by Laure Eve
‘All he did was ask me questions. But he kept asking the right questions, as if he already knew everything there was to know about me. He asked me about the dreams I had that no one else seemed to. He knew about the times when I was awake and felt like I was being pulled into another place. He asked me to close my eyes and try to do impossible things, like tell them what was written on the notice they’d put on the wall in another room a moment ago.
‘It seemed fast, but when it was over I was exhausted. Then I noticed that I’d been in that room with them for over five hours, and I spent the rest of the evening in shock.
‘It happened quickly after that. The man came back after a week. I was brought into the head tutor’s office and told that I had passed their tests and was offered a place at their university, subject to certain conditions.’
Rue had drawn back while he talked and was watching his face. ‘That you couldn’t ask questions about what you were going to study until you’d said yes and signed the contract. And then even after that they wouldn’t tell you really anything about it.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ve heard other people’s recruitment stories and they’re always much the same. So only a short while later I’d left home and was taken to the university. Those first few weeks were the most exciting of my life.’
‘Did you miss your parents? Do you miss them now?’
Wren looked at her, a brief frown flitting across his face. ‘I don’t believe so,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I thought of them once. I send them a card from time to time, but it’s quite expensive to communicate in the old-fashioned Angle Tar way. Do you know physical post doesn’t exist outside of this country? Hasn’t for centuries. And the nature of my work now means I have to be careful who I talk to and what I say. But I’m sure they’re fine.’
Rue wondered why she had asked him that. It wasn’t as if she missed her adoptive family. She hadn’t thought much on Fernie either, since arriving in Capital. It had all been too exciting. But now she wondered if Fernie thought of her much, and decided she needed to write a letter to her as soon as she could.
‘I met others who had similar differences to me,’ Wren was saying. ‘I’d never before known people who dreamed the same way I did, or had the same mannerisms and thought the way I thought. At times it was unpleasant, like a mirror that shows you in a way you’d never seen before.’
Rue nodded, eyes gleaming. This was so right! Why had he never talked about this to her? It would have been comforting to know that this was something other Talented had felt, too. None of her group seemed to care about that sort of thing at all.
‘And then I met Frith.’
Of course.
Stupid girl. There was only one place in Angle Tar that trained the Talented. Of course he would have been at Capital. She couldn’t quite believe it, though. The thought of him there, amongst all the reams of ordinary faces and attitudes, just didn’t fit.
Wren was watching her with a sly half smile. ‘De Forde Say Frith. What an interesting character, wouldn’t you agree?’
Rue shrugged, feeling inexplicably nervous talking about him. ‘He’s the one who recruited me.’
Wren looked surprised. ‘So you really are special, aren’t you? I’ve never heard of that before. But then he’s quite the string-puller. Wants to do everything himself. Can’t have anything happening he doesn’t know about.’
That sounded accurate enough, though Rue had never considered those traits of Frith in quite such a negative light before. ‘I like him,’ she said defensively. ‘He was nice to me when he didn’t have to be. He’s been my friend even though he’s busy and important.’
‘I don’t doubt it. He was my friend, too. He has a way of making you feel like you’re the only one he thinks is worth his precious time. Then you find out that he plays everyone he knows in exactly the same way.’
She watched him, searching for something recognisable in his face, something to latch on to. He talked about her life as if it were his own. He knew the people she did, the places she did. She wanted to know what had taken him away from here, away from Frith and the university and to a life she could not even imagine.
‘There’s someone else we have in common, you know,’ said Wren slowly. ‘The only one in this country with an ounce of decent Talent.’
Rue realised that she had been waiting for this, and hoping that he wouldn’t bring it up. She would have thought it a relief to find someone, a confidante to whom she could spill her thoughts about White, before they threatened to burst her open. But not here. Not now. Not with Wren, this stranger.
He was looking at her expectantly.
‘You’re talking about Mussyer White, I suppose,’ she said.
‘Who else?’
He was silent, then, as if unsure what to say next.
‘What do you think of him?’ he said eventually.
Rue’s heartbeat felt faint. She struggled to keep a sudden burst of aching emotion inside her and swallowed.
‘He’s all right,’ she said. ‘A bit rude.’
His face came into her head and she tried to push it away.
‘He’s a genius,’ said Wren. ‘He’s also a bastard, and I swore once that I’d kill him if I could.’
Rue looked at him in shock. His jaw was stringed with tension, and he was smiling in that way that she’d noticed people did when they were angry. She’d never understood that. When she was angry, she was angry. She supposed she didn’t have the control of herself that others did.
‘Why?’ she asked, knowing it was expected, but taken in by the drama.
‘He ruined my life. But I can’t hate him. Not now. I can hate him for what he did to me, but not for the turn my life took because of him.’
‘What did he do?’
Wren sighed, as if it pained him.
You brought it up, Rue felt like saying.
‘We trained together,’ said Wren. ‘I was in complete awe of him. He knew things about the Talent. No one understood it in the way he did. No one could fill you with such excitement about such a vague thing. He could tell you anything and you’d believe it; he was such an authority, even though he was the same age as most of us.’
