Only a House Lord would have authority enough to make that kind of call.
“Lady Galton insisted,” says the girl. “She thinks the other two Houses will launch an attack. Apparently they’re allied now and hate our guts, and wars require fuel.”
“The other Houses are allied?” I ask. “Since when?”
“Since one of Lord Fane’s kids married the Westlet Heir. The Lady’s got everyone so freaked, even the Prime didn’t argue.”
Of course he wouldn’t. A new fuel supply would serve him, too.
I return the knife to its drawer. “What do you want?”
The girl throws a thumb at the screen. “This on the feeds, like your mother does her thing. People need to see this, they need to know.”
“And she can hack the core-splitters,” the skinny kid says. “She blew the Archive and planted a virus in the core House network. She can hack anything.”
“A virus?” The feeds hadn’t mentioned a virus.
The kid closes his eyes as if watching the code dance. “It’s beautiful. They can’t stop it, not even the best of them. They search and search and just when they think they understand, it becomes something else. Your mother is a god.”
That’s where they’re getting the god thing from? Something Mom did to the network? A virus that’s still spreading?
I look to the girl.
She crosses her arms. “Where is Millie Oen?”
And here we go. Again.
“Mom’s dead.” I push the drawer closed, hard.
It doesn’t drown out the girl’s snort. “She wouldn’t be caught in her own explosion.”
“Well, she was.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do, all right?” I feel it. The same way I felt Yonni—no recourse, no hope, no way to explain except that it just is.
The girl crosses the room and leans over the counter island that separates us, fingers tight on the ledge. “We lost one of our best people to Enactors over you—”
“Me? How’s that my—”
“And our home is slated for scrap. ‘I just do’ won’t cut it. If we go down, I’m taking you with us. You think the Archive explosion was bad? Just you wait.”
I almost tug the knife out again. “And what am I supposed to do? Bring her back to life?”
She doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t even seem to breathe. “Figure. It. Out.”
The skinny kid steps closer, too. “There’s a control point. That’s how she’s playing messages out and killing the power. There’s a datahost trigger somewhere, and you know where it is.”
“Do I?” I snap.
He nods with regal assurance. Hell, he could double for Mrs. Divs.
The girl pulls a small digisheet from her pocket and slaps it on the counter. “We’ve made five vids—space them out, bunch them up, put them on a goddamn loop—I don’t care. Just get them on the feeds. Otherwise, I swear I will hunt down and eviscerate every person in your life you remotely give a shit about, starting with that pretty boy two floors down.”
My eyes snap to hers.
“Or maybe dear old dad, currently shacked up on level four.” She grins, and my lungs give out.
The skinny kid slides up behind her. His smile fresh, devastating and real.
“Don’t worry.” He reaches across the counter to touch my forehead with soft fingers, like a benediction. “It’s okay. You’ll save us. You can be a god, too.”
I pound on Niles’s door with the side of my fist. “You in there? You better be in there.”
No answer. The door a blank, the hall a blank, and Niles a potential blank, too—lying dosed and unconscious on the goddamn floor.
My fault. No one would register his existence if not for me. Kissing him in the damn street—the whole House probably saw. If the Brinkers know, it’s a sure bet the Enactors do. They’ll think I’ve given him all of Mom’s secrets—which, guess what? I may actually have.
Thanks, Mom. Hope you’re enjoying hell.
I pound harder. Another second and I’ll kick my way in. “Niles.”
The door opens and there he is—hair mushed, shirt askew, lashes blinking. He rubs them with the back of one hand, while reaching for me with the other. “Kit? What’s wrong?”
Sleeping? How the hell could he be sleeping?
Probably because he got none last night.
I grab his collar, pull it aside, and check the base of his neck. Make a full circuit, feeling for punctures. Nothing.
They haven’t got to him yet.
“Kit?” Much more awake now.
I come round to face him. “How do you feel? Was anyone here?”
“No,” he drags out the word. “Why?”
I press two fingers under his jaw and check for a pulse—as if he isn’t standing right here. I snatch my hand back.
Pull it together, Kit. Threats don’t work if you kill the person first.
Except the Brinker wasn’t making threats. Those were promises.
I need to check on Dad.
“Sorry, sorry.” I skip back and toward the elevator. “Didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”
“Oh hell no.” Niles sprints ahead to block the way, hands on hips. “You can’t give me a heart attack and then just take off.”
“Doesn’t seem to have done much damage.”
I sidestep and he moves with me, bouncing on his toes. “I love how you think I’m not serious,” he says.