Chapter Fifteen: All Earth Was But One Thought
… and look'd up with mad disquietude on the dull sky, the pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust, and gnash'd their teeth and howl'd.
- Lord Byron
There were tunnels under the safehouse. Marjorie had not found them on purpose, but there was no denying that they were there now that she had seen them – narrow dark hallways unfurling like spilled ink beneath the ordinary facade of the abandoned hotel, lit only by the residual light soaking through the crack under the door behind her, leaving the farther reaches of the corridors doused entirely in shadows and shade. She slid one foot forward, to test the curvature of the landscape, and found that there was a step just before her, only a small one, and that the hallway that continued was very gently sloped downwards, into the bowels of the foundation under the building.
A small voice in the smallest crevice of her skull whispered that in the Selection, in the rebellion, in this world, you were always being watched. Was this a test? Or was this, she thought, her fingers already itching for a pen, an exclusive? Marjorie knew that she could be headstrong, but so too could she recognise the line between being such and being stubbornly stupid. So although her nerves thrummed with the desire to stem forward and search further, she forced herself to step backwards, back out into the light and space of the corridor above, and to close the secret door as securely as she could, hoping against hope that no alarm had been triggered in whatever distant office from which Thiago Wesick pulled the threads of his vast spiderweb conspiracy. Or perhaps there were cameras. But she couldn't be blamed for just stumbling on something, and leaving it be, could she?
Provided she did leave it be, of course.
But even as she walked away, Marjorie knew that she would not be gone for long.
All tunnels led somewhere.
That evening, at dinner, Thiago was, as ever, absent, and the other rebels subdued. Anzu, the commander with the shaved shaved head and massive burns on the left side of her face, slumped in her chair with one leg propped on the lip of her seat, her arms resting on her knees, looking mutinous at the prospect of eating. Phineas and Mikhail, the bleach-blonde twins roughly as tall and broad as a barge, distinguished only by Phineas' missing forearm and Mikhail's white-bandage eyepatch, spoke quietly in the harsh tongue that Marjorie now recognised as Belarusian – though the rebels had taught her a little of the language during their journey, she could distinguish only a few words from the chaos of casual speech: pachavannie, vybar, zdradnik. She could translate none but the last. Traitor. She didn't dare to ask who they were talking about, although her gaze did wander to her fellow Selected.
Over the last few days, Corvina had withdrawn further into herself, and now anytime Marjorie looked at her the other girl seemed to fairly vibrate with repressed bitterness. Their train journey north had ended early, and they had spent the last few days in near-constant transit here-and-there at the whim of the spymaster, so detached from the other girls in the Selection that a small part of Marjorie wondered if they had been eliminated, that the news just hadn't reached them yet. She didn't like to allow those kinds of thoughts to creep forward – it would help no one, and she had barely seen anything of Demetri, the king of ashes, to make this whole venture worthwhile even in the most abstract sense.
So it was no surprise that Cor was stabbing at her food with a tin fork, her eyes dark with thought, and for not the first time Marjorie wondered what Thiago had said to her on that train journey to make such a long contemplation necessary. Cor had worked as a waitress in some seedy restaurant in a rebel province, Marjorie knew that much, and wondered whether the other Selected girl was being somehow blackmailed. In war, criminal enterprises tended to erupt from the earth like weeds to take over those functions that the government could not – or would not – provide, and she had gleaned enough from the quiet talk of Anzu and the twins to understand that the Kingdom in Exile was, in a sense, fighting a war on two fronts: ahead of them, the Crown and all its amassed forces and wealth, a juggernaut brought to bear on a few scrappy idealists with old shotguns and blood on their faces; behind them, the petty gangs that had crept from the shadows to offer food and safety and transport to those traumatised citizens that all war, no matter how well-intended, left in its wake.
Could you even call this a well-intended war anymore? Did the ordinary person care who was king? Or did they care that rebel vehicles careened through their villages, that bombs tore their homes to shreds, that their sons and daughters were thrown beneath the enormous turning wheels of slaughter to carry Demetri closer to Angeles and to the throne?
At this point, Marjorie thought she could think, or write, no further on the topic. It would only depress her.
She needed something real to sink her teeth into, not merely empty thoughts of how futile it all was. She often wondered why it was that she and Corvina had been the two separated out to travel with the spymaster – when he was around, of course. Were they intended to be of use to him? Or was it just to keep an eye on them? Surely they might deem Eden or Liara more deserving of this sort of scrutiny.
Well, Marjorie was about to prove them right, for over their shared meal, she caught Cor's eye with a raised eyebrow and inclined her head to indicate that they might speak later, and the Sonage girl was astute enough to understand all that it was meant to convey, for she nodded and looked back down to her food, and Marjorie, gratified, turned to Phineas to try and strike up a conversation – for, after all, if she was not permitted to be near the king, she may and well learn what she could about the people who had volunteered to die for him.
Cor was waiting for her as the girls left the small lounge they had appropriated as a dining hall – they were accorded more-or-less free range over the hotel, though when the thought had occurred to Marjorie that they might try and venture further, she had been able to see clearly that Phineas and Mikhail were pacing the perimeter of the grounds, guns slung around their shoulders, and thought better of trying to persuade them they should be allowed to wander into Sonage. Indeed the twins retreated to their patrol, and Anzu, with a shake of her head, rubbing her hand over her burns, indicated that she was going to go and watch the Report in the honeymoon suite that she had taken as her own upon their arrival three days ago. Cor and Marjorie kept their heads down and discussed the latest episode of Diadem as they made their way through the hallways to the service elevator which led down into the kitchens, and then looped their way around and down towards what might have once been a wine cellar, now all hollowed out and empty for storage of emergency supplies for the rebels and their followers. Marjorie demonstrated how she had found the hidden door, and how one of the high wine racks could be pulled from the wall to allow entrance into the tunnels, which were no brighter now than before.
Cor said, quite admiringly, "were you looking for it?"
"Me? No."
The waitress's eyes flickered with suspicion. "You've done a lot of exploring, Vermudez."
Marjorie gazed down into the tunnels. "I guess," she replied softly, that same instinct which had told her to return also telling her that sharing too much with Corvina Rouen could not possibly be a good idea. Despite their long hours at one another's side, she could not say that they had bonded unduly; Marjorie had always been closer to Soledad, Corvina to the northern array of girls that she had arranged around her like a queen holding court, and they had done very little to endear themselves to one another in the days since.
There was a brief silence. And then, Marjorie said, "do you have a light?" and the girls cast about in the room until they found a headlamp stored amongst the emergency munitions, and with that in hand like a lucky charm, its wan light illuminating sharply the curved walls of the tunnel and emphasising the eerie, distorted shadows of the girls, they moved down into the tunnels, Marjorie directing the beam at the ground to ensure that they did not abruptly pitch into nothingness where the path ended.
