God Save the Queen

CHAPTER 6

THE LUNATICS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE ASYLUMThis couldn’t be real.

“You’re dead,” I rasped. Pinpricks of hot disbelief assaulted the periphery of my mind. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

But Dede was supposed to be dead as well, wasn’t she? I pushed aside my shock and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. My knees trembled as I moved forwards, towards the ghost in front of me. Fee stepped between us, as though to prevent me from getting any closer. I turned my head to look at her – dead in the eye. Whatever she saw in my gaze was enough to make her move aside, and I took another step.

Juliet Clare was my mother’s name. She’d been one of the most sought-after breeding courtesans twenty-some years ago because her children tended to be strong and agile. No miscarriages on her record. My father chose her because those traits went well with his own sense of self-preservation and stubbornness. He wanted to breed a warrior. He got me – the only halvie ever to have been attacked by a goblin and lived to tell the tale.

I remember when my mother heard about the attack – it had been just before she was sent to Bedlam. She’d worn an expression much like the one she wore now. She looked as though she wished she could take this moment away from me, live my terror herself.

I hated her for it then and I hated her now.

She was about my height, perhaps a little shorter, and possessed the most flawless skin I’d ever seen – pale cream with just a touch of peach. Her hair was a mix of gold and flaxen blonde, her eyes cornflower blue. She was beautiful, and she didn’t look a day older than I remembered her. Wearing an old-fashioned coral House of Worth gown that cinched her waist and fell to the floor in a froth of fabric, she looked like she should be hobnobbing with the Mayfair set, not here. Not in this place that had been the setting for so many of my nightmares.

Her fingers trembled as she raised them to my face. I flinched when she touched my cheek – not because it hurt, but because it had been so long since anyone … well, I wasn’t used to being touched that way.

“Alexandra.” Her voice was light, a little breathy. She took a step forward and halted, as though she wasn’t sure if it was safe to come closer. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

“Ditto,” I croaked. How was this possible? So many things I wanted to ask her and I didn’t know where to begin.

A sob tore its way out of my tight throat. I pressed my hand to my mouth to stifle any other noises or words that might want to jump out, but I couldn’t contain the sobs, nor could I seem to prevent tears from burning my eyes and running down my cheeks in scalding streams. I was choking and couldn’t seem to get a breath. It was as though my body was too small to contain me, and I wanted out, frantically pushing against my seams.

Strong arms closed around me, wrapping me in a subtly perfumed embrace. She smelled like summer and roses, just as I remembered.

What the bloody ever-loving hell was going on? Now that some – just some – of the shock had worn off, I was able to think again. How could it be that two of the most important people in my life were here while the world thought them dead? Why hadn’t I known? Why the lies?

And if my mother was full-on hatters, why was she walking about like she owned the place rather than rotting in a cell?

Sniffing, I withdrew from her strong – too strong – embrace. I didn’t want to lean on her. My mind was slowly clearing and all that numbness was being replaced with something very much like rage.

For years I’d believed her lost – even dead. How could she be … this? And why was Fee so protective of her? What was the connection between my mother and a thief?

I turned my gaze on the wanted halvie. Fee stood beside Juliet like a bodyguard. That was when I noticed how much the two of them looked alike. Noticed the strange little similarities between myself and Fee as well. Probably the reason why I’d taken to her that night with the betties. Had she known who I was then? Probably, once I’d introduced myself. I kicked myself for not recognising her, but then I hadn’t seen her for seventeen years, since she went off to Scotland to be trained up there.

Fee was Ophelia Blackwood, and she was my maternal sister. It was the final slap in the face.

At least I hoped it was the final slap, because I was afraid my poor brain couldn’t take any more surprises. Not tonight. I already felt laughter deep inside me, wanting to spill out like a hyena’s sinister cackle. I was on the edge of madness at that moment. At least I was in the right bloody place.

“Twelve years.” I looked my mother dead in her pretty eyes. “Twelve bloody years. Did you ever think of me?”

Ophelia stepped forward, obviously reacting to the tension in me. Fangs distended from my gums. They felt huge in my mouth. I hissed at her, baring my teeth. “Step the f*ck off, nutcracker.” Her blue eyes widened but she didn’t step back.

