment before drawing his icy green eyes back to mine, shadows curtaining them while a lock of dark hair descends on his brow. “Come to think of it, your mother’s blood tasted sweeter than any other girls I’ve ever sampled.”
I should’ve known my father would play this game. It’s what he enjoys. And it’s where I’ve come from. Even so, I step forward, advancing toward him, but all he does is shift his weight, leaning back on his heels with his arms held out, inviting me but with eyes no less entertained.
I’m this close to jabbing my fingers into his mouth, snaking my hand down his throat to grab his black heart and yank it out. I imagine his aortas would feel relieved. After all, it must be a tiring job pumping that level of evil all the time. For now, I settle on a demand laced with a threat.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Room.”
I’m not surprised when he begins to circle me, fist raised to his chin as he surveys my final Swan ensemble. “Aldaine has a fine eye. I offered him a position in the Temple just today, but he turned it down. Such a pity. A man with his talent, his ability to highlight the natural beauty that is already there, like a jeweler polishing a diamond, is rare. A diamond the world is just waiting to see shine. And it will,” he finishes in front of me, eyes settling on mine, drawing down since he’s at least a head taller.
Deadpan. “I am not my mother.”
He throws his head back. Laughs. I resist the urge to push on his chest as a child would. Then again, I am his child.
“Clearly, Trinity. Clearly. Oh, so transparently.” He puts his hands together, laughing again. “All these years spent looking for you and your mother, never did I in a million years believe you’d surface like this. It wasn’t what I planned.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No. Not a disappointment at all.” He stretches a hand out to me, but I shrink away.
“Touch me, you lose a finger. Swans bite.”
“No, not a disappointment,” he repeats. “You are more than I ever could have hoped for. You see…” He leans forward and whispers in my ear, breath like smoke rings curling, “I have big plans in store for you.”
