Chapter Five
Julian met me in the courtyard, his arms folded across his chest and his gaze angled down his nose. It took every bit of my willpower not to laugh at how much he resembled Tabitha doing an impression of Professor Dunn glaring at us for laughing during our morning meditation.
Then I saw the real flinty anger in his eyes, and my amusement became cold shame.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
I tried not to swallow. Or flinch. Or look away. “At the river.”
“Did you misplace your decency while you were out?” he asked, gesturing to my bare feet while avoiding the sight of them.
“I soaked my sore calves in the water.” My shame gave way to a hot rush of anger that warmed my fingertips.
I clenched my hands into fists and hid them in my skirts.
“If I’m meant to live in the country, I ought to harden myself to the pine needles and stones.
There’s nothing indecent about my feet. They’re feet. We’ve all got feet.”
Julian blinked, his stern expression crumbling to boyish surprise before he steeled himself. “You’ll be lucky if you last long enough to harden a single callus if you make a game of your duties here. Your apprenticeship is a privilege. One that can be revoked.”
The threat was a blow to my chest, a reminder that Julian had the power to send me back to the House of Industry. He probably wished they’d sent him a better apprentice. Someone more proper. Someone who would find it an honor to serve him breakfast.
With trembling fingers, I crouched and shoved my feet into my boots. “How can I earn your trust if you’re already so eager to be rid of me?” I muttered.
When I looked up, his haughty expression was shuttered. He looked like he wanted to say something, but I was too hungry and sore to care. Ultimately, he was right. I had a duty here. A duty to him, to Frostbrook, to the House. And I’d never be trusted with my own Mission if I failed to impress him.
I needed to be more careful.
“It was kind of the townspeople to leave us this,” I said quietly, scooping up a basket of bread, cheese, and berries that one of the local families had tucked in a shady nook of the courtyard.
“Kind?” Julian huffed an undignified sound of disbelief. “It’s mandatory payment. For Progress.” He almost sounded disgusted. But when I glanced at him, surprised, his expression was cool once more.
In the city, households and businesses paid fees that went directly toward the operation of local Missions and the use of radiance. “Surely we’re not so far from civilization that there’s no currency,” I said worriedly.
“Frostbrook is not yet a prosperous community. But the House requires everyone to support the new river crossing.” He cleared his throat. “This is their way of doing so.”
Julian Gray was not known as someone who would bend rules. But … it sounded like accepting tithings of food and goods was his way of doing a kindness to the people who would likely not have coin to spare. He caught me studying him and busied himself unlocking the door to the Mission.
I wanted to know more, but the rigid line of his back did not welcome further questions.
“I’ll need to be taught how to unlock the door,” I said, resisting the urge to nip at the berries that smelled like sunshine and sugar.
Julian hummed as the intricate latch whirred and clicked in response to a light touch of radiance from his long fingers. “I suppose you do. It’s quite complicated.”
“If I weren’t capable of unlocking a conduction latch, I wouldn’t have been sent here to assist you.”
His shoulders tightened even more as we ascended a steep wooden stairway that smelled like fresh sap. “A fair point.”
I again wondered why someone who had performed as well as Julian Gray was stuck here in Frostbrook—with me. Had he disappointed his former Senior? Or was this appointment considered prestigious given his young age? Most Seniors were in their thirties.
If he weren’t so sour, I’d ask him. Instead, the silence between us stretched out, and it was nothing like the peaceful calm I’d felt following Ezra through the woods.
We walked through the conduction room, where hulking machines waited to be awakened by radiance from the lines being strung up along the railway.
All I could make out was their looming shadows.
Soon, I’d have the opportunity to help ready them for the rush of radiance.
Soon, we’d be an operational Mission, and I wouldn’t have time for distractions like rivers and berries and freckles.
I should have been excited, but I felt hollow.
My steps slowed. “What is that?”
A massive tower of tight copper coils stood between two conduction chambers. It looked like a stack of coins, caged by steel bars. A rounded conduction pad rested at the base of it. I’d never studied anything like it at the House of Industry.