“Twelve years.” I looked from Juliet to Dede, who’d gone paler than usual. All I knew was that these people had walked out of my life. Abandoned me in a way I would never have done to them. “You knew.”

Dede held out her hands. “I can explain—”

“No,” I interrupted, hands fisting at my sides. “You can’t. Can you think of any possible reason good enough why you didn’t tell me my mother was alive and well? How long have you known?”

She stared at me, eyes waif-wide, shrinking from my anger.

“How long have you f*cking known?” My throat tore as I yelled at her. Oh yes, my hinges were coming undone.

“Leave her alone,” came Ophelia’s biting tone.

I ignored her, keeping my gaze glued on Dede. Let Ophelia come at me. I’d tear her and her epaulettes apart. My teeth clenched, fangs threatening to break through the delicate skin of my mouth. If I tasted blood, would I lose control as I had with the betties? “How long?”

“Seven months,” she whispered. “Shortly after Ophelia first approached me.”

“Seven months.” I couldn’t believe it. “On the last anniversary of her being taken away, I told you how I wished I knew what had happened to her. You knew then that she was fine?” Because there was no doubt that the woman was in good health.

Dede nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

I slapped her – hard enough that her head snapped back and she staggered under the blow. She was lucky I didn’t go for her throat. God help me, I wanted to. I was so far past reasonable anger it wasn’t funny. At that moment I could have killed her – I felt the bloodlust rushing through my veins, demanding vengeance. My skin prickled with it.

“I went into the plague den for you,” I told her, voice low and menacing, even to my own ears.

Dede turned even paler, if it were possible. Her eyes widened and she stared at me as though … as though she finally realised the risks I had taken, the lengths to which I had gone to find her. As though she finally realised just how much I loved her – and how deeply she had cut me.

“That’s it.” A strong feminine hand came down on my shoulder. It was Ophelia, I could tell by her scent. I spun around, shucking off her hand and catching her by the throat with my own hand. She hit me but I barely felt it; I just kept squeezing. I could crush her windpipe if I wanted. She’d recover but at least it would shut her up for a while.

“Alexandra.” My name seemed to echo throughout the room, delivered by a voice that was much more than human. My eyebrows shot up as I turned my attention to my mother, standing so still and preternatural. Just what had my mummy turned into during our estrangement? “Release her.”

I glanced at Ophelia, gasping for air as she struck me again and again. Why couldn’t I feel the blows? Was I so far gone that even physical pain couldn’t permeate?

“Let her go, Xandy.” This time it was Dede who spoke. “She’s not the one you want to hurt.”

“Actually, I kinda do,” I replied casually, but I released her regardless. I was prepared for her attack, though. Were the situations reversed I would have gone after her as well. Family resemblance, I suppose.

Her fist struck me on the jaw. It bloody well hurt now. For a moment I wondered if she’d knocked teeth loose. I retaliated with a backhanded slap that knocked her head back. I whipped my dagger out of my corset, pushed the blue-haired girl up against the wall and put the razor-sharp blade to her throat.

I didn’t want to kill her – I just wanted her to stand down, although I could have killed her at that moment.

A soft but firm hand came down on my shoulder. It was my mother. “Let her go, child. Violence won’t make you feel any better.”

Her words had a very soothing effect. I lowered the blade and released Ophelia. She glared at me – looking almost like my doppelg?nger – but didn’t strike back.

I turned my back to the wall and slid down it to the carpet, fingers still wrapped around the dagger as though it was the one thing keeping me from falling apart.

With my rage gone, all I had left was a sense of soul-deep betrayal. I didn’t know reality. I didn’t even know myself, my control was so frayed. My eyes stung, my knuckles hurt and inside me was this terrible wrongness I would do almost anything to be rid of. No one tried to comfort me, which was just as well.

I didn’t want it.

Some time later – after I’d returned to the land of sanity and dignity – someone, I think it was my mother, decided I deserved an explanation.

No shit.