The tunnel sloped downwards, and then very gradually turned into a corkscrew spiral, and narrowed to the point that Marjorie had to walk in front of Cor, her shoulders brushing either side of the wall. And then the path straightened, and the ground levelled off, and Marjorie could pay more attention to the construction of the tunnel, to see that it was not mere hewn earth as she had expected, but carved from red brick like an English university, the ceiling rounded and the floor made of concrete. And then, yes, the tunnel opened up slightly, just enough that Cor could walk beside Marjorie, and Marjorie realised how deeply into the earth they seemed to have gone – were they twenty feet down? - and in the same realisation noted that they had stepped into a corridor, dark and doused in gloom, but a corridor nonetheless.
The first thing that struck Marjorie was the low height of the ceiling, about half that of the floors above, and she was abruptly very glad that neither she nor Cor were all that tall. The floor was dimly-lit and bunker-like, but she was growing to realise that in shape and structure it was identical to the hallways that they had left behind in the world above, just like a normal hotel bedroom corridor, doors and hallways branching off on either side. Stepping forward, she tested the handle on the first room they came to, and found it locked; she shone the light on the door and found that, though it had a plaque on which a room number might usually be etched, it was utterly blank.
Ahead of her, the waitress keeping her voice soft, Cor said, "this one's open", and Marjorie followed her to the indicated room. There was a pair of shoes left outside – Marjorie couldn't say why that bothered her so much but there they were, a pair of brogues, etched with deep serrations in the brown leather, a little scuffed at the toe and heel, well-worn and yet well-cared for, the burnish of polish still apparent – but the room itself was empty. Empty, but not bare; it was, Marjorie saw, decorated with a single low table and a chair on either side, and files piled on the floor in the corner. Cor said, "should we…?" and Marjorie didn't have an answer, for although the curiosity in her itched for her to step forward and inspect the files, she could not shake the overwhelming urge to run, to get back outside, to see the sky again and not risk getting caught in this strange place by Thiago or Anzu or whoever it was had carved out this space below the world.
Cor said, her voice stubborn, "hand me the light", so Marjorie did, and stepped back, and let the Sonage girl enter the odd room and approach the files. As the illumination accorded by the headlamp faded into the confinement of the room, Marjorie was surprised to realise that the hallway was not immediately returned to total darkness – no, there was a low glow emanating from another room, even further down the corridor, so as Cor pulled the first file open, Marjorie stepped down the hall and glanced into this second room, aglow with pale blue light. Within, she could see that it was a room utterly gutted of all furniture but for a single TV screen, showing the interior of an empty bedroom, and a low chair in front of it. Marjorie thought she might have understood if there was a wall of TV screens, or a changing perspective – the Selected girls had all assumed they were under constant surveillance – but this was just one, a fixation, a watchfulness on a single room that unnerved her more than she could say.
On the television screen, the duvet on the bed shifted, and she realised that it was not an empty room, but that there was a body lying under the sheets, moving slowly, lethargically, like an animal with a head wound.
"Who is that?" Cor's voice, so suddenly at her shoulder, nearly made Marjorie leap from her skin, and she swallowed back an instinctive sound of surprise. Cor's gaze was fixated on the screen; it was impossible to tell whether the figure under the covers was male, female, adult or child, any distinguishing features but for how slowly they moved, how tired they seemed. It felt voyeuristic even to be in the same room as the screen, so Marjorie backed out, and after a moment, Cor followed, and they advanced further down the corridor.
"What do you think they're for?" It felt wrong to speak, even softly, but Marjorie just couldn't hold the question back. "All these rooms."
Cor stared at Marjorie, like she thought the other girl was an idiot. She had dead eyes, did Corvina Rouen, like the eyes of a shark. "Isn't it obvious?"
Was it?
Marjorie didn't want to admit that she thought it might be.
They continued a little further, finding all the next rooms to be locked, the walls of the hallway bare, the ceiling remaining stubbornly low, and then they turned a corner and found another long corridor stretching with the same array of locked rooms, stretching as far as the lamp's illumination stretched. Almost as though in unspoken agreement, Cor and Marjorie both stopped. It was so quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat, and then….
Cor's voice was soft. "Can you hear that?"
There was someone screaming in one of the rooms ahead. It was guttural, that scream, wrenched from somewhere deep inside, and as soon as Marjorie heard it, she wished that she never had.
"We should go," Cor said softly, and for perhaps the first time in her life, Marjorie found it very hard to argue.
If there was one thing for which Liz had grown grateful over the course of this Selection, it was the quiet bond that seemed to have grown between the group that Uzokuwa, Uzohola's twin brother, liked to call the bunker girls. It was not so overt as the friendship between the northern girls had seemed, apparent and immediate, but it was a gentle familiarity that Liz did not think she could afford to discount – a growing knowledge of one another, the wisdom that Opal was best left alone in the mornings until she had been allowed access to the finite store of coffee that Demetri had sent to her after the funeral with a small note attached (let's not test that record – D), that Nina's barbed words were rarely meant to wound but to amuse and that if any feelings were hurt she would take no offence at being told so, that Soledad would pace in the middle of the night if she could not sleep, her shadow stretching wide across the walls of the bunker in which the girls stayed. Sometimes Liz wondered what they had learned about her, these strange fate-wrenched companions, and every small concession they made to her quirks made her feel a little less uncertain about the world around her. She wasn't sure she wanted to care about these people, but they seemed determined to worm their way in beyond her walls.
Today, for example, she walked into the communications hub to find that Nina had managed to finagle a packet of Oreos from Uzokuwa at some point in the early evening, and set it beside the chair that was usually Liz's. Such a small gesture, Liz thought, and yet the thoughtfulness that it showed – the time and effort that the mining girl had put into such a tiny token of friendship and familiarity – rather made Liz want to smile, as she went to the chair and sat down and said to Sol, who was lowering herself to her usual position on the ground, cross-legged, "how was today?"
The young lawyer rolled her eyes, and caught the pillow that Opal threw in her direction as the girl from Hansport entered the room as well. "I think I pulled a muscle in my face."
"Smile," Nina said, in a pitch-perfect imitation of handsome Farid, the caramel-voiced second-unit director of propaganda, one of the two Voices of Illéa who narrated each rebel broadcast. "Now look concerned. Now, smile…." Opal laughed, the sound bright and sudden and very rare, and went to the television set to switch it on. The military compound was a sparse, bare, cold space, and after so long there without even the prospect of the king to keep them on their toes, the girls had grown accustomed to grasping at whatever amusements they could find. Liz was used to the constant motion and business of life on the farm, not this sterile serenity, like they were expected to go into comas for the duration of the Selection and awaken only when Demetri was around. This evening, that meant – as on every Friday evening – the weekly rebel Report, a pale facsimile of that issued by the Crown and yet somehow endearing in its simplicity. Their one link to the outside world, the bunker girls had grown almost accustomed to maintaining a running commentary on the rare glimpse of another member of the Selected, be it Saran Altai looking magnanimous as she read to orphans or Eden Lahela adopting an expression of benign surprise as she was shown the wheat harvests to the south.
