“I think it will all work out, Grootvader.” He didn’t say anything but nodded, his face solemn. As the song drew to a finish, she stepped back and gave him a little curtsy. Then they joined in the applause for the singer.
“And that is the end of the evening, I believe,” said Grootvader Ernst. “We shall make our thanks, and then it will be time to go back to the hotel.” Making the thanks actually took another half hour; Odette circumnavigated the room, speaking with everyone she had danced with and then thanking the Court members. Alessio was nodding off on a chair against the wall and submitted to being guided up the stairs. Eventually she found Clements waiting by the door. The Pawn was quiet in the car but acknowledged that she’d had a good time.
The delegation was decanted at the front of the hotel. Yawning receptionists at the desk stood up straight when the elegant party glided by. As they walked through the lobby, Odette saw Pawn Sophie Jelfs sitting in the bar. I’m so glad she wasn’t killed in the attack, she thought, and she smiled, putting on an expression of exaggerated relief. The Pawn looked exhausted and her hair was messy, but she held up a drink in toast and smiled back. She raised her eyebrows at Odette’s dress and made an impressed face.
In Pawn Clements’s room, Odette helped Felicity take off her dress. As the gown shivered and unclenched, the Pawn slumped a little and took a deep breath. “Thank you for lending me the dress,” said Clements. “And putting all that work into tailoring it for me.”
“It really was my pleasure,” said Odette.
The Pawn gave the garment a wistful little stroke and then handed it back to Odette, wished her a good night, and closed her bedroom door. Odette wandered back into the room she shared with Alessio and carefully hung up the dress. She looked over at the bed, where her little brother was already asleep. Worn out by the revelations of the evening, he’d drifted off almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Odette gave a moment’s thought to picking up the tuxedo components that he had scattered across the room but then snorted and walked away. I’m not his mother, and if he shows up looking crumpled at some other event, that’s his problem. It’s how he’ll learn.
In a fit of hypocrisy, she stepped out of her dress and just let it lie on the bathroom floor. But at least my dress will straighten itself out, she thought defensively. Once it’s had a good meal of applesauce and been dusted with some paprika and cuprous sulfate.
As she ran her bath and added the various chemicals and powders, she thought wistfully of sleeping in an actual bed. There really is something extremely comforting about a pillow and a blanket, she mused. And you hardly ever wake up to find that your sheets have congealed into a solid around you. One of her fellow students had once mixed the chemicals wrong, and the staff had had to chisel him out. She contemplated just falling into the tub but remembered that she still had her makeup on. And the strategic underwear that she’d worn to suit the dress. If Alessio came in to wake her up and found her in that, they’d both be scarred for life.
“Oh, fine. I’ll be responsible, then,” she said to no one in particular. She even remembered to put her headphones on before sinking blissfully into the steaming slime. I am going to sleep forever. And tomorrow is Saturday, she thought blissfully as her heartbeat slowed. I don’t have to do anything.
*
“Wake up!” the voice thundered in her ears. She thrashed in the slime, her brain jolting into action. As she opened her eyes, something floated down through the murk and clonked her on her forehead. She clutched at her forehead and instinctively opened her mouth to make a noise, and the slime rushed into her mouth. Oh, gross! Fuming, she clamped her mouth shut and scrabbled around for whatever had hit her. It was her phone. Apparently, her jerkings had yanked the cord of the headphones and pulled the phone into the tub. I may have to murder someone, she thought. When she surfaced, she saw that the murderee would be her brother. She spat out the mouthful of slime, which, though it smelled delightful, tasted like a combination of shampoo, antifreeze, and Bloody Mary mix.
“It’s Saturday morning,” she said acidly.
“Grootvader Ernst has called a meeting,” said Alessio.
“It’s Saturday morning.”
“Everyone except me has to be there,” he said.
“It’s Saturday morning.”
“It’s in fifteen minutes, so you’ll be eating breakfast there,” he said, leaving the bathroom.
“But... it’s Saturday morning,” she said to the cruel, uncaring empty room.
*
Odette was well aware that she was not looking her most impressive as she entered the royal suite. A frantic shower had gotten most of the slime out of her hair, but it was still damp, and, in a moment of resentful rebellion, she had pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. It’s Saturday morning, after all, she thought sulkily. They can’t expect me to be wearing a business skirt the morning after a party.
As it turned out, everyone was dressed casually, which rather took away from her rebellious gesture. Even Grootvader Ernst, behind his newspaper, was wearing a button-down shirt without a tie or cravat. There was a contemplative silence in the room that suggested that nobody was particularly thrilled to be awake. Much yawning took place behind hands. Odette helped herself to the buffet that had been laid out and then slumped into her chair at the conference table. She realized that, in the present company, she would not be able to have her illicit coffee without receiving pointed remarks about her throat.
Resting her chin on her hand, she took a mouthful of scrambled eggs and looked resentfully up the table to where Grootvader Ernst sat. He was reading the Times, the front page of which was completely devoted to the attacks. Too tired even to turn her head, Odette moved her eyes in their sockets and saw that almost everyone was staring at their leader. He turned a page.
Thank God we were summoned early to watch you read the paper, she thought. Then everyone jumped as he scrunched the paper down and regarded them all.
“It is early,” he said, “but there are things I want us to deal with immediately.”
And that is as close as we are going to get to an apology.
“Last night went very well. I am proud of you all. You conducted yourselves admirably, and I am confident that the Checquy has come to terms with the problem of the Antagonists. It seems that we drastically overestimated what their reaction would be to our, ahem, insurrection. Last night I spoke with the Prime Minister, and he assures me that they completely understand the situation. He was especially grateful for our work in the aftermath of the attacks. Marcel’s and Odette’s efforts with the casualties have not gone unnoticed, and they have put us in a very strong position in the negotiations.”
Well, if you want to take a selfless act and make it selfish, I suppose that’s your privilege, thought Odette.
“Now, it is important that we continue to build upon this excellent foundation. I am aware that this is the Saturday morning after a long and exhausting week, but we must strike while the iron is hot and before the tumor spreads.” The meeting attendees were quickly given assignments. To Odette’s bewilderment, she received no task. Even Alessio has something to do this weekend, she thought. Her brother was going off with the school group for a day of various activities that would culminate in a night at the theater to see a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The next day, he’d go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum, and then some famous restaurant.