Chapter Four: They Will Sing To Me
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions
- TS Eliot
Any good propagandist knew how to best make an entrance, so Demetri found it absolutely no surprise at all to hear that the Report's director had opted to perform a HALO jump into the Belcourt broadcast centre from which they were to broadcast the announcement of the Selected girls. The director would land into an utterly silent compound, for Thiago's network had embedded themselves thoroughly into the organisation, and the entire staff body of the broadcast centre had been comprehensively neutralised in the half hour that preceded Demetri's arrival. Demetri didn't have the energy to ask exactly how that had been accomplished - and whether the staff would be waking up again - so instead he had just greeted Thiago and the masked Vardi Tayna at the edge of the site, and turned skywards to see the arrival of the Report's new director.
Enyakatho Imfazwe was a rebel commander from the Near North, a term the people from the Wastelands used with reckless abandon to refer, rather dismissively, to nearly anything that wasn't south of Bonita. He had long thick dreadlocks, an easy-going confidence, and an instinctive awareness of camera angles that had earned him a place as Demetri's Administer for the Report for the Kingdom in Exile, a role he seemed to relish. Unlike Uzohola and her family, Enyakatho's Saharan roots went much deeper into Illéan soil - he had been raised in Midston before joining the cause, and had traded in a pleasantly average life as a hard-working Six for an existence on the run with only his camera and his wits to keep him alive and useful.
He was, it was plain to see, absolutely thriving.
He jogged over to Demetri with a broad smile upon landing, and clapped Thiago on the back. Unlike the Crown's gaudily dressed presenters, Enyakatho preferred dull winter colours accentuated with a single point of colour. Today, it was a yellow rose pinned to his colour which had somehow managed to survive the parachute jump entirely unruffled."Well, gentlemen, are we ready to film ourselves a masterpiece?" He had a lilting accent that wasn't quite Cajun, but which gave even the most ordinary of his words a kind of exciting, adventurous quality. He gestured to his team, who were cutting themselves loose of their chutes. "The gang's all here, so let's get this Selection started. High command has picked out a great bunch of girls, really think this whole thing's gonna be great - which studio are we using, this one?" He gestured to the locked gate Demetri and the others had assembled around, and was answered with a short nod from Thiago. "We got a key, or...?"
"Vardi Tayna." In the dark, the roving lights lit up Demetri's dark green eyes, bounced back off the buttons on his coat, split into rainbows along each strand of his hair. "Go."
She didn't need to be told twice, but vanished into the gloom along the fence. Demetri counted his breaths - one, two, three - and watched for any sign of encroaching Crown fences, and didn't think he had numbered more than two dozen exhales before the gates were swinging open to show Vardi Tayna standing behind it, her hands in her pockets, smiling very slightly and gesturing them in towards the broadcast center. She had blood on her finger, but when she caught Demetri looking, a silent question, she replied simply, "the barbed wire has to be fed." Another of the General's superstitions.
Into the studio they all darted - still a skeleton crew, just as their first Report had been, all the better to steal silently in and out of the enemy's television hub, two by two: techs, spies, announcers, and then Enyakatho, and then Demetri. From now on, Demetri thought, they could film most of their Reports from the winter palace in Sonage, but for this week's edition, for anything they wanted to deliberately put into the face of the royal family, they needed to hack into the palace's own broadcast of their own Report. Demetri couldn't deny he derived a little smug satisfaction from taking over the Crown's feed. Their mole inside the royal court had provided them with some sort of an encryption key to break into the broadcast, and as soon as they were into the empty studio, Enyakatho set his tech crew to accomplishing just that while Vardi Tayna and Thiago started hauling up lights and microphones to establish some semblance of professionalism, under the director's keen eye.
"No, we need to eliminate those shadows, bring the light back towards me... little bit to the left... perfect, perfect, stop right there. Where are the microphones for the announcers? Vardi Tayna, throw that wire for me over here."
The announcers were a small girl with her green hair styled into an elaborate green Mohawk perched on a high bar stool with her feet propped up on the bar, a microphone gripped tightly in a hand dripping with cheap brass rings, and a lanky guy with his hair in two braids, yawning and looking over his notes. They were both dressed casually, in long-sleeved t-shirts and ripped jeans, clearly with the intention of staying well out of the path of the cameras. They looked up at Demetri as he entered, and smiled, and chorused, "good evening, your Majesty!"
Demetri looked at Enyakatho . "They're all doing that now?"
Your Majesty this, your Highness that, your Royal Splendour when Wick was feeling especially playful. Demetri found it all rather tiring. Was this what he had signed up for?
"They absolutely all are, your Majesty. Sit here for me, won't you? There's a bit of a glare... move left... right, sorted. Wren, Farid, you guys ready to go?"