The funeral to which the bunker girls had been ferried last week had not made any appearance in the propaganda. Liz had to wonder at that – to wonder what the point had been in bringing the Selected girls along, if they were not going to be used in a constructive manner. Was Demetri just attempting to insinuate them, bit by bit, into the world of the rebellion? To include them in all of the crying and bleeding and grieving? To indoctrinate them into the business of dying and the art of mourning?
Didn't he know Liz was well-practised at all of this by now?
"It's starting," Sol said softly, and Liz focused on the screen as the emblem of the rebellion filled the screen on a background of deep maroon, accompanied not by a flourish as on the Crown's Report, but in utter silence. They were workman-like, these Reports, made not with skill but with a kind of earnestness that betrayed the true nature of this motley rebellion - led by some rebel commander or another, men so poorly educated they could barely read their own newly penned constitution, women more accustomed to the weight of a gun in their arms than the weight of fiscal responsibility on their shoulders, only Enyakatho the propaganda director with any true skill at filmmaking. Even Wick, who was popularly known as the propagandist, was not imbued with any great talent at the same; it was a natural likeability that allowed him to appeal to the same people who had put him on death row in Angeles all those years ago, an innate knowledge of how to endear oneself to those around him, as easy as breathing. There was a reason, Liz thought, that he had been made Administer for Social Matters, rather than for Propaganda. He was not a hero to the people because he had appeared in film reels; he was a hero to the people because they had seen him dig bodies out of wreckage with his bare hands, serve soup to orphans and widows, carry injured soldiers out battlefields with his own life at great risk. That was what the Report relied on these days – not the Axiom's talented way of wielding the truth like a scalpel, excising all that was unfavourable until only the beneficial remained, but showing the rebels at their best and hoping no one dared to ask what was happening in the background.
The seal faded and was replaced with a single static shot of a small coastal town, the coast buffeted by towering waves fretted with white foam, seagulls wheeling low over a wooden pier, a lighthouse over it all scanning left and then right with a beautiful long golden beam of light. The only sound was the shriek of a coastal osprey, somewhere behind the camera, and the swell of the sea, and the image remained on the screen for a long moment, the undulation of the ocean almost hypnotic. Then it cut to an interior view of a small laundromat, washing machines rattling with movement, and Opal rolled her eyes as Farid's voice poured through the speakers, "for this week's feature… we speak tonight of roots."
Another cut, away from Hansport, into the interior of a library, still but for the sound of footsteps somewhere to the right, books filling the screen, high and low. Then, movement in the right corner of the screen – a cat creeping along the top of the stacks, striped orange and white like a diminutive tiger. "Of genesis," Farid added. His voice had such 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.
Sol visibly cringed as her own voice replaced his, clearly speaking as she had been directed to so speak: "for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to fight for justice."
"My hero," Nina said mockingly, clutching at her heart, and Sol lobbed an Oreo in her direction; the miner girl caught it between her teeth, her smile wickedly roguish, and Liz almost smiled as the screen changed once more to a wide field of snow and Saran Altai's voice, again sounding uncannily directed: "coming to Illéa was meant to be a fresh start, but I didn't find the land I loved until we were liberated."
They could only film these sorts of gentler pieces in rebel-occupied territories, so Liz didn't expect to ever see her hometown or hear her family featured on them. That would be too dangerous – it was so much easier to just set up in Whites and interview the Yukimuras for the thousandth time that month about how proud they were of their rebel daughter in the rebel Selection. Sol was a favourite for these sorts of pieces; she was well-spoken and well-educated, confident and yet not brash, her family full of professionals who supported the rebellion whole-heartedly without ever having to stain their hands with the blood of those who thought otherwise.
Not like Liz's.
But Liz couldn't allow herself to become bitter. She just settled back in her chair to watch, to keep an eye out for the king, and to entertain herself with what little amusement they had been accorded today.
If there wasn't some change soon, she thought, the black widow queen wouldn't even have to do anything. They would die of boredom.
When Atiena reached Raphael's house again, waved off at the gate by a glowering Vardi Tayna who disappeared back along the street as soon as the rebel girl had stepped into the courtyard, she was surprised to see that, although Uzohola Ndlovukazi was meant to be on her day off, the young rebel was sitting on the porch by the backdoor of the Smetisko household, their nameless dog resting its head quite contentedly in her lap, kicking a little as though even in dream it felt it had to remain in motion. Atiena had always loved animals, and stayed with Agares and Raphael had only reminded her more powerfully of how much she missed Midnight, the lame stray that she and the man she called Killmonger had taken in all those years ago.
She wondered which name Uzohola used for the dog. Did it matter? Was she allowed to name him what she would, or was that reserved for special people? Not to say Uzohola wasn't special. She was in the inner circle. She was probably very special. Not to say Atiena thought she was special. Or that Atiena necessarily thought she wasn't special.
Yes.
Atiena was starting to think all of that alcohol had affected her a little more than she had thought that it would. She didn't usually drink at home, in Tammins. She was too focused for drinking. She didn't have time for partying.
She was starting to think she had overdone it a little bit.
"Lady Atiena." Uzohola's voice was very low, slightly raspy, like she had worn it out. Atiena couldn't imagine her shouting. Maybe she had been singing? What did rebels do on their nights off? The Morrises never had nights off. They were rebels without a rebellion, resisting without a resistance, insurgents without comrades at their back. They were always on. Atiena hadn't realised until she joined the Selection just how exhausted it all had left her, and when she thought of her family, she thought of how sad it was that she had left them behind to deal with all of that, without her there to guide them.
This was for the greater good, she always thought to herself, and could never quite bring herself to believe such a clear lie.
Wait. Uzohola had spoken to her. Hadn't she? Had Atiena replied? Should she?
"Uzohola," Atiena replied. She was gratified to see that she was not swaying. Saran had been swaying when they left the restaurant, just a little – she had nearly tripped on nothing, and done a funny little skip-and-a-hop to save her balance, and declared what a triumph that had been, which made Yue laugh, because Yue was laughing at most things by that point.
Atiena was starting to like these girls, but she was also thinking that they were, as Vardi Tayna might have said, fucking idiots. So they might suit Demetri alright, she thought, birds of a feather and all that.
Was that a phrase? It was, wasn't it?
Uzohola reached behind herself, and then reached her hand out to Atiena. She handed her a letter. An envelope, but Atiena was pretty sure there was a letter inside that. Was there? She looked down at it. Yes, a letter – on the front, in slightly shaky writing, ATIEИA MORRIS.
She hadn't been expecting someone as collected as Uzohola Ndlovukazi to have such childish lettering, truth be told. Not that she was judging. Atiena had left school at five, and returned to formal education only briefly. With Veronica.
But Atiena didn't think about Veronica anymore. She didn't let herself. She didn't see the point. Dead girls didn't deserve to live rent-free in her head like that.
She turned the letter over in her hand. She was glad she had been able to read her own name on the front, because the letters were wavering considerably. She had to shut one eye to be able to parse the words.
