27
Imrin is so glad to see me in our secret meeting place that night that I have to tell him to quieten down for fear of anyone overhearing us.
‘I didn’t know if I’d see you at all,’ he says, ‘let alone so soon. I couldn’t ask any of the girls in the kitchen how you were because no one knows we are friends. How do you feel?’
I overplay things a little, sighing and looking for sympathy even though I don’t feel too bad. ‘I’m fine, just cold.’
Imrin fusses, draping the blankets over me and offering to double them up. I tell him not to be so silly and that he should sit under them too. I want to say that I don’t even let my mother look after me as much as he wants to but there is a sweetness about the way he keeps asking if I need anything. Secretly I am enjoying it.
‘Rush was really upset yesterday evening.’
‘Really?’
‘Some of the others were telling him that he had no choice but he was saying he should have refused.’
‘The King would have had him killed if he had said no.’
‘That’s what people were saying but he kept insisting it was wrong.’
‘It must be the day for it. When I was in the dorm earlier, Pietra apologised to me in front of everyone. She kept saying she had never hit anyone before and didn’t know what she was doing. I told her it was fine and that was the cue for everyone else to join in.’
‘So you’re all actually talking now?’
‘Apparently. All it took was someone twice as big as me to hit me really hard in the head and now we’re all friends.’
I laugh gently but Imrin doesn’t join in.
‘I was really worried …’
‘What happened after he hit me?’
I have already heard Jela’s version but wonder if Imrin has a different perspective.
He swallows before answering. ‘It’s strange because it seems really hard to remember, even though it was only yesterday. There was noise: people shouting, some clapping, some cheering – but it felt mixed. Not like when Rush won the first game. The King didn’t even notice. He was cheering but the Minister Prime wasn’t. He swept his hair to one side and whispered something in Ignacia’s ear and then pushed her down the steps towards you. As you were being taken out, he was on his feet demanding silence. He got it but it wasn’t instant like it usually is. There were still murmurs from the people above us.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I wanted to come to you but I remembered ages ago when you said we couldn’t be friends anywhere other than here. I was almost fighting myself but then Rush was protecting you anyway.’
‘You did the right thing.’
‘Honestly?’
‘We might not be here now if you had come across to me. No one is aware we even know each other, let alone anything else. There’s no point in blowing that unless we absolutely have to.’
I rub my head and Imrin fusses again. I assure him I am feeling fine.
‘Where are your maps?’ I ask.
Imrin scrabbles across to the other side of the passage and fumbles around before flattening out the rolls of paper. It isn’t easy to see in the dim light but I talk him through the dimensions of the medical bay, the handful of passages at the front and the nurse’s station at the rear. He draws them on and then places one floor’s map on top of the other.
‘So what’s here?’ he asks, pointing to a large space. ‘I was wondering when you’d realise.’ I smile and take the pencil from him, explaining about the roof of the main hall.
‘Could either of us fit through the window?’
‘No, but it’s only glass. We could break it.’
‘What about the wall at the far end?’
‘We’d need to find a way down; a rope or something similar.’
‘What about getting into the medical bay?’
‘There’s a silver scanner on the wall outside that the borodron should work on. I think the darker ones, like the ones in the zoo, are opened by the frequency in certain people’s thinkwatches. There is one in the nurse’s station too. I’m pretty sure they are specific to one or two people but the silver ones are for all Kingsmen.’
Imrin looks at his map, then at me. ‘So why don’t we just go? We can get some sheets, or I can get some rope from the guy I know in textiles. We just need something to break the glass in the medical bay and then we’re away.’
‘What are we going to do then?’
‘I don’t know – at least we’ll be outside. We can go and do all those things we talked about: live in the woods, hunt animals, grow things, you remember …’
I do remember but I know now it is pure fantasy. ‘We don’t know where we are,’ I say. ‘Neither of us comes from this area.’
Imrin sounds desperate. ‘We’ll figure that out.’
I shake my head. ‘You were the one who said to be the tortoise.’
‘But that was before we found our way out.’
It is only now I realise that he is frantic to get away. Before, everything was led by me and I always assumed it was my idea he was clinging to.
‘What about our families?’ I ask.
‘Our thinkwatches should work again as we get outside, we can warn them.’
I shake my head. ‘It could be too late. As soon as we make a break for it, there could be Kingsmen burning down our houses and putting our families in prison.’
Imrin sighs, knowing I am right but still clinging to the hope that we could be out of here within a day.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asks.
‘This is bigger than us now. It isn’t just about getting out, or even warning our families.’
Imrin hisses back at me, his voice raised and audible. ‘So what is it about?’
I give him a moment to collect himself and then speak slowly and calmly. ‘It’s about letting everyone in the Realms know what’s going on and taking the King down.’
He is staring at me in disbelief. ‘You’re serious?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s suicide.’
