Chapter 1 #2
One of the servers greets me by name as she passes.
I’d respond in kind if I had any idea who she is, so I smile politely and nod.
Papa has close to fifty people employed at the mansion full time, and for these events the number is at least doubled.
Knowing their names would be a full-time job unto itself.
“You don’t want to be you? These people here would kill to be you.”
I’m about to heartily disagree when Jean gasps as if he’s been shot. “Oh, no, no, no! The dough should be golden brown on the ends! Do not serve this merde to the guests.”
It looks fine to me, but if Jean’s reaction is anything to go by, these pastries are as inedible as bootstraps.
“I am so sorry, Luciana. I will see you tomorrow because I have to watch over every miette leaving the kitchen. Otherwise.” He slides his finger across his throat. Jean can rest easy. Considering Papa’s gluttonous gift for excess, the last person he would fire would be the chef.
Temporarily anonymous by virtue of my mask, I stalk around my ballroom unnoticed. The last thing I want to do is draw attention, lest Papa catch wind I’m downstairs and force me to meet good ol’ Jimmy’s son. I’d rather eat my own hair. I’d even eat someone else’s hair.
I mill about, picking up bits and pieces of conversations: snippets of gossip or unsolicited advice, drunken rants, and salacious whispers.
Most of it is drivel or rumors below my level of interest, until I’m near the edge of the ballroom by the garden windows.
In the daytime these windows showcase exotic flowers Papa has imported, but at night it looks like an ominous jungle with dangers lurking inside.
The ballroom has never been my favorite place in our mansion.
It’s cavernous and gaudy, like a bygone relic from the reign of a Russian czar.
Gold trim, immense oil paintings, heavy draperies, skylights, and Doric columns just shy of flagrantly phallic.
“Did you hear about Silas?” A hook-nosed man and his short companion stand near a pillar, heads bowed together in close conversation. Casually I glide to the other side of the pillar, my back to them, watching over my shoulder.
“Oh, certainly,” his companion replies.
“Murdered in his sleep. Slit throat.” The hook-nosed man gossiping uses his index finger to swipe across his neck like Jean did, but this time it’s not an exaggeration. “All the kids found dead, too, and his pretty young wife.”
“Heavens! The Order, I presume?”
“The same. They are so brazen nowadays. I heard rumors they took out top brass in other regions, you know,” he says in a gossipy whisper.
“Silas lost nearly every one of the high-ranking men in his military before his murder. Leader Reed’s top two consultants, missing.
Leader Thorne’s top Duster? Dead.” They share a look of vague concern.
“What do they want?” the ugly man inquires of his companion. “Democracy? Democracy was a theory, like Communism. Was this not proven in the Rift? You cannot sustain a country on ideals. Uneducated fools, the lot of them. They’ll doom us all.”
Perhaps I should comment about how gravity is also a theory, but no one is floating around the room. I don’t.
Our ballroom is awash in rumors and scandal; it’s as prevalent in the air as music.
On their lips is the fate of Silas McGovern—or their worries and bets on who the next target will be.
Others blissfully engage in more benign conversation about inter-region trade or extramarital affairs.
The only truly useful information I gather is from those who doubt Papa’s ability to combat a rebel force.
I make a mental note of them; Papa will want to know about it later.
“Savages.” An old woman sips from her martini glass, held in diamond-encrusted fingers. “Killing innocent children? The Order of Prometheus is no harbinger of peace. They’re…violent radicals.”
Terrorists is the word she’s looking for, but she’d only find it if she raided my mother’s illicit library, where the word pops up often to describe the events leading to the Rift and the eventual collapse of the former nation.
Like her books, that word is shuttered away and gone from usage.
Nobody wants easy access to the blueprints of rebellion.
“Silas deserved it.” This comes from a statuesque woman in a twilight purple gown who says this with finality, smacking her twilight purple lips together. “Those idiot religious zealots in the Southeast? They deserve barbarism.”
A stately older gentleman with epaulets on his shoulders clears his throat.
Attention turns to him quickly—he’s the highest-ranking member of the Force, Chief Jones.