They were ready to go. Demetri sank into the seat that Enyakatho had indicated, and caught sight of himself in the monitor. He looked... regal. His hair had been artfully tousled, Uzohola had lined his eyes with a tiny amount of kohl ("to make them pop, Dimi!"), his skin was bronzed by long exposure to the sun. His clothes had been chosen with a great deal of caution, and then forwarded up to high command for final approval. "Let's not make this too formal," had been Bernard Givre's words. "We're not the Crown, and we're not pretending to be." But they did have to look polished, so Demetri was clad in a blue fisherman's jumper with the collar of his shirt just peeking over the edge of the cable-knit. It made him look approachable, Enyakatho had enthused on first sight. It made him look real.
He was able to perfectly conceal his gun under it.
All very important characteristics of absolutely any garment.
"The rest of your life begins now, your Majesty!" Enyakatho spun the camera to face Demetri and checked the lighting. "All good? Vardi Tayna, what's the count?"
A bored-looking Vardi Tayna called, "six seconds, Enya."She was fixing a scope to her rifle, one foot propped up on the sill of the open window, overlooking the main gate of the broadcast centre's compound. If anyone ventured out to find out exactly who had taken over the communication hub, the first Demetri would hear about it would be the crack of a shot. When she caught Demetri looking at her, she stuck her tongue out at him, and thumbed off the safety. The General's gold ring still glittered on her middle finger.
"Six seconds? Ahead of schedule! We're really on top of things today, I love it. Right. Demetri..."
Enyakatho straightened the camera and signalled Demetri, who broke out his polite broadcast smile a mere second before his image flickered up on all of the screens around them. A dozen Demetris smiled from every surface around the room, and said, in a low, even tone, "Good evening, Illéa. The day is here at last. I hope you are as excited as I am."
Thiago moved, a mere shadow between the ghostly glows of the monitor, his eyes taking it all in with a fervent focus. At his nod, Demetri continued. "My people, I wish to thank you for your support. The response we received to our announced Selection was nothing short of overwhelming. I am sure that there are thirty five beautiful queens among them, and it will be my honour to get to know these most brave and honourable Daughters of Illéa over the next few weeks." Enyakatho was signalling something, and Demetri laughed ruefully, a perfectly rehearsed sound that managed to seem as endearing as it was indulgent. "Well, then, I suppose there's no point beating around the bush, is there? Let's get on with what's important."
Enyakatho gestured his hand towards the nearest tech, and the monitors flashed a deep red with the seal of the rebellion.
Wren lifted her microphone. It was clear why she was chosen for this duty once she began to speak - she had a low, melodious voice without any discernable accent, crystal clear and perfectly pitched. "Lady Lissa Dove of occupied Angeles." A face appeared on the screen - a slender girl with doe-eyes and a mischevious half-smile, her hair a silvery white-gold awash in very pale light, nearly precisely the same colour as her skin. She reminded Demetri a little bit of Täj, just that first generally overwhelming impression of pale-on-pale-on-pale. Even her background seemed somewhat hoary and hazy, like she was standing in a field of white ash, like she had arranged for a backdrop of wintery mist just to perfect the image. Her eyes were a piercing blue, the only true blazing spot of colour in the entire photo. They seemed almost alive, those eyes, and Demetri privately thought that they were following him, even from the frozen tableau of the photograph.
The rebels didn't use castes, so Wren did not make any reference to the Selected girl's Crown-appointed category, but instead lowered her microphone and looked at Farid expectantly as Lady Lissa's photo faded from the screen and was replaced by the next. Demetri knew she was what the palace called an Eight. A homeless girl, a survivor, and if you looked closely, you could almost see it etched into her eyes. Thiago had called her an open book. Demetri thought he knew what the spymaster meant.
Farid smiled as he spoke. It gave his voice a soothing tone, like he was enjoying every word he spoke, tenor and smooth, like pouring caramel. It reminded one of the radio announcers from very old programs, like he had stolen his accent from some hapless commentator several decades ago. "Lady Yue Yukimura of Whites."
The girl whose image replaced Lissa's had golden skin with cool undertones, seeming to be almost lit from beneath by some sort of rich inner light. She had dark brown hair the colour of mahoghany, allowed to fall quite naturally in very loose, gentle waves. Her umber eyes were very dark and very steady, almost calming in their total serenity, and alight with that same inner glow. She had a refined, classical set of features set into a heart-shaped face: cupid bow lips, perfectly arched cheekbones, a dimple in her right cheek that made her look a little younger than her nineteen years. Her smile was absolutely mesmerising. Demetri had no doubt she would prove to be a favourite of many in the audience, for Lady Yue had represented Illéa quite masterfully at international skating events all over the world and was already something of a familiar face for people across the nation, rebel and citizen alike. Thiago had informed Demetri that her mother had been the first politician in Whites to switch allegiance over to the new rebel council governing the province, and her parents were both councillors at the provinicial level, key to ensuring the smooth transition of power from Crown to Kingdom in Exile when the time came for the coup. Demetri had no doubt that Devery Atiqtalaaq had played a very large role in winning Lady Yue her place in the Selection, but he couldn't exactly argue that the Northern Warden had chosen poorly.
