“I thought we didn’t take on sins?”
“Oh lord,” and he’s breathless, too, forehead pressed to mine. “Don’t quote me. Half the stuff I say is shit.”
Niles doesn’t argue when I say I’m tired and want to be alone, probably because it’s the truth. He walks me to my suite, palm pressing mine in a silent I’m here.
Even unspoken the words bolster the landscape, give the sky some color. Command so much power . . . but not enough.
My world is preprogrammed by Mom. That last message, whatever else it was, was for me.
I smile and close Niles out of my suite. Lean against the door as his steps retreat down the hall, and wait for the stairwell door to open. I count to ten and slip down to the main level.
Mrs. Divs answers on my second knock.
She’s exchanged her bright gold dress for a more sedate red robe, its draped sleeves swinging as she puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me you got in a fight.”
“Did you see it?” I ask.
“Of course I see it, it’s half down your face.”
I shake my head. “I mean Mom, on the feeds.”
She snorts. “Better use asking if anyone didn’t see it. What is your mother up to?”
Behold the question of the hour.
“Did you record it?” I ask.
Mrs. Divs is a veritable newsfeed archive. She records everything, remembers everything.
She stomps her cane. “Now, how am I supposed to record anything with the power gone out? It was downright eerie to have that wall-screen running and nothing else on.”
“But you could tell me what she said. You remember every word, don’t you, Mrs. Divs? You have an ear.”
I’ve heard her recite whole conversations verbatim.
She preens, a silky red bird. “I do, don’t I?”
“There’s not a soul to match you,” I say.
She levels me a wrinkled glare. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doin’, young miss.”
But still, she swings the door wide.
I slip into her white lace wonderland, and she shoos me toward the couch. I take the end closest to the big green cookie jar. I didn’t have breakfast this morning, or dinner last night.
I reach out. “May I?”
She gently smacks my fingers. “It’s not even half on suppertime yet! We’ll have tea first, and see if you behave. Then we’ll talk cookies.”
I sink into the cushions, hand in my lap. “Of course, Mrs. Divs.”
Satisfied, she hobbles off to the kitchen. I try to ignore the jar. Even closed, it radiates sugar. Gingercrisp and fireplum, homemade and buttery.
Yonni couldn’t cook for shit, but she used to take me to the bakery. Once a week every week, whether she had an appointment later in the evening or not. I first met Missa in a bakery. We ran into her by accident. She bought me cloudcakes and Yonni coffee. Yonni was livid. She pulled Missa aside where I wasn’t supposed to see, and said in a voice I wasn’t supposed to hear, “Not a word, not a damn word. The kid doesn’t know what I do.”
I’d slid in by her elbow and nearly gave her a heart attack. “Uh, Yonni? I’m eleven.”
She gaped at me, then snatched the cloudcake from my hand, ordered me to a chair, and banned me from sugar for a month.
I might be on a sugar ban now, the way the cookie jar taunts me. I fold my arms and stare at the wall-screen. It’s muted. Some newscast plays, but not the standard House Update. The colors and logos are different, the camera panning along streets with trees—actual trees—growing between skytowers. Two boys meander the walkway, both tall, but one towering. Literally. He has to duck under low branches and the weirdly ornate signs hanging above open shop doors. Painted signs, not digitech. The letters don’t move. The shorter boy tugs the other into someplace called Our Divinity. The camera hovers in their absence.
The Lord’s dead, the Archive’s gone, Mom just hijacked the feeds, and this is the news? Not Lady Galton demanding an explanation from the Prime, or the Prime pointing out how all his resources are devoted to finding the bloodling Heir. Not some minor lordling in a panic over what will happen next, or the Market Brinkers with their protest signs, but this?
The couple reappears, carrying fluffy rolls with thick icing. The camera zooms in, and it turns out the shorter of the two isn’t a boy, but a round-faced girl. She raises her pastry, closing her eyes as she breathes in obviously epic levels of sugar, and bites.
I hate her.
Cups rattle in saucers, a cane scraping tile. Mrs. Divs appears from the kitchen, tray sloped dangerously, teapot skidding.
I jump up and grab it before she stains her scattered lace. “Seriously, just ask.”
“I am not too old to serve my guests tea, thank you very much.”