“In 1935 those who opposed aristocratic rule needed a place where they could hide and be safe from persecution. The administration of Bedlam was sympathetic to their cause and it’s been a safe haven ever since. An asylum in the truest sense.”

I stared at her, realisation penetrating the dense fog of my brain. “You’re all Insurrectionists?”

Traitors to the Crown. The same Crown I’d sworn to protect with my life.

“You shouldn’t tell her this,” Ophelia advised our mother with a stern glance. “She’s an RG. She’s going to report us.”

That was exactly what I was duty-bound to do. Exactly what I was going to do. Still, it burned that she was practically a complete stranger and knew me better than I knew her.

“Xandy’s not going to turn on us,” Dede spoke up, her voice strangely strong with conviction. She had a bit of a welt where I’d slapped her. “She knows they’d execute us.”

That explained why she didn’t seem to care that I’d found her – she knew I couldn’t have her death on my conscious. I would do whatever I could to get her out of this. Her blunder, however, was in assuming I cared what happened to Juliet or Ophelia. Really, with names like those they had to know tragedy loomed for them both. I didn’t know Fee, and my mother had essentially abandoned me. What did I owe either of them?

But Dede … I would remove her by force if I thought I could keep her away, but I would never turn her in and she knew it. There was nothing I could do for her. Even if I could cover up her plotting against the Crown, she had tried to kill a peer and faked her own death. Not to mention the fact that I was beginning to believe she might actually be mad.

“Not to mention the scandal,” Ophelia remarked drily, watching me. There wasn’t any mockery in her gaze, just simple truth. Our entire family would suffer for Dede’s actions. Avery and Val … my father. It would affect and hurt them all so deeply. The tabloids would have a ball with the scandal. Dede knew that too.

I looked at my little sister and let it show in my eyes how disappointed I was. “I wish you hadn’t made it so easy to find you,” I told her. “I’d rather have you dead than this.”

Crimson stained her smooth cheeks, but she didn’t look away. Her chin quivered ever so slightly. “And I’d rather be dead than under the thumb of a race who see themselves as superior and everyone else as servants to their whim.”

“You should know that none of us chose this life lightly, Alexandra,” my mother said, offering me a cup of the tea a human had delivered to us a few moments earlier. How very civilised. Her voice tore my attention away from Dede, which was just as well. I couldn’t stand to look at my sister any longer.

There were four ginger biscuits set around the saucer at the base of the cup. My stomach growled at the same time Ophelia’s did. I glared at her. She arched a brow in return.

“Then tell me why you did choose it,” I suggested as I dunked a biscuit in my tea. I forced myself to appear calm, almost disinterested. The more they told me, the more I had to use against them. “Make me understand why you would let your children – child,” I corrected with a bitter glance at Ophelia, “think you were dead.” And while you’re at it, explain to me why you look like you could be my sister instead of my mum.

“It chose me,” she replied cryptically, a slight smile curving her mouth. “I was sent here to be got rid of. I was a dilemma the aristocracy – one aristocrat in particular – no longer wished to be concerned with. I was lost and angry and frightened, and then a lovely man took me under his wing and showed me the truth.”

There went that eyebrow of mine again. I had no doubt the aristo she referred to was my father. She would try to make me doubt him. Took her under his wing? Was that a euphemism? “What truth would that be?”

“The truth about the aristos,” Ophelia replied, biting into a biscuit. “And what they’re doing to humans and half-bloods.”

I had to admit, they were really selling this on a sincerity level. There was something in Ophelia’s eyes that reminded me of the old-timers who’d been through the Great Insurrection. As though she had seen things I couldn’t comprehend.

“What are they doing to humans and half-bloods?” I asked.

Ophelia turned her right arm so that her palm faced up. There, along the flesh of the inside of her wrist, tattooed in rusty ink, was a series of letters and numbers: S32FHWE12.

“Subject 32, female half-were, cell E12,” came her emotionless reply. “I wasn’t even good enough for a name. And I wasn’t alone. There were at least a dozen of us. They used us, experimented on us. Told people we loved we were dead. Some eventually did die, but it wasn’t quick.”

