Firstborn

by Tosca Lee

  “I can promise you they’ve never heard of a Progeny passing for a specific person before today,” Jester said, when I checked in with her earlier in the evening. “Using her persuasion and charisma together at once. I wonder if I could do that, or if that is a Firstborn thing.”

  “Dunno,” I said. Because I honestly never thought of doing it until today. “Did you get somewhere safe?”

  “Oui.”

  “And Piotrek is with you?” I’m sad about the prospect of Claudia and Piotrek separating like that. I wish they hadn’t, though it’s imperative someone protect Jester.

  “He is.”

  “How is he? Piotrek, I mean.”

  She sighs. “Not good. None of us are. But what can you expect after knowing we have lost so many of our own—whether you even knew them or not?”

  Which is why I’m going to make sure it can never happen again.

  Budapest sparkles like an onyx and amber brooch from the sky, separated by the dark ribbon of the Danube. Buda Castle, the jewel among it all. How many miles of undiscovered tunnels wind beneath the Buda Hills? How many Utod rave in her caverns under the jurisdiction of Nikola, the traitor prince?

  The only time I ever came face-to-face with the Historian was there, within those caverns. I wonder if it’s possible her killers are in those tunnels now, preparing to deliver the Progeny population another crushing blow.

  But no. Nikola’s allied with her. Assuming he’s managed to mitigate her anger at my failure to deliver the so-called diary, his court will be the last one standing.

  And if he hasn’t . . . everyone in those tunnels is in danger.

  My heart has begun to race by the time the car pulls up to the long mismatched buildings that run together like row houses along Donáti Street at the foot of Buda’s Castle Hill. The hair rises on my arms as I glance out at the buildings—some of them restored, painted butter yellow or pale blue with statues and stonework on their façades . . . some pockmarked and leprous where their paint and plaster has crumbled away.

  “Keep going,” I say. Luka glances at me but says nothing, well aware this is not my former street, that I’ve deliberately passed our turn.

  I direct the driver to a neighborhood several blocks away, where I ask him to stop at a persimmon-colored residential building. We get out, and the driver lowers his window.

  “Get a nice dinner,” I say. “Treat yourself to a good hotel. We’ll call you tomorrow when we’re ready to leave.”

  And remember you dropped us a block east of here.

  “That house up there,” the driver confirms.

  “That’s right.”

  Because ally or not, I have no desire for any Scion to know the actual address of the flat I used to rent under an assumed name.

  I back up and turn toward the persimmon building, walk straight up to the front door, which is just starting to open.

  A woman in her sixties ushers us into her apartment as if we’re old friends.

  I go to her window, peer through the edge of the curtain until the driver is gone. When I turn around, the woman looks surprised. But of course she does; she’s just let three strangers into her living room.

  “If Serge checks surveillance to confirm the address the driver gave him, he’ll know you persuaded him to hide where you really went,” Rolan says.

  “And he’ll see us coming here, and think he’s onto me,” I say.

  “I take it this isn’t the house,” he says wryly.

  “No.”

  The woman chatters in Hungarian as she dresses me in one of her housecoats, gives me a pair of her worn black boots. She ties a scarf on my head before leading me out the back door.

  “Go,” Luka says, taking my bag. “We’ll follow in an hour.”

  The walk behind the building is lined by a retaining wall, a steep drop from the next building farther up the hill.

  I school my steps to the arthritic hobble of someone far older. All the while, my heart—which stopped just three days ago—is pounding so hard I think it might burst through my aching ribs. I disappear beneath the dark umbrella of a tree. Hurry up a flight of stairs between buildings to a path roof-level with the building below.

  My skin prickles as I near the corner of Donáti. Just a little farther on, it turns into Csónak Street, where I entered a broken-down house and made my way through the cellar tunnel to the underground nearly two weeks—a lifetime—ago to confront Nikola and the Historian.

  I drop down over an iron railing to the back of my old building as one of the residents comes to let me in.

  Thirty seconds later, I’m knocking at the door of my old flat. For an instant I wonder if I’ve beaten Claudia here. If the current tenants are out. If I’ll have to jimmy my way in.

  But then that familiar sense rushes toward me. The door opens, and Claudia throws herself into my arms.

  A moment later, she steps back, hands on my shoulders, and looks me up and down, nose wrinkled.

  “Audra, what are you wearing?”

  “What, you don’t like this look?” I say, pulling the scarf from my head.

  She actually gasps at my haircut, the makeup I forgot I had on—which has somehow weathered the afternoon and early evening.

  “Audra, you’ve changed so much! You’re . . . so chic!”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  I don’t remember her presence feeling so overwhelming. Wonder if it’s a product of the steroid shot the nurse gave me before we left, or just of dying . . .

  Until Jester and Piotrek appear in the kitchen doorway behind her.

  “What?” I say with an incredulous laugh. “What are you two doing here?”

  “You didn’t think we were going to let you have all the fun?” Jester says, coming forward with her uneven stride to embrace me.

