CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HAROLD GREETED ME THE NIGHT OF MY FIRST BALL. “IT’S been some time. The Starlings are ready for you.”
I had spent the last two weeks almost entirely alone.
Lo was once again my only companion, but even she was distant.
Gregory hadn’t approved their mating yet.
Even with clear eyes, she was withdrawn.
Most mornings I would find her stuffing an empty stimulant drink into her bag, surrounded by the other still-drugged women.
Was she sabotaging her contract, or did she no longer care in Gregory’s silence?
I never got to ask her, thanks to the soldiers who now rode on the Pods with us.
I didn’t know if Gregory’s silence was due to whatever was going on with the supplements or his displeasure that, for all Lo was, she would never be Nora.
I didn’t hear from Nora either. Her determination to bully Collin for an informal tea seemed unsuccessful. Or perhaps she had heard our argument and decided against being my friend after all.
Hal hadn’t returned to my office. I assured myself that it was due to his healing and that I would hear from someone if something was wrong.
My office, which had provided the two of us refuge, became a cell again, the buzzing lights my only company.
I looked at art, my mind bouncing from intrigue to wishing I could discuss it with someone to wondering if the pieces I sent to destruction found their way into the Underworld.
One of the paintings they destroyed stuck with me—a man led a woman by the hand, but the woman was pale and looked upset and lost. Was he taking her away?
Were the people among the trees mourning her leaving?
Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld.
Had there been an Underworld before the Last War?
I didn’t know. I never would. The lights never talked back, so I sat alone with my thoughts, staring at all the things the Illum were determined to destroy.
I couldn’t bring myself to look too closely at that last clash with Collin—the line I had very nearly crossed, one I never would have forgiven myself for.
I followed Harold into the room, where I waited for the Starlings. Collin’s voice echoed in my ear.
Knowing every terrible thing I am capable of. Would you tell me no?
The look in his blue eyes haunted me almost as viciously as how my body had moved toward him instead of running. Instead of saying no.
You’re maddening, consuming, unwilling to follow any of their rules. I have a role to play and yet I spend my time thinking about you.
I could have listened to the boundaries and obeyed. Allowed my Academy training to win—be a suitable Mate. Adhered to my role in this society they had built when we resurfaced after the nuclear fallout.
But that would mean I must ignore the injustice I had seen. Overlook the blood on my beaded gown and the person it had belonged to. Forget Violet’s battered face. Disregard the mothers’ screams at the Sanctuary. Let go of the Majors’ life beneath. Brush off the way Hal had kissed me.
Tell me no.
And yet I hadn’t.
“Hello, Fledgling,” Violet’s silky voice cooed at me, startling me back to the present.
I turned to face her, relief flooding me to see her healed and unmarred face. Her eyes were clear. “Hi,” I said, and smiled.
“Come, we have a long appointment,” Rose said, holding the door open to the steaming bathing room.
Within minutes, I was stripped naked, and they scrubbed every inch of me. I was pelted by the hot shower before I plunged into the tub.
“We thought you had messed it up,” Rose commented with forced nonchalance, working her hands through my hair. “Your other two appointments got canceled.”
“You didn’t listen, Fledgling.” Violet tsked. “You did not do nothing.”
I sucked in a deep breath and honesty slipped out. “I couldn’t.”
They shoved my head under the surface to wash my hair.
“Let’s move on,” Rose prompted. I heard her walk away. I left the tub to find Violet waiting for me with a towel. Her eyes danced, and a chill snaked down my spine.
“Come,” Violet said as she steered me to the next room. She leaned in. “I do not condone you disobeying orders. It’s stupid and lives could have been lost. Still, I admire your dedication. My brother saw you brought in below.”
“Who’s your brother?” I asked.
“Rajesh. He was phased out of the Academy. He found me five years ago. I thought I had lost him.”
“Wait, he was phased out? What happened? Do all phased-out offspring end up in blue?” I asked as red hair and freckles flashed before my eyes. Was Alice below?
Violet shook her head. “Not all of them make it to the Underworld. Many are eliminated.”
My stomach turned, and I thought I might be sick. They eliminated young offspring?
I cleared my throat. “How did he make it?”
“He does not talk about it,” Violet told me gravely. “I am just glad he lives.”
“Is he why you picked their side?” I asked in a hushed voice. Violet gazed ahead at Rose, who was gathering supplies in the corner of the room. The way she looked at her, the need, left me reeling. “Among other things,” Violet confirmed, grabbing my towel and tapping the bed for me to lie down.
