CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AFTER MY SHIFT ENDED, LO AND I SCANNED INTO THE LAST Pod once the other Minors had cleared out. The Pod made its obnoxious announcement, and two different locations appeared on the screen. I would see the Starlings, and Lo would be tended to by someone else.
The Pod shot up, my stomach flipping at the quick ascent. Lo clutched her seat, her mouth clamped tightly shut like she might be sick.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said. “I told you everything I know, but regardless, he’s going to love you, Lo. He’d be a fool otherwise.”
She smiled tightly and didn’t respond, and a tense silence fell. I watched the setting sun. Even as it burned my eyes, I refused to look away. It was fleeting, I reminded myself.
As the sun kissed the horizon its final goodbye, we reached Lo’s destination. We hadn’t yet passed the clouds, and I wondered whether the proximity to the surface meant anything. I felt a slither of unease.
“Message me when it’s over?” I asked.
“Yeah, see you,” Lo muttered as the doors closed. The Pod continued upward, breaking through the clouds.
I should have tried harder to reassure her, but I didn’t know what to say anymore. We were powerless in this. Simply vessels. That was what Hal had said. Hal.
It was hard to believe it had only been a week since I had met him.
Somehow, I needed to rearrange my life to what it was before Hal existed.
But one week carried more weight than a decade.
A foolish part of me fantasized that if I just got through the next forty-eight hours, I would arrive in my office to find Hal lounging in my chair.
We would just go back and spend time together until .
. . until I was active in the procreation phase, or until I carried an offspring of an Illum? Until Hal was caught and eliminated?
There was no scenario in which Hal and I could be together.
You were always going to be a goodbye.
It was good that it was done, I told myself. If one week caused this, what would have been the ramifications of three moons’ time? This way, no one got hurt.
My chest protested fiercely. I rested my forehead against the glass as the sparkling buildings blurred together. There was a gap between two buildings, and I saw it. The moon looked at me, but it was only a quarter of it. The full moon was still a week off.
His voice echoed in my head. I cut out that fucking chip. I’m whoever I want to be.
Alone in the Pod, the moon my only witness, I wondered what I would do if I had a choice, who I would be.
The Pod doors opened to the familiar antechamber beyond, and the wish was swallowed up by the unending darkness of night.
“Ms. Emeline.” Harold bowed his head before scanning my wrist.
“Harold,” I said as we walked down the hall.
“The Starlings will be with you shortly.”
“Both of them?”
He nodded gravely as the door snapped closed.
“Hello again, Fledgling,” Violet’s smooth voice called out. I turned and the air fled from my lungs, horror slamming into me. Violet had been hurt. Badly. Her left eye was puffy, tinged a deep purple, and a barely healed cut on her lip reopened as she smiled, blood beading.
“What happened to you?” I whispered as Rose grabbed my bag, disappearing without a hello.
“It looks worse than it feels,” Violet assured me.
“Who did this?” I demanded.
“The Illum,” Violet said as she opened the door that led to the bathing chamber. “Don’t worry. It would take more than this to keep me away.”
Gregory’s warning rang in my ears. You are the Mate of the Illum they send into the Elite to carry out their judgments and punishments. He is their Enforcer.
Had he enforced this? Who exactly was my Mate, and what did he have to do with what happened to the Starlings?
I followed Violet inside the steaming room, but I didn’t feel any of the usual effects of the calming scent of lavender steam. Apprehension squeezed my throat.
“You know the drill. Clothes off.” Violet reached for the jar of exfoliant and sucked in a sharp breath, her free hand flying to her side. What other bruises did she cover?
I stood naked before them as Violet and Rose silently began scrubbing me down. Violet breathed through her teeth as she turned to reach my back. Rose looked up from her crouched position, worry etched across her face.
“Please sit, Violet,” Rose urged. “I can do it alone. Let yourself heal.”
“They told me I was to return to my duties,” Violet stated as she continued. It had been four days since I had last been here. How bad had Violet’s injuries been if she looked like this?
“What did they do to you?”
Rose looked up, glaring at me. “You have caused enough trouble,” Rose seethed viciously as she walked away, slamming her fist on the button. The showerheads came to life. Rose had barely scrubbed my lower half. She smiled brutally. “Some grime can’t be scrubbed away no matter how hard you try.”
“Rose,” Violet scolded as she guided me to the showers. The scalding water assaulted my skin. I made my way to the other side, sputtering, trying to hear what the pair was arguing about.
“You will not.”
“She has a right to know.”
“Not at the expense of you.”
“I am fine.”
“I am not. I will not watch that again. I will not risk you.”
I wiped the water from my eyes to find the two of them huddled close together. Closer than friends. Rose held both sides of Violet’s dress as Violet cupped her face.
When the water shut off, they pulled apart. No one handed me a towel. I tiptoed over to the tub, dripping wet. They made their way to the tub’s edge as I submerged. Rose helped Violet to her knees, her pain evident.
“I can wash my hair on my own,” I said, desperate to avoid Violet’s suffering. “Please.”
Rose shoved my head beneath the surface, and water flooded my nose. She yanked me back up, my eyes streaming. “Why do you care now?” Rose demanded savagely, applying sweet-smelling soaps to my wet hair.
“I swear I didn’t—”
Rose shoved me under again. I racked my brain for what I had said to Collin at tea all those days ago. He had encouraged me to speak plainly. Was it all so he could get information? I gulped air as I resurfaced.
“It could have come from another source. Someone else close to the Illum,” Violet was saying. “She isn’t the only one with ties to them.”
“She wouldn’t say anything,” Rose retorted.
Violet clicked her tongue. “Rose, you don’t know that. She’s desperate.”
I exited the tub when they finished, shaking from the near drowning, and took the warm towel Violet offered me. I watched as she walked out of the room gingerly. I just wanted to understand. I was so tired of being kept in the dark.
