Текст книги "Of Beast and Beauty "

Автор книги: Stacey Jay

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

TWENTY

GEM

QUEENS. Only queens. Only Isra.

The words repeat over and over as I lie on the hard bed in my cell

with my hands propped beneath my throbbing head. I watch the moonlight

move across the ceiling, and remain sleepless even though my body aches

with exhaustion.

The magic of Yuan might still save my people, but—

Queens.

–if Isra’s right, then the magic doesn’t lie in the roses at all, it lies

in—

Only queens.

–the covenant, and the blood of the queen of Yuan. Once I read the

covenant and learn the sacred words Isra spoke of, I could take her. I could

take her and the roses—

Only Isra.

–to be safe. We could marry according to the Smooth Skin tradition.

From what she’s said, it seems that would be enough to join me to the

magic, allow me to carry on the covenant when she’s gone.

If she’s going to die to save a nation, why shouldn’t it be mine?

Haven’t my people suffered enough? Isn’t it time we had abundance, even

at the cost of a life now and then? Better one life than many. And if she’s

going to die …

If she’s going to die …

Only queens.

I don’t want her to die. By the ancestors, please …

Isra.

–there has to be another way.

BO

“I’M sorry.” My voice is unnaturally loud in the silent room. Father

hasn’t said a word for the past half hour. He simply sits there, turned in his

chair, studying the moonlight shimmering on the lake outside his window,

while I stand at attention before the fire until my shoulders cramp and

sweat runs down the valley of my spine. “Baba, please—”

“You aren’t a child,” he snaps without bothering to look my way.

“Stop using childish words.”

“I’m sorry, Father,” I say, then, “Captain,” because I’m not sure which

he’d prefer now that I’ve disappointed him so completely. I shouldn’t have

told him the truth.

But I had to tell. There was no avoiding it. Isra can see, and she wants

to know why. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her on Father’s doorstep first

thing in the morning. Father would have known soon enough. Better that

he heard it from me.

“I thought I was doing right by my future wife,” I say. “That’s all. I

never meant to defy you.”

He finally turns to me, but I wish he hadn’t. The utter absence of

feeling in his eyes makes my heart lurch. He has never looked at me like

this, even when he used a switch to express his displeasure with his only

son.

“You disobeyed an order from your father, who is also your superior,

and violated the wishes of your former king,” he says, every word as crisp

as the folds ironed into his uniform. My mother irons his clothes herself.

The maids never get the creases quite right, and everything must be exactly

right in my father’s house. Perfect. If not, everyone under his roof pays the

price. “That is the definition of defiance.”

“I—I’m sorry,” I stammer again, hating the whine creeping into my

voice. Father’s right; I sound like a child.

It’s Isra’s fault. I never should have told her about the tea. I should

have let her live out the rest of her life in the darkness. What difference will

it really make? Will sight make her happy, and even if it does, does her

happiness matter? The kingdom doesn’t require her happiness, only her

blood.

“You’re impulsive, Bo. That isn’t a good trait in a king.” Father rises

from his chair and crosses to stand too close, the way he does when one of

his soldiers has stepped out of line. I’ve seen Father break men with

nothing more than a stern look, but he doesn’t stop with a look when it

comes to his son.

He hasn’t struck me in years—not since I joined the military force

when I was sixteen—but I can tell he wants to now. My jaw clenches; my

teeth ache. Beads of sweat form on my upper lip, but I’m too afraid to wipe

them away. It’s best not to move when Father gets this way.

“You didn’t stop to think that she’d want an explanation?” he asks,

his voice terribly gentle, like the slaughterer’s hand when he takes a sheep

tenderly by the scruff of its neck.

“I thought …” I swallow. “I plan to tell her I heard a rumor.”

“She’ll want to know where you heard it.”

“I’ll tell her I don’t know,” I say, “that I heard two people talking, but

it was dark and—”

“You’re a poor liar,” he says, watching me like I’m an insect found

swimming in his bed pot. “The girl isn’t a complete fool. She’ll know you’re

deceiving her. She’ll decide you’re not trustworthy, and what girl wants as a

husband a man she can’t trust?”

I’m tempted to tell him Isra has already promised to marry me, as

long as I keep quiet about her activities with the Monstrous, but I bite the

inside of my lip. If Father finds out I disobeyed him a second time by

speaking about the marriage when he expressly forbade it, and then left

Isra alone with a monster …

I shudder to think how he’d look at me after that. I don’t want to

remember what it feels like to cower at his feet.