"This," Uzohola said, a little redundantly. "Is for you."
Atiena blinked. "Ah. You could just. Say it to me. You don't have to send me." She paused. "A letter."
Uzohola shook her head. She had such lovely hair, Atiena thought distantly, all dark and corkscrew curls, but here and there a single golden or red hair glinting from her afro like she had studded her hair with stars when no one was looking. "Uzokuwa gave me this for you," she said patiently. Uzokuwa was her brother, Atiena knew, one of the commanders. Her twin brother, identical twin brother, which wasn't something Atiena really understood because identical twins had to be the same, didn't they, boy and boy and girl and girl. Or maybe they didn't. She couldn't say she was an expert on these things.
"Oh." Uzokuwa was nice, Atiena thought, nice but… not her sort, and she found herself wondering how she would let him down gently. He shouldn't have been sending her letters anyway. She was in the Selection, wasn't she. "Oh. Well."
Uzohola seemed to be delighted with just how slow and thick the drink seemed to have made the Selected girl. "It's not from my brother, Lady Atiena."
"Huuzitfrumden?"
"Do you want to sit down, Lady Atiena?"
She did. She was glad Uzohola had offered. Otherwise she might have started swaying, like Saran had started swaying, and that would have made her seem drunk. And she wasn't drunk. So she sat down. "Who's it from, then?"
Uzohola smiled. "I'm told it was mostly written by a swift and by a mouse."
Atiena couldn't hold back her smile. "The twins?" Like Atiena, they had been adopted by Killmonger, plucked from the desolation of a refugee camp just outside Tammins – Swift was quick and exuberant and knew his way around the city like he had a map printed on the back of his eyelids, and Mouse was quiet and shy and knew how to become invisible when he wanted to be. She could picture them before her now, distinguishable to strangers only by the length of their hair (Swift wore his to his collar; Mouse kept his cropped short), but so clearly different to Atiena's eyes that she still wasn't sure how the rest of the world could be so blind.
"The twins," Uzohola confirmed, and then laughed as Atiena flipped the envelope over and began to contend with opening it, her fingers clumsy and her eyes moreso, unwilling to co-operate and focus so that she could read the words her little brothers had so carefully written and sent half-way across the country with a stranger. "If you're having difficulty reading it..."
"I'm not!" Atiena knew she shouldn't interrupt the co-ordinator. But it was important to say. She wasn't having any difficulty. She wasn't drunk.
"I was going to say I would read it to you."
Atiena relented. "Would you?"
"Of course. Unless you think there'll be anything in here that I shouldn't read?"
Atiena paused. Hesitated. "No." She blinked. "It should be fine."
"Wonderful." Uzohola had one of the brightest smiles Atiena had ever seen, more radiant even than Demetri's, which was apparently famed for its contagiousness. Uzohola single-handedly lit up the night with that expression. She gently took the letter from Atiena – the Morris girl relinquished it without complaint – and the nameless dog crept closer as though in anticipation of a bedtime story as Uzohola began, "to the best sister in the world..."
Sol was a little surprised to find herself cornered as she left the dining hall that evening. They always ate dinner after the Report, with some wine if Farid felt like humouring them, and after so many Fridays that passed in this pattern, they even had an arranged seating pattern – Opal and Nina shoulder-to-shoulder opposite Liz and Sol, at a small square table large enough only for the four of them. Their guards would have eaten earlier in the day in anticipation of the night's watch, but they could sometimes be tempted to join the girls for a little bit of wine and friendly banter back-and-forth, affable enough to be inoffensive, inoffensive enough to slip by the rules of the Selection without causing outrage.
Uzokuwa was ostensibly the commander of the small garrison stationed at the compound, but he was often gone, travelling in the name of the Kingdom here and there. Sol could not guess at what he did when he was gone, only that the last few times he had returned he stank of gunpowder and spoke dourly to the other guards of ambushes on the northern front. Last Sol had heard, he was gone to Tammins to try and recruit some of the independent militias which had sprung up in the power vacuum in the wastes - that was why it came as such a surprise for Sol that he appeared beside her as she walked back towards the bunker, took her by the elbow, and with a softly uttered apology, steered her to a more discreet corridor of the communications hub, leaving behind the other girls. Liz threw Sol a concerned look over her shoulder; Sol knew that the farmer girl had always been closer to Lissa, the wild blonde girl from Angeles, but in the time they had spent together, Liz had slowly grown into something of an older sister for the bunker girls. Sol found it almost amusing, given that Sol herself was two years older, but right now she wouldn't have refused having Liz's passionate stubbornness at her side as her advocate as she and Uzokuwa stopped in the hallway and were joined by Farid, the olive-skinned Voice of Illéa who had narrated the evening's Report.
"I am sorry to break the news to you like this," Uzokuwa said. His voice was low. 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, dark-skinned like his twin sister, the colour burnished even darker by the long hours he spent in the sun in the Wastelands and in the warzones. He had a low, baritone voice, one that could make anything sound soothing, and yet at his words Sol felt her hands start to shake a little bit. She focused on steadying them before she spoke.
"Has something happened?" It had to be her family, it had to be – if it was anything to do with the broader Selection, surely they would not have separated them like this, taken her away to be spoken to separately. Her family – had something happened to Arlo? He was only eighteen and yet shy, creative, the dreamy sort, unwilling to join the revolution even when all of his childhood friends fled south and north to give their lives to one army or another. Or was it her mémé Alicia? She was only sixty-five, and healthy, or at least, she had been when Sol had joined the Selection. Or was it her papá, her maman, one of her friends at home in Honduragua? "Is everything okay? My family..."
Uzokuwa shook his head. "Your family is safe, and send you their best wishes. In that regard, you have nothing to worry about."
"But I do have something to worry about?"
Uzokuwa glanced at Farid, who stepped forward to take Sol's hand – an old-fashioned gesture, designed to soothe, and yet Sol still didn't know for what she was being consoled. "Soledad. I am very sorry that we must break this news to you. But His Majesty, the King in Exile, has decided that your time in this Selection has come to an end. He thanks you for your time, your company and your service..."
Sol yanked her hand back. "What?"
"I am," Farid said again. "Very sorry that I must break this news to you."
The hallway they were standing in was narrow, all concrete and brick walls. The only sound was a faltering air-conditioner, somewhere further along the corridor, sputtering and coughing exhaust as it struggled to keep the heat at bay. Sol stared at Farid and, finding that he would not meet her eyes, turned to look at Uzokuwa as well. The Field Marshal was less shy, and met her gaze levelly; there was some sympathy there, but no apology. And why would there be? She was one of thirty four to be got rid of, an obstacle to finding their queen, a distraction from their business of waging war. Or at least, she had been. She wondered if Uzokuwa had been responsible for delivering this news to the other girls – to Ekaitza, to Irri, to Evangeline, to all those girls eliminated en masse on the first night.
