Chapter 53
Three more initiates were led to the Senior Uncommons that night.
Kumar Seth was first, then Regina Lindqvist, then Leopold Wolvaardt. All were asked the same question by their just-graduated cousins.
When did you know our family was wrong?
Kumar didn’t have to think at all.
“My little sister spent two years at a ballet school for ordinaries. She made a friend there—a best friend. The London aunties didn’t approve, and they declared my sister’s friend a rabbit.
Her curae task was to break her rabbit’s leg.
‘Make it look like an accident.’ She passed.
Splendidly. The friend had no clue it was intentional. Neither of them ever danced again.”
Regina Lindqvist took a moment before answering.
“When I was fourteen, Uncle Mats came back from an assignment. You remember, Bianca, when he stopped eating? Wouldn’t talk to anyone.
One night I snuck out to meet a boy, and saw Mats walking in the snow, with no jacket or boots.
Which was weird, because he hated the cold.
I thought he was going to hurt himself, so I told his sisters.
They helped him with his pain, but not how I expected. ”
Leopold Wolvaardt simply told Hendrik, “When you and I brought the homeless man to Tannie Aletta—that’s when I knew.”
The older cousins nodded at these answers, and told Kumar, Regina, and Leopold to be careful.
When it was done, we new recruits stood looking at each other. Suddenly, this rebellion of ours had gone from theoretical to real. We had a hidden place, secret rituals, accomplices we had to trust. But we knew almost nothing.
I’d never been in a room full of legacies so overflowing with uncertainty.
Kumar stepped forward again.
“So what happens next? What’s the point of all this?”
Everyone looked at Arabella, the eldest.
“You have three tasks this year,” she said. “The first is, learn to hide yourself. Tell no one about the Uncommons, or who you saw in this room. And never utter our name undisguised.”
Sebastian smiled at this. He’d always hidden himself.
“The second is choosing someone to follow you,” Divya Seth spoke up. “Pick a cousin to tap next.”
“Easy enough,” I said. Gertie was the only Morton in the next class.
Arabella shook her head. “It’s never easy. You have to prepare them to go against everything they know. You have to find out who they really are. Trusting them with our secret will be the most dangerous thing you ever do.”
We new recruits exchanged glances. Could we even trust each other?
“The third task will be an assignment,” Divya said. “A deed, large or small, that makes the world better. Which is the point of all this.”
Sebastian laughed. “Make mine a big one.”
“Patience, cousin,” Arabella said. “Our families have trained us well. We’re good at hiding ourselves, but now we’re hiding from them. You should all be scared.”
She let that sink in—the middle word of scared was care.
Hendrik spoke up at last. “Hiding is harder than you think. We may not all survive.”
I wondered if Sebastian had ever expected to live a long life.
“All this doom and gloom,” Bianca declared, producing a bottle of whiskey. “Sounds like we might as well drink up!”
There were more bottles, and a mini fridge concealed in a tasseled ottoman. Leopold and Hendrik shared gummies. The spirit of rebellion slunk from the room. We transformed into any other club at Helshire—secret handshakes, vows of friendship, beer.
As I sipped tonic water, watching them, Arabella sat beside me. She swirled her glass of whiskey for a moment before speaking.
“Five years I’ve been waiting to come back to this room. Never thought you’d be here.”
“The surprise is mutual.”
She smiled. “You didn’t find me a caring mentor in New York?”
“Not at the time, but I get it now. When you told me Hiromi was just prey, you were trying to protect me.”
“I was trying to protect her. I wanted your seduction to fail.”
I felt it again, the wetness on my face. Arabella trying to save Hiromi—out of nowhere, like her arrow flying into Uncle Max’s chest. Both times, not enough.
“My last tears, these tears of blood,” she murmured. The old words that Cyrus had said to me in Peter’s room.
“I cry all the time now.”
Arabella sighed. “Between the two of you, Sebastian was always my pick. But he wanted you brought in too. When I said no, he lobbied Divya and Hendrik.”
“This was after my accident.”
“He said it changed you. But little Mary’s curae sealed it.”
My puking and fainting had made Sebastian trust me. My weakness that night had opened the door to Care.
“Bianca was also on your side,” Arabella went on. “Because you burned down Halcyon Hall—for Peter. We’re supposed to pick only one from each family, but we made an exception this year.”
“You’ve been short on Mortons lately.”
“We are. But we’re risking everything, sharing our secrets with Elizabeth’s little prodigy.”
“I’m not the only prodigy here—you were blooded at fifteen. Back in New York, I thought you were the fifth vote on Peter.”
She looked confused.
“A game my mother played,” I said. “Making me guess who approved his culling. Her, Elizabeth, Cyrus, Veronica…and someone else.”
“Not me. I would have said no.” Arabella lifted her glass, almost a toast. “Peter would’ve caused chaos for the elders, one way or another.”
“When you put the question to Sebastian,” I asked, “did he talk about Peter?”
“No, he sang his answer. Uncle Max, took an axe…”
I looked at Hendrik and Divya. “And they heard that? Our family secret?”
“Sooner or later, everyone will know.” Arabella took a drink. “We have dirt on all the families. We’re saving Uncle Max for when Elizabeth needs a punch in the face.”
I wondered how Grandmother would react. Would she turn cold, or would her lips form that calm and ancient smile?
Both made me shiver.
Across the room, Sebastian was laughing with Kumar, Regina, and Leopold. There were about twenty legacy seniors most years, and only four became caretakers. Less than a quarter of us were in the resistance.
Would that be enough to bring our families down?
As the party was winding down, Bianca approached and handed me a beer.
“Isn’t this fun, Jessica? Being at war with our own kin.”
I put the bottle down unopened. “When did you know the Lindqvists were wrong?”
“Have you heard of a blood eagle?”
I nodded—an old Viking punishment. The back flayed open, ribs carefully broken, and the lungs extruded, all while the victim was still alive.
“I thought that was a myth. A mistranslation of some saga.”
“Sometimes myths become real,” she said, and took a drink.
I didn’t ask who, or why. “I’m surprised you picked Regina instead of your brother.”
A pained expression crossed her face. “Xavier won’t stop talking about his Hefnd, how beyond it will be. But he only wants sanctioned rebellion. He loves our family.”
“And you don’t?”
“As much as you loved Peter—sometimes you have to cull.”
Jess, I need to come back up.
“Again?” Bianca laughed, reaching out to touch my wet cheek. “This is worse than New Jersey.”
“New Jersey? How…”
She put a gentle hand on her heart. “Who do you think switched off the alarm?”
I stared at her.
“It was my idea,” she continued. “Sebastian wanted to test you in some gentle way. But I knew the Morton prodigy needed a little extra push.”
The portrait of Hiromi on the backs of my eyelids, that could never be blinked away. The lightning bolt that had finally shown myself to me.
“Bianca, I don’t understand you.”
“What’s to understand?”
“You killed someone for being rude. How does that square with making the world less shitty?”
She took another long drink, thinking about the question. The others kept talking around us, Sebastian’s laugh peeling out now and then, as if it was some party at the Terraces with cheap tequila and expensive weed, everyone calling him Baz.
Finally, Bianca shrugged.
“Can you think of a better way?”