“Does it?” I ask.
“All of ours do, Roselle.”
My plan to sneak into Hawthorne’s room shouldn’t terrify me, but it does. Under the cover of darkness, I pad softly out onto my balcony. Scaling the ornate stonework of the building, I climb several stories to a ledge wide enough to walk on. My footsteps don’t make much noise as I hurry across the outside of the Halo Palace. The balmy breeze carries the scent of roses from the garden below. I’m turning frosty from the phantom orb in my pocket, which masks my body temperature from the stingers. The swatch of lead covering my moniker does the rest.
Having memorized the route, I’m almost 100 percent certain that the balcony below me is Hawthorne’s newly issued suite, granted to him while he answers questions about the attack against the social club. He has a sea view, like me, but on the other side of Grisholm’s residence.
I scale down and pry open the glass panel doors. No lights are on, but my night-vision glasses compensate. For a moment, I worry that I have the wrong apartment, but then I recognize the Trugrave crest on the fusionblade locked in the weapons vault in the wall. My heart races. He should have his sword with him. I could be an assassin.
I tread softly up the stairs. At the top of the landing, something doesn’t feel right. I pause and listen. The soft sounds of sleep-breathing rasps from the other side of the bedroom door. Gently, I ease it open. It’s dark. Hawthorne is burrowed under his blanket. Moving forward, I just about make it to his bed when a lamp turns on. My hands go up to shield my eyes as the night-vision glasses adjust.
I lower my arms, my heart beats like that of a leveret’s before a coyote. Hawthorne is seated in the chair in the corner with a fusionmag in his hand. He’s dressed all in black, like me. Devastation ravages his face. He raises a remote and cuts the fake sleep sounds coming from the area near the bed.
“I prayed it wouldn’t be you,” Hawthorne says sorrowfully. “I figured Winterstrom would try to do it himself.”
“What are you talking about?” I whisper. I take a step in his direction. He holds the fusionmag a little higher.
“How were you going to do it?” Hawthorne asks, choking on emotion.
“Do what?”
“Kill me.”
“I could never!” I say in a rush. “How could you think that? I’m here to talk. I swear! I’m unarmed.” I hold up my hands and turn around slowly.
“What’s in your pocket?” he asks suspiciously. I reach in slowly and pull out two orbs. “This is a phantom orb. It masks me from the stingers.” I hold up the other. “This is a whisper orb. It forms a perimeter around us so we can’t be overheard.” I trigger the whisper orb, and an iridescent bubble billows outward.
“Set them on the floor.” He motions with the fusionmag.
I do, slowly.
“You came here to talk?” he snarls. “So, talk.” The pained look of having been betrayed etches every line of his face.
It breaks me. I feel a tear slip from my eye and wipe it away. “Hawthorne—” I struggle for the right words.
“Are you . . . are you a Fate traitor?” Sadness frays his voice.
I move a step closer. He holds the fusionmag a little higher. I stop. “It’s not what it seems, Hawthorne.”
“What is it, then?” he asks bitterly.
“Have you ever let yourself think that maybe every Fates Republic secondborn is on the wrong side?”
“Never!” Rage transforms his face. “Were you in the same war as me? Didn’t you see them sending us back in body bags?”
“Yes, I saw! I also saw the Gates of Dawn body bags, and the way we slaughtered their wounded without mercy. And for what? So the Fates Republic can tear us away from our families, enslave us, and send us off to die while they attend balls and soirées and watch us kill each other in sadistic games they create in the name of entertainment? I’m tired of being on the wrong side, Hawthorne. I can’t justify what they’re doing anymore.”
“I don’t even know you, do I?” he seethes.
“You know me,” I reply with a note of desperation. “And you know your friends—the ones who love you unconditionally. They’re Fate traitors, too.”
“Because of you,” he accuses.
“I did what I had to do to save their lives. I’m not going to apologize for it.”
“How long?” he demands.
“How long, what?”
“How long have you been the enemy?”
“I’m not your enemy!” I insist. “I made a deal for Edgerton’s and Hammon’s lives. You were gone. No one else could help them. But there was no going back after that . . . I just didn’t know it until now.”
“How does Winterstrom play into all of this?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I won’t.”
“He’s firstborn,” Hawthorne says. “How do you know that you can trust him?”
“He has plenty of reasons to hate the Fates Republic.”
“It’s not too late, Roselle. Whatever you’re mixed up in, we can get you out. Salloway will help—I’m sure of it.”
“Don’t involve him. Please, Hawthorne. He’s more dangerous than you know.”
“He wants you to rule Swords. Once you do, you can make the kind of changes that matter.”
“You want me to be The Sword?”
“I want you to live!” he retorts. “The Rose Gardeners will make you the Clarity of our Fate. You’ll be powerful.”
“You want us to live as firstborns while our friends are hunted by Census? Let’s say I agree to all of that. One day we’ll have to give our secondborn child to a system that will brutalize her until the day she dies. Now who’s the traitor? We’d be betraying our child like our parents betrayed us. We’ve been brainwashed for so long that it’s hard to see the truth, Hawthorne, but once you do, you can’t unsee it. Anything less than freedom for all secondborns is unacceptable. Anything less than life for thirdborns is murder. When you accept that, you won’t be able to go blindly along with the Fates Republic anymore—you’d rather die for freedom than live one more day without it.”
“You will die if you keep this up, Roselle.”
“It’s only treason if I lose.” I take a step in his direction, and when he doesn’t shoot, I take another, and another, until I’m close enough to reach for the fusionmag. “I’m still the woman you shared a million kisses with.” I touch the cool metal of the barrel. “It’s still me.”
Hawthorne groans, relinquishing his weapon. “If you’re going to kill me, do it fast.”
In seconds, I disassemble the fusionmag and set the pieces on the side table. I stare down into his eyes. His hand lifts to the back of my neck. He pulls me nearer until my lips meet his in a ferocious, all-consuming kiss.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks.
“Because it’s right—like you and I are right. We can save them, Hawthorne—this isn’t unfaithfulness to Sword secondborns. It’s loyalty. We can change their lives for the better. Don’t decide now. Just think about it. I’m only asking you to continue to protect Hammon, Edgerton, and me with your silence.”
Hawthorne pulls me down to him. I straddle his hips. His hand cups my jaw. His thumb traces my cheek. His sorrow burns away in the heat of his desire. The yearning that always accompanies his touch destroys my resolve. As his thumb slides over my bottom lip, I shiver, craving more. I wish he could hold me until I die.