"No." Sol's voice was firm, but very soft. "I thank you for your time, gentlemen, but if his Majesty wants to eliminate me, he can tell me himself."
The two commanders exchanged looks. "Ms Delrío," Uzokuwa said. No Lady, then. Sol set her jaw. "I don't think you understand. The elimination has been made. We are merely here to notify you."
"As I said. The king can notify me himself."
"The king is occupied."
Sol thought she was at risk of breaking teeth if she tightened her jaw any further. The king was occupied? He had kept them here for weeks, without any indication of how the Selection was continuing apace, had failed to even acknowledge her at the funeral, and now he eliminated her from afar with only a courtesy visit from his grunts? "I suggest he makes time."
There was silence. Sol's hands were shaking a little again, but from frustration rather than anything else. Had the king paid no attention to her words, all those days ago? You've met a handful of us, and you've eliminated so many others, and then you have dates with us one after another, like clockwork, like we're a chore. It's not fair. Was this how he had decided to be fair to them, but not even taking them on dates, by eliminating them as the whim took him? There was whispers that this whole endeavour was just a fiction created to legitimise Vardi Tayna, to make it seem like the General's daughter had been made to fight for her position ("for Demetri's love," Opal had said, but even she had been unable to keep a straight face at the clear lie), to give her some thin veneer of respectability amongst those supporters of the rebellion who still believed in the old traditions, in the Selection, in the Daughters of Illéa.
Farid's brow furrowed, but Uzokuwa seemed almost pleased with Sol's outburst. "Your suggestion shall be taken under counsel, Ms Delrío."
"I won't leave," Sol said, knowing that she was pushing a line here, that she might be stepping over some threshold she couldn't quite recognise and yet quite unable to stop herself. "Until His Majesty gives me an explanation."
"He is a busy man." Uzokuwa's dark eyes seemed to be providing her with a challenge.
"I have faith in the ability of our beloved king to attend the needs of his subjects," Sol said, and thought that Farid's cough that followed might have been to cover up a chuckle.
"In his wisdom, I believe he ought to be able." Uzokuwa inclined his head. "Ms Delrío. I shall do my utmost to arrange the same – and the Kingdom in Exile welcomes you to enjoy our hospitality until we have heard back from King Demetri. But you have been eliminated. Anything that follows is a mere… courtesy."
"I understand totally," Sol lied.
"Shhhh, shh, shhh, shhh…." The world was spinning around Yue a little. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I think I'm a little tipsy."
She was set back on her feet, and the king smiled. "I think you might be."
This was her room, the one she shared with Vardi Tayna. Pretty Vardi Tayna, unfriendly Vardi Tayna. Yue sat down on her bed, very hard, and focused on not throwing up. She had thrown up after breakfast, and after lunch, but she didn't want Demetri to know that. She didn't want him to see her get sick. She focused very carefully on taking off her shoes.
Demetri was by the window, looking at the sketches Yue had pinned to the wall. Oh no, Yue thought. Her sketches.
"No," she protested, leaping back to her feet. "Don't look at my drawings, please don't look, they're so bad."
Demetri's voice was very soft, and very warm. "They're wonderful."
Yue's voice was despondent. "They're utterly useless."
"Lady Yue. You underestimate yourself."
She overbalanced, and he turned, and he caught her rather effortlessly. He had strong arms, she thought, and giggled that she had even thought that.
"Are you alright?"
"Please don't look at my drawings," she said again, and he nodded and said, "as you wish," and she laughed and said, "Princess Bride?" and he said, "well, what else?" and she said, "you really do seem perfect sometimes," and he said, "If I had a penny for every time someone said that to me, I would have one penny, Lady Yue."
She giggled again. She knew it must be annoying, all this giggling, but she couldn't help it. Everything seemed so funny.
"Just call me Yue. And I think Yue should go to bed."
"I think Yue should as well." He leaned forward and pulled back the covers for her, and Yue sat back down on the bed. "I've left some water here for you. Drink it tonight, if you don't want to suffer tomorrow."
"I've never had a hangover before."
"You're not missing out on anything, I promise." Demetri tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You'll be alright if I go?"
"Of course I will. Thank you so much for everything, Your Majesty. I had such a wonderful time talking to you tonight."
"And I you." Demetri's eyes were such a deep green colour. In all her drawings, Yue had never quite managed to do them justice. "You will have to start calling me Demetri at some point, you know."
"Never," Yue said, almost automatically, and Demetri smiled and shrugged and said again, "as you wish," but truth be told Yue thought that she would call him Demetri if he wanted her to, and wondered if the other girls had been told the same. Of course they had. She wasn't that special.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. Yue shut her eyes, and told herself to remember this tomorrow morning. Whatever happened, she thought, remember this. She could not afford to forget.
"I'll see you soon," he said, very softly, into her hair, and Yue could only nod and watch him slip back out of the room, and then she fell back into her bed and ordered herself, again, quite firmly, remember this.
The force of the explosion was such that it took Theo off his feet, like something from a movie, hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest and actually lifted him, and he landed hard, glass raining around him like the sky had shattered into sharp fragments somewhere high above. The landing drove the breath from his chest; he couldn't draw in enough air to gasp, but life in the rebellion meant that even as he struggled for oxygen he was already crawling forward, staying low to the ground, keeping his head down, one elbow forward and then the next, dragging himself over debris even as the hazy smoke choked low over him and he heard the sound of more explosions around him.
He was just glad that Demetri hadn't been with him, or any of the Selected. It had been a routine run along the border between the Kingdom and Crown-occupied territories, ferrying rebels from one front to another. That was all Theo ever did these days – drive. When he was younger, he had driven his girlfriend between her jobs, and they had listened to music, and laughed, and now he drove killers between their jobs, and they listened to music, and they laughed.
And every so often the black widow queen tried with all her might to kill them.
Theo thought he might have crawled over someone's arm, but it didn't seem to have a someone attached to it any longer. The haze was holding so low over him, he wasn't sure where he was – whether he was crawling away from the danger, or towards it. Maybe he should stay low, lie low, play dead? But even as he thought that, the world shook with another explosion and he knew that Wick Harjo was right: it was too dangerous to stop moving. Rebels were sharks. They couldn't stop moving forward, not if they wanted to live.
He tested his legs. He didn't think he had done too much damage – a cracked rib, maybe that was what was making breathing difficult, a twisted ankle, still okay to run on, a broken finger or two, maybe a concussion? That seemed enough of a miracle, enough that Theo felt able to push himself up and start to sprint, and saw as he did so that this had not been an isolated idea, for all around him, dark silhouettes moved around the fire and through the smoke, running this way and that, like no one knew quite where safety was.
Theo spotted a rifle clutched in the arms of a corpse. He wrenched it away, checked it was loaded, and kept running.
The smoke was clearing now, so he knew that, for better or worse, he was moving away from the explosions. He kept going, but saw no sign around him of any of his comrades – any of the men he had been ferrying, any of the rebels who should have been patrolling this sector, any new garrison descending to provide backup. He emerged out into the clean air, and gasped in deep, despite the burning pain in his ribs, and heard something behind him, and turned.