Rue nodded silently. It was a perfect picture.
‘I liked the fact that he was different to everyone else in our class. He didn’t care about being rich or having fine clothes. He didn’t think like anyone else. He didn’t go out drinking with us. And his Talent was extraordinary. I’d been the most Talented one in the class until he joined, by far. But I didn’t mind that he was equal to me. He acted like a catalyst. Made us all want to do better. Made us push ourselves. We were friends. So I thought.
‘Then I met someone.’
Wren looked away from her and out across the hall. People had left them alone, preoccupied with their steady business of survival. She’d become used to the smell without noticing. The first man, to whom the pen had been promised, was nowhere to be seen.
‘Her name was Areline. I’d noticed her before, but tried to put her out of my mind. She was aristocratic and I was from nowhere, with nothing fine to wear and no money to spend. She had her friends, people she’d grown up with who were not Talented, but nevertheless secured places at the university to study the mundane subjects. By secured I mean paid for, you understand.
‘So, I’d put her out of my mind, but that didn’t stop me thinking of her from time to time. That was one thing I could do without anyone knowing. She was queen of our Talented group, even if she was hardly ever there, always off out at parties with her non-Talented friends. But when she was, the whole group became exhilarated trying to impress her or get her attention. I found the whole thing embarrassing. I suppose she must have started to notice this. One day she stopped me as we were coming out of class.
‘She told me I was to come with her that evening for dinner out in the city. Didn’t ask – told. She did it sweetly enough, and did anyone ever refuse her? I doubt it. Mostly we were gl
ad to be noticed. I said I’d think about it, but it was all a lie and she probably knew it.
‘It didn’t take me long to fall for her after that. We spent every minute we could together. I was shunned by the rest of the group, out of jealousy I suppose, but I didn’t care. Areline was all the company I wanted. That was her name. Lasarette Areline. Such a beautiful, old name. One of the oldest aristocratic families in Angle Tar, so I’m told.
‘It wasn’t long before I’d noticed that White had started changing towards me. He was moody with me. In class he’d mock me in front of everyone, say things. I tried to ignore it, all the time thinking what I could possibly have done to offend him. I couldn’t see it. I was blind, I suppose.’
Rue shifted uncomfortably.
‘That year was strange. Frith was never there. Something was happening that he wouldn’t talk about to us, and he kept having to make trips overseas. So things felt weird, anyway. And then … well.
‘Areline and I were out one night together. She was all … quiet and withdrawn, and I couldn’t get her to smile. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, at first. But I kept asking her. And eventually, she said that the night before she and White had been in the communal study together. Once he’d seen that they were alone, he sat down right beside her on the couch. She said he was agitated. He asked her what she was doing with me. She laughed, puzzled, and asked him what he meant. And then White said … ’
Wren stopped. His expression was stiff.
‘White said to her, “if I asked you to be with me, would you say yes?”’
‘Areline told him no. She said that she loved me. But he wouldn’t accept it. He kept demanding an answer from her. She started getting afraid, and told him to leave. For a moment, she thought that he wouldn’t. That he might even attack her. But he did leave.
‘How her words scratched at me. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe he had betrayed me like that. We were supposed to be friends. He knew how much I adored her. And he’d gone to her, like that, frightened her, tried to steal her while I wasn’t there, like a coward. Who knows what else he might have done?’
Rue felt a sudden surge of nausea hit her. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t. That was not the White she knew.
It couldn’t be.
‘We had a Talent class the next day,’ Wren continued. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d done. How he must have been thinking that he’d got away with it. Mussyer Tigh, the tutor, had us practising Jumps in pairs. White and I always paired together, being the strongest two in the class.
‘He and I were practising Jumps easily. We both found the class boring, truth be told. It was my turn. I was getting ready to go, sending myself out, you know. I was looking out into the blackness in between. There’s nothing there to help you. You make it through alone, always alone. It’s frightening, the first time you have to do that.’
Rue thought of the time, not so long ago, that Wren had pulled her into her first ever Jump without warning, and treated her fear like a childish fancy; but kept silent.
‘So there I was, surrounded by the nothing. And suddenly, I could feel him behind me. He’d followed me into the Jump.
‘He grabbed my neck. He kept saying that I didn’t deserve Areline, and that I was a show-off, and that I would never, ever be as Talented as he was.
‘I panicked, and fought him. I knew what he was planning to do. He wanted to leave me out there, in the dark. He wanted to hurt me. Maybe even kill me. I knew it instantly. He hit me in the face, but I still managed to haul us both back to the classroom.
‘It really shocked him. He’d expected to win, you see. He’d expected me to be weak. It was such satisfaction, my dear. Such satisfaction, to see the look on his face when I got us back, and right in front of everyone.’
Wren’s face had become alive in a way Rue had never seen before. She had no doubt that he felt every word he said. Every word. She never would have guessed that such smoothness could hide such pain. Such a boiling sea of passionate wrath.
But why now? said a voice inside. Why didn’t he tell you this before? Why did he keep these things from you?
She ignored the voice.
‘What happened?’ she said.