There was no faking the flatness in her gaze. I’d seen something similar in the eyes of Insurrection survivors. “Who did that to you?”

“I don’t know. The only name I ever heard was Churchill.”

My heart gave a sharp thud against my ribs. “Church would never do that.”

“Know him well, do you?” Her mocking Scottish burr grated on my raw nerves.

“Of course I do! We all know him.” I turned to Dede. “Tell her.”

My younger sister turned away. “He treats you differently from the way he treats the rest of us, Xandy. You’re his favourite.”

“Favourite, eh?” Ophelia shook her head. “He must be saving you for something good, then.”

I blinked. “Church would never hurt me.” Church had never been anything but a friend and mentor to me – more a father than Vardan.

Dede spoke up. “How often do you get sent for blood work, Xandy?”

“Every six months.” What did that have to do with anything? And why did I all of a sudden feel as though I were the one who had done something wrong?

The three of them exchanged knowing glances. “What?” I demanded.

It was my mother who answered. “Half-bloods have an exam and blood work once a year, dear. Only the ones they’re monitoring get tested more often.”

A chill raced down my spine. She was either an extremely talented actress or there really was truth to this madness. “I don’t believe you.”

Ophelia snorted. She was slouched in her chair like she’d rather be anywhere but here. “You’re not really that na?ve to think they keep you close because they like you? Christ, even among freaks you’re freaky.”

“Ophelia!” my mother cried, shooting her a furious glance.

The blue-haired witch shrugged. “It’s true. If she’s that strong on their poison, what’s she like without it? You saw her fangs.”

I resisted the urge to conceal my mouth with my hand. My fangs had retracted and were now sitting normally in my mouth. What was wrong with them? Poison? “Did you find this out from the hospital records you stole?”

She didn’t try to deny it. “Interesting fact, sister, there wasn’t anything in your file but your birth certificate and a record of immunisations. Almost every other file was full of boring tests and routine work-ups. Even Dede’s had a little information, but yours was as barren as an empty tea tin. Strange, what?”

Strange didn’t even begin to describe it. I shook my head. “That can’t be right.” I’d gone to hospital a couple of times, once because of a knife stuck in my leg and another time to facilitate the healing of some particularly nasty burns after a huey sprayed petrol on a group of aristos about to enter a royal event and tossed in a match. Those things should be in my file. Results from all of my blood work should be in that file, along with dates of all my vitamin shots.

Ophelia laughed humourlessly. “No, it’s not right at all, but it’s true. So what’s so special about you that your medical records aren’t kept where they’re supposed to be?”

“Maybe because I’m Royal Guard—”

She cut me off. “There were records for three RGs in the lot I took. Yours was the only one so obviously empty. Makes me think that somewhere there’s a big fat file on you locked up real tight.” Her tone was just a little too mocking for my liking. She smirked at me as though I was unnatural – a deviant whom she was delighted to catch doing something pervy.

“I should have let those betties have you,” I said softly, looking her dead in the eye. It was an awful thing to say, but by God at that moment I meant it. My reward for being such a rotten bitch was the bitter satisfaction of watching her smirk disappear.

“That’s enough.” My mother was obviously a woman accustomed to being heeded. “The two of you are sisters, not enemies.”

Ophelia and I glared at each other. Odd that I had liked her so much in the park that night yet despised her so much now. I’m not quite sure how she’d become the focus of my hatred, but she had.

Oh hell, who was I fooling? I despised the witch because she’d obviously enjoyed a longer and closer relationship with our mother than I had. She knew Dede in a manner I certainly did not.

“Churchill accused me of being mentally unstable,” Dede said suddenly, her tone flat. “He told me to be quiet and accept my fate, that everything would seem better after some rest.”

“How is that wrong?” I asked.

My sister didn’t even blink. “Because someone sent an assassin after me the night I was to be transferred here. Why do you think we faked my death?”

“But …” I simply could not reconcile my Church with this monster they described. “He’s always been so good to me.”

“You’re useful,” Dede countered. “They keep a watchful eye on you, monitor your vitals. Face it, Xandy, they’ve quarantined your records; they want you for something.”