He turned, and he saw Set Dunin, and the last thing that Theo Malone thought before Set Dunin gestured that his men should open fire was, Opal Greer McIntyre, I am so sorry.
I thought we would have more time.
Liara hadn't realised that one could access the roof of the Smetisko house until she found herself, bored and agitated, in the bedroom that she shared with Atiena, still drunk enough to think it a good idea to crack open the window and ease herself out onto the ledge, but sober enough that her balance was steady as she leapt up, caught herself on the lip of the roof, and boosted herself up to kneel on the very edge of the building. The night air was abruptly cool and refreshing on her face, almost a caress, still carrying the slightest thread of warmth from a scorching day, and above her the stars shone brightly – not quite the gorgeous tableau of forgotten constellations with which the Wasteland's sky had always greeted her, but so much brighter than the empyrean in Angeles, unobscured by the neon glow of falsity on the horizon.
She and Mordred had always climbed out onto the roof as children, first with Demetri and then, after he had been taken, just the two of them, when they could slip away from Ysabel. Liara was sure, now that she was old enough to consider it rationally, that Ysabel had always known where they were sneaking of to, that it had been a secret only in their imaginations, and yet there had always been that small frisson of excitement at having a place that was just theirs, from which they could watch the world pass by, somehow above it all, somehow detached from everything that was meant to be theirs.
They had stopped going up to the roof a few years ago. Mordred didn't have so many opportunities to get away anymore. The last time that they had been together, just the two of them, he had pressed that letter into her hand, and implored her with his eyes – green, just like his older brother's, the only real point of true similarity between them, for though they were both blonde and tall, Mordred had inherited his mother Ysabel's prettiness, her hollow cheekbones and bee-stung lips, her almond eyes and expressive eyebrows, all clean and classical – and yet Liara had been unable to fully decipher exactly what he was trying to ask of her. To stay? To go?
And yet she had known that she had to go. If there was any chance that Demetri was still alive…
There was a light on the other side of the roof. Täj was smoking. Liara didn't smoke, but she walked over to him anyway. He was Demetri's friend, wasn't he? Could she really say that was some consolation, something better than nothing?
She sat down beside him, quite silently, and for a moment wondered if maybe she had miscalculated the climb earlier, if she had plunged down to her death and was now nothing but a ghostly remnant, for all that the pale man reacted to her company. They were sitting on the side of the house by the road, looking down on the quiet cobbled street which wound between two rows of workshops and professional boutiques. Agares was a watchmaker, and there opposite them was the storefront of a schrimpschonger, and beside that, a zymologist, his window lined with dark bottles of expensive liquor. All of the houses on this street were dark, and silent, and for good reason, Liara thought – it was late, and had grown later. The moon was waxing overhead, a silver coin hanging low, and the sky was so still that not even the trees in the courtyard could muster enough energy to sway.
Without speaking, Täj handed Liara the bottle he was holding. She glanced down at it – one of the liquors that Vardi Tayna had earlier secured, the whiskey, still half-full even after the nights revels. She said to the pale man, "thank you," and he only inclined his head in answer. When he moved his head, she could see the jagged black scar on his collarbones, deep and ugly. She wondered what had caused it. Then she said, very softly, "why won't Demetri talk to me?" The alcohol had clearly made her brave; she didn't think she would risk the question otherwise.
"I think he's afraid." Liara took a swig from the bottle; it burned going down, as all whiskey did, but there a smoothness there, a smoky note that reminded her of Trajan's favoured drinks.
"Of me?"
Täj put his cigarette between his teeth; its light was dying, so he raised his lighter to it once more. His success was accompanied by an exhale of a cloud of smoke. It was funny, Liara thought. He didn't smell like a smoker. The scent seemed closer linked to smoke from a wildfire, than to the usual grimy cigarette smell. "Intimidating girl."
"No." She drew the sound out between her teeth, enjoying the sibillance of it all, the way the air whistled through her teeth. "Noooooo….." Her head fell forward, and she smiled. "Intimidating." The thought made her laugh. "As intimidating as a kitten."
Täj chuckled under his breath. "Cold as ice."
"Are you scared of me, then?"
"Oh, a bit."
"You hide it well."
"I do, don't I?"
Below, Liara could see that Demetri was leaving the house. That must mean that Yue had been safely tucked into bed. He was wearing his suit jacket now, and Liara found it amusing to see that he seemed to be aping Angeles styles – it was a deep and vibrant emerald green, his jacket, as rich as it was velvety, the precise same colour as his eyes. Even from this far away, in the dark, she knew that it would match his eyes. More like something Ysabel or Mordred would have worn, than the so-called King of Ashes.
She had never noticed that Täj had green eyes as well. Pale green – not like the king's, not that deep mossy green of deepest and warmest summer, but the soft mint-and-myrtle, like winter grass that had not yet warmed to the thaw of spring. Everything about him was pale, like an over-exposed photograph, like he'd bled out as a child without anyone noticing.
"I thought I was good at telling when people were lying," she said. "Before I came here. Now I can't tell."
"Maybe that's because we're all telling the truth."
"All the time?" She could not help but sound doubtful.
"You don't believe me?"
"I can't. No one would be honest here. No one would be so stupid."
Täj shrugged. "You said it. Not me."
Liara raised the bottle to her lips again. The stars were, she thought, so bright tonight. "What's he like?"
Täj didn't have to ask who she meant. "He's the best man I've ever known."
"Is he really?"
Täj raised one shoulder in a shrug. "I've spent my life with cut-throats and mountebanks. It's not high praise."
Liara laughed softly. "Does he ever mention me?"
Täj fell silent.
Liara felt like she had cracked open her ribs and pulled out her heart, put it on display for anyone to see. Stupid question, she thought. Stupid question. "Never mind."
"He doesn't talk about the palace." Täj's gaze was focused on the horizon. "I don't think he can."
"He doesn't remember?"
Täj's voice was very soft. "He doesn't want to."
"Oh, my god." The world was no longer spinning. Saran rather wished it still was. It felt like there was a wrecking ball caught behind both of her eyes, striking every time she tried to open them or considered moving from her bed. If she tried to sit up, she thought she was at serious risk of vomiting all over the room, though her throat felt so raw and her stomach so empty that she thought it unlikely she had anything left to retch up. Had she vomited last night, then? "Oh, khen negen namaig alakh yostoi..."
Lissa's voice floated over to her from somewhere in the corner of the bedroom they shared in the orphanage, sounding a little hoarser for the night that had preceded, but otherwise very normal. Did the girl have a liver of pure iron? "I don't understand what you're saying, but it doesn't sound like you're having a good time right now."
"I want to die," Saran replied, rather bluntly, and then shut her eyes and nodded and grimaced – yes, she thought, someone should put her out of her misery – as even speaking seemed to make the whole bed lurch distressingly to-and-fro. "What happened?"