"Lady Eden Lahela." Though this was officially the announcement of their names and identities for the first time, Demetri knew that any of the girls living in Crown territory would have already been extracted by one of Thiago's network, to ensure that the black widow queen could carry out no reprisals for their awful crime of joining the Kingdom in Exile's cause. With any luck, they should arrive at the safe-house by tomorrow evening. The girls in rebel territory - well, they could be allowed to celebrate for an evening. "Of occupied Fennley."
Lady Eden was not one of those girls in rebel territory. Her mother was one of the most valued propagandists at the queen's disposal, the editor of a pro-Crown newspaper that boasted a readership of nearly one third the Illéan population. The printing heiress had burnished olive skin and hair like so much spilled newsprint ink. Her downturned almond eyes were such a dark brown as to seem almost black from this distance; she had thick charcoal eyelashes and thick brows that seemed to give her an implacably sardonic expression. She had drawn her hair back and woven it into two perfect braids, from which absolutely no stray strand escaped. She had her head tilted, as though she was challenging the photographer in some silent provocative way; in the warm orange light, her tiny collection of freckles on the highest points of her cheeks resembled a constellations of stars scattered randomly across her skin like so many dice. There was a softness to her that Demetri thought was probably very misleading. He wondered what her mother's newspaper would make of this greatest of betrayals.
Again, to Farid. "Lady Vardi Tayna of Dominica." Vardi Tayna had spun around in her chair by the window, and fired finger guns in Demetri's direction, like she was trying to make him laugh as her picture appeared. And there was Vardi Tayna's photograph, taken at the Selection safe-house some unseasonably warm morning earlier that week, her eyes still heavily lidded with sleep. None of the rebels could pose for a picture to save their lives, so it had rapidly devolved into a session of throwing the camera from person to person and snapping a candid of whoever was nearest you before they could notice what was going on. Demetri was sure that was how they had captured this image of Vardi Tayna - there was a vibrancy to the way her hair fell, a dark warmth to her eyes, a light to her smile as she laughed at something someone had said, just off camera. Demetri thought it must have been Täj, so unguarded the expression on Vardi Tayna's face. She looked beautiful. Approachable. Sweet.
In other words, she looked absolutely nothing like herself.
In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, they had placed a small box with Demetri's face, to capture his reactions as each girls flashed across the monitor. Of course, he had become well-acquainted with these girls on paper throughout the week, so it became at once a mere exercise in acting out as many expressions of contemplation, approval, and curiosity as he was capable. Wren's turn again. "Lady Corvina Rouen of Sonage."
Ah. Demetri subtly flicked his gaze over to Thiago, to gauge the spymaster's reaction. Corvina was... interesting. Demetri knew that this unassuming girl had caused Thiago and his little birds a great deal of frustration over the years, and wondered who exactly on high command had decided to overrule Wesick's protestations to approve Lady Corvina's admission to the Selection. Her almond eyes seemed relatively innocent, her bee-stung lips carnelian and slightly parted. Her hair was rich and dark, the sort of colour Täj would call eigengrau, just the total absence of colour, styled into an effortlessly rogueish semblance of dishevelment. Every line of her body seemed to radiate barely concealed intensity, a vibrant charisma piercingly apparent even filtered through the medium of the glossy screen.
Purely to irritate Thiago, Demetri made sure to smile broadly when he saw her.
"Lady Marjorie Vermudez." As Farid spoke, Demetri realised that he could see each photo ticking across the screen reflected plainly in Vardi Tayna's dark eyes. What was she thinking about her competition? Was she taking this seriously as a competition? As though he had spoken aloud, she tilted her head over to him, met his gaze, and whispered without sound: "pretty girls".
Pretty girls indeed. Lady Marjorie was hardly any exception. Her green-hazel eyes were keen and inquisitive, her hair a resplendent mass of gentle russet curls. She had strong features - a firm jaw, a blunt chin, a turned-up nose, thick coal-coloured brows and thick dark rose lips - and perfectly smooth brown skin with the exception of a single prominent beauty mark in the hollow between her zygomatic and her maxilla. She had an intent, curious gaze and a stubborn set to her mouth that made her look fiercely determined. Thiago hadn't turned up much about her - Lady Marjorie did not seem like the sort of person who led a very interesting life - but there was something about the resolve in her eyes that made Demetri think that state of affairs was likely to be very short-lived indeed.
And then, very abruptly, the screen cut out. The room was plunged into total gloom. In the darkness, Demetri's voice: "Are we...?"
"One moment, your Highness." Enyakatho shouted something in Spanish to the tech team. After only a few seconds, the screens flashed with bright white light, illuminating Enyakatho's broad smile, as the propagandist nodded sharply and turned back to his new king. "We're back. We've got maybe fifteen minutes more before they cut us off for good." He threw a look at his team. "Let's get through these a little faster, shall we? Vardi Tayna, keep your finger on the trigger."
She didn't need to be told twice.
"How many more?" Demetri adjusted his cuffs.
"About thirty, your Majesty, if you think you can survive that long. Right, let's continue with Yukon next..." The announcers flicked through their notes to find the right girl and nodded solemnly. "Farid, let's kick off with you this time. Demetri...game face."