“You’ve made this far more complicated than it needed to be,” he

continues, eyes so cold it makes me shiver despite the blazing fire at my

back.

“I’m sorry.” I drop my gaze, staring at the lines on either side of his

mouth, just visible beneath his mustache. In the firelight, his wrinkles are

more defined. He’s an old man. He can’t live forever, and when he is gone, I

will truly be king. I’ll make the decisions for this city, and they will be good

ones. I’m not impulsive. It was affection that made me foolish, but I won’t

make the mistake of caring for my queen again. Isra isn’t worth the trouble.

I’ll hold my tongue until the day we’re married, and then I’ll show her

how a true ruler gives orders.

“Yes, well … I suppose we’ll have to tell her the truth,” Father says, a

hint of hard humor in his tone. “I’ll tell her I placed the herbs in her tea

every morning,” he says, bending to toss another dung patty onto the fire,

though the room is already stifling. “But only because her father begged me

to continue doing so once he was no longer able to administer them

himself.”

I hesitate, but can’t keep from saying, “She won’t believe you.”

Father grunts as he returns to his chair. “I’ll show her the official

order, signed in her father’s hand.” He sits down with a soft groan.

I imagine the pain Isra will feel when she realizes it was her own

father who sentenced her to darkness, and some weak part of me wants to

feel sorry for her, but I clench my jaw against it. Pity is what got me into

trouble in the first place. I can’t afford pity. A king must be made of sterner

stuff.

“And then I’ll tell her the story of her poor mother,” Father

continues, “and I’ll reveal to her all the terrible sights that her father

wanted to protect her from.”

My lips part. He wouldn’t. “But, Father …”

“But what?” He snaps, setting my nerves on edge all over again.

“I’m not sure how she’ll take it,” I say, careful to sound suitably

submissive, though I’m horrified by what he plans to do. I don’t care for Isra

the way I did, but this isn’t right. She’s been living in a dream world. If that

dream is ripped away, who knows what will happen? She might go as mad

as her mother. She might be the next queen to hurl herself from her

balcony. If she takes her own life before we’re married, she will bring about

the fall of Yuan. Isra isn’t completely rational as it is. It’s dangerous to test

her sanity this way. “She truly has no idea, and I—”

“She will have a very good idea by the time tomorrow is through.”

“But I—”

“You what?” he asks, standing so abruptly it startles me into a step

backward. “You thought you’d give her eyes and not have her see?”

“Please,” I say, holding up my palms in an instinctive plea for

understanding. “I have a plan. We’ll keep her in the nobles’ village. There’s

no reason the queen should go into the city center or the Banished camp.

She’s already been presented to the people. After we’re married, I can

handle all interactions with the common people and—”

“You can’t keep your piss in the pot,” he spits. “All you had to do was

keep your mouth shut and wait for the kingship to be delivered into your

hands, but you ruined it. You destroyed what I’ve sacrificed so much to

ensure.”

“What have you sacrificed?” I ask, suddenly angry. “You won’t have

to marry a woman marked for death. You won’t have to watch her die. You

won’t have to know your children will meet the same fate if they’re born

female.”

I pull in a breath, fighting to regain control. I’ve never spoken like this

to Father, but I’ve never been on the verge of sentencing my entire family

to death, either. I don’t love Isra, but I don’t hate her. I don’t want her to

die. I don’t want my next wife or my daughters to die. The sacrifice of the

queen seemed like a sad but noble act growing up, but now it is a black,

twisted thing squirming its way into my life, poisoning every thought and

feeling.

I brace myself, expecting Father to strike me, to shout at the very

least, but instead he sits back down in his chair. He sighs, and the rigid lines

of his shoulders relax as he bows his head over folded hands.

“I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I whisper, not sure what to

make of his response. “I want to be king. I just never expected it to be

so … difficult.”

“Maybe I’ve …” Father runs his hands over his head, pushing springy

gray hairs back into the smooth black of his braid. “Maybe I’ve made a

mistake.”

“No, Father,” I say, panicking at the thought of having my new

torment taken away. I don’t want to be king, but I can’t stand the thought

of not being king, either. “You don’t make mistakes.”

“Don’t I?” He lifts his face. The shadows there seem darker than they

did even a moment ago. “I thought you were ready. I thought I was ready.

But … there are things …” He takes a breath, and his fingers tighten on the

arms of the chair. “The king was planning to marry again.”

“What?” I ask, genuinely surprised. “But it’s been thirteen years since

Isra’s mother died.”