The two of them worked together in silence as they stripped my body of hair, then lathered my skin until it shimmered. I threw on my robe and followed them.
Rose attacked my nails while Violet dried my hair. Finally, the dryer was put away, and Violet’s hands were crafting my hair into one of her artful swept-away updos.
“You don’t have a lens in,” Rose commented while painting my nails. The chipped red paint was replaced with a shimmering silver. I flicked my eyes to my reflection. I had forgotten exactly when I had decided to remove it in the two weeks I had spent alone. It had begun to burn so I pulled it out.
“There was no reason for it while on the ground,” I confided, catching my lip between my teeth. Violet and Rose had clear eyes even though they wore their variant of gray.
Rose tutted. “Without it, you are easily recognizable. You are the Illum’s Mate; sticking out might be ill-advised.” She had a point, but then again, all the Minors were still drugged and wouldn’t recognize anything.
“What do you want to say, Fledgling?” Violet prompted, staring at me in the mirror as Rose finished my nails.
“The Minors below, they aren’t right,” I whispered.
They shared a look. “Did the shackle on your wrist or your wits spare you?” Rose inquired.
“My wits. My Mate certainly didn’t warn me. Why aren’t the Minors in the sky drugged?”
“Our jobs require more wits than yours,” Violet said. “We wouldn’t be able to service them. We are being watched, though. Minors in the sky are quiet now.”
Rose replaced my lens and began painting my face. I asked the question that had found me over and over the past two weeks. I had heard nothing about the Reaper.
“Is the Reaper going to do something about it?”
Violet opened her mouth. “We shouldn’t, Violet, please,” Rose interrupted desperately. “She didn’t listen. You can’t trust her.”
Violet shook her head, pain painted across her face as she turned to Rose. Her next words were spoken like a lover’s. “Dear, I am fighting for us. Do not ask me to stop.”
“You said he sent the message to leave her out of it,” Rose pleaded.
“I am not asking her to do anything. I am simply giving her information. What she does with it is her decision.”
Rose shook her head.
“Yes, he is making a move soon,” Violet said. “We don’t know what, just where not to be.”
“When?”
“Within the next few days.”
“Have you met the Reaper?” I asked them.
Rose tutted at me, sniffling. “Don’t move so much.”
“We haven’t. The Reaper is not known by many,” Violet told me, leaning against the vanity, handing Rose different items as she painted my face.
“How do the Elite know him then?”
“He has a style to him,” Violet said in a hushed tone.
I raised my brows at her, and Rose swatted me. “If you can’t sit still, you two cannot talk.” She shot Violet a stern look. Violet raised her hands, conceding as she smiled. A reluctant smile tugged at Rose’s full mouth in response.
“What’s his style?” I asked.
“Being an efficient killer,” Rose said tersely, as if his methods bothered her.
Violet added, “He’s very lethal, capable of taking down twice as many men as anyone else, but he leaves a message every time.”
“Close your eyes,” Rose told me.
“If he has time, he cuts the chips out of the Elites’ arms.”
I kept my eyes closed as the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
I only knew one person who had cut out their chip.
“What does he do with them?” I asked, voice trembling.
“No one knows. Some say he is making his own chips, others say it’s just to send a message, and some say he’s taking their MINDs and raising the dead to take down everyone in the clouds.”
“How do you raise the dead?”
“He’s reusing the cutout chips to grant access to his followers.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your Defect MIND isn’t allowed in the clouds unless the Illum approve it, but the MINDs of the dead Elite are allowed to move freely in the clouds. Scan that MIND instead of your own and suddenly his army is in the sky.”
“Army?”
“Don’t move your mouth for a moment. I know that will be difficult for you,” Rose said.
I grumbled as I closed my mouth for her. Violet continued, “Yes, army. It spans from Beneath to Above.”
Rose finished painting my lips, and I immediately asked, “Why kill the Elite, though? Why not just take their MIND chips and leave them?”
“Because they weren’t stupid when they inserted our chips.
This right here”—Violet took my glowing wrist and tapped a bluish vein under my skin—“that is called a radial artery. The chip is right by it. If you aren’t extremely exact when you cut it out, and you hit that, you’ll bleed out.
If you want the chips, then the owners have to die. ”
“So he kills them for the chips or just to kill them?” I asked. I needed to know.