Elliot’s blood ran cold as the truth cut through her like a scythe on a blade of wheat. She turned to stare at the Innovations in shock.
Felicia winked at the admiral. “To get the only two horses like that in all of existence.”
Of course they were the only two. The Innovations had never discovered any horses—any enormous, incredibly fast, impossibly beautiful, amazingly strong horses.
They’d made them.
Thirty-five
“OH LOOK,” SAID THE baroness. “The race is about to start.” Most of the people in the pavilion turned their attention to the track, but Elliot was too distracted. She looked full on at Felicia, unable to hide the expression of shock on her face.
But of course. Why should she be surprised? They were willing to experiment on human beings. Why not horses? And then, to pass them off as an undiscovered breed, as a product of their totally legal explorations . . .
She pressed a hand to her cheeks. Her flesh burned, and once again she felt the need to run. Here, surrounded by a large contingent of Luddite society, they were about to witness the triumph of abominations. They were about to cheer them on. Did no one else suspect? Or did they just not care? Like her family, so many of these Luddites had taken Post money and wore Post clothes. They drove Post sun-carts and accepted Post hospitality. Was the hypocrisy of the Luddites so embedded that they didn’t mind who broke the protocols as long as there was money and amusement in it?
If they knew what the Fleet Posts had done, would the Luddites condemn them, or feel tempted to follow in their footsteps?
Elliot was a hypocrite, too. She liked Felicia. She liked the admiral. She’d sympathized with their desire to cure their daughter, and no matter what they did, she didn’t want to see them hanged for their actions. She hated to admit it, but she believed in their goals too much.
She shuddered as new realizations swept through her. If she was a false Luddite, was she not alone? Was there anything keeping their way of life afloat aside from lies and a lust for power?
Everyone’s eyes were on the race as Elliot stumbled blindly from the pavilion. She forgot her father’s instructions. She just needed to get away. She was two steps past the back of the sun-carts when she broke into a run, and halfway across the nearest wheat field when she collapsed in a heap. The ends of her skirts twisted around her ankles when she tried to stand, so she just pounded the dirt in frustration.
“Elliot,” said Kai. “Don’t say anything. Please.”
She spun to see him standing over her. Of course he’d come after her. He’d been staring at her since she entered the tent. Was it his duty to see what deception of the Fleet’s she’d uncover next? Had Felicia given him mind-reading abilities to help him along, or was Elliot simply that easy for him to read?
“Is any of it true?” she asked as he knelt in the dust at her side. Around them, hay bales still stood. They were shielded from the sights and sounds of the race. “Any of it at all? Are you really a Fleet? Are you really explorers? Did you really go forth at all, Captain Wentforth, or do you all just invent things and then claim you found them? Are you just a roving band of science experiments and liars?”
He looked at her with his too-bright eyes. “Are you a Luddite, or did you invent a breed of high-yield wheat?”
“Who told you?” she cried.
“I can figure things out on my own, too,” he replied. “When you wouldn’t talk to me the other night, I decided to do just that.” He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to be shocked or proud.”
“I’ll take shock.”
“You don’t get to choose.” His face was kind, and Elliot wanted to smack it. He hesitated for a second, and when he spoke again, he sounded almost nervous. “Are you proud of me? I have to admit, I wondered when I saw you driving the sun-cart, all those months ago.”
She felt like a fool. The Fleet had made fools of them all. Naturally, there were no island lots filled with abandoned sun-carts. They were the invention of her oldest friend. The controls looked like the tractor controls because that’s what Kai had been used to. He wasn’t restoring them for buyers; he was building them.
“Even then, I was glad you liked it. I wondered what you’d think if you knew I’d made it.”
She gritted her teeth. She’d been proud enough when she’d thought he’d merely found them. But how could she countenance this? “Don’t change the subject.”
He lifted his shoulder. “Fine. What happened to your wheat?”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
But Kai wouldn’t let up. “What happened?”
She gestured back at the pavilions. “The racetrack.”
He nodded. She didn’t need to say anything more. He knew what the baron was like. “What were you thinking, Elliot? I’d never have expected it from a Luddite. Even you.”
“We needed to survive,” Elliot said, ignoring his “even you.” How did this become about her? A field of cross-bred wheat paled in comparison to illegal inventions and abominable animals. “Now you explain. This isn’t about Sophia this time.”
“No, it’s bigger than that. It’s about every Post on the islands. Yes, the Innovations lied. And your kind ate it up with a spoon. Look at the Luddites—beholden to their high-minded ideals, yet so desperate for something new, something better, that they don’t even ask basic questions.”
“Our naiveté is no justification for your deception,” said Elliot. “Are they all lies? Everything?”
Kai hesitated, then sighed. “We do go to nearby uninhabited islands. But they aren’t filled with miraculous inventions and highly convenient livestock, just off the coast. Or rather, they are, but it’s because we make them there.”
Elliot’s breath broke on a sob. “So if it’s all lies, what have you been building in my grandfather’s shipyard?” What had she been a party to?