“Yes, and as time passed, the king grew increasingly certain that he

couldn’t bear for his only daughter to meet the same fate as her mother.

He planned to wed Suyin, Rune Lee’s widow. She’s only twenty-seven, and

has already borne two healthy children. A new heir was assured.” He sighs.

“No official paperwork was signed, but I discussed the match with Suyin on

the king’s orders. She was agreeable. Her husband left the family with

nothing. They’ve been living with his sister for two years, but it’s obvious

there’s no love lost between Suyin and her sister-in-law. Suyin was willing

to lay down her life in exchange for a way out of her sister-in-law’s home

and a richer future for her existing children. It was only a matter of time.”

Father leans back, folding his hands in his lap once more. “As I said,

she already has children. The line of succession would have been ensured

for another generation. Her eldest is a daughter, but the girl is only five

years old. She wouldn’t have been old enough to marry until you were

nearly thirty, Bo, and who knows how the political climate would have

changed by then? The only way I could ensure your place on the throne was

for the king to die before he could marry again, while I still had the power

to convince the other advisors my son should be the one to marry the

queen.”

A sour taste fills my mouth, and the floor beneath my feet goes as

soft as sand, leaving me nothing firm to stand on. My legs tremble and my

heart beats faster, but for a long moment I can’t understand why I’m

frightened. Even when my brain sorts out the meaning hidden in Father’s

words, I can’t believe it. Surely I’m missing something. Surely …

“The king was killed by the Monstrous,” I say, my voice as weak as

my knees.

“It appeared that way.” He stares me straight in the eye, not flinching

when he adds, “But only because I made it so.”

I reach out to brace myself on the mantel above the fire. “I don’t

believe you.”

Father ignores me and continues, “The Monstrous was on the path

by the lake, near the garden where the flowers for the court tables are

grown. I had planned to poison the king, but as soon as I saw the creature, I

knew my moment had come. I killed the guards first, to make certain there

were no witnesses. Then I killed the king, cutting him open to make it look

as if the Monstrous had done it.”

“No,” I say, sounding more like a child than ever. Tears burn the

backs of my eyes, and sickness rises in my throat. If I hadn’t skipped dinner,

I know I’d be ill all over Father’s finely carved fireplace.

“Thankfully, it was one of the creatures without our language, who

couldn’t reveal what I’d done.” He rises slowly from his chair, looking older,

wearier, than I’ve ever seen him, and comes to stand beside me, gazing into

the fire. “If it had been the other one …” He shrugs and slips his hands into

the pockets of his pants. “Not many would have listened to the ravings of a

monster, but there are always those who pause to consider the absurd. If

they’d paused long enough, they might have found reason to believe it.”

Isra might have paused. Isra might have listened to the monster.

Tonight she called it her “friend.” If she ever learns the truth …

“She’ll have you killed,” I whisper. “She’s not as fragile as you believe.

If she finds out, she’ll—”

“She’ll never find out,” Father says, his strong hand coming to rest on

my shoulder. “Not unless you tell her.”

I turn to him so quickly I lose my footing and knock my shin on the

marble step of the fireplace. “I would never. Never.”

“I have your loyalty, then?” he asks, uncertainty lurking in his eyes.

“Yes,” I say. “Of course. I’m your son.”

He nods stiffly. “I spent my entire life serving another family. I

wanted you to rule your own life, to be your own man,” he says, mouth

weak around the edges, the muscle in his cheek leaping. I’ve never seen

him out of control. He has never appeared vulnerable in any way. I’ve

imagined Father weak, and thought I’d find the sight thrilling—but this isn’t

thrilling. It’s terrifying, a god falling from the sky, his wings on fire. “I did

this for you, Bo.”

“I know, Father.” I take him by the shoulders and give a firm squeeze,

willing strength into both of us. “I won’t fail you. We’ll manage Isra.

Together. I’ll be king by springtime, and I will never forget that I owe

everything I am to you.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, before whispering, “Thank you, Son.”

Then he smiles. Really smiles, a proud smile, a grateful smile. Proud of me.

Grateful to me. The sight firms up every trembling, doubting bone in my

body.

Great men aren’t afraid to do dangerous things to tip the hand of

fate in their favor. My father is a great man and he did a brave, dangerous

thing to give me a chance at a future I couldn’t have had without him. I

would never have asked him to kill the king, but … it’s done now. There’s no

going back. We can only go forward, and make certain we prove that the

end justifies the means.