His mere presence inspires adulation and fear amongst this flock of cravens.
Not from me, since no matter how many meaningless yellow patches they sew into his uniform I will always outrank him.
“The rebels will never take this region,” he says, bursting with confidence.
“McGovern was old and weak. Leader Piccolo and I would never allow a rebel presence to build here.”
Chief Jones’s arrogant confidence is not surprising.
Even if he inwardly worried about the pockets of rebellion, he’d never say it publicly.
Papa bought his loyalty long ago, shored up by a friendship bonded by a fondness for power.
The clearest memory I have of him is my mother scolding my father when he left a preadolescent me alone with the chief after a dinner meeting.
We were never left alone together again.
“What do you think, young lady?” His voice gives me a start, and I assume his booming tone is directed at me. It isn’t.
He’s asking the woman standing in front of the beverage table, who looks up through a simple, light blue, figure-eight mask.
A rogue strand of blond hair escapes her graceful bun and she swipes it away from her eyes.
In contrast to the ball gowns of the other women in attendance, she wears a tailored black suit and blue tie.
It’s not uncommon to see a woman in a suit, especially among Papa’s female employees or subregion leaders, but it would be uncommon for one of them to be so young.
Perhaps she’s the daughter of someone important.
“What do I think about what?” A pair of amber eyes—inert but intense, like uncorked champagne—stare up with disinterest. Her voice is low and scratchy not because of age, but a natural huskiness, drawling like an old record.
“About the rebels, of course,” he replies. “You’re a young person… what is the feeling among those your age about the sudden rise of rebellion?”
“What rebellion? If there were a threat, I am sure half your top men would not be here getting inebriated.”
My mask hides my shock but not my snort of laughter. If I were a good hostess, I would intervene and politely tell her how rude it is to insult such a high-ranking official. However, I’m not a good hostess and high-ranking officials are usually twats and this one is especially twatty.
He peers down his nose at her. “It’s my duty to protect this city. I take that very seriously, young lady.”
She cocks an eyebrow, primed to respond. I eagerly anticipate her next verbal takedown, but she schools her features neutrally and doesn’t give me the satisfaction. “Sure.”
He continues pontificating despite the woman’s complete indifference.
“You look young, and it’s usually the young who have their hackles up for rebellion.
You are the ones who don’t understand that the systems we have in place protect everyone.
These rebels, whatever they call themselves, they throw around the word freedom, but their concept of it is twisted,” he storms. “It is not a free-for-all, with the will of an uneducated public directing the fate of the rest. Freedom is safety. Freedom is protection.”
“I don’t believe I asked nor need for you to explain freedom to me.” Another woman in the group lets out a dramatically sharp gasp at the suited woman’s reply. “Nor do I think the man with his boot on the neck of the Underclass in this city knows much about the concept.”
Chief Jones bristles in a flush of anger at the affront. He looks about ready to punch this young woman in her face. “What insolence! Who are you?”
She takes a step closer to him, invading his personal space. Her eyes drag from his gold star badge up to his cold, steel eyes. “‘I’m Nobody, who are you?’”
This moronic slab of rock masquerading as a man couldn’t differentiate an Emily Dickinson quote from a hole in his head, but I can. There’s no time for me to wonder how she came upon a banned poet from the nineteenth century as Chief Jones is supremely pissed off and armed.
Years of etiquette classes put me into action quickly, snatching a drink from the punch bowl and sidling up to the incensed man. “Chief Jones.”
“Little Lucy! I apologize if I’ve caused any disturbance.” We share a sidelong glance at the woman who actually caused the disturbance. “My, my, don’t you look ravishing?” And there’s his hand on the small of my back. Heroically, I suppress the shiver lurking in my spine as his hand drifts lower.
“Hello, Miss Piccolo,” the woman says, pointedly ignoring Chief Jones.
Ignoring the dumb skip of my heart, I return my attention to the chief. “A fierce discussion is good for the heart, did you know that? Keeps a young man like you even younger.”
He preens, summarily distracted from the woman who caused his ire. She remains close, eyes burning into Chief Jones like she’s trying to set him ablaze with her gaze.
“Luciana!”