Ophelia shifted in her chair, the leather of her corset creaking. “Maybe they’ve experimented on her already. That would explain the missing records and her freakdom.”

“No.” My mother’s blonde brows drew together. She looked like an angel sitting primly on a throne. “They’re waiting.”

“That’s it,” I announced, lurching to my feet. “I’ve heard enough. You lot are f*cking mental.”

Ophelia’s chair fell over when she leapt out of it. “You stupid cow! You refuse to see the truth when it’s right in front of your bloody eyes!” She snapped her fingers in my face. “Wake. The. F*ck. Up.”

Slowly I turned my gaze to hers. It was hot in here and I was covered from head to toe in merciless black, still wearing my funeral garb. I felt a trace of sweat around my hairline. I was hungry for something more substantial than f*cking biscuits, but I didn’t know what it was. I hadn’t taken my supplements in hours and I felt itchy.

“You’re telling me to believe that people I’ve known and trusted are villains, that everything I hold dear is a lie, and you expect me to believe it simply because we share blood and you say so? Piss off.”

We stood toe to toe, practically nose to nose. I imagined we looked rather like bookends, staring each other down as we were.

“She’s right,” my mother declared. She was on her feet now as well. Ophelia and I turned our heads towards her at the same time, but it was me she watched. There was something a little bit scary about my mother, and I didn’t think it was because she was supposed to be full-on hatters. “Alexandra deserves something more than our word. Dede dearest, why don’t you take your sister to the east wing and show her round?”

This was not open to negotiation and Dede knew it as well as I did. My mother wanted the two of us out of the way so that she and Fee could discuss us. Discuss me. That was fine. Maybe they’d decide to kill me to keep their dirty secrets. I wished them luck trying.

Dede beckoned, trusting and unsuspicious. “C’mon, Xandy.”

I followed her from the room. The moment the door closed behind us, I grabbed her arm and propelled her down the corridor. Not a guard in sight. “We don’t have much time. We’ve got to leave here now.” I couldn’t explain it, but the need to get her out of there – to get me out of there – was a pressing weight against my chest.

She dug in her heels – literally – bringing me up short. “I’m not leaving.”

I laughed. “Oh yes you are.” I’d put her on a passenger ship bound for America and go on pretending she was dead. And I would go on pretending my mother was dead too, because that was what she might as well be – what I wished she was, rather than a traitor.

“No.” She yanked her arm free. “I’m not. This is where I want to be, Xandy. Take me away and I’ll find my way back.”

For someone like me, who needed to be in control and on top of a situation, this was vexation at its finest. When had she grown a spine and become so stubborn? She hadn’t challenged me on anything since … since before she lost the baby.

This was how she used to be, and it broke my heart. I hadn’t been able to fix her, but apparently becoming a traitor had.

“You can leave.” She pointed way down the corridor to the foyer I’d walked through with Val the other day. “Go back and pretend none of this ever happened.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” I told her honestly.

Her pointy little chin lifted. “Are you going to turn us in?”

“I haven’t quite decided.” I shrugged. If I were smart I’d get the hell out of there. I’d haul my arse back to my comfortable home and genuinely mourn the loss of my sister, because once I left here she would be lost to me for ever. I would never see her again as family, but I might some day as an enemy.

Could I kill her if necessary? No, not a rutting chance.

“Show me the east wing,” I said, reluctant to lose her just yet, and curious as to what my mother wanted me to see. “Make me understand why this is so important to you.” Give me something I can use as an excuse not to turn you over to Scotland Yard.

She grabbed my hand. “Thank you, Xandy! I knew you couldn’t walk away.”

I stared at the ruined ring on her finger. “Don’t thank me.” I pulled my fingers free of hers. “This isn’t good, Dede. Not by any means. Don’t for a minute think I’m okay with it. I’m not.”

She nodded, looking crestfallen, and turned away. What the hell did she expect from me?

We walked the rest of the way in silence, me trailing after her like a trained dog. It occurred to me that she could be luring me into a trap, but paranoia wasn’t a good colour for me, so I kept my thoughts still and my senses alert, memorising every inch of the building we walked through. I ought to be ashamed of suspecting her capable of such deceit, but a week ago I wouldn’t have thought her capable of treason either.