I will be a great king. I will do great things for this city, and I won’t let

a girl who’d rather play in the dirt with a monster than devote herself to

her people get in the way.

“Let me do it,” I say, giving my father’s shoulders one final squeeze

before dropping my arms to my sides and standing tall, determined to show

him I’m man enough to handle the queen. “Let me show Isra the truth

about the city tomorrow. I’ll find a way to make her love me for it. I swear I

will.”

Or hate me less. I will be the only one who’s ever told her the truth.

She’ll have to respect me for that, at least enough to honor the promise she

made tonight.

“All right,” Father says, with a slow nod. “You’ll be her husband.

You’ll have to learn how to manage her sooner or later.”

“Thank you,” I say, the rush of being treated as my father’s equal for

the first time making me certain I could climb the tallest mountain in the

desert if it were safe to leave the city. “I’ll make you proud.”

He cups my cheek in his hand, his touch gentle for the first time in

longer than I can remember. “I’m already proud.”

My throat grows so tight I can do nothing but nod in response.

“Until tomorrow.” Father bows. I bow lower, keeping my head

tucked to my chest until he has left to join Mother in their bedroom.

Even when he’s gone, I can feel his faith in me lingering in the air,

warming me to the core, making me certain there is nothing I can’t do.

Nothing I won’t do to ensure our family’s success.

TWENTY-ONE

ISRA

ONE, two … five, six …

Seventy-five … one

hundred

and

twelve … eighty-eight … eighty-nine … ten … two …

I can see, but I find myself counting my steps all the same. Counting

to stay calm, to retain control, counting until numbers lose their meaning

and my mind is a jumble of circles and curves and slashes. The hourglass of

an eight. The dangerous corner of a seven. The soft belly of a six. I trace

their shapes in the air as I walk, my fingers busy at my sides, frantically

trying to bring order to the world.

But even numbers are powerless against chaos. Disorder. Madness.

I’m beside myself, outside myself. I watch my long body glide down

streets filled with the twisted and the wrong, and everything is … upside

down. Inside out. I look down, expecting to see the sky beneath my feet

and my heart settled on the skin outside my chest, but there is only the

shimmering green of my dress, tight at my bust, tighter still at my waist, but

loose enough near the ground.

Loose enough for hands with missing fingers to reach out to brush

the fabric as Bo and I pass by.

This particular hand belongs to a child, a girl with only three fingers, a

wee thing with silky black hair that hangs over her face, partially concealing

the fact that her nose is missing … pieces. Pieces of skin. Maybe bone. Skin

and bone. I don’t know. I can’t look too closely. Not at her, or her parents,

or all the others gathered by the side of the street to kneel as I walk by. I

just can’t.

I lift my eyes and find a tiny rectangle of blue sky high above the

laundry lines zigzagging between the intimidating buildings of the city

center. These towers make mine look like a child’s toy. They are

breathlessly tall, and each one overflowing with people. The people must

live three or four to a room, at least, if the amount of laundry is anything to

judge by. Hundreds of pants and shirts and dresses and overalls and

underthings hang like uninspired flags, blocking most of the sun’s light,

drooping limply toward the street, where their owners were ordered to

assemble this morning to meet their queen and let her look upon them

with her new eyes.

I demanded that the royal gong be rung and messengers be sent

throughout the city. I insisted on walking through the city center, the better

to see my people. I would not be swayed.

Now it’s all I can do not to turn and run back to my tower. I long for

the comfort of my darkness, my ignorance. I want to go back and undo it

all. I want to be the Isra my father worked so hard to create. If only I’d

known how easy I had it in my cage, with my velvet blinders always in

place …

My scrap of blue sky vanishes, and my gaze drifts down to the street

ahead, where a woman without arms or legs sits propped in a chair beside

several little boys. A mother who can never hug her sons or hold her

babies. How did this happen? How …

A choked sound escapes my lips, bursting free before I can contain it.

“Are you all right?” Bo asks from his place beside me.

“No,” I whisper. “Of course not. Of course, of course not.” I press my

tongue to the roof of my mouth, stopping the stream of babble. I can’t lose

control in front of my people. I can’t show them how unprepared I am. I

can’t be like my mother.

“The tower. My mother.” I pull in a labored breath. “That’s … This is

why.”

“Yes,” Bo says. “In her home city, the nobles lived within a second

wall at one edge of their dome, kept entirely separate from the common

people. She had never seen a human who was not of noble blood before

she came to Yuan.” Bo’s hand is firm at the center of my back, guiding me

relentlessly onward, through the city center to what lies ahead, to what I’ve

demanded to see.

