Chapter Six In Which a Door Is Opened #2
“Leave New Ionia?” Zada echoed. Geography had never been her best subject, but even she could remember the toxic wasteland surrounding their magnificent city on a hill.
Zada’s mother, who had of course grown up there, never spoke of her time outside struggling to survive, but Zada knew from whispers that those with the misfortune to live outside New Ionia had no electricity, no way to communicate digitally, no clean water—they were essentially living through their own Dark Ages.
Technically, it wasn’t illegal to leave the safety of the dome.
Traveling outside was simply such a bad idea that nobody of any consequence ever did.
For the average citizen to get cleared to go would’ve taken so long, and required so many years of paperwork and documentation, that the only people who were sanctioned to traverse the border were nuns on the occasional charity mission in their specially registered short-range ships.
For Flora and Aiden, it would be virtually impossible to leave without running away, and that meant never coming back.
All New Ionians were united in their gratitude at living within the dome. To purposely abandon the city was like trading a jewel for a fistful of dirty sand.
“How were you going to help them with that?” Zada asked, once she could speak again.
Daphne shrugged. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”
“Daphne, this is serious,” said Zada.
“I know,” said Daphne. “Why do you think I’m not telling? I have no reason to confide in you.”
Zada pressed her lips together and sighed. “So why didn’t they ‘make their exit,’ then?”
“No idea,” Daphne said. “All I know is that they didn’t show up to the rendezvous point the week before, and then they stopped talking to me. Next thing I knew, they were holding hands and saying their vows.” Then Daphne said in an undertone, “You mentioned Flora went in for Counseling?”
“Yes. She told me she was worried about the wedding,” Zada said. “She wanted everything to go smoothly.”
“Or not go at all,” Daphne muttered.
Zada shook her head. “How could you expect me to believe this?”
“I’m telling you,” said Daphne, “they were ready to leave everything behind. Flora had that systems job waiting for her, and Aiden had his family. He’s really close with his siblings, you know. But none of that could keep them here. They wanted out, and they came to me for help.”
“So you decided to crash their wedding?”
“I was invited, thank you very much,” Daphne said primly.
“I’ll admit, I panicked. I saw the two of them on the brink of a very permanent binding, and knowing what I knew, I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.
So yes, I swiped the Applicator from the groom’s suite when no one was there.
” Daphne amended, “Well, except for Aiden’s nephew. He might’ve seen.”
“You committed theft in front of a child?”
“He had no idea. He was playing one of those new holo-games about raptor detectives,” Daphne said.
“That still doesn’t make it right!”
“I’m of the mind that witnessing crimes can be character building.”
“All right,” Zada said, rolling her eyes. “So what made you think stealing the Applicator was going to work? It’s not as if they’re in short supply. It was a stopgap measure at best.”
“I told you, I panicked. I’m not much of a planner. You were always the brains of the operation.” She cut a sidelong glance at Zada. “You know, you’re taking this all rather well.”
Was she? Zada felt full to bursting with new information, and she still didn’t even know whether to believe Daphne or not. It was terrifyingly easy, falling into old habits with her—the teasing, the lighthearted arguing, the elaborate and extended jokes.
“Would you prefer I weep and rend my garments?” Zada asked, keeping her tone light.
“Maybe,” said Daphne. “More to the point, we’re here.”
The moment they stepped through the door of Murray’s Catering, their old classmate Ursa Neale spun around to face them.
Zada could see the exact moment Ursa seemed to remember that the two of them no longer had to worry about touching, and a second later, she had scooped Zada into an enthusiastic embrace.
“So lovely to see you, Zada darling!” Ursa shouted, almost directly into her ear. Her sundress was an equally loud shade of turquoise.
“You too,” Zada wheezed.
After another rib-punishing squeeze, Ursa relinquished her hold. “You’re simply glowing,” Ursa enthused. “Personally, I’ve always considered true love the best cosmetic of all! The cheeks, the complexion, the eyes! Yours are sparkling! Are mine? They must be, I can feel it!”
Ursa had been a year ahead of them at school.
They’d had very little to do with each other outside of etiquette class, but what she lacked in familiarity, she was apparently willing to make up for in volume.
She was short and exceedingly slight, and Zada couldn’t fathom the source of her resonance.