"What do you mean, what happened?"
The last thing Saran could remember was… not even leaving the restaurant. Just being in the restaurant. Just sitting and chatting and laughing. She was back in the orphanage, wasn't she? When had that happened? How had that happened?
"I mean exactly what I said." Saran turned in her bed – she was still mostly dressed, she realised, her shoes and jacket removed at some point in the night, her shirt undone like she had decided to take it off but fallen asleep before she could complete the task. As she turned, she caught sight of her shoes placed neatly beside the dresser, her jacket folded and left on the bedside table, her keys set on top of it. "What happened last night?"
"We went out. We came back." Lissa sounded amused, and only seemed doubly so when she yanked open the curtains of the room and Saran made a small, quiet sound of utter soul-draining misery and pulled the covers up over her head. Light did not flood the room - it was still dark outside - but even the pale glow of the lamps outside made the wrecking balls attack Saran's skill with fresh enthusiasm. Lissa said, "I don't understand the question."
"How did I get home?"
"Whathisname brought you. Carried you in, actually." Saran could hear the curl of Lissa's lip in those words, like she was suppressing a smile at the very memory. Something that felt like a very cold hand tightened around Saran's heart.
"The king?" The idea of Demetri having to deal with her sorry drunk self, cart her home, put her to bed, was almost more than she was prepared to take in her hungover state. "Oh god."
"Not the king." Lissa was a mere shadow, a silhouette, as she moved back across their shared room, apparently no worse the wear for their bender the night before. "Not the king." She was filling a glass of water; she set it beside Saran without asking for thanks. Lissa was an odd one, Saran always thought, at once the most childish of the Selection and yet sometimes so prone to a quiet protective instinct. "That other guy."
Saran's heart was sinking. "The pale man?" she said, rather hopefully.
"Nah." Lissa paused beside her bed, a spectral figure in the doused dimness of the dark room. "Harjo."
Well, Saran thought, there was no need for anyone to kill her. She was about to die of embarrassment.
Mæ̀hmay Klahan had been widowed three times in her life. She told Eden this with the ease one might mention that it had rained earlier in the day, or that she preferred tea to coffee, but with that ease, Eden had felt no need to offer condolences, no awkwardness. That was simply how things were, that was simply what the rebellion had done to the people around them, and death was the natural end to life, so when Mæ̀hmay – she had dismissed Eden's attempts to call her Mrs Klahan with a wave of her hand and a muttered epithet – had heard of the General's death, she had taken one day to grieve her husband of twenty years, just one day, and even on that day she had found time to go to the market and start an argument with an unlucky fishmonger.
The other rebels called the older woman Pa, which meant aunty, and after long enough in the house that had once belonged to the Klahan family, Eden had fallen into that habit also. It was a companionable existence, her and Pa, for the most part. Every so often another newspaper would land on the doorstep, graffiteed with some new threat of violence against those who had supported and collaborated with the Crown, and Eden had taken to burning them or ripping them up before Pa caught sight of them, unsure of how much the older woman knew, whether Pa was aware that she sheltered the daughter of one of the Kingdom in Exile's most virulent nemeses, whether she would allow Eden to stay if she ever learned the truth. Eden didn't know which of the rebels was so dedicated to reminding her that she did not belong here – whether it was one of them, or a group, or maybe they all felt this way but only an individual was brave enough to make those sentiments known – and though she tried to keep the paranoia at bay, it was difficult to be around so many strange faces every day without knowing which of them would have happily strung her up and gutted her if not for the paltry protection accorded by her status as one of the Selected.
Today's newspaper read, TRAIDORES SERÁN DEVORADOS. Traitors will be devoured. She wasn't sure if they were being literal.
She burned this one in the fireplace, watching the flames curl and crush the small portrait of Eden's smiling mother which topped the front page, Vivian Lahela disappearing into cinders and ash before her eyes, and then she stood and brushed her hands, and went to the back door to meet Enyakatho, the propaganda director, and Wren, the second Voice of Illéá, to plan today's segment.
It was such a small gesture, she thought it almost futile, and certainly it had not slowed the abuse to which she had been subjected, but Eden had to try and make herself useful to the rebellion somehow – and given that she had not seen Demetri in many long, long days, she thought it somewhat unlikely that it would be as queen that she would make her mark on the Kingdom in Exile. Instead, she had volunteered to help Enyakatho with what small tasks he would allow her, when he was in town to shoot segments for the Report. You didn't grow up as a Lahela without getting to know your camera angles, without learning to use your light, without developing the skilled knack for likeability which had allowed Eden to weather each photo opportunity and false relationship her mother had thrown at and under her for all these years.
She had been planning today's segment for quite some time, so after she had opened the door to let Enyakatho and Wren inside, and gestured that they should help themselves to the pot of tea that she had brewed and set on the table, she picked up the small binder of scraps and plots that she had gradually accumulated over the past week, and ran her fingers along a few of the words, almost to remind herself of what she was hoping to achieve, and after the propagandist and his one-woman film crew had dismissed the offer good-naturedly ("No need for tea! We had… was it six espressos on the way here, Wren?"), Eden indicated that they should follow her out to the small courtyard that enclosed the Klahan home ("I think it was ten, Enya."), where Pa was sitting on a wooden chair beside the chicken coop, a set of orphaned chicks on the table in front of her ("Caffeine is energy, and energy makes for good TV!") and teaching them how they should eat, by tapping her fingernails very gently on the table, where she had scattered some corn meal. Eden had been fascinated by the whole process when she had first arrived, how baby chickens had to be taught, little by little, how to drink water and how to peck and how to move around the world they occupied, almost like they had been born helpless and would remain so unless someone informed them that they could, feasibly, live otherwise.
"Good morning, mælngsab." Pa looked older than her years, as her husband had, with deep crow's feet etched on either side of her dark eyes, a broad, flat nose, and long inky hair now shot through with slender threads of pure silver. She had worn her hair in a tight bun for the first few days that Eden had spent with her, until the Two had braided it for her into twin Dutch plaits on a quiet Friday evening, while they watched the Report. The older woman had worn it in that style since, although Eden still couldn't tell whether that was out of convenience or whether it was because she genuinely liked the style. In any case, she thought it boded well for her own chances at survival, for in the king's absence she thought the widow of his dead Administer for War had to be the next best option for an ally. For that reason alone, Eden was glad she had been placed in this remote farmhouse, and left for the most part to her own devices. It felt less dangerous that trying to contend with the action and intrigue of the Court in Exile. "Aren't you up early?"
"It's just before noon, Pa. I don't think you can call this early."
The older woman just spat on the ground to show what she thought of that, her fingers still tap-tap-tapping to the joy of the chicks scrambling around the table in front of her.
"Where do you want us to set up, Lady Eden?"
Eden indicated, and Enyakatho nodded and he and Wren went away to set up the camera. Pa said, "alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," and Eden laughed and went to the barn to find another chair for herself. This would be a short segment, she thought, but Enyakatho said that her first one, the piece about landmines on the border of the province, had been well-received, so she thought it best not to push her luck.