Julian followed my gaze. “Ah.” He took a few slowly audible breaths, his hand drifting to touch the gleaming metal. “This Mission is to house a Generator eventually,” he said very quietly.
A select few Children of Industry were called to be Generators.
They channeled their radiance into the conduction lines that ran from the House and select Missions to surrounding communities.
Though we’d been taught that being a Generator was a glorious calling and the foundation of all Progress, I could not imagine a life trapped underground.
It sounded like a nightmare. Gertrude had confessed the same once, in a conspiratorial whisper, and I’d felt a traitorous surge of kinship with her.
A shiver ran down my legs, making the hair on my calves prickle uncomfortably. I’d heard whispers that Generators were off, somehow. Whispers that the radiance within them was so great that their minds eventually forgot they were people at all.
“A Generator all the way out here,” I murmured, trying to imagine what that train journey would feel like for someone who’d spent a lifetime indoors.
For a long moment, we stood side by side, regarding the sleeping monument to Progress. It felt like sharing something, but I wasn’t sure what. Surely Julian was too perfect to consider it cruel to bring a helpless Generator to a place as wild as Frostbrook.
It certainly wasn’t something I should be considering at all.
“Come along,” he said, continuing on.
I was surprised to find that his room was no more finely appointed than mine. “At the House, everyone always talked of the luxury of a new Mission,” I said, placing the basket on a rough-hewn table next to the window. “I suppose everything is different here, in the countryside.”
“I requested that anything luxurious, as you say, be removed from the Mission plans in favor of diverting those funds to building up the town’s infrastructure.
Radiance won’t do the people of Frostbrook any good if the train station and the ferry landing aren’t improved.
” Julian wrapped a portion of the cheese, bread, and blackberries in a cloth and tied it neatly.
“Or if they’re hungry,” he added absently.
I didn’t know how to reply. I’d never heard anyone at the House of Industry say something like that.
Feeling disoriented, I stole a glance around the room.
He kept it neat with the glaring exception of a massive desk covered in blueprints and journals and scattered papers.
I’d always preferred working with my hands.
Research and writing made me feel like I had the aptitude of a blinking pigeon.
In the corner of the room, his workspace was much neater than his desk. He appeared to be in the middle of dismantling a small conduction coil with an unfamiliar crank attached to it. I started to ask what he was working on when Julian pushed the bundle of food into my hands.
“This town will grow quickly,” he said, his tone so hard that I wondered if I’d imagined the moment of softness. “People will gather around our Mission like moths to a flame, and we’ll need to be prepared to serve a growing commercial district. There’s no time for frippery.”
“I’d hardly call a decent bed ‘frippery,’” I mumbled, bewildered and begrudgingly warmed by the sacrifice he’d made to better serve this miniscule town.
“You’re dismissed for the evening. I’ll place instructions for your duties under your door. If you run across any of the townspeople, do try to be courteous. We’re outsiders to them, and if you think you need to earn my trust, your priorities are not in order.”
“You said not to bond with anyone. Which is it?” I asked, my mouth running ahead of my common sense.
Julian made a quiet, baffling sound. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought it to convey amusement. “I’m telling you to behave courteously. Is that a challenging notion?”
“No,” I mumbled, trying not to sound sulky. I didn’t appreciate being addressed like a naive child. “And I’ve already met a few people. They seemed to like me well enough.”
His gaze snapped to me as quickly as a startled cat’s. “Oh? What people?”
“Henry, the little boy.” A prickling unease drove me to omit one tall, intriguing, crucial detail. “And Ainsley, his guardian.”
“Yes. Well, they are pleasant enough,” he said, gaze flicking to the work at his desk. He smoothed his waistcoat. “When you introduce yourself and our work, don’t be overly familiar. Light rapport is appropriate. Nothing more.”
“That’s an awfully fine line,” I muttered without entirely meaning to say it out loud.
“And one we’re duty bound not to cross.” Julian wasn’t looking at me, thankfully.
I wasn’t sure I had the ability to steel my expression as I considered how close I’d already come to crossing that line.
He glanced at the small window. “We are destined to serve only Progress. That is the wisdom of the Elders.”