In the kitchen, Benjy helped two other Blackcoats prepare enough plates to feed everyone staying in the manor, and before I stepped into his view, I watched him chat with the woman with the scar running down her face. He smiled broadly, his eager voice filtering over the clatter of dishes, and for a moment I let myself be carried back to the countless evenings we’d spent in the kitchen of our group home, helping Nina with dinner or washing up after. The cold marble of Mercer Manor fell away, replaced with wood and brick and heat from the fireplace. I would have given anything to go back there, even for just a day, and have Benjy look at me like I was me again. Maybe I was imagining it, but now that I saw him like this—with someone else, when he didn’t know I was watching—it was clear that there was something missing from the way he talked when we were around each other. An easiness to our banter, jokes that made us both laugh, the way we used to tease each other without wondering if it was the last conversation we would ever have—even though I couldn’t name it, I knew it wasn’t there anymore. Maybe he was the onewho felt he couldn’t wholly be himself now that I wasn’t completely me.
After I’d been Masked, we hadn’t had much time at Somerset to be together, and any time we did have was spent worrying that someone would catch us. In Elsewhere, before the battle, we’d been separated—and, for several days, I’d thought he was dead. That all-encompassing grief had turned into unbridled joy and relief when Knox had revealed Benjy was, in fact, alive—and the weeks we’d spent together since had been comfortable and more like a taste ofhomethan I’d thought I would ever have again. But maybe that was an illusion. Because we weren’t home; we would never go home again. Benjy was the closest thing I would ever have to home again, but as I watched him turn to ladle gravy onto a plate, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was, yet again, holding him back.
He caught my eye, and something in his expression changed. Once upon a time, seeing me would have sparked joy, and to some extent, it still did. But it was tainted with something else now, and I couldn’t blame him for it. As much as I knew he loved me, I was also tied to the worst memories of his life, and I didn’t know how many more he could stand before he cracked. I’d lost count of the number of times he’d nearly died because of me, and each onewas another lifetime of guilt looming over me, knowing I’d never be able to make any of this up to him. We’d been here before, with me holding him back—when I’d achieved only a III on my test, and he was bound to get a VI. I would never be good enough for him, and the more I tried to hold on to him, the harder his life would be. The more his smile would fade every time he looked at me.
“Kitty—are you hungry?” He quickly finished preparing the current plate before grabbing another. “Chicken, right?”
“Two. One for Knox, too,” I said, moving forward to help him. The portions were meager at best, but they were exactly what the former prisoners ate, too, and after today, I had no complaints. “How did everything go with Strand?”
“We’ve brainstormed a few ideas that we can implement starting almost immediately. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is, right?” He grinned. “Rivers told me about the tunnels. If they really do extend as far as hethinks they do, that will make our jobs infinitely easier.”
“Yeah, well, let’s hope he’s right,” I said. It was hard to say when he’d never tried to explore them, but then again, with the guards keeping such a close eye on the prisoners, I wasn’t sure how he ever could have slipped away long enough to do so.
“He said you’re going to start mapping it tonight—do you mind if I join you?” added Benjy, and I blinked. With the news of Celia’s plan to attack Somerset, I’d completely forgotten.
“Actually, do you mind taking my place? I—” I hesitated. “I’m going to spend the evening with Knox.”
Internally I winced, knowing how it must have sounded to Benjy, and sure enough, his hand stilled in the middle of placing a piece of chicken on a plate. “Oh. I thought we could spend some time together tonight.”
Guilt twisted in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t tell Benjy the truth about why I wanted to stay with Knox, not without revealing Celia’s call, but I owed him some kind of explanation. “I need to talk to him about everythinggoing on with Lila,” I said as steadily as I could. “If we don’t come up with a counterattack soon, we’ll lose any ground we gained this morning.”
Benjy eyed me, and I could sense his uncertainty. I gave him a questioning look.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, and he finished preparing our plates. “If you finish early, come find me.”
“I will,” I promised, and taking the plates, I forced a smile before heading back to the office, feeling worse with each step I took. I hated keeping secrets from him, but the more time I spent as Lila, the more of a habit it became.
As I walked away, able to feel his gaze burning into the back of my skull, I made myself a promise, too. After this war was over, there would be no more secrets between me and Benjy. Even if it meant telling the whole ugly truth, at least we would be honest with one another.
Knox and I settled in on the sofa, him sitting rigidly while I propped my feet up on a footstool. Every screen in his office displayed a different news channel, and together we watched as the anchors droned on and on about acts of terrorism that hadn’t happened and shortages that didn’t exist. Whatever Daxton’s game was, it involved feeding the public lie after lie about our campaign. With communication between cities nearly nonexistent, few had any way of disproving the news channels’ claims. Or any reason not to believe them.