“A ship!” Kai responded. “A real, ocean-going ship. It’s the truth this time. That’s why we’ve done all of this. For the money. For the support. The ships we have won’t take us beyond the islands. We need to make a new one—one that can harness the power of the sun to travel faster than sails. And a few other vehicles to help us on our journey. Everything we’ve done has been in preparation for this.” He leaned forward. “You know me, Elliot. I’ve always wanted to get away.”
“And go where?”
“Anywhere other than here.” He stood. “We don’t know what’s out there, beyond these islands. Are there people? Are there other people who have overcome the Reduction? Are there people who have cured it? I want to find out.”
“You sound like we did when we were children.”
“When we were children,” Kai said, “we were right.”
Elliot looked down into the dirt.
“You think we should, too, Elliot. I know you do. But the Luddites would never let us if they knew. So we bring them back little presents, make them think there’s treasure out there to find if only they help us. And there is—but it’s not the kind of treasure that will ever help them.”
She shook her head in defeat. He was right. She hated it, but more than that, she hated the bone-deep ache of envy that threatened to crush her at the thought of Kai’s mission.
Kai was silent for a few moments. “What bothers you most?”
She looked up at him and laughed mirthlessly. Like she’d ever admit it. “What bothers me most about the abominations you’ve created? About the laws you’ve broken? About the way you’ve made fools of us all?”
“Ah,” he said, nodding in triumph. “What bothers you most is that you didn’t sniff us out sooner.”
“No, I—”
“No, you’re a Luddite?” he asked. “No, you don’t think the Reduced should be cured? No, you hate the idea of new experiments? No, you would never lie to a Luddite lord to give everyone—including the Luddites—something they needed? I know you weren’t going to say anything like that.”
Elliot pressed her lips together. The wind tugg
ed at her hair and cooled her cheeks.
His tone was insistent. “We rented the shipyard to build a ship, just as we said. A ship worthy of taking us across the ocean. We needed your facilities to do that—they are the only ones on the island that would have worked.” He shrugged. “If there was anywhere else I could have gone, don’t you think I would have? I would never have come back here by choice.”
Elliot buried her hands in her lap, hoping the folds of her skirt would hide the way they trembled. Would she have been better off if he’d never come back? If she could have just remembered him as he was instead of realizing that he’d achieved everything he’d ever wanted—and that he’d done it without her? No, more than simply without her. He’d done it because he’d left her behind. “I suppose then, you wouldn’t want to stay.” He would take Olivia away with him. That, at least, would be a relief.
“What?”
“Here. With Olivia.”
“Of course not! I told you—” He rubbed at his forehead in frustration. “This is all a nightmare.”
A nightmare. Of course. It was also her home. Elliot stood and turned away from him, looking back at the brightness of the pavilions. Her eyes narrowed. There, behind the sun-carts, hidden from the others by a flap of the tents, stood Andromeda Phoenix. Elliot did not have superhuman eyes. She could not see like Kai; she could not hear like Donovan. But it was impossible to mistake.
Andromeda was sobbing.
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Dear Kai,
My mother and I are going to my grandfather’s house today. They are going to turn on the windcatcher. If you don’t have work to do, would you like to come and see it?
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
I have to work with my da, but I’m jealous. I’ve heard about the windcatcher. Is it true that’s all the Boatwright uses to power his tractor? I imagine it smells a lot better than ours.
Though I guess that depends on the type of wind.
Your friend,
Kai
Dear Kai,
Very funny.
The windcatcher was amazing. I asked my mother why we don’t use one on the North estate, and she told me it was because it only works near the cliffs. But there is shoreline on the North estate.
After we watched it for a little while, we visited my grandfather. He is sick, but he’s still a lot of fun. He let me play with his big old compass. I can’t believe people used to use it to find their way. You know you can fool it with nothing but a magnet? He showed me how to make the arrow point in any direction I want with a magnet. It’s so easy to make it wrong, it’s a wonder people ever trusted it.
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
You saw the windcatcher and played with a compass? Now I’m really jealous.
I think your mother is right. I have heard the windcatchers don’t work everywhere. But there are other things that work. I have heard in the south, when it’s sunny all day long in the summer, they have lamps that capture the sunlight and glow all night. I would love to have one. It would mean I didn’t have to hoard candle stubs and I could read my books whenever I wanted.
And don’t worry about the compass. That’s not all they used. They also used the stars, and no magnet makes them move.
Your friend,
Kai
Thirty-six
KAI FOLLOWED HER GAZE and he frowned.
“What’s wrong with her?” Elliot asked. She recalled Andromeda’s frozen expression earlier and remembered the reason she’d left her home estate. She’d never heard the name of the place, though. Had the Norths invited Andromeda’s old lord and lady to their party?
“I don’t know.” Kai looked at her. “I should go and check on her.”
“Yes.” Elliot figured she should stay back—the Post girl had never liked her, and she doubted Andromeda wanted her company when she looked so . . . vulnerable.