“You might find some of these patients shocking,” Dede said as we went down one floor to the basement. “Some are in a very bad way.”

So there were actual hatters here – the ones who believed Victoria the root of all evil. “I don’t think anything can shock me after seeing my mother.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

I nodded. I didn’t really want to talk about it. “Where are we?” I asked.

“The subterranean ward,” she replied, and gestured for me to follow her to a heavy steel door. “This is where some of the saddest souls you’ll ever see live. Shit. I don’t have a pass key.”

Remembering the card I’d stolen from the guard, I pulled it out of my pocket. “Try this.”

She stared at it, then at me; even the fingers that took it from mine seemed to express disbelief. “Fee’s going to pitch a fit when she finds out you had this.”

“She should. This place needs better security.”

She shot me a wry glance as she swiped the card through the lock. “After tonight I reckon it will.”

The light on the lock turned green and Dede turned the handle on the door. She did not give the card back to me, but tucked it into the pocket of her waistcoat.

It was darkish here – like a cinema during the previews. “Is it punishment?”

“Being kept down here? Nah. It’s quieter down here and sometimes the light bothers them.”

I peered around and felt a stirring of the fear I’d harboured for this place. “So the asylum isn’t just a cover for the resistance?”

Dede shook her head, then tossed a glance at me over her shoulder. “Oh no. We have a staff of trained professionals who look after the patients. We keep to the west wing above ground and the patients get the east. Works out well – it’s the last place anyone would want to look for us.”

She had that right. “You don’t find it a little bizarre hiding out in a madhouse?”

She stopped and turned to face me. Suddenly I found myself looking into the eyes of a woman, not the little girl I’d adored from the first moment I saw her. “For once I feel as though I have purpose – that I’m home.”

I swallowed, throat tight. I didn’t want to face the realisation that she hadn’t found that happiness with us. I hadn’t been able to give it to her.

We came to the first doors that lined either side of the corridor. Each was heavy and made of metal – iron, I suspected.

“They seem sturdy enough,” I remarked.

Dede flashed a sideways glance in my direction. “Even if they weren’t, the halvies on the other side wouldn’t bother. They know they’re safer here. Take a look.”

I peered through the small shatterproof glass window. Inside the cell was dark as pitch, save for one small light near the floor. It gave enough light for me to be surprised. The cell was carpeted and the walls had been papered in a pattern reminiscent of the nineteenth century. The bed was small, but made of carved mahogany and covered in a thick quilt. It looked more like a guest room than a prison cell. Even the loo was partitioned off. A stack of books sat on a table by the bed.

And on that bed a half-blood lay on her side, watching me as I peered about her room. I almost jumped when my gaze met hers.

She had short yellow hair that stood out in soft spikes all over her head, and a sweet round face. I guessed her age to be early thirties.

“My head hurts,” she informed me, in a flat tone. Her voice was amplified by the speaker on the outside wall by the door. A two-way intercom.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied.

Dede stuck her face near mine so that she could speak to the halvie as well. “It’s all right, Georgianna. Your medicine will be here soon.”

My sister pulled me aside, towards another door. “She’s been here eight months. Her head hurts because they put bits of metal in her brain and we haven’t been able to get them all out yet.”

“Christ. Why would someone do that?” Her mind would try to heal around them – or worse, push them out.

“To see what would happen,” came Dede’s bluntly simple reply. “In the next cell we have Livia. She was rescued from a transport wagon five months ago. They kept her pregnant almost continuously for six years. As far as we can tell they gave her fertility drugs and impregnated her with goblin sperm to see what the child would be if it lived.”

Why in the name of sweet baby Albert would anyone do that? “How did they get a gob’s spunk?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine a goblin would just give it up.

“The old-fashioned way,” Dede said in a low, cold voice. “They let a goblin rape her. Repeatedly. You know she’s only eighteen. She doesn’t say much.”