I want to twist away, to order him to keep his hands off me, but I

can’t. His touch is the only thing keeping me going. If he withdraws, I’ll stop

walking and be stranded in the middle of the nightmare.

Nightmares upon nightmares. I had the fire nightmare again this

morning, saw the woman’s mouth opening and closing in the burning

wood. But this time I listened harder, the way Gem told me to, and I would

have sworn I heard her speak. She was saying something about the

truth … about hope … something important.…

When I woke, I couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said, but I was

bursting with happiness anyway. I could see the golden miracle of the

sunrise shining through my window, the brilliant bleeding red of my quilt,

and Needle’s tightly curled smile as she brought my breakfast tray. My life

and my dreams were changing, and I was certain my city wasn’t going to be

far behind. This morning, Yuan was a riddle I was confident I could solve.

But this is … a disaster. A tragedy. Hopeless.

“Now you see why your father felt he had to take such extreme

measures,” Bo continues, increasing his pace until I have trouble keeping

up. My dress is wider at the bottom than my other dresses, but it’s tight at

the thighs. Still, I don’t complain. I don’t care if I have to wiggle and wobble

down the street like a fool. The sooner we leave the city center and all the

damage behind, the better. “He was only trying to protect you. He thought

if you remained unaware of certain truths that you would be spared your

mother’s madness. It was only after she came here that she

became … strange. She grew even worse after you were born. At first the

healers dismissed it as the sadness that sometimes comes over new

mothers, but then she began talking of going into the wilderness to speak

to the Monstrous. Father says she set the fire not long after.”

I don’t say a word, though I want to ask Bo if he knows why my

mother wanted to speak to the Monstrous. I’ve always known Mother was

Father’s second wife and foreign—a noble from far away who married my

father to escape a city on the verge of collapse—but I’ve never heard

anyone speak of her expressing the desire to make contact with the

Monstrous. Why would she want to do that? I want to ask, but I don’t trust

myself to speak without breaking down.

When Bo first told me it was my father who had ordered the

poisoning of my tea, I nearly slapped him. I was certain he was lying. I

refused to believe that my father would steal the sight from his own

daughter, even when Junjie showed me the signed order bearing the king’s

seal. I just couldn’t believe Baba hated me that much.

Now I understand. My father didn’t hate me. He was trying to spare

me from the heartbreaking truth.

“I wanted to protect you, too,” Bo says, louder now that we’ve

reached the edge of the city center and only a few citizens kneel at the

sides of the street. “I planned for you to remain in the nobles’ village,

where the people are whole. There was no reason for you to see this

particular truth.” His hand slides around my waist, his familiar touch

becoming openly intimate, making my breakfast gurgle angrily in my

stomach.

I swallow hard and step away. “Yes, there is. I needed to know.

I … had … to …” My words dribble away as we pass by the final knot of

people.

Beyond them, the world opens up, the wide dirt road continuing on

through the fields. I want to rush ahead into that open space, but instead I

force myself to nod and smile a brittle smile at the subjects kneeling in the

grass at the edge of an orchard of bare-limbed pear trees. There are three

men and five women, all wearing orchard workers’ overalls, all with missing

parts. They are ripped pieces of a dozen different puzzles that will never fit

together, and I don’t understand it.

I don’t. I can’t … I thought …

“The Banished camp is … worse?” I whisper when we’ve finally

passed the last woman. I find little comfort in the even rows of fruit trees

on one side of the road and the perfectly ordered grape trellises on the

other. Beyond these tidy fields, at the end of this road, lies the place where

the Banished—the people deemed too grotesque to inhabit the city

center—live out their abbreviated lives.

“Far worse,” Bo confirms, hesitating at my side. “We can go back to

the great hall if you like. I can—”

“No.” I lift my chin, and move past him on stiff legs. “I need to know

the truth.”

“I can tell you the truth. Let me do that for you,” he says, hurrying to

catch up, what sounds like real compassion in his voice. He’s been

unfailingly kind this morning—like the Bo I knew before last night—but I’m

not fooled. I will never trust him. Not ever, no matter how helpful he tries

to be.

“Thank you, but no.” I pull my shawl tight around my shoulders and

aim myself toward the royal carriage waiting for us by the side of the road.

The driver is an elegant old man with silver hair, supposedly a commoner

like all noble servants, but without damaged parts—at least, none that I can

see. His defects must be hidden inside, like Needle’s. Selfishly, I’m glad of it.

