35 The Proverbial Knife
The Proverbial Knife
T he plan is to do something a little different tonight,” said Justine.
She directed Temmi to sit on one of the brightly cushioned benches inside the camera-crew-stuffed gazebo.
It was situated beside an adorable pond in the middle of the manor’s eastern gardens.
A little family of geese skimmed their way along the pond’s surface; tiny pink and purple flowers ringed the bank; the twilit glow of the nearly departed sun lent the water’s surface a violet hue.
It would never not be amazing, the amount of beauty—of life—a world could hold.
Even amidst all the turmoil inside of Temmi, this beauty existed.
The thought made her miss Ollie with a breath-stealing acuteness.
Because he deserved to see it too. He’d always had a tender capacity to fall in love with life’s minute wonders.
Though, in contrast, Temmi could imagine their mother turning skittish at the foliage, the pond, the geese; the novelty would overwhelm her.
Justine said something into her earpiece, then handed Temmi a glass of plum wine.
Temmi accepted it, bringing herself back to this moment, to the gazebo, to Expan Proper.
Stared at the wine. She’d have to be an actual idiot to drink it.
She wouldn’t be drinking anything offered to her by anyone.
Not tonight or any night to come. A minor shame, because it meant getting through the rest of the show completely sober.
“Instead of chatting alone with the prince,” Justine said, speaking loudly to be heard over the other five producers prepping their own contestants, “you’re going to have what’s called a two-on-one.
With Cailin Frederik. Not right away—Cailin’s gonna prompt it by speaking to the prince privately first. We’re playing with the storyline that you hate each other, so anything you can do to up the drama would be most appreciated.
Like cussing her out or, hell, punch her if you want. That’d be something.”
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Temmi said.
She cast a furtive look across the gazebo. Just because she’d begun to suspect Arbora and Justine for the murders didn’t mean she’d mentally absolved Cailin of the crime. After all, Rosaria had died in the wake of an evening cocktail party just like this one.
Before too long, filming kicked off with Nicky. Dressed smartly in a black suit, he gave a speech about how impressed he was by his team’s efforts in the net-volley game the day before (though, for the show’s benefit, he said “earlier today”).
There was so much of Spie in him. That hair, the black of interstellar space, that nose, thin and perfectly centered, those cheekbones, prominent and cutting—but his eyes and mouth and jaw softened his beauty where his sister’s remained sharp.
And his smile made one feel like they were being let in on a secret, while Spie’s made one feel like they were being shown a new universe.
He started off the party by calling Jasmine back for a private chat.
After she left, the producers prodded the rest of them into conversation.
Initially, that meant a monologue wherein Milea sang the praises of the Fleet’s newest precision star fighter, a progressive design capable of entering low-atmosphere hover as well as engaging interplanetary travel, cooked up by engineers working for Jasmine Gross’s family company, Gross Industries.
Temmi, genuinely intrigued, asked how the ship could generate enough thrust to go from a low in-atmosphere hover to a full escape trajectory.
Cailin responded by saying, in a condescending tone, how cute it was to “see the X-er trying to understand technology so advanced,” then devolved into a minor coughing fit. Her handler was on her at once.
“Of course I took the immunity boosters earlier,” Cailin barked at the poor man.
“No, I don’t need to sleep; it’s just a cold, I’m fine.
Get me that throat spray; it’s actually helpful, unlike you right now.
” Her tone was halfway between aggravated and abusive.
Her handler shouted at a PA to bring him the “anesthetic spray.”
Temmi, unable to stop herself, said, “Am I to assume the show won’t be using any footage of you being an asshole to your producer?”
Cailin shot her a glare that could’ve melted steel. “Your continued presence here is the greatest insult I’ve ever had to endure.” She snapped at the cameras and producers, then fixed her face into something less unpleasant. “We’re resetting the scene. Erase the last two minutes of footage.”
Cailin’s producer spent the next ten minutes arguing with PAs until every camera had been taken down and the footage wiped. How nice would it be to have that kind of power? It’s what I’m working for , Temmi thought. Why I have to win.
Jasmine reappeared before filming had resumed and Cailin was, blessedly, called away next.
Waiting Willow, a voluptuous woman with strawberry hair and a pinkish complexion, asked Jasmine how her time with Nix had gone. “You’re still dating both him and Spie, aren’t you? Does your being in our group mean you’re leaning toward Nix officially?”
Jasmine cleared her throat, but the action facilitated a sudden cough. Under the soft lighting, her face held a slightly sickly pallor. The whites of her eyes looked distinctly bloodshot.
Temmi swallowed against a swell of sudden panic. Bloodshot didn’t mean poisoned , she told herself. There was a universe of difference between bleeding and bloodshot—but still. What if someone had slipped Jasmine something in her drink? The glass in her hands was less than half-full.
And where had Justine gotten off to? Temmi scanned the gazebo and surrounding grounds for her producer, her panic intensifying when she couldn’t spot the signature billed cap. Temmi cursed herself for being careless. Why did I ever let her out of my sight?
Jasmine said, “Nix was...Well.” She brought her fingers to her lips. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to choose between him and Spie. They’re each so different—” Her cough returned. “Excuse me; I fear I’m feeling a bit faint. Must be all the excitement.”
Maybe it wasn’t poison; considering Cailin’s cough, Jasmine might have simply come down with an innocuous cold. Temmi tried to breathe easier.
“Ah! Nix is coming!” Damaya squealed.
Suddenly, Justine appeared. From where, Temmi had no idea. Her producer-slash-maybe-also-a-murderer gave Temmi a hand signal that she interpreted to mean You’re up .
