Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“Call Thomas Learmonth on speaker.” After talking to Vasilios, Canon had left as quickly as he could while seeming natural and unrushed.
Let Vasilios think they’d go together on Monday, that his game was running according to plan.
Canon would go during the oracle heist—he had to distract Thomas anyway—and beat him to the play.
The phone rang through the speakers of his Mercedes, and he spoke as soon as Learmonth picked up. “Thomas.”
“Mr. Richards,” Thomas answered. “What is it this time, then?”
“I’d like to see you tomorrow night to continue our negotiations.”
Thomas sighed over the line. “I told you, lad. I’ll not help you.”
Canon’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “I have the words, Thomas.”
Silence.
Canon waited. Waiting was never the hard part.
“Do you now?” Thomas finally spoke, voice low. “And do you also know the risks inherent in using those words?”
Canon’s turn to be silent. Recalculate. Adjust to the new information. Because Vasilios had said nothing of risks. Why would a cog need to know about risks?
Canon took a slow breath and forced his fingers to relax on the wheel. He was playing this game for Cadenza. Risk was part of business. And he was no cog.
“Tell me.”
Canon pulled up in front of his mother’s condo, the sky beginning to blush pink and tangerine. The perfect Southern California sunrise stabbed at his eyes, already dry and blurry from eight hours on the I-5.
Last night, Thomas had explained the risks.
Canon would face a test. Pass, and he’d be King.
Fail, and… Well. Fail and none of it—the election, his plans, Cadenza—would matter anymore.
When he got off the phone, Canon had pulled off the I-580 near Livermore, still hours out from Sonora, to think things over in the dark parking lot of an all-night cafe.
Vasilios wanted a puppet. Canon’s gift confirmed that, but his information on the world of Guardians and Spinners and Crown was still new, and he didn’t know yet what Vasilios wanted to use that puppet to do.
Whatever it was, Canon wasn’t doing it. But his former mentor was right about two things.
One: Thomas had the ability to make Canon more extraordinary than his first gift of Sight had made him. The Crown was no cog. The Crown turned the wheel.
And two: The Crown made a difference. Vasilios had talked of Canon calming the chaos of the world, of helping people live better lives.
He wanted that.
As much as he wanted to satisfy his own ambitions, he wanted that.
And he planned on doing it two-fold, as Crown, and through a successful political career.
Surely after being made Crown, people would see the extraordinary emanating from him, even if they knew nothing of Fates or Guardians.
How could they fail to elect him? And Cadenza. She would see it too.
Those reasons ought to be enough for him to ink his name on the contract. To get back on the freeway and be ready to meet with Thomas tomorrow night. And yet, there he’d sat, staring at a faded poster of pancakes hanging in a dirty window.
Because even with those reasons staring him in the face, compelling him to act, Canon didn’t want to need what Thomas Learmonth could give him, and he had a question—a doubt—that needed resolving before he committed, especially considering he was risking his life.
He’d brought his Mercedes to life but headed south, away from Sonora, and driven all night.
Now he blinked in the morning light outside his mother’s place in San Diego.
After his father passed away, she’d made a series of investments with the life insurance money.
Apparently, she had a talent for it. After Canon graduated and moved out, she’d taken her new wealth and her new financial advising business and started over with a new home near the beach. No more shabby Hayward for her.
Canon had negotiated; San Diego wasn’t exactly easy visiting distance.
She could sell the house he grew up in and start her fancy new life, provided she did all the traveling for the holidays.
Every Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas since, they’d celebrated at his apartment in Hayward. Until he’d moved in with Drostan.
Drostan. Canon groaned and rubbed his eyes.
By now Reyna would have told them all what she thought happened—that he’d refused to help rescue Cadenza.
With his previous confession about working for Thomas, they’d never believe him about what he was doing now.
Unless he became Crown. That would make it clear.
They’d all be on the same team. But first he had to talk to his mother about this doubt needling him, and he needed to do it in person. Over the phone wouldn’t cut it.
Movement twitched on the second floor of his mother’s building. A neighbor eyed his car through the window, lips pursed in suspicion.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, have I stayed inside my car, on your street for too long?” He dropped his head back against the seat, weary of the keep-up, make-your-mark, get-ahead world he’d chased for so long.
The neighbor pulled out her phone, glaring at him.
Canon sighed. He’d been stalling, picking over all the thoughts he’d already picked over for the last eight hours. Time to go inside.
“Mom?” Canon called from the blue and white tiled foyer. She might still be in bed this early. He texted her to let her know he was in the house.
Meet me on the balcony. She texted back while he was in the kitchen, arranging breakfast on a serving tray. Glasses of mango juice and half a grapefruit for her—her favorite new fad breakfast. Toast with cottage cheese and jam—his favorite as a kid.
