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EIGHT

MY STOMACH FLIPS WITH ANXIETY AS WE take our places at the long dining room table. The table could seat a good portion of the Western Coventry’s Spinsters. It’s set formally with an array of cutlery and folded linen napkins. Crystal goblets are already filled with cold fresh water and thin red wine. A feast is placed before us by a valet. Some of the dishes are familiar staples, like a basket of bread, but others are new to me. I’m particularly drawn to a dish of fresh broccoli and roast fowl—chicken, perhaps—spread over a delicate brown sauce that wafts the aroma of garlic. I’m pleased to see that the greenhouse I spotted on the edge of the estate is being put to use. It doesn’t feel like the kind of meal one serves to prisoners, so I presume Kincaid views us as guests—as Dante hoped he would.

Kincaid presides at the head of the table. Dante sits at the other end.

“Your house is lovely,” I force out as naturally as possible.

“The estate is to my taste. Before the war it was called the Enchanted Hill. It belonged to a fellow named Hearst, but he’s dead now,” Kincaid says.

What an odd thing to say. Of course he’s dead.

“So you’re refugees,” Kincaid says, ignoring the plate of food in front of him.

I nod, scooping broccoli into my mouth.

“I’ve seen the footage from the incident at the safe house—unpleasant business,” Kincaid continues, flicking the air like the attack was a mere annoyance. “A renegade Spinster is quite the treasure. I’m sure the Guild would love to have you back.”

I set my fork down and meet his gaze. “I’m not going back.”

Beside me Jost and Erik stop eating, waiting to see how this will play out, but Kincaid wheezes a low chuckle.

“I’m not going to give you over to them if that’s what concerns you,” he says. “The Guild and I are neither strangers nor friends.”

His words reassure me, but I can’t continue eating despite how warm and savory my first bite was.

“Eat, child,” he prompts me.

“I’m afraid I find talk of the Guild rather unappetizing,” I admit. My thoughts straddle two realities: this one, where Kincaid is telling me about his relationship to the Guild, and the one I know exists elsewhere in this prodigious estate. I feel safe for the moment, but knowing my mother is here, locked away somewhere on this property, makes me feel again like the girl who was dragged from her home by a retrieval squad. I hadn’t been able to eat more than a bite or two of the dinner Mom cooked for me the night of my testing, so it’s only fitting that the awareness of my mother—alive and imprisoned—is enough to revert me to the girl I used to be.

“We’re of the same mind.” He gestures to his untouched plate. “The victims of the Guild usually are.”

My curiosity is piqued. “Victims?”

“I have a rather sordid past,” Kincaid admits.

“Don’t we all,” Erik quips, but the mood at the table remains heavy.

“I was once an official myself.”

The confession catches me off guard and I grip the tablecloth in front of me. Why didn’t Dante mention this before?

“I’m in exile,” Kincaid says, tearing apart a roll and slapping several pats of butter on it. He’s surprisingly thin if this is how he eats.

“Exiled to Earth?” I ask.

“Cormac and I had a disagreement about the way Arras should be run. Unfortunately when it came time to take sides, I discovered most of my friends shared Cormac’s antiquated notions. The Guild wouldn’t accept change if they could stop it, and with the looms they could. They didn’t see the merits of progress.”

“And you do?” Erik challenges him.

“When I came back here, I had nothing,” Kincaid says, his knuckles white around his butter knife. “Earth was dying. I built this city, creating a refuge of stability that could stand up to the Guild, and helped stabilize the solar energy trade.”

“He monopolized the solar trade,” Dante corrects, and then grins, but the smile stops before it reaches his eyes. Kincaid doesn’t notice.

“‘Take mercy on the poor souls for whom this hungry war opens his vasty jaws,’” Kincaid tells him. He turns to us and simply says, “Henry V. Shakespeare.”

How romantic of him.

“Well, I’d call my work progress. There would be no power under the Interface without my efforts, so it’s best for everyone that I oversee the operation. My ideas weren’t welcome in Arras—especially among the likes of Cormac Patton. Who could have imagined that being exiled would prove so liberating? Turning against the Guild was the best decision I ever made.”

“Then we have even more in common,” I say, willing my voice to stay steady regarding this news. “We’re both renegades.”

“Ahh, yes. I like that, having things in common with you.”

His words are honey sweet, meant to be endearing, but they grate against my ears. I know better than anyone that having been part of the Guild doesn’t automatically qualify one as a villain, but I’m reluctant to take his admission at face value.