Perhaps on the inside, Ursa was mostly lung.
“Yes,” Zada managed in the face of Ursa’s onslaught. “You’re very . . . sparkly.”
“Thank you, dearest. Oh, where are my manners? How is Buford?”
“He’s, uh, wonderful,” said Zada. “Also very sparkly.” Her words felt awfully thin.
Luckily, Ursa didn’t seem to notice. “Max and I are just enraptured with each other. I’m sure you two lovebirds feel the same! I nearly wept at the thought of leaving him this morning, but I had my duties. Wedding planning, you know.”
From behind her, Daphne pantomimed digging an escape tunnel and crawling to freedom.
Zada bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. “Oh, I know.”
“That darling little smile! It is so very lucky of you to find your Heartsong match so soon after graduation!” Ursa chirped.
“Anyway, I’m afraid I must dash out of here!
There’s simply so much to do. But it’s been a delight talking to you!
We newly engaged women understand each other on a level beyond words, don’t you think? ”
“Mm-hmm,” Zada said, averting her gaze from Daphne, who was now digging a second tunnel.
“Wait, before I go, you must promise me you won’t be using salmon pink or silver for your wedding palette! Promise on your life!” Ursa laughed lightly, then fixed Zada with a coldly intimidating stare. “Promise?”
“Promise,” said Zada solemnly.
“Fantastic!” Ursa blew her a kiss and swept out.
Finally, Zada dared to meet Daphne’s gaze. “No salmon or silver. Do you think her wedding theme is fish?”
Daphne’s lips quirked the way they did when she was trying not to laugh, and Zada felt a sudden soaring sensation behind her breastbone.
“Welcome, Miss Fallow!” said Madame Murray, who Zada belatedly realized had been waiting to get a word in edgewise for some time. “And Miss Chambers as well! I saw your engagement on the feed, how marvelous. My congratulations, to you and to Mr. Arnoth.”
After Madame Murray’s, they visited five other caterers. Their names and even the samples they offered began to blur together in Zada’s mind, which was not useful for her intended errand. They paused to catch their breath and digest a bit on a bench in front of the sixth caterer.
Zada closed her eyes to consult her to-do list on her lens. “There’s a florist not too far from here,” she said. Their agreement had extended no further than catering, but she was reluctant to disperse whatever spell had carved out this space where she and Daphne were on speaking terms again.
Daphne nodded decisively and jumped to her feet. “I hear the latest thing is custom orchids, bred to incorporate your and your beloved’s initials right on the petals.”
“Seems a little tacky,” said Zada, also standing.
“It’s a wedding,” said Daphne grandly. “It’s no place for taste. Onward!”
Several paces into the florist shop, Zada knew it was a mistake. The cloying scent of roses swelled up around them. It was so strong that Zada was sure it was being piped in from somewhere.
Daphne stumbled hard, nearly knocking into a glass display of floating stemless tulips.
Zada instinctively wrapped an arm around her friend’s shoulders, righting her again.
She could feel the answering stiffness in Daphne’s shoulder blades, and Zada let her arm drop, as if scalded. What was she doing?
“I’m sorry,” Zada said quietly. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” said Daphne through gritted teeth. “It’s fine.”
When Daphne was seven, her father had come home early from work with a massive bouquet of red roses for her mother, only for his wife to confess that she was having an affair.
Within minutes, he’d thrown the whole mess of roses down the disposal and reported the infidelity to the authorities.
To betray your soulmate was unthinkable, a crime against all of New Ionia.
By the time Daphne arrived back from visiting her grandparents for the weekend, both Iphigenia Fallow and the man she’d been seeing had already been Extricated.
Daphne had cried for days, begging for her mother, but no one would speak of her, not anymore.
From that day on, Iphigenia Fallow ceased to exist.
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Daphne had confessed to Zada once, in the dead of night. They were in the common room, staying up late to study, but that had quickly turned into hours of trading secrets and stories. Zada had taken Daphne’s hand then, laced their fingers together, and held on.
“They say space smells like burning metal, you know,” Daphne had whispered, “but I swear to you, Zades, the emptiest place in the universe, the reek of long-dead ghosts and gaping absence—for me, it’ll always be roses.”