Chapter 14
Sebastian’s room was very unMorton.
So many affiliations: the gavel he’d won at Moot Court, his Black Students’ Alliance pin, balls of yarn for Helshire’s knitting-and-gossip club: Snitches Get Stitches.
So many clothes—the usual inherited apparel, but also store-bought suits for playing young business leader or student council candidate.
And, least Morton of all, those pictures of him and his friends, thumbtacked to the wall, stuck into the edges of his mirror.
We are a camera-shy family, but Sebastian had a mind to go into politics one day. He was a Poli Sci major, and last summer he’d interned for the City Council of Upper Falls.
He was a natural—his memory for names and faces, his oddly contagious love of himself—and politicians were useful. But every rung on that ladder meant more exposure and less connection to who we truly were.
At its heart, our power wasn’t about elected office or vast wealth. It was about the quilt of families who owed us their allegiance. The sort of people whom misfortune rarely touched—except for the grave misfortune of offending us.
That was why Sebastian would never be a politician.
Politicians didn’t really make the rules.
They were guided by donors, advisers, the fellow members of alumni clubs, yacht clubs, country clubs—and these we had already incorporated.
Through them, we made certain the rules never disrupted our holdings, our homesteads, our way of life.
It was tempting to fly for the sun, but simpler to own the sky.
By the time Sebastian got home, forty minutes after midnight, I’d thoroughly searched his room. No random keys. No unexpected cash. Maybe Gertie was fucking with me.
When he opened the door and saw me, Sebastian frowned—wondering why his housemates hadn’t made any jokes about kissing cousins on his way up. They were the sort of boys who built beer towers and called him Baz. But then he saw my camo jacket, my split-soled shoes.
“You should lock your windows,” I said.
“Then how would I sneak in?”
I got up from the bed and crossed to him, touched Uncle Harold’s old houndstooth coat. The metal buttons were still cold.
I sniffed him—candle smoke.
“Good party?”
“Diverting. The Terraces are full of scandal this term.”
I leaned in closer. “No. You’d smell like beer.”
“Jessica.” His eyes scanned the room. My search had left a few things gently out of place. “What’s this about?”
I touched his neck with two fingers, found the heartbeat there—too fast for a single flight of stairs. “Is there something you aren’t telling me, cousin? About Peter?”
“What the hell, Jess?” Sebastian closed the door behind him, lowering his voice. “Does the family think it wasn’t an accident?”
“Just some loose ends.” I pulled out the keys.
He stared at them without recognition. “Something he stole?”
“I don’t know. It has to do with Xavier.”
“Ah, the Lindqvists,” he said, as if recalling tiresome dinner plans. He pulled out a chair from his desk. “Sit down.”
I sat on his bed. He took the chair.
“Jessica, I know Peter was your favorite—”
“I was his favorite.”
“But he blew up his rabbit,” Sebastian said.
“What does Mister Fluffernutter have to do with this?”
“Peter always pushed things too far. He made our traditions gaudy and savage. He didn’t know his limits.”
“Are you saying I should know mine?”
“I’m telling you what you already know—Peter was the most damaged of us. Back home, we could make allowances. Here, he was a liability. For us, for the other families, for Helshire itself. Now things are settled again.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Peter had been culled for being UnMorton; he was a solved problem. The easiest path was to ignore the missing money and a pair of keys. But Sebastian was wearing a winning smile, staying on message.
He was politicking me.
“Gertie seemed to think otherwise.”
He blinked. “Gertie?”
“We had a chat about Peter. She told me to ask you about Xavier Lindqvist. Which is odd, because you despise Xavier.”
Sebastian turned away, looking out the window at the dark. A reset traveled through his body. “I have a lot of friends I despise. And I asked him not to invite Gertie.”
“To what? Where were you tonight?”
“The Lindqvists were holding a memorial.”
“A memorial?” It took a moment to hit me. “For Peter?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “They loved him. They’d brought him into one of their traditions, here at Helshire.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Alas, I’m sworn to secrecy.”
I stared at him, recalling my mother’s fears about the Belmonts’ bad luck. “Why are you keeping our old enemies’ secrets?”
“Alliances are useful, Jess. Trust is their currency.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Listen,” he said. “Maybe you should talk to Xavier yourself. They’re probably still there. One condition—you have to keep this to yourself. You can’t go spilling to our elders.”
“If this tradition is open to Mortons, don’t they already know about it?”
Sebastian smiled a little.
“Traditions change.”