Demetri smiled warmly, the red light flashed, and the cameras rolled for a second time.
Field Marshal Uzokuwa was broad-faced and affable, his head clean-shaven and a thick beard covering most of a large, twisted scar along his jawline. He kept up a constant idle chatter as the world melted by outside, but to Marjorie's intense disapproval, he spoke nothing of importance - just talking about the weather, the birds outside, the paltry lunch they'd shared on the side of the road and had they watched the new season of Diadem?
Marjorie was glad that one of the other girls asked for her. It was collected, self-sure Lady Eden who leaned forward in her seat, a slight smile turning up her lips, and said, slightly fascinated, "Really? You guys watch Diadem?" Diademwas a cute television show dramatising with some glee the Selection of King Marcus, from a few hundred years ago, all glossy and sumptuous, with the kind of richly designed costuming and intricately designed sets that made the actual storytelling more of an afterthought. Everyone already knew who would win, anyway, Marjorie thought. People didn't watch it to see who would win, they watched it to see beautiful actors and gorgeous actresses get into various outlandish scenarios which would necessitate a grand and tearful confession of love in the palace ballroom or lead to an overacted argument in front of the entire royal court that ended with someone getting slapped. It was a national phenomenon. Summer, Marjorie's best friend at home in Claremont, had never missed an episode.
Privately, Marjorie thought the royals had ordered its incessant broadcast to try in vain to compete with the rebel Selection for the hungry eyes of the national audience. The two Reports that had elapsed since the rebel Selection had been announced had been restrained and demure. Prince Mordred had not said anything about his supposed brother's search for a wife, but had spoken about a Swendway delegation that had agreed to a great new trade deal, discussed the increased rates of university attendance in the east, offered a few thoughts on renovation works being done in the Capital. Queen Regent Ysabel had looked pale and tired and angry the entire time, but she had managed to refrain from actually saying anything. The entire set rippled with constant tension, from the very first flourish of the national anthem to the very last moment focused on the palace's seal.
The royal family must have realised that this was a bad look for them, because the government channels had been packed to the brim with pro-Crown rhetoric for the rest of the week: reruns of old Selections filled with gorgeous young ladies resplendent in silk with the perfect manners of queens-to-be, documentaries about the good works of the dead King Trajan which all ended with a vehement condemnation of his death at the hands of the abhorrent rebels, music videos set in Angeles featuring transcendentally beguiling models walking around crystal wrought skyscrapers and exploring the varicoloured, flowerstrewn gardens of the royal palace. And, of course, Diadem. Almost like the Crown wanted the country to know what a realSelection ought to look like.
They were transparently setting the rebels up to fail, and yet -
"Are you kidding me? I love that show. But I'm still a few episodes behind," Uzokuwa confided cheerfully, as their truck hit a pothole and the entire vehicle shuddered like it was about to come apart at the seams. Lady Yue and Lady Eden nearly cracked their heads against one another as the truck jerked right to skirt what might have been a landmine. Was it a landmine? God, Marjorie hoped it wasn't a landmine. "So please, no spoilers!" The truck abruptly veered left and skidded down a low slope, and Marjorie could not help but notice that her knuckles had gone white from holding on to her seatbelt so tightly. "If there's one thing that might lose you the Selection," Uzokuwa continued, totally unfazed. "It's spoiling that show. I can't wait - we've agreed that my sister owes me a bottle of whiskey if Lady Vesper wins in the end."
(She wouldn't. History told them that King Marcus had married Lady Esther of St. George. Lady Vesper had actually been eliminated just before entering the Elite, as punishment for ripping up another girl's dress in a blatant act of sabotage. No one in the truck seemed to have the heart to tell Uzokuwa any of this)
It was a small detail, but Marjorie itched to write it down anyway. So they had leisure time to watch television. So they received Crown broadcasts. So they dealt in alcohol - she knew that the settled northern provinces had their own rebel currency, but did the ground forces eschew it in favor of barter and bargain? "What sort of whiskey?" she asked. Her tone was light, bouncy - she didn't think anyone could pick up that she was trying to probe into whether they had the facility to brew their own, or still relied on Illéan's distilleries to produce their liquor. It was natural to be curious, she told herself. That would help her a great deal. Any questions could be excused as normal human curiosity, ordinary inquisitivity about a world that for so long she had glimpsed only briefly on news reports and the front pages of newspapers.
She was to be disappointed. Uzokuwa's smile didn't even flicker. "It's a Saharan brand," he replied cheerfully, peering out the window. Despite the violent motion of the vehicle, Field Marshal Uzokuwa was utterly still, even as the Selected girls were thrown from side to side. "Our dad used to drink it when we lived in Omdurman... ah, we're nearly there!"
Marjorie turned her head slightly to follow his gaze, her curiosity piqued. The Wastelands were just a wide expanse of scrubland and desert, with broad stretches of bare rock and sand defying the encroach of any shadows searching for relief from the harsh glare of the unyielding sun, set high above them in a sky the clear blue colour of mertensia. So arid and desolate the land, absolutely anything that was not hewn rock stood out a mile, as much as it could stand out without actually being on fire in the moment. So it was very clear to Marjorie, when she looked out the window, that their destination was probably the large building to the south-east, framed flawlessly by the rising sun.