Vulnerable had never before been a word Elliot would have used to describe Andromeda, but she also couldn’t imagine her crying, either. Even if the Post girl’s Luddite father was here, Elliot couldn’t imagine Andromeda crying. Using her superhuman aim to lob a drink at him from across the pavilion, maybe. But nothing like this.
“But I don’t want to walk away from you without finishing our conversation. There are things I need to make you understand.”
What more was there to say? His whole life was a monument of mockery to Luddite society, and Elliot couldn’t even hold it against him. He hated being here and couldn’t wait to get away, and she couldn’t blame him for that, either. She didn’t need to listen to him detail his plans for a future with Olivia once the younger girl’s brain was put right. She didn’t need to hear him gloat about how all his dreams—the ones they’d once created together—were about to come true. Envy hurt exponentially more than heartbreak because your soul was torn in two, half soaring with happiness for another person, half mired in a well of self-pity and pain.
If she spent any more time with Kai, he’d see it written all over her. He’d perceived everything else about her. She couldn’t let him know this. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have no intention of spilling your secrets. Any of them.” And she wouldn’t spill her own, either.
Kai held her gaze for a long moment and Elliot thought he was going to speak, but at last he went after Andromeda.
A cheer shot up from the pavilions and Elliot heard the announcement.
“The winner is Tatiana North, on her Innovation mount, Pyrois!”
She hadn’t expected anything less.
BECAUSE OF THE PRESENCE of the Luddites at the house party, it was easy to expedite the reading of the Boatwright’s will. The heads of most of the great families convened in the parlor of Elliot’s house, waiting somewhat impatiently. The reading of a will was always such a dull affair compared to the fireworks and excitement of a funeral, especially a Boatwright funeral.
Since time immemorial, that side of Elliot’s family had bucked tradition. Instead of being laid to rest in the star cavern, they were sent out to sea on a pyre, like their ancestors had been doing long before the Reduction. When her mother died, there had been quite the debate about what to do with her body. Eventually, she was buried in the sanctuary, as a North, but Elliot always thought she’d been robbed. And though Elliot was born a North, she wondered if there was any way she could be treated like a Boatwright upon her own death. She vastly preferred the idea of sending her body out to sea to being permanently trapped in the earth beneath the North estate.
The Norths were all there for the reading of the will, of course. Tatiana was still glowing with delight over her showing at the horse race the previous day, and Elliot was pretty sure the blue gown she wore today was merely an excuse to accessorize with her winning ribbon. The Innovation horses had been the big winners at the race, taking first, second, and third place several strides before any other finisher. Hardly surprising. They’d been genetically engineered to do just that.
“It’s odd, is it not, that your father is not the executor of the Boatwright’s will?” Benedict asked from his seat at her side. He seemed to accept his second place standing in the race with good humor. And why shouldn’t he? Tatiana might have won the day, but he’d still get the estate. “After all, Uncle Zachariah was his son-in-law.”
“I don’t think my father and my grandfather were particularly close,” was all Elliot trusted herself to say. She also doubted her grandfather could trust her father to give away any little trinkets or even larger items—like some of the Boatwright’s personal ships—if he was made executor.
Instead, Baroness Channel was acting as executor, and for that Elliot was glad, if only because it meant that any of the more troublesome chores in the will would not fall into Elliot’s own lap as extra work.
The baroness was even now getting the attention of the group. Today she dressed in dove gray, with a matching veil attached to her hair with the ass
istance of a pair of bright peacock feathers. “We gather here today to read the Last Will and Testament of Chancellor Elliot Boatwright, of the Boatwright Estate, North Island.” The baroness cleared her throat and smoothed out the paper.
I, Elliot Boatwright, being of sound mind and body, do set forth this will, to be executed only upon my death by my appointed representative, the Baroness Lucinda Channel.
I hereby partition out the following items from among my worldly goods to my Luddite brethren:
To the Baroness Channel, I leave my schooner, Morning Dew.
To the honorable family of Grove, I leave the fishing vessel Charybdis, as well as their choice of any of my three dinghies.
To the Baron Record and his family, I leave the catamaran Rhodes, with the stipulation that they extend the offer of the same terms of employment to the COR crew as they currently enjoy.
To my granddaughter Tatiana North, I leave my carriage, as well as my two horses, Thetis and Amphitrite, in hopes that she will become an ever-finer horsewoman.
To my granddaughter Elliot North, I leave my compass, in hope that she will someday make it work again.
A lump rose in Elliot’s throat. He’d known she was always obsessed with his compass. He must have also known how she’d longed to use it to run away.
To my son-in-law, the Baron Zachariah North, I leave my dining room table, as he has always admired it.
In addition to these listed items, I leave the following to my faithful servants:
To the COR known as Sal, who worked in my kitchen, I leave my collection of copper molds, as well as three ounces of gold. She is free to remain on the Estate until the end of her days or leave to seek her fortune elsewhere.
For Darkness Shows the Stars Page 23