‘It doesn’t have to be.’
Imrin tugs one of the blankets towards him, exposing my shoulders. I pull the second one up to cover me but it is not as warm. ‘But we’re just kids,’ he says.
‘Exactly.’
He huffs exasperatedly. ‘How hard were you hit on the head?’
I reach out to him, trying to hold his hand to tell him it will be fine, but he shrugs me away.
‘Im …’
He doesn’t reply and we sit in silence listening to each other’s breathing for what seems like an age.
When he finally speaks, Imrin’s whispers are steady again. ‘You don’t have an older brother, do you?’
‘You know I don’t.’
‘Do you remember when I told you my sisters were all Inters or Members?’
‘The first night we met.’
‘Yes … well, it’s not exactly true. My three older sisters are all Elites and no one doubts the younger ones will be too.’
I think back to our very first conversation and the way we ended up speaking about our families. His openness was the main thing which made me trust him. I feel slightly betrayed at the revelation.
‘I don’t understand why you’d say that.’
Imrin laughs slightly. ‘That’s because you’re the eldest – you have no one to impress. I had to follow them. Anything less than becoming an Elite made me a total failure – but even when I got the result they wanted, it wasn’t anything special, it was the minimum they expected.’
‘But it doesn’t matter to me what you are.’
‘I didn’t know that then, did I? I wanted to impress you. Everyone I know is completely focused on what you are. There are people where I live that won’t even look at you unless you’re an Elite. That’s why I said I was the first Elite in my family. It sounded good, as if I was something better than I am.’
I remember the way Pietra explained it to me and struggle to know what to say before I finally croak out: ‘You’re special to me.’
Imrin laughs slightly but it is difficult to tell in the dark if it is genuine or in disbelief. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
I think of Opie back in Martindale and there is a lump in my throat. I find it hard to believe I have somehow ended up in a situation where my feelings are caught between him and Imrin. There was a time when everything I did revolved around seeing Opie but now my life has changed so much, so quickly, that I don’t even feel like the person I once was. Will I ever be her again?
Luckily Imrin speaks before I have to. ‘When you grow up with so many sisters, it’s awkward to be noticed. It’s strange because I know my mother wanted a son but my dad loves his little girls, all of them. It’s always them … and Imrin, as if I’m some sort of leftover thought. People know us as the family with all the girls – but there’s no room for me in that.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re saying.’
‘Just that this … it’s been something that’s mine and yours that I don’t have to share with anyone else. Now we’re so close but it feels as if you’re changing our plans. Now, instead of just getting away, you want to do something crazy. If the King was so easy to take down, don’t you think someone would have tried it?’
‘Maybe but perhaps it’s like you said with the guards. No one realises how few there are because we’re so busy being isolated and scared.’
‘But that was just a guess. There could be Kingsmen everywhere.’
I reach out and grab Imrin’s hand, refusing to let him pull it away. ‘If we stay here, sooner or later, we’re going to die anyway.’
‘So let’s go!’ Imrin is getting louder again, his frustration bubbling over.
‘It’s not that simple. What about next year’s Offerings? Or the year after that? Even if our families are somehow spared, it could be your younger sisters, or Colt, who gets chosen when it’s their turn.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘It’s like you said – we’re just kids, so no one will expect anything from us. The King will probably have something in place because he will expect dissent at some point from the various Kingsmen. He’s quelled it before and he’ll do it again but what he wouldn’t expect is for people like us to cause him a problem.’
‘Why?’
‘Look at us. The girls have barely talked and we’ve spent all our time fighting each other. Your lot have at least been working together, but that creates its own problems because one silly mistake will bring you all down. You’re so reliant on each other that you can’t afford to take big risks.’
‘Surely that proves that we should focus on ourselves and get out?’
I shake my head. ‘They’ll be expecting us to smuggle food, perhaps even make escape attempts, but the one thing they won’t imagine is for us to work together.’
In the dimness of the tunnel, I wonder if Imrin has heard as he doesn’t reply and I cannot hear him breathing. ‘How do you mean?’ he finally says.
‘Think about it. We have people working everywhere – the kitchens, textiles, the barracks, the admin offices, technology. If the senior Kingsmen were to rise up, they would have to convince almost all the other people in their position because there is only one person per department. We don’t need anything like that – we can pick and choose who we think will be the most valuable in each area.’
Imrin sighs again. ‘I’m still not sure what you think we can do. We know people who have been placed all around the castle, so what?’
‘You’ll have to trust me on that for now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, before any of that, I need to get into the Minister Prime’s office.’
Imrin snorts. ‘How? Even with your camera trick, you’re never going to get near it without someone spotting you.’
‘I’ll only need a few minutes.’
‘But how are you going to get them?’
I take a deep breath, hoping my persuasive powers are still enough. ‘That’s where you come in …’