"It's not much," Uzokuwa conceded. "But, you know, it'll do."
Lady Eden said, quite sharply, "how long will we be here for?"
Uzokuwa smiled. "Even if I knew," he said. "I still wouldn't tell you."
The brakes of the truck protested loudly as they pulled to a stop. Someone, Marjorie was deeply amused to see, had put up a white picket fence around the tall, narrow building, like they were dividing the desert that was the garden from the desert that was the Wasteland, though there seemed to be no discernable difference between the two - certainly not even the vainest attempts at cultivation. There was a tall, pale man smoking a cigarette on the other side of the fence, scuffing the red soil with the heel of his shoe, who looked up at the truck only when Uzokuwa pushed open the door, though Marjorie was sure that he would have to be deaf not to have heard them approaching from about a mile away. He had very pale eyes, that man, but that was all that Marjorie had time to think because there was a sudden flurry of motion as Uzokuwa bounded from the truck. Uzokuwa stretched his arms until he heard a joint pop, and only then nodded and smiled and gestured for the Selected girls to scramble out of the truck and join him in looking up at the first safe-house.
"As I said," the field marshal said apologetically. "Not much." And then Lady Yue jumped as he abruptly let out a loud, sharp bark: "iphi inkosi yami? Ukohola!"
The door to the tall, narrow building swung open, and a rebel walked out. Unlike the rebels that had ferried Marjorie and the other girls across the country, who had universally been clad in camo and khaki, this woman was wearing a long red cardigan and a colourful floral skirt that fell to the floor and sent up little dervishes of sand as she walked over to the assembly of Lady Yue, Lady Eden, and Marjorie, a small smile on her face as she addressed her fellow freedom fighter. "Ai, ai, ai, yeka ukumemeza."She and Field Marshal Uzokuwa looked like mirror images of each other - the same big brown eyes, the same sharp jaws, the same rich dark skin. This must have been the sister he had mentioned. Revolution was clearly the family business. "No need to shout, Field Marshal. We hear you, loud and clear." She was a little sharper than her brother, a little thinner and taller, but they had the same smile, perfect white against their ebony skin. "It's so lovely to meet you girls. I've heard so much talk about you these past few weeks, I half-imagine I know you already." She extended a hand. Although her fingers were long and slender, her palms were craggy with callouses, the tips of her fingers worn by exposure to the element, tiny scars along her wrists marking what might have been the legacy of handcuffs.
Even this elegant woman had made and suffered her share of violent chaos. Marjorie had known that this was a rebel Selection, but exactly what those two elementary words meant when they were forced together was slowly beginning to make a little more sense. Lady Eden was the first to shake the woman's hand, a firm, sharp movement that suggested the young heiress was coming to the same realisation as Marjorie herself. Lady Yue was next, her motions so dainty Marjorie was half-afraid that the sun would cause her to dissipate like so much mist, offering the woman a sweet little smile, and finally it was Marjorie's turn.
"Lady Eden Lahela, Lady Yue Yukimura." The woman said each name in turn as she greeted them. "Lady Marjorie Vermudez... You are all very, very welcome. My name is Uzohola Ndlovukazi, and I suppose you can consider me a sort of co-ordinator for this Selection. You've already met my brother - I hope he ensured your journey was smooth."
"It was perfect," Lady Yue said. Lady Eden and Marjorie both made vague sounds of agreement - Eden was watching Uzohola very closely, like she was trying to look beyond the woman's skin into her very bones, and Marjorie was assessing her surroundings as subtly as she was able to do so, noting exactly how barren it all was. No wonder they hadn't been given many restrictions in their original briefings, she thought wryly. Usually the Selections came with a long list of what you could and could not do while staying at the palace, but here... well, Marjorie mused, looking at the horizon, you wouldn't get very far here even if you tried to make a run for it.
"I'm so glad." Uzohola nodded. "Your things have already been placed into your rooms, so I'll bring you upstairs and let you three settle in to your rooms."
Marjorie, her brow creased, began to speak: "Ms Nidu...Ms Ndlu... Ms Ndlova..."
"Please, call me Uzohola. God knows most of them don't even try with the surname anymore. Now, let's get you out of this heat." She waved dismissively at her brother. "Uhambe ngokuphepha, Uzokuwa, travel safe. I'll take things from here."
The field marshal did not argue any further."Really great chatting to you, ladies. I'm head of the security detail, so I'm sure I'll see you all around, but best of luck with your first few days." Uzokuwa's scar did little to dull the brilliance of his smile. "Tell his Highness I sent my regards," he added to his sister, who inclined her head in answer. Uzokuwa jumped back into the truck and was away in a massive cloud of dust.
Marjorie finally got to finish her question: "is the king staying here as well?"
It seemed like such a small, cramped space, nothing like the palatial space of the Angeles palace. How could they possibly maintain a respectable distance from the royalty if they were all living on top of one another in this manner?
