“I won’t do anything here.”
“So it’ll be somewhere else?”
“I . . .”
Maybe? Probably? I don’t know.
“God,” he says.
“It’s not on your head,” I say. “I’m not on your head.”
“You have no idea.” He sighs and knocks back against the wall.
I pull away to look at him, and his arms finally ease up. “I didn’t ask you to see me. I don’t know you.”
His eyes are dark and shuttered and close when I look too long. Without them open, he loses years and gains exhaustion. “Promise me something?”
But that’s more than I can give. “I can’t—”
“Not tonight.” He blinks, tries for a smile. It doesn’t last. “Just not tonight.”
As if I could. Today’s courage died when he hauled me back. Or else when the Enactor walked me to freedom.
They should have just mapped me.
“Okay.” I disentangle and climb to my feet. The stairwell is stuffy as hell and I’m freezing, at least in the places his arms just were.
He stands as I retrieve the colorkits. “Promise.” Not a question.
“Fine,” I say. “Promise.”
I unlock the door to the blare of the newsfeeds. Dad has my small wall-screen jacked up to full volume. Some digislate ad. My neighbors probably hate me.
Not that this is half as loud as the earlier show outside.
He’s also lit a mass of air-freshener sticks, which smoke a tangled web of scents from the kitchen counter.
“Kit? That you?” Dad calls from the couch.
“Yeah.” I back-kick the door closed. “Turn it down, Dad. The whole building can hear.”
He half straightens from his slouch to dig up the screen remote, hitting mute just as a newscast switches on. Same one Mrs. Divs had running, full of sleek professionals with practiced smiles.
“Where you been, doll?” He leans up, kisses my cheek, sloppy and wet. He used to do that, hand out kisses, back when he, Mom, and I were something of a unit. Known as a family, even seen in each other’s company. He would sometimes buy me ices; Mom would sometimes braid my hair.
Then Dad started bringing over people who weren’t Mom, and swore me not to tell. He’d smile when I promised.
He’s smiling now.
“How did Dee know you were here?” I ask.
He shrugs. “She called while you were out. I didn’t know who it was.”
“Then you shouldn’t have answered,” I say.
“But what if it was you?” He sinks into the couch, retrieves a flask from some hidden pocket and stares at the newsfeed. “You’ve been gone all day, what if you needed me?”
I needed him when I was nine.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” I say.
He looks up, face open, eyes huge. “Kit—”
“Dad.” Yonni’s tone, a warning.
He sighs, reaching up to rub my hip. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
I don’t want to talk about it tomorrow. I don’t want to talk about it now.
On-screen, the newscasters have switched to a new interview feed. Not Lady Galton this time, but a man. Brown-haired, sharp-eyed, and without being blatant.
The Enactor from the interview room.
A red caption floats below: Prime.
The Prime? I was interrogated by the freakin’ Prime? The man who controls the Enactors. The only House Official with almost bloodling-level power, without actually being a bloodling. I might as well have been questioned by Lady Galton, or Lord Galton’s ghost.
My chest empties, and I sink into the couch beside Dad.
The Prime doesn’t play to the cameras, like the Lady, and it’s not like I memorized his face. Why would I? I’d have as much chance of running into him as I would a bloodling—or a lordling come to that, with the exception of Missa.
The Prime wants to map me.
I curl over the colorkit box—now in my lap, I didn’t drop it—and proceed not to feel. Anything. Like a heartbeat.
The Prime knows about the Accounting.
Which means it’s real.
“Kit?” Dad scoots close and rubs my back. “What’s up, baby doll?”
I shake my head. There’s no air in the room and too much under my skin.
What’s up, baby? Dad asked, leaning over Mom’s shoulder as she sat at the kitchen table and built algorithms on her digislate. She could always make the numbers dance, and the letters, and the little symbols in between. I sat one chair over with my sandwich and juice, little hand sticky from both.
Mom didn’t lift her head or slow her fingers. Years, it’d take years. The prep alone, the focus—it’d be this, it could only be this.
She’d said that before that night, more than once, to herself and to me.
This what? Dad asked.
She paused, looked up, her smile a slow incredible thing. The Accounting. I’ve cracked it.
“Baby?” Dad brushes my hair off my temple and gently raps my skull with his knuckles. “Hey, you still in there?”
I yank away from his hand, the couch.
From Mom at the table and me with my sandwich. From the beauty of her grin.
“Kit?” Dad asks.
That’s wonderful, baby! he’d said.
Mom turned serious. I’d have to dedicate everything to it; there could be nothing else.