She wondered if her mother had seen it.
She wondered what her mother had thought of it.
She wondered if she cared.
"Okay, pa, I'm going to ask you a few questions, is that okay?" She had the questions written on the page in front of her, numbered carefully, immaculately, and she had a sheet with the narration she wanted Wren to provide over that, an introduction to who Mæ̀h̄m̂āy Klahan was and why she was important. The General's widow. The closest thing the Selected, Vardi Tayna, had to a mother. The woman who had helped to raise the stolen crown prince. Sometimes Eden wondered which of Pa's traits Demetri had inherited. Did he have her dark sense of humour, her inability to suffer fools, her inclination to think the worst of everyone around her and be clearly delighted when they proved her right? Did he have her forthright manner, her thoughtfulness in her action, her thoughtlessness in her words? Eden thought it unlikely. It wouldn't befit a king to behave in such a manner. "Let me know if you want a break or anything. There's only a few. And then we'll get some footage of the horses and the chickens and the house, okay?"
"I think I can manage."
Eden smiled. She checked the set-up that Enyakatho had provided, and moved the camera ever-so-slightly, so that Pa was framed in the corner of the screen, small and yet undiminished even as the image was for the most part dominated by the cornflower blue sky that seemed to stretch endlessly beyond her. Pa had a demanding screen presence; she drew the eye, even if she was not the apparent focus of the camera. Eden wanted this to seem natural, like they had just come across Pa and started a conversation by chance.
"Mrs Klahan," Eden began. "When you lived in Angeles, what did you like best about the city?"
The film crew seemed very surprised at this line of questioning - "I thought we were filming propaganda for us, not for them," Wren hissed – but Pa smiled and leaned forward in her seat and started, with that rhythmic way of hers, to answer the question as she answered all questions, not quite addressing directly what Eden had said but clearly working her way around to it. That was good, Eden thought, because she could cut the question out later, make it all seem so much more natural.
"I went first to Angeles when I was fourteen years old, because my father had found work there as a chef. He was known as the best chef in all of Krung Thep, and Krung Thep is known for its chefs, so you can imagine how wonderfully he cooked. Now, that's how I went first to the palace, and coming from such a busy city – we were originally from the mountains but Daddy moved us to the city because that's where the restaurants were – and coming from such a busy city, the first thing I realised about Angeles was how clean everything was, and how polite the people. No one shouted! The cars stopped when you crossed the road. When you asked in the shop what the price was, they told you, and that was that. Now, I liked that fine, but my Daddy always said that it lacked character. Well, I thought it had a very nice character, and when my father started working in the palace, I thought it was the most beautiful building I had ever seen, and that it had plenty of character as well."
"Was that where you met General Klahan?"
"Well, when we came to Illéa the first time, because King Trajan, may his bones rest gently, King Trajan invited us, Huyhn's family were of the same tribe as us, both Akha, and our mothers had been friends, so we lived with them first, before King Trajan's father gave us an apartment in the palace. And when King Trajan's Selection was announced, I was invited to participate, because I was the right age, but Huyhn asked that I did not join for his sake – so I didn't, and went away, and married someone else!" Pa laughed.
"The path of love never did run smoothly," Eden agreed. "What happened to your first husband?"
"Well, Ysabel had his head put on a pike." Pa had such a knack for saying these things casually. "I can't remember what he did, but that is how these things go."
"Can you tell me anything about Demetri?"
"Well, when my husband rescued him first, and brought him home, and asked me to feed him and clothe him and be something of a foster mother to him, as you might to a foal whose dame has rejected it, I remember thinking to myself that he was such a small boy, and so prone to politeness, he refused to to ever disagree with you. All that same Angeles character that my father had so hated when he first came to Illéa, and yet when he met our little prince Demetri, he said to me, I rather see the appeal of this sort of character, and that was that."
"Your family looked after Demetri?"
"Well, we looked after him when he first arrived here, soothed him when he cried at night. Daddy used to cook for him, and taught him how to cook, and Huyhn always said that we must treat him as Trajan would have wanted us to treat him, and raise him as Trajan and Jael would have. When my father got ill, Demetri looked after him like any good grandson would, but he was not always a good grandson, for my father used to say, do not go to war, do not give your life, you were not born to die, and Demetri always used to say "what use is a king who will not fight for his kingdom?" and joined the rebellion before my father's corpse was even cold."
A voice behind Eden said, "you make me sound so heartless, pa."
Eden spun. There he was – the king himself, his hair slightly dishevelled, looking a little drawn and worn but smiling brightly despite that. Eden had met Mordred several times, and always found him a little too cold and clean, always perfectly coiffed, in perfectly tailored clothes, never inclined to listen or speak to the people around him, except maybe to exchange a few short words with Liara Lee if she happened to pass him with her friends. Eden Lahela had belonged to the elite of Angeles, but even she had not quite reached the highest echelons occupied by the courtiers and their children.
"Your Majesty." Eden curtsied low, but Demetri jerked with his head to indicate that she should straighten.
"Please. You've just heard my foster mother talk about my night terrors. You might as well call me Demetri."
"Demetri. My apologies." Eden could not help but feel a bit like a leech right now, caught creating some voyeuristic video which made a show out of his family's trauma, transformed the people who had helped him into some sort of propagandised saviours for the purposes of cheap views. "I didn't realise you would be… coming by."
"No one did." Demetri smiled the same way that Pa did, Eden saw, first one side of his mouth and then the other, created crookedly and yet quite symmetric as a full expression. "What can I say? I was feeling spontaneous." He indicated her set-up. "What sort of camera are you using?"
Eden looked at it, almost like she didn't understand what he was asking her.
"It's a Panaflex, I think. 35mm film."
"What sort of lens are we talking?"
Eden almost smiled. Demetri spoke like he knew what she was talking about – but she had never heard anything about him being interested in photography, in film. This was some other kingly skill, the surface-level knowledge of every imaginable topic of conversation, to best feign expertise, to best put others at ease, to make conversation at banquets with foreign dignataries and visiting nobles. It didn't belong here, in the dusty courtyard of an old farm. Maybe he had spent the drive over here learning all of the jargon he thought might be necessary for this conversation. "C series. Anamorphic lens."
"I like that. Bit of personality."
"Not quite crystal clarity." Wren and Enyakatho were stepping away, apparently aware that at this point, they were almost intruding; Pa, a slight smile on her face, had turned away and was making her way back down the path, towards the stables, to check on the horses, leaving Eden and Demetri alone in the courtyard, still separated by half a dozen feet of space.
"It's a personality piece. You don't need clarity for that, Lady Eden." Demetri tilted his head. "But it brings in some texture, I suppose?"
"It ought to." Eden's voice was wry.
"Show me." It was not an order, as Ysabel might have given; it was a request, uttered very softly, but Eden was more than delighted to humour him.