She wasn't sure if Uzohola genuinely hadn't heard her, or was just feigning deafness, but in any case, the Fennley girl wasn't given an answer, because their co-ordinator was already across the arid little patch of garden and pushing the door open to usher Lady Yue and Lady Eden inside, and it was up to Marjorie to trail after them, her dark green eyes flitting this way and that to take it all in. You only got one first impression of a place, after all.
The pale man was still calmly considering his cigarette by the fence, watching Uzokuwa's convoy disappear back across the edge of the world. The scent of smoke was so strong, it was enough to momentarily quell Marjorie's intense curiosity about every element of the rebellion, and drive her indoors in the wake of the others, where Uzohola was giving a very brief account of the space they were to share together; Marjorie arrived just in time to catch the basics: five girls to a floor, shared amenities on the first floor, and the run of the garden. She almost rolled her eyes at that last part. How generous of them.
Lady Eden had been assigned to the sixth floor, just one below Lady Yue and Marjorie's rooms on the top floor, over-looking the ruined town about a half-mile away, the only interruption in the great expanse of desert that continued unabated for as far as anyone could see. "This is just one of many safe-houses," Uzohola added, as she pointed out Lady Eden's room. "So don't get too comfortable. We could be gone in the morning."
Lady Eden didn't look too amused at this news. How wonderfully welcome they were being made to feel. "Got it," she said. "Thank you, Ms Ndlovukazi."
Marjorie's room was precisely above Eden's - Yue's was a little further down the hall, tucked into a corner beside a bedroom with a closed door, through which they could nonetheless faintly hear a vinyl record playing, scratchy and bassy: you shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, too much love drives a man insane...
"Not a fan of Jerry Lee Lewis?" Uzohola said amusedly, when she saw that Marjorie was frowning. "Bit of an acquired taste, I'll concede... this is yours, Lady Marjorie."
The room was small. Some might have said cramped, but Marjorie would not have argued with the designation cozy, with a low bed tucked into one corner under a low-hanging sloped ceiling, a quilted blanket folded carefully at its foot, her bags sitting on a wooden trunk that had been pushed over to stand by the window seat. There was a small armoire, a thick red Oriental mat covering up old varnish floorboards, a short, spindly dressing-table beside the door with its mirror marred by a single long crack running diagonally across its face. There was a small shelf running above the bed with a few well-thumbed paperbacks sitting on it, to which Uzohola gestured. "We know we asked you to pack lightly. King Demetri was concerned you might not have been able to bring things with which to amuse yourselves when you're bored, so he hand-selected a few books for each of you, that he thought you might like. If any of them aren't to your liking, then please do let us know and we can arrange to pick you up something more to your taste the next time we're in town."
Yue put her hands over her mouth. She didn't need to say how touched the small gesture made her feel - Marjorie could see it in her eyes.
"That's very good of King Demetri," Marjorie said now. She didn't want to look at the books in front of the co-ordinator, lest her expression betray that they were entirely unsuited to her own taste, but thankfully Uzohola seemed to recognise that she was about to overstay her welcome. "Lady Yue, I'll bring you to your room next. I'll call you when it's time for dinner - please do relax in the meantime." The Saharan woman and the Whites girl departed quietly, and Marjorie was glad to shut her door after them and be left, for the first time in two weeks, to the blessed calm of her own thoughts.
And, well, she certainly had a lot to think about.
But first....
Marjorie pulled her notepad from her bag and immediately sat down to the vanity to scrawl down every detail that still remained fresh and vivid in her mind, from her departure from her family home early yesterday morning - her mother had not cried, but her stepmother had; her father had hugged her so tightly that she thought her bones might crack - to her overnight stay in a safe-house on the Paloman border - well into rebel territory, in the penthouse an opulent hotel that had once charged five figures for a single night's stay, but was now being opened up as emergency housing for those few people who still had not found permanent homes following the rebellion's victory in the province - to their long, boring journey from Paloma and then down, through Bonita, well into the Wastelands, past the edge of what was marked on any map Marjorie had ever seen in Illéa. She couldn't say that it had been a particularly gruelling or arduous journey, and certainly talking to Uzokuwa, while not particularly enlightening, had given her a clear-eyed glimpse into what normal life looked like for the foot-soldiers of the rebellion, even if that wasn't precisely the topic that interested Marjorie most. Nonetheless, every detail was precious, and Marjorie threw them all onto the page before her memory could even consider betraying her.
The important question, and the one she had written on the top of the page across which she now scrawled:is this the real Demetri Dunin?
And below that, just as urgent a question:
Does it matter if it isn't?
Somewhere, beyond the edge of the world, a dog was barking.
What a foreign world this was, compared to the cold serenity of Whites - more like a tableau from satellite images of Mars, than somewhere on the same continent as home. The land was pockmarked with deep scores of bare slate and broad sheets of arid red soil, unmarred by vegetation or signs of life. Yue found herself gazing out the window in abject fascination at the scene beyond. The ghost town along whose threshold the safe-house was straddled was a collection of gutted buildings and the carcasses of what may have once been prosperous business, all disembowelled and hollow.