I need a moment. Just a moment.

“Please, Isra.” Bo stops me with a hand on my arm. “Let me spare

you any more of this.”

“Why?” I subtly shake off his fingers as I glance back over my

shoulder, finally able to pinpoint what’s been plaguing my mind, now that I

have some distance from the city. “Why are—”

“I care about you. I told you that last night.”

“No. Not that,” I snap, unable to bear talking feelings at a time like

this. “Why are the people damaged? How has this happened? I thought the

covenant was strong.”

“The covenant is strong,” Bo says. “It’s been this way since the

beginning. You know the legend: those families who refused to sign the

covenant did not receive equal protection from its magic.”

“I thought that meant they had fewer goods, smaller houses,” I say,

voice louder than I mean it to be. “I didn’t think it meant they—”

“It means they suffered from this planet’s dark magic. They weren’t

made Monstrous, but their humanity was not preserved in the same way

that those of noble blood are preserved. They suffer from a different sort of

mutation.”

My brow wrinkles, and for the first time in more than an hour, my

thoughts begin to organize themselves. “But the Monstrous look nothing

like that. What’s happened to our people isn’t mutation. It’s … something

else.”

“Something like what?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Something …”

Something dark. Something unnatural.

Yearning for Gem grips me so fiercely it feels like my stomach is

climbing up my throat. The thought of talking this madness through with

him gives me strength and, more important, reminds me—

“I’m not sure.” I turn back to Bo. “But perhaps the covenant will offer

some insight. I’d like it brought to my rooms this afternoon.”

He blinks as if I’ve snapped my fingers between his eyes. “The

covenant?”

“Yes, the covenant,” I say. “Have it delivered to the tower

immediately. I’ll be keeping it overnight.” That should give Needle and me

time to sneak over to see Gem.

By the moons, I can’t wait to see him, to feel his arms around me, his

chest warm and solid beneath my cheek, making the world feel steady and

possible again. Night can’t come quickly enough.

“We should go,” I say. “The driver’s waiting.”

“But …” Bo’s mouth opens and closes as I circle around him and climb

into the royal carriage for the first time in my life. I was looking forward to

the ride this morning—the wind in my hair, the fields rushing past on both

sides—but now I can’t imagine taking pleasure in simple things, not when

there is so much suffering under the dome.

“Isra, I can’t have the covenant delivered.” Bo climbs up beside me,

clearly deciding he deserves to sit in the carriage rather than ride on the

step at the back with the other guards. “It’s impossible.”

“What’s impossible?”

“The covenant was lost,” he says. “Hundreds of years ago. Not long

after King Sato died.”

“What?” I want to believe he’s lying, but he seems genuinely

confused, completely at a loss.

Lost. The covenant is lost. How could that be? How could something

so important be lost?

“King Sato hid the covenant for safekeeping,” Bo says, giving the

signal for the driver to start the horses. The silver-haired man flicks his

whip, and the buggy lurches forward, throwing me back against the seat.

Bo steadies me with an arm around my shoulders. I’m too horrified to push

it away. “He died before he could tell his last wife where it was hidden.”

“But that’s …” King Sato was our third king. That means … “No one’s

read the covenant in six hundred years?” I squeak. “Or more?”

“It’s all right.” He has the nerve to smile. “Our history isn’t lost. There

are other texts that tell us all we need to know, and the sacred words

spoken at each royal wedding are engraved on a gold tablet we’ll hold

between us on the day we take our vows.” Bo pulls me closer, until I’m

wedged beneath his armpit, my spine crunched and my dress straining

across my back. “Don’t worry. The covenant is strong. The damaged people

have been that way for generations upon generations. They don’t suffer

from it the way we would. They aren’t like us.”

“Then what are they like?” I squirm free, and scoot to the other side

of the buggy.

Bo’s expression hardens at the sarcasm in my voice, but to his credit,

he maintains his patient tone. “They aren’t Monstrous, but they aren’t

human the way we are, either. They don’t know any other kind of life.

They’re happy with what they have, to be a part of our city, to be safe, fed,

and protected.”

He sounds like he’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything.

He could think he’s telling the truth—the way I did every time I assured

Gem I was tainted—and still be telling a lie. I know for a fact he’s wrong

about my people’s suffering. I could see the pain in their eyes. I could feel

the hard facts of their life weighing on me as I walked among them,

dragging me down until it felt like my feet were moving beneath the

surface of the ground.

“You said there are other texts?” I ask, brushing a lock of hair from