Before the conversation can continue, a woman sweeps into the room. The train of her low-backed gown trails behind her. Despite its high neckline, only sheer mesh covers her skin, and across it a snarling dragon breathes fire. The embroidery is elegant and lends an exotic air to her entrance. Her hair nests on top of her head and tendrils curl down against her neck. When she turns, I stifle a gasp. Her cosmetics are less tasteful than the ones she wore in Arras. Her skin is painted milky white, her cheekbones rouged deep pink, and her lips drawn into a tiny red heart, but her toffee eyes are the same, even with the petite peacock feathers that dance at the ends of her lashes.

Valery.

“Darling, you’re late for lunch.” Kincaid’s tone is simpering, and I get the impression he’s putting on a show.

I meet Jost’s eyes and then Erik’s, and I know we’re debating the same question. Do we say something or pretend not to recognize her?

In the end, Valery chooses for us. “You can’t rush perfection,” she simpers back, and the whole act is quite sickening. “That’s something Adelice knows.”

“Then you’ve met our delightful new friends,” Kincaid cries in his giddy, childlike way. “Tell me how!”

“I was Adelice’s aesthetician at the Coventry before I sought sanctuary with you,” she says.

I can’t keep the words from tumbling out. “I thought you were dead.”

“Thought or hoped?” The venom she displayed to me in our last conversation before she disappeared from the Coventry drips from her words, but she smiles brightly to cover it. We had been friends once, but Valery disappeared before either of us had come to grips with the suicide of Enora, my mentor and Valery’s lover. “Loricel aided my escape, and Kincaid granted me safe passage.”

“Any enemy of the Guild is a friend of mine, and how fortunate I am to make such a lovely friend.” He draws Valery’s hand up to his mouth, and I see a flash of her red fingernails. Instantly I’m reminded of a moment I witnessed in the hall of the High Tower. Her red fingernails on Enora’s back.

“But you’re—” I choke the last word back. If Loricel had managed to help her escape, why did she lead me to believe Valery was dead? It isn’t my place to bring up the past, not before I’ve had a private moment to talk to Valery about her change of … heart.

Valery arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me, a challenge. “Forgive me, Adelice. We parted under trying circumstances.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” I murmur. “If I had known you were alive, I would have tried to help you.”

“Others helped me,” Valery tells us. “Earth is far from the ideal hiding place, as I’m sure you’re discovering, but Loricel made a compelling argument.”

“Which was?” Erik asks.

“Run or be ripped. Not much of a choice. I might have done it years ago if I’d known about Kincaid. He immediately opened his home to me.”

“I had not thought I could love again until Valery entered my life,” Kincaid says, raising her hand to his lips again.

My head is starting to spin and I stare down at my plate, wondering if food might help me digest this news, but I discover it’s gone, stripped away by the valet while I was distracted. My fingers reach for a lock of loose hair and I twist it nervously. Valery and Kincaid can’t have known each other more than a few days. It doesn’t make sense.

“My dear, your arm,” Kincaid says.

Without the jacket I left in the drawing room, the burns I suffered from the falling aeroship debris are evident. They’ve healed into rough scabs that are more unsightly than painful. I shrug it off, flashing a smile at Dante, whose eyes narrow.

“An accident,” I assure Kincaid.

“They look like chemical burns,” Dante says. It’s an innocuous comment, but he’s already accused me of bringing down the aeroship our first day on Earth and I know he’s tallying this as further evidence.

“I insist that one of my men take a look at it. Don’t let your time in the Icebox fool you,” Kincaid says. “We’re not all barbarians here. We have our own renewal-patching methods available.”

I thank him although I have no intention of taking him up on it.

“Ahh, dessert,” Kincaid calls as a server appears with another platter. “Sweets for my sweet.” Valery giggles and nuzzles his hand.

“If I ever act like that, promise to kill me,” I whisper to Jost.

“Deal,” he says without hesitation.

This is why our relationship works.

Across from us, Erik is chewing on his cheek in what I’m guessing is an attempt to bite back laughter at the absurdity of the scene in front of us.

Despite the whirl of emotions I’m feeling, I take a spoonful of the custard in front of me. It melts across my tongue and floods my mouth with the slightest sweet creaminess. One more bite reveals spicy chocolate swirled through it.

“Lovely, no?” Kincaid asks with greedy eyes.

“It’s delicious,” I admit, but I set down my spoon. I’ve been a gracious guest, but I have something I need to do.

“Kincaid has excellent taste in everything he procures,” Valery tells me. There’s a warning in her voice and I search her face for a signal, but it stays placid under her mask of cosmetics.

“Dante said you could help us,” Jost says, clearly having grown impatient with the doublespeak.

Kincaid leans forward in an ominous way, dabbing the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin. “We’re going to help each other.”