She was broken from her thoughts by a voice by the door. "I'll leave you to settle in," Uzohola said with a smile, an expression Yue returned almost immediately with a quick nod and a sweet smile. She couldn't say she had gleaned much about the older girl, but she thought Uzohola seemed on the whole a friendly person, and after so many hours entirely surrounded by grim-faced military men and fox-eyed spies with knives on their belts, it was a lovely relief to be greeted with a warm smile and the promise of hot food later in the day.
"Thank you so much," Yue replied politely. As soon as the co-ordinator had departed, Yue could not hold herself back from darting over to the bed to see what books the king had left her on the shelf. They werre not extraordinarily inspired choices, but they suited Yue so perfectly that it didn't matter very much whether they had been selected at random or whether, as Uzohola had suggested, the king had pored over each choice to tailor it to her personally. Here, on the top of the pile, was a copy of Anna Karenina with a torn cover page, like a book that had been adored to the point of physical destruction, sitting atop an ancient edition of Sense and Sensibility with thoroughly dog-earred corners, stacked in turn on top of a biography of Isolde Bisset, who had been Illéa's most successful ice-skater for over two dozen years.
Until Yue herself, that was.
Yue hugged Anna Karenina to her chest as she sank down onto the bed, running the nail of her thumb along her lower lip, barely managing to keep the smile off her face. Deep breaths, she thought, deep breaths. This was the beginning of the Selection. Only the beginning. Nothing worth celebrating just yet. And yet she had lasted this long. That had to count for something, didn't it? That had to matter.
And even if the king seemed to be a total non-entity thus far, she thought ruefully, she'd at least earned a few new paperbacks out of the deal.
The music was still pouring in through the wall, very softly: young girls are coming to the canyon, and in the mornings, I can see them walking.... The walls in this place had to be paper-thin, Yue thought. There would be no chances of keeping any secrets here. At least this way she would probably have to go out of her way to avoid making friends. Indeed, she could hear the low tone of someone speaking outside the door, and a slight laugh. Constant noise, constant company, never having a moment of peace to herself... Yue was sure it would sound like torture to some others, but after the pristine serenity of home in Whites, she didn't think it sounded like such a bad arrangement for however long she lasted here.
She ran her fingers along the spine of the book, like she was reassuring herself that it was indeed real and solid and there, and then jumped as there was a sharp knock at the door. "Y-yes?"
Her door swung open very slowly, almost lazily, to reveal another girl standing in the hallway, clearly newly arrived, and clearly of some New Asian extrication like Yue herself, with long dark hair arranged into gentle waves and intense dark eyes that made Yue feel a litte less secure for having been caught in their path. She was vibrant, this girl, colourful in a way people seemed to be in a south, full of the vitality that the far north seemed to leach from its citizens given enough time. "Hey, neighbour." Her smile was wicked, and yet somehow it drew you in, made you want to deserve the expression. "Just wanted to have a quick look-in, see what was what, you know? You're Yue?"
Yue nodded. She had memorised the other Selected girls, a practise which had begun as a therapeutic exercise to calm her down when the idea of travelling into an active war-zone had seemed like a fate so much worse than death. It was no more difficult than learning the order in which she was expected to string together all the moves in an ice-skating routine, Yue thought, and it had been almost a fun exercise to look for friendly faces, girls who might let her stand in their shadows during group events and ensure she wasn't made a target by being separated out on her own. It had been interesting, she thought, to see what choices the rebellion had made, what traits it seemed they had valued the most in choosing the shortlist for their new Queen in Exile, how little they seemed to value castes, quite true to their word. She very much doubted a traditional Selection would have admitted so many Sevens and Eights.
This girl, for example, was a Six on paper, though she carried herself like one of a much higher caste. Corvina Rouen, Yue thought. Sonage. She had looked so much taller in her photo on the Report, Yue was surprised to reaise she was only an inch or so taller than Yue herself - or she would be, if she was wearing flats. She held herself like a girl who was much taller. And she was dressed nicely. They had been told the rebels probably couldn't provide most of their clothes, as the palace would have, but Yue hadn't realised that people would dress so nicely for the rebel Selection. Her own clothes were obviously of a more expensive sort - the sort of perk that came from a family which knew how to weather political turmoil with fortunes intact - but they were simple, just a tartan skirt and a warm red sweater unsuited to the current climate, whereas Corvina Rouen rather looked like... well, Yue wasn't entirely sure - she was wearing a grey blazer and grey shorts, and thin black tights, and a collared black shirt that might have been made of silk, and high-heeled boots that made her look tall and...
And her smile was utterly magnetic. Much like Demetri's, Yue thought shyly, it made you want to see it again - in Demetri's case, to have it directed you and at no one else. In Corvina Rouen's case, to win the approval of the person it belonged to.
"I'm Yue,"she agreed. "You're Lady Corvina?"
"You can call me Cor, if you prefer."There was something detached about the way that she said it, like she had made up her mind at the beginning of this conversation to make that offer no matter which way this conversation ended up going.