Outside, he scooted two padded deck chairs close to a round glass table. A salt breeze scratched against his cheek, and the blush of the sunrise reflected off the ocean.
“Canon!” His mother floated onto the deck in a swirl of silk pajamas and hugged him tight. “My boy drove all the way down here to see me, what a lovely surprise.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“And you made breakfast.” She folded herself into a chair and sipped the mango juice. “Aww, and cottage cheese toast. So”—she patted his knee—“how’s my boy? How’s the campaign going?”
Canon winced. His mother’s intent shone clear to him even without his gift. How’s the campaign going? translated to Give me something I can one up the other ladies at the club with.
“Oh, honey, don’t worry,” she said, misinterpreting his expression. “You’ll win this thing, I know you will.”
Canon set his toast down. Her comment was as good a segue into why he was here as he was likely to get. His question wrestled with his breakfast in his stomach, and he breathed through his nose, trying to calm it.
“What if I don’t win?” he asked.
“Pshh.” She waved away his worry with one hand. “That Mr. Pearce knows how extraordinary you are. He’ll take care of you.”
Mr. Pearce. Canon coughed to cover his snort of derision. Yeah, sure. “Why does he need to take care of me, Mom? You think I can’t win this thing on my own?”
Her eyes flicked to him and back to her juice, face wary. Then she laughed, light and easy. “What are you talking about, honey?”
There it was. Her reaction settled like a burning cold shell around the doubt churning in his gut, solidifying it. Turning it from worry to reality. Into truth. The chill of it slithered through his veins, raising goosebumps and swelling his throat shut.
Fight it, he urged himself. He mounted one last defense, one last campaign against the truth sweeping aside everything he’d worked to be.
“Mom, just—” He paused. Swallowed. “Just, what if I didn’t win?” He caught her eyes with his, refused to let them escape. Please, Mom. Tell me this truth is a lie.
Please.
His mother stared back for one heartbeat. For one heartbeat her beachfront-condo, silk-pajamas, yacht-party mask fractured. For one heartbeat the real, raveled and threadbare, never-listened-to cloth of her peeked through.
One heartbeat passed into another, and the mask resealed.
“Don’t be silly.” She laughed and swatted his shoulder. “What else could you do besides win?”
Canon let his own perfect-smile mask slip onto his face. The cold of the truth crept from his belly to his fingertips. “Right, right. Of course.”
“Are you staying long?” she asked.
“No. I have an appointment in Modesto this evening.”
He sipped his juice and watched the ocean with his mother, their masks firmly in place.
Canon ran the A/C on full blast the entire drive from San Diego to Modesto.
The frigid air matched the cold burn in his chest. The parking lot of Learmonth Country Club was packed when he arrived.
Good. A full house for Cadenza and Reyna.
They deserved it. He’d play his part tonight—distracting Thomas—even if they thought ill of him.
He checked Vasilios’s VIP parking spot near the front entrance. Empty.
Also good. He’s still planning on Monday.
A golden glow beckoned from the club’s windows. Inside would be warm and bustling, but Canon didn’t exit the car yet. The risks of the test he faced curdled in his stomach. But this was the only way forward, and no risk scared him more than that truth. He had to wipe it out.
“Keep sight of the goal,” he whispered to himself.
“Become the Crown, help people. Be extraordinary.” Still, he sat in the car.
He fiddled with his pearl cufflinks until they ripped through the fabric of his shirt.
Growling, he tossed them aside and ran a hand through his hair in the rearview mirror.
Sixteen hours of driving had left his face haggard.
Fine stubble roughened his jawline, and bruise-colored circles sagged under his eyes.
A coffee stain marred his untucked shirt.
He forced himself out of the car and through the club entrance. In the lobby of the dining hall, a voice caught him.
“Canon?”
“Cadenza.” He took in her face, knowing it might be the last time he ever appreciated the determined set of her jaw or her dark hair over her shoulders.
She stuck her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here? Thomas has been breathing down our necks all evening. Did you tell him?” The anger in her eyes melted to concern as she took in his appearance. “Canon, are you ok?”
He stepped closer, shaking his head. There wasn’t time to apologize or explain. He’d do it after, if this worked.
“You won’t have to worry about Thomas interfering tonight.” His voice hitched, and he cleared his throat. “I’ll keep him busy. You and Reyna just get it done, ok?”
“Why?” Suspicion laced her question. “Why did you come tonight?”
The truth of himself crystallized in his mind. No longer burning, but clear and sharp as ice. His trembling ceased. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to her cheek, and her skin was so warm, not like this cold-steel truth slicing through his bones.
Canon threw his mask away, looked her in the eye, and told the truth.
“Because I will never be enough.”
He turned on his heel and strode toward his fate.