Dear God. My stomach clenched so hard it felt as though it had turned inside out. I didn’t look into that cell and neither did Dede, but she placed her hand upon the door for a moment, as though the poor soul on the other side could feel it.

We went down the line. There were male halvies down here as well. The common denominator with most of them was sexual experiments. Some had been forced to endure horrific pain just to see how much they could take, their bodies forever disfigured by being made to heal in cruel and terrible ways. It was those ones – the mutilated ones – that made me realise this was real. These people – my people – had suffered horribly.

But I couldn’t believe they were part of some grand aristo plot to keep us all under the Crown’s thumb.

“How do you know humans didn’t do this?” I asked as we returned upstairs. I wanted to place the blame for these atrocities at feet I could accept.

“We have found human workers at some of the facilities, or driving transport vehicles, but it takes a lot of money to conduct this sort of work. A lot of secrecy. It’s too well hidden to be a human operation. Do you really believe a gob would work for humans?”

I couldn’t believe a goblin would work for anyone they could easily eat. That wasn’t the only reason I had for finding this all hard to swallow.

“You don’t believe aristos would do such things.”

“No,” I replied, meeting her gaze with a direct one of my own. “I don’t.”

My sister stepped out of the lift as the gate creaked open. I followed, stopping when she did. She didn’t look angry or mental, or even mildly put out. She simply gazed at me with sincerity in her wide eyes. “What are we, Xandy?”

“Sisters.” When she shook her head, I caught her meaning. “Halvies.”

“That’s right. We’re neither entirely human nor aristo. That makes us freaks to both sides. I don’t think the vampires and weres like us any more than most humans do, maybe even less. We’re protection and lab rats to them, and little more.”

“You’re basing that on a handful of halvies who have had awful things done to them.”

“And on what Fee has told me of their experiences.”

I snorted. “Because Fee wouldn’t lie.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Yeah?” Dede might have grown a backbone, but she was still as na?ve as a child. ‘Because the night I saved her sorry arse from a gang of betties – the same night she stole my hospital records – she was with an aristo. If she hates them so much, why did she leave with the f*cking alpha?”

My sister blinked. She didn’t have an answer for that one. Ha. I’d made her doubt her precious new best friend.

“We’re more than a means to an end to our father,” I added, even though I wasn’t certain.

She gave me a sad smile. “He had to f*ck a human for each of us to exist. Do you think he liked it? Do you think he made sure those women enjoyed it?”

I hadn’t thought of it before. It was just how things worked – how halvies came to be. Like most, I tried not to think about my parents shagging.

Dede walked away, leaving me with my thoughts as I followed behind. When we returned to the room where my mother had been, she and Ophelia were waiting.

“How was the tour?” Ophelia smiled mockingly. “Did you stop by the gift shop?”

“I’ll do that on my way out,” I retorted. That was assuming they let me go. I jerked my chin towards her. “What’s that?”

She glanced down at the syringe in her hand. I was suddenly wary and on guard, ready to fight if I had to. “I would like to take a sample of your blood.”

“F*ck that.”

Dede held up a flimsy file folder. From where I stood I could read my own name on the label. “Wouldn’t you like to know why you’re tested more than other halvies? Or why your medical records aren’t where they should be? I don’t want you to be an experiment, Xandy.”

My poor misguided baby sister. I couldn’t even be angry at her right then. Oh, for certain she was mad as a syphilitic monk, but that was real worry in her eyes. Worry for me.

“Plus we won’t let you leave without it,” Fee added.

My gaze moved carefully from Dede to Ophelia, then to my mother. I could cheerfully take on Fee, but I wasn’t certain I could fight Juliet, no matter how hurt and angry I was. And I didn’t know how many guards there were. There was a very good chance I wouldn’t make it out of there alive if I used violence.

If I let them take my blood I could get out unscathed and still report this to … well, someone. Val would be the best bet, or maybe Church. One of them would know how to handle the situation without Dede ending up dead or imprisoned.

Without scandal.

The only way things could possibly end up all right was if I continued to play along. I rolled up my sleeve, presenting Ophelia with the vulnerable underside of my left arm.

“Do it.”