Chapter Eight In Which Zada Is Flummoxed
Our first order of business,” said Daphne, “is to teach you to lie better.”
Zada frowned, pausing in the middle of checking she’d packed everything she needed to stay at the Fallow estate.
There was no time to lose with her wedding coming up in two months.
She’d made quick work of gathering her things, and finished just in time for her parents to arrive home.
Explaining to them why she had to leave with Daphne was easy enough.
Being close to the city center was far more convenient for all the wedding planning Zada had to do.
And of course, her parents were only too happy to see Zada reconciled with an old friend.
“It will only be for a month or two,” Zada had said, but then her mother had said, sniffling, “Yes, and then you’ll move away to Buford’s for the rest of your life.
” That had left Zada somewhat teary as well.
Returning home after boarding at Dalrymple Academy had been stifling at times, but she loved her parents.
She would miss her mother’s boisterous voice and even more boisterous cheer, and her father’s well-intentioned attempts at cooking breakfast.
Daphne had insisted on hiring a hyper-carriage with her SmartGem.
As they waited for it to arrive, Zada was grateful that Leo Hadwell, the Founder who had designed New Ionia’s transportation grid, had been willing to channel a few of his billions into creating a more traditional method of travel, for those who prized a connection to the past.
It was why they had Heartsong, after all.
A return to tradition, to a better way of living.
All the romance of finding your soulmate, with the guesswork and conflict and human error taken out.
To live in New Ionia was a blessing, and Zada would not take that for granted.
She would assume the role chosen for her in society and become the upstanding citizen that she was raised to be—as soon as she made sure that Buford was truly her match and not some kind of improbable miscalculation.
“I don’t need help lying,” said Zada, resuming her rummaging.
She had her toiletries, her lenses hub, her backup earrings, spare dresses, her other corset and the rest of her undergarments, her pajamas, and, most importantly, her triple cello.
“I’ve been doing just fine lying about how I feel about Buford, haven’t I? ”
“Ah, but that’s easy,” Daphne said. She was sitting to Zada’s left, sprawled carelessly toward the window as if the spot was her birthright.
“You’re telling them exactly what they want to hear.
It’s easy to lie in that direction. But when you have to talk yourself upstream, that’s where the true art comes in.
And if we’re going to pull this off, we’ll be engaging in an awful lot of subterfuge. ”
“You say this as if I haven’t helped you pull off several years’ worth of capers at school,” Zada said impatiently. “Remember when we convinced Professor Egerton it was Friday and that he’d already given us our Latin quiz?”
“Yes,” said Daphne, “and I also distinctly remember doing all the talking.”
“All the talking in the world wouldn’t have gotten us anywhere had I not hacked the calendar on his SmartGem and the school clocks, in addition to creating a custom news feed featuring a number of events that hadn’t happened yet—”
“That’s hacking, not lying,” Daphne insisted. She crossed her legs. “And inanimate objects don’t know your tells, Zada.
“I don’t have tells,” Zada protested. Having mentally gone over her packing list twice, she wrestled her ancient suitcase closed. “Do I?”
The hyper-carriage arrived with a chime on Daphne’s SmartGem before Daphne could reply.
But after lugging Zada’s suitcase and cello case to the street outside the NuGrow building, and after had Zada squeezed both of her parents goodbye one last time and the two of them had climbed inside the carriage, Daphne took up the thread again.
“It’s terribly obvious when you’re hiding something.” At Zada’s skeptical look, she added, “Here, I’ll prove it. Tell me, what do you think of kissing Buford?”
Zada glanced down at her interlaced fingers.
“It’s fine. I’m not—the problem isn’t with him.
” Admitting even this much felt shockingly disloyal.
It was hard to shake the sense that she was doing something very, very wrong.
But a part of her wanted to see how exactly Daphne would react to Buford’s poetry quoting, or the fact that he’d said he felt “steady.” She worried her lip between her teeth.
“There!” said Daphne, leaning forward. “You bite your lip when you’re hiding something. And you don’t make eye contact. You look down at your hands.”
Zada made herself meet Daphne’s gaze. It hadn’t occurred to her that Daphne had been watching her so closely for her weaknesses.
“Kissing Buford is . . . adequate,” Zada said, looking down automatically. Damn.
“Locking lips with your fiancé is adequate,” Daphne repeated. “Careful, I might blush.”