He laughed bitterly. ‘No one believed me. They hadn’t understood what he’d tried to do. All they saw was the two of us disappear. I told them what had happened. I told them. But he told them, too. He lied. Said I had done to him what he had tried to do to me.’
‘But what about Areline?’
‘Her family were there before you could blink. They took her off. Out of the university and back to her home city. Back to a life she hated.’
‘No!’ said Rue. ‘How could that be? How could they just take her off?’
Wren said nothing.
‘Did you ever see her again?’
‘No,’ he said. That was all.
‘But,’ said Rue, ‘what did Frith do? He didn’t have you sent here, did he?’
She saw a slow smile creep across his face. There it was again, she thought. The smile that didn’t mean happiness.
‘Of course he did,’ he said. ‘No doubt he hesitated. Not out of affection towards me, but because he must always be looking to the future, when he has his army of Talented spies to do his work for him. But they’re great friends, you know, Frith and White. They don’t look it, but they are. Angle Tar’s premiere Talented, and its most valuable spy. What a powerful pairing that is. So when White pressed Frith to arrest me, it was done in a heartbeat. He was jealous of me, and my Talent. I don’t believe he’d ever met anyone with Talent equal to his own before, and he couldn’t stand it. And he wanted Areline for himself.’
‘But he isn’t like that. I’d know if he was like that!’
Wren looked at her finally. ‘Would you, really? And how would you know about what White gets up to? Does he impart his secret life to you? Does he tell you of his women?’
Women? How many was he supposed to have?
She felt her heart shrivel.
‘Rue,’ came his voice. She couldn’t look at him. ‘Rue, my love, listen to me. I know how you defend him. I know how he must have worked on you. He did me, and he would have for ever if he’d not made such a mistake with Areline and shown his true self.’
Rue shook her head stubbornly. ‘I’ve never seen a woman near him, ’cept his students.’
‘And yet now you have me to tell you otherwise.’
She was angry and ashamed. There was no point explaining why; he already seemed to know. She couldn’t stand the fact that anyone could know about her most secret feelings. That was her secret. If she couldn’t protect her secret, how could she protect anything of herself? She hated being shown that she was still as stupid and as easy to lie to as a newborn. She hated being let down in such a fashion, by something as commonplace and boring as someone who appeared to be one thing and was in fact another.
She looked out across the hall again. The place was emptier, but there were still swathes of people milling around. Had he really lived here?
‘So he had you arrested but they told you to escape,’ she said.
‘Not quite. A friend warned me about the arrest, so I managed to leave before they found me, and I came here. I’d known about this place for a few weeks. Rumours, you understand. The children of rich families often know, and like to tell others. So before I could be caught, I’d packed anything valuable and left. The tunnel gates aren’t guarded any more. They haven’t been for decades. If you know where to look and how to open one, you can find your way here easily enough. It’s not as bad as it looks, to an outsider. When you’ve nowhere to go and the rain is falling horizontally, and you feel you may never be warm again, it can seem like a gift from the gods.
‘You need to learn how it works, though. It’s just like any other place where humans are packed together. People flock to groups for safety. You must belong to one of the major groups here or you’ll get everything stolen. Some of the more colourf
ul residents take a kind of pleasure in physical violence, and loners are their targets. If you hurt a group member, you’re likely to expect similar retaliation from that group, so you join a group for the protection.
‘I was part of the Fourexgee. This is their hall. The groups tend to be named according to the location sequence on the doors. I tried to explore as much as possible during my time here, but it’s hard to get very far – you stray into other groups’ territories and they, well they find ways to encourage you not to.’
Rue tried to imagine the life she would have here. Sleeping in one of the rows of cots that lined the walls. Lining up to suck down thin soup and hard bread crusts. Sitting, staring. Talking to prostitutes and criminals.
‘Where do they get food?’
‘Upside. That’s what they call Capital; Upside, or the “overground city”. They go out in small gangs and forage.’
‘But that means they’re in the city. I’ve never seen ’em. I’ve never seen anyone like this walking the streets.’
‘Of course you haven’t, Rue. As a university student you’re encouraged to roam only the safest, richest, most beautiful areas of Capital. I’m sure you aren’t even aware of the other areas. They make sure you aren’t, because it’s dangerous to go there, even with a chaperone. And when they raid the rich areas they do it now, when most people are asleep. You’ll never see them upside, Rue. You’re not supposed to.
‘You have no idea what a horrible mess this country’s in. Thousands of people starve because the rich are in charge and keep everything for themselves. Children die on the streets. Do you know how many babies die in the city, because their mothers can’t feed them? One in five. One in five! No wonder people turn to crime. They’re desperate. But no one cares. No one cares.’
Rue listened to this in horror. How could she not have known about any of this? Why didn’t they tell people? Why didn’t they try to help everyone, instead of ignoring it? It wasn’t fair that she got to sleep in a bed and eat as much food as she wanted. It wasn’t fair that she got money every month to buy herself things that she didn’t need. It wasn’t fair that Lufe had so much money he had to invent more and more ways to spend it all, when they were surrounded by people who didn’t even have enough to survive.