Indeed, Nix reentered the gazebo. On the top step, two cameras flanking him, he pinned Temmi with his gaze. “Artemis,” he began in his princely-for-the-cameras tone. “Do you mind coming back with me and Cailin?”
Temmi did mind; she minded very much, in fact. While she deliberated how to respond diplomatically, Nicky’s gaze tripped over to Jasmine, who was accepting a bottle of water from her handler and getting her temperature checked.
“You all right, Jasmine?” Nicky asked.
She dipped into a shallow bow. “Yes, of course. Don’t worry about me, Your Highness.”
He nodded, looking back to Temmi expectantly.
Time to face the noose , she supposed.
They walked side by side down a path, followed by cameras, to a hidden side of the pond.
From the outstretched branch of a large tree hung a wooden swing.
A cute rowboat was tied to a moss-strewn dock.
Fairy lights danced through the air in tones of soft yellow and hazy white.
The scene would’ve bordered on idyllic if not for the red-headed vulture sneezing into a handkerchief.
The vulture threw her handkerchief at her producer.
Nix stopped short. Turning, he waved off the cameras following them. He put a finger to his ear. “I’m gonna take five, Kal, then we’ll go in. Yes, that’s smart. Early signs. Send someone to take her to the set medic. Hopefully, it’s just a case like Cailin’s.”
“Are you talking about Jasmine?” Temmi asked. “Shouldn’t we keep sick contestants in their rooms or something?”
“Tell that to Blessing Stone,” Nicky said.
When he smiled at her, it didn’t reach his eyes.
Temmi could feel the sear of Cailin’s gaze on them.
Nix took Temmi’s hand and tugged her into the shadow of the large tree.
“Sorry I missed our library date this morning. I was stuck in meetings with Kal and my mother’s advisors. ”
By now, Temmi had grown accustomed to the melancholy of his eyes, the way they exuded a sense of pain. But tonight, that pain seemed sharper somehow. Temmi couldn’t explain why; it was something in the way he looked at her, something in the slump of his shoulders.
“Is everything okay? Your headache, is it back?”
Nix shook his head. “No— Well, yes, always, but no.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I just, well, you’ve been a good friend to me. I can’t thank you enough for that. For letting me taste something I thought I never would be able to have.”
Friend. The word swelled in Temmi with truth and tenderness.
Yes, friend . That was what they were. It was what felt right between them.
Not a diminishing of their connection but a correct ordering.
And one, she realized suddenly, that she didn’t want to lose.
When had these people she would’ve spat at on principle two months before come to mean so much?
When had she, Temmi, notoriously prickly loner (Ollie’s words—he’d tried valiantly to get her to socialize after Scot’s betrayal, but she had constantly refused) suddenly found herself trusting people again?
“What’s going on, Nicky?” She stepped closer to him.
He inhaled sharply and suddenly. “I—I don’t know how to explain. That’s a lie. I can. I’m just afraid you’ll hate me if I explain. And I really don’t want you to hate me.”
Temmi’s gaze slid past the prince, to the New Terran princess by the pond’s shore. “You’re sending me home, aren’t you.” Fuck. She was still weeks out from the final eight, let alone the finale.
Nix squeezed his eyes shut incriminatingly.
When he opened them, the melancholy had deepened.
“I don’t want to, but I— Temmi, I can’t pick you.
We both know that. This date with Cailin is the show’s way of dramatizing the conflict between you two.
They want it to culminate in me sending one of you home. ”
“But you don’t have to listen to the show,” Temmi said, her voice rising.
“You don’t have to do what Blessing Stone wants.
The decisions are yours; I know they are.
If I’ve learned anything these last few weeks, it’s that production will push their dramas as far as they can, but they can’t force any of us to go along with what they want. Especially you.”
“Yes, but I have to think about more than what I want. I have to think about what’s best for the empire. For humanity’s continued survival.”
“And who you marry is directly causal to humanity’s survival? Don’t be ridiculous, Nix. Fuck this. Don’t send me home. I’ve gone through so fucking much to be here. To stay here. At least give me a few more weeks to change your mind. Please.”
“I’m sorry, Temmi,” he said, his voice so small, so pathetic when compared with the power he carried, that she felt a surge of deep, impotent anger.
She’d done everything she was supposed to do.
Had played the fucking game the way it was supposed to be played (or as well as she humanly could).
She’d done the dates, the confessionals, had endured Manny’s torture chamber of outfits, had allowed herself to be portrayed as an idiot villain for trillions of viewers.
She’d listened to Kalvin and kept quiet when two girls died.
Had complied with burying their deaths. All so she could get to the prize at the end.
Two million credits. She’d even delusionally let herself believe she could play the game well enough to get to the top, to become someone who made the rules.
She should’ve known better. Should’ve known the game was never designed to let someone like her win.
So, what was the fucking point? Play the game, don’t play the game—none of it changed anything for people like her.
Rosaria had played the game; Kya had played the game. They were both in body bags.
And nobody gave a single fucking shit.
“You’re a coward, Nicky,” Temmi said, her rage so hot, it burned out as tears. “What were you going to do, huh? Let Cailin make me look bad in front of you? The perfect end for the villain, right? Ousted by the prince. Well, fuck that.”
She stepped away from the tree. Suddenly, there were cameras fanning out around her. When had they gotten there? How much had they captured?
Across the open clearing, she made eye contact with Cailin. Somehow, Temmi knew, with utter certainty, that the New Terran princess had orchestrated this. Had been orchestrating this.
Keep stealing his attention and I’ll ruin you.
Murderer or not, Cailin had slipped in the proverbial knife with precision.
Temmi hadn’t been sent home. Not yet. But she was done. Done listening to Kalvin. Done spending every day afraid. Done with this stupid farce of a game.
It was time to change the rules.