"Oh. Okay." Cor.
Corvina stepped a little further into the room, and glanced about with that same slight smile turning the corner of her lips. "Anyway. I won't bother you for much longer. Just wanted to introduce myself." She gestured across the hallway. "I imagine we'll get to know one another quite well, whether we want to or not."
Yue nodded. What else could she say?
Corvina looked at her. Her smile showed off her cuspids, Yue thought, and that made it look somehow sharper than most, like she could slit your throat with a single smirk. It was an image that passed through Yue's mind very quickly, there and gone again, but she could not say that it didn't leave an impression. The other girl inclined her head towards the partition between Yue and the next room over, through which the music was still echoing very faintly. "I imagine that'll get old very quickly."
"I don't mind it," Yue said.
Corvina arched an eyebrow and shrugged. Had this whole conversation just been an attempt to scope Yue out, the smaller girl wondered, or a genuine attempt to forge some kind of bond with another human being equally adrift in this huge chaotic event? All hints pointed to the former rather than the latter, but Yue wasn't afraid to hope. "Rather you than me," was all that Corvina said as she stepped back into the hallway, slipping her hands into her pocket with a magnanimous expression, and seemed about to say something in parting when she paused and cocked her head, such a bird-like gesture of curiosity Yue could not hold back from going over to the door to see what she was looking at.
What was a who. It was the pale man who had been outside the safe-house when Yue and Eden and Marjorie had arrived. He was leaning against the wall, just opposite the room with all the music, watching the door like it was a movie. Now that she was paying more attention to him, Yue could see that he was handsome in a hollow, delicate sort of way, complicated a little bit further by just how precisely blue his eyes were, like water trapped beneath ice on an open river. She hadn't ever seen a hungry sort of beauty before, but she thought that was probably the best way to describe it. Her first impression had probably been negatively coloured by the simple disappointing fact of his not being Demetri - that was silly, because most people weren't - and diluted further by his clear disinterest in the existence and presence of the Selected girls. He wasn't doing much to dispel that idea now, because he said nothing, even Uzohola appeared at the top of the stairs, just beside him.
"We'll be having dinner in about an hour, if that suits you girls." Her tone suggested that it wouldn't matter very much if it didn't. "I don't think his Majesty will be joining us, but just in case, you might want to smarten up a little bit."
Yue hadn't realised that Lady Marjorie had cracked open her door as well until the other girl spoke. "In an hour? Where should we gather?"
Uzohola glanced at the pale man. "Where are they setting up?"
His voice was low and even, with an accent similar to Demetri's - if it belonged to any of the provinces, it was Angeles, but it owed a lot more to the Wastelands than to the capitol. The pale man said, quite simply, "garden", and Uzohola beamed.
"Awesome! We'll be having a barbecue tonight. Come outside whenever you're ready, and we'll take a quick group photo before we eat."
A screen flashed at her hip, and she grabbed up the device she had clipped to her belt to squint at the words scrolling across its face with a slight scowl.
"Oh, for the love of... Okay, ladies, don't be late." And with that, she vanished back down the stairs, leaving the pale man looking slightly amused at her abrupt disappearance, and totally unconcerned at the reasons behind it. He just said to the assembled girls, "Punctuality recommended." He paused. "For your own good."
Marjorie gestured at the closed door through which the music continued to pound, unabated. "Should we tell her?"
The pale man's lips quirked into the ghost of what might have been a smile. "She's competition," he said simply, and then he too was gone, following Uzohola back down the stairs. If Yue really strained she could make out a few words - delay, Tammins, bomb - and the general cadence of the conversation - Uzohola's voice a little more strident, annoyed rather than upset; the pale man's, rather flat, almost calming - but truth be told, that only conjured up yet more questions about what was going on.
Marjorie's door slammed shut again. Although it was only she and Yue left in the hallway, Corvina's voice was silk-soft. "Who's he?"
Off limits, Yue thought, but she did not dare to say so. "A guard?"
"He's not a guard," Corvina Rouen said confidently. Yue didn't know how she did it. She seemed thoughtful for a split second and then shook her head like she was physically dispelling a web of thoughts. "Alright." She gave Yue a little wave. "I guess I'll see you at dinner."
"I'll see you at dinner," Yue agreed, and watched the door shut across the hallway.
Dinner.
Their first glimpse of Demetri?
Well, there was only way to find out.
Somewhere, beyond the edge of the world, the dog had finally ceased to bark.
And the Selection has begun! I am so excited to really start to get into the meat of this story, and I really hope you are enjoying it so far. Please do let me know what you thought - I really loved reading all your reviews and PMs, thank you so so much! I really appreciate absolutely any and all feedback you can give me. Do you have a favourite Selected girl yet? Any front-runners standing out? No idea or theory is too small!
There are still loads of spots open in the Selection! Again, the deadline is next Sunday. If you have any questions, my inbox is always open!
Viewpoint characters in this chapter were Marjorie Vermudez by Michelle the Editor and Yue Yukimura by wolfofstark.
Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed!
- Izar