“All right, I have a few tells. What does it matter?” said Zada.
“It’s like you said, absolutely no one can know that we’re looking into your Heartsong match.
Once the shine wears off your engagement, people are going to start noticing if you act even a little bit off.
” Daphne’s eyes flitted away, focusing on the window to the left.
“And if you act off enough, you’ll go straight to Counseling. ”
Zada could feel her brow furrow. “You say it like you’re about to summon thunderclaps and storm clouds. What’s so bad about Counseling?”
Daphne glanced sidelong at Zada. “You know what it is, right?”
“It’s the process by which bad thoughts become good thoughts,” Zada recited. “A series of voluntary cognitive adjustments aimed at creating happier and healthier citizens.”
“Right.” Daphne let out a long, slow breath.
“Well, that would get you an A in school, but for extra credit, here’s the truth.
They’ll access all your thoughts, Zada. They’ll weed through all your most private secrets, and they’ll yank out what they choose.
They’ll iron out your mind and leave you like Flora, too blissed out on nothing to tie your own boots.
You’ll volunteer every molecule of our plan, and implicate yourself in every piece of mischief we ever ran, and you’ll be overjoyed to do it. ”
Zada stared at the floor of the carriage. It was absurd, it was nonsensical—as nonsensical as not loving your handsome, honorable, poetry-quoting Heartsong match, a sly voice in her head whispered. Daphne seemed so certain, and Daphne had never lied to Zada.
“Okay,” said Zada slowly. “Just in case, if they name me for Counseling, I’ll refuse.”
“If they name you for Counseling,” said Daphne, turning to face her again, “it will already be too late. They can call it voluntary all they want, but have you ever actually heard of someone successfully turning it down?”
Well, no. Despite the thick summer haze, Zada shivered. “How do you supposedly know this? Your grandfather?”
“No,” said Daphne. She volunteered nothing more. Her mouth was a thin, tight, line.
“Are you all right,” said Zada in an undertone.
“Ye gods, what a question,” said Daphne with a short, bitter laugh. “Don’t worry, I won’t gum up our plans.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Zada told her, “and I think you know it isn’t what I meant.”
At that, Daphne sobered. She rested her elbow on the lower edge of the window, and rested her head atop that hand, regarding Zada with a distant curiosity.
“I think,” she said, “that my well-being is no longer your concern. You’ve made sure of that.”
“Daphne, it wasn’t that I didn’t care—”
Daphne shook her head. “No. You just didn’t care enough.” The words were short and staccato, achingly precise in a way her speech almost never was. Something about it cracked Zada’s heart open.
“It’s different for scholarship students. If they’d discovered I was involved with even one of your pranks—”
“That didn’t bother you for five years,” said Daphne, voice so low it crackled like a fire, “so why the absolute hell did you decide, at sixteen—”
“Why do you think?” Zada shot back. “Carine had just—” Too late, she caught herself.
But all Daphne said was, “I know. Poor Carine.”
It was Zada’s first time in two years hearing someone else utter Carine’s name.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were a few moments in the beginning when one of her friends had stumbled and misspoken.
But they all learned over time. No one was to talk about Carine, not ever—as if the girl who had once been one of the principal planets in Zada’s solar system had never existed.
She knew she shouldn’t encourage this line of conversation, but she couldn’t resist. It was always hard to do what she knew she should do when Daphne was around.
“I miss her,” said Zada.
“I do, too.” Daphne’s lips twisted sadly. “Do you remember how she used to break up our arguments with weird science facts?”
“I don’t think I could forget if I tried,” Zada said. And here came the tears. Her eyes prickled as she blinked rapidly. “And I’ve tried.”
Daphne looked out the window. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. “Only Carine would risk everything just so she could get her hands on a book about the weather.”
Zada looked at Daphne sharply. “What? What do you mean?”
“That was why she was Extricated,” Daphne said. “For breaking into the archival library so she could access weather records.”
“But why—”
“Why do you think?” Daphne cut in. She waved a hand at the view blurring past their window, the bright facades in the sunshine.
“She was trying to do something about the blasted temperature in here. At least, that’s what I assume.
She came to me first, asking if I could get her into the library since I’m a Fallow.
I told her to drop it.” Daphne sighed. “But clearly, she didn’t. ”