We entered the waxing room, where I dropped my towel unabashedly and crawled onto the table.
They began their torturous application of the wax.
I welcomed the pain today, letting it siphon some of the guilt and hurt I carried.
Rose ripped a strip from a particularly sensitive area and I yelped, my eyes watering.
Tears slipped down my face. “Was the blue dress punishment?”
There was a weighted pause. “We already answered their questions about the dress,” Rose snapped finally. “We had no part in it.”
“I would understand if it was you,” I told them, wiping my eyes. “I didn’t mean to get anyone in trouble. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I am sorry.”
Violet laid a hand on my shoulder. “I never thought you did, Fledgling.”
Rose ripped another strip from my skin, and I let out a small scream. “Slipped,” Rose said. “You might not have meant to, but you did. You got my—” Rose shook her head. “You got Violet hurt.”
“Someone got me hurt,” Violet said plainly.
“But why?” I implored. “Does this have anything to do with the Reaper?”
“Shhh,” Rose said, whipping her head like she half expected to see someone in the room. “Are you daft?”
“The Elite are the ones who told me,” I explained.
They shared a look over my naked body, communicating in a nonverbal way that took true knowledge of another. Rose’s mouth became a thin line as she shook her head, but Violet looked down at me.
“What do you think of the Elite?” Violet asked.
I caught my lip between my teeth. Violet nodded at whatever she read on my face.
“I don’t think I need to tell you that what I am about to share doesn’t leave this room,” Violet whispered so quietly that I rose up onto my elbows to hear better. Rose began applying wax again. “A rebellion is coming, Fledgling.”
People are rising up. My heart began beating faster and harder until each breath took effort. Was it fear, or was it my own battle cry?
“Does your Mate often confide Illum information to you?” Violet asked. “Clearly he’s interested in you, judging from the photo in the Press.”
“I don’t know if he’s truly interested, or if he’s just using me.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “There are many ways to kiss someone. Hands don’t cling to obligations. Nor do polite kisses linger.”
My face heated. “Who said it lingered?”
“Everyone. It’s all the Elite have been able to talk about.” Rose applied more wax. “Collin is constantly in the Press—giving messages on the Illum’s new passings, the Reaper situation. Everything related to the Illum comes from him.”
“And he’s connected to you,” Violet said quietly. “You are the only non-Elite with access to the Illum.”
“What about Tabitha?” I asked. “Collin mentioned she has run the city for more than fifty years. Why isn’t she in the Press?”
Rose grew impossibly paler. “We don’t talk about her.”
“We can’t keep her in the dark,” Violet protested. “He’ll eat her alive.”
“Better her than us,” Rose responded bitterly, her eyes on Violet’s bruised face.
“Rose,” Violet began, a delicateness to her words. “We are all in this together.”
“No,” Rose declared, her voice cracking as she gripped the side of the table.
“We aren’t in this together because the walls have ears, and all secrets slither back to the mother’s nest. And she is in that nest, soon to be in bed with one of them.
I told you this is a bad plan, Violet. You overreach. Why can’t this be enough?”
“Rose, the time of hiding is coming to an end. There is no going back. We will all have to pick our sides. You know mine.” Violet held Rose’s stare. Rose trembled, shaking her head. “No matter the cost. No matter the consequences.”
“I need to find a new lens,” Rose said, sniffling as she walked away.
“Tell me, Fledgling, are you tired of being in the dark?” Violet asked, ripping one strip.
“Yes,” I said, and meant it.
“We need information, and you can get it.”
I glanced up at her. “What information?”
“Information to help the Reaper.” Violet tore the last strip from my skin, then beckoned me to follow her to the next room.
The Illum had always claimed to be dedicated to peace, but looking at Violet’s ravaged face, that couldn’t have felt further from the truth.
No one spoke as Violet styled my hair in a upswept low twist with pieces framing my face. Rose replaced my lens, painted my lips a bloodred, and left my eyes simple with long lashes. My nails were shaped into ovals and painted the color of rubies to match the jewelry I was to wear.
At last, we made our way into the final room. Violet passed me a pair of nude panties. I dropped my robe and shimmied into them before making my way onto the platform.
“Your Mate picked this dress himself,” Rose told me.
They helped me into a wine-red, off-the-shoulder gossamer gown, with billowing sheer sleeves that hit just below my elbow and a boned bodice that ran up to soft cups.
The skirt pooled on the floor, the thin fabric floating around me like a deep red mist. Rose finished lacing up the back of the gown and handed me simple black heels and a black satin bag.
Violet walked in a moment later with the necklace and earrings and fastened them in place.
I stared at the girl in the mirror. She was beautiful, but all I saw was the violence Violet had endured, Hal talking about his parents’ murder, Alice’s fiery gaze that I would never see again.
The necklace looked like drops of blood sparkling at my throat.
Everything felt hideous. The brown eyes that had felt like a gift a mere week ago felt shameful, like I was hiding. A coward.
The Starlings walked me out. Violet placed a hand on the door that led to the hall, keeping it closed, and turned to me. “Which side are you on? Them or us? You must choose.”
“I am an Illum’s Mate.”
“Precisely,” Violet said. “Will you help us?”
“This is dangerous for you. I could let something slip,” I whispered.
“Then I would die for something I believe in. But you won’t.
” Violet leaned in, the intensity in her eyes searing me.
“Remorse isn’t something one can fake—not convincingly.
I saw it when you saw my face. A better test than any I could give you.
It wasn’t fear staring back at me, Emeline. It was anger.”
Goosebumps coated my entire body at her words.
“Take your time in the clouds to think it over,” Violet stated, cracking open the door. “Are you content being his vessel, Fledgling? Or do you want power?”