  “You’re supposed to be somewhere safe!” I say, bemused but so glad to see them as Piotrek wraps me in a hug and then kisses me on both cheeks. “Seriously, though, you’re the least expendable of any of us.”

  “No one is expendable,” she says. “We’re all we have. Every time we lose someone, the only good that comes of it is that we remember how precious life is. And those we live it for.”

  Claudia murmurs agreement.

  “But where is Luka?” Jester says. “And the other one?”

  “Rolan. They’ll be here in a bit.”

  I glance around the flat. It is exactly as I remember it, except that the furniture and wall art has changed. A colorful rug sprawls across the wooden living room floor, occupied by an ultramodern red sofa and matching love seat. A tiny table and two chairs sit in the window alcove. But the black glass chandelier is the same.

  “What happened to the current tenants?” I say, looking around us.

  “We suggested they find somewhere else for a while, effective immediately,” Jester says.

  At least they kept the place tidy and don’t seem to be smokers. I wander into the kitchen, pull open the short cabinet above the stove and discover a stash of white coffee mugs. American-size.

  “Claudia said that you . . . ah, seem to remember some things?” Jester says behind me.

  “You mean like the fact that the very first time we met, you were done up like an exotic flower and wearing green tights . . . but not your fake leg?” I say, turning, mug in hand. “So that you actually looked like you had a single stem?”

  Jester breaks into the first laugh I’ve heard from her in over a week and hugs me.

  “How can it be?” Claudia says. “When three weeks ago you remembered nothing? You didn’t even know your name!”

  I rummage around the small pantry for coffee.

  “Here,” Piotrek says, taking my mug, having already gotten the French press and electric kettle out across the small galley.

  “I’m chalking it up to drowning. Or the defibrillator. Or both,” I say, leaning back against the counter.

  “But it’s okay. Because you have now found the thing you were protecting anyway, yes?” Piotrek says,
spooning coffee into the press.

  More than he realizes.

  “So now what?” Claudia says.

  I shed the floral housecoat and reach into my back pocket for the thumb drive I brought with me from France.

  “Now we work on saving our own.”

  30

  * * *

  Claudia narrows her eyes as Jester comes to take the thumb drive.

  “Saving our own, how?”

  “By going back to court,” I say.

  Claudia purses her lips into the shape of a little heart, and then laughs. “You’re crazy, you know that, don’t you?” And then, more soberly: “No. You cannot. You know Nikola will kill you.”

  “He’d have to know I’m there,” I say innocently.

  She’s weighing my words, her eyes like caged things behind her lashes. Of course they are; she and Piotrek have both paced for over a week behind Jester’s screen, cooped up, hands tied, in hiding as the Zagreb court disbanded.

  “Nikola’s called for a celebration of remembrance in honor of Bucharest,” Jester says. “A weeklong Bathory ball.”

  Piotrek spits out a string of Polish at that.

  “Many of the surviving Romanians have already fled here. Bucharest’s loss is Nikola’s gain. Nikola has already added most of the Zagreb population. Others have come from Paris, Berlin—are coming from as far, even, as Moscow. Flooding Nikola’s court with the greatest concentration of Progeny ever in one place.” She looks meaningfully from me to the others.

  The color drains from Claudia’s face. “Oh my God,” she whispers. “The night you met with Nikola. You said he brought hunters into the court, that they had access to its tunnels . . .”

  “Yes,” I say. “Which is why we have to shut it down. And why Rolan and I are going in alone.”

  Because for all I know, a “gas leak” could take out the underground tonight.

  Which means Luka, too, stays behind.

  One of you has to survive.

  “No,” Claudia says, shaking her head. “Absolutely not.”

  “She’s right,” Piotrek says. “We didn’t come to watch Jester at her computer anymore. Sorry, Jester.”

  “Then Luka will stay with Jester—”

  “I’m going, too,” Jester says. “Because for this one, you’ll need me.”

  “No. You can’t,” I say, panicked. “You have to get the contents of that drive out to the other courts! You’re the only one who can keep leaking the evidence against the Scions.”

  “The contents of this drive will go up on the board within the hour. No. We are Progeny. Our blood was made to boil. Not simmer behind a monitor. You are not going without me.”

  If I said a part of me wasn’t relieved, I would be lying. But the recklessness I felt coming here—even up until ten minutes ago—has crumbled, giving way to new caution I can’t afford.

  “No. It’s too dangerous. Anything could—”

  “It is wrong,” Piotrek says, “for us to sit in safety while others are in danger. We have hidden all our lives. We have run as long as we have been aware of what we are. You can’t take the opportunity to fight away from us.”

  He takes me gently by the shoulders, ducks his head to gaze into my eyes. His are a far deeper blue than I realized. Not the winking sapphire that I’ve watched charm unsuspecting men and women alike, but the color of the sea ten thousand feet deep.

  “This is not your decision, Audra. Your hands are clean, whatever happens.”

  “You realize you’re trying to persuade a Firstborn,” I say, with true affection.

  “Yes. Is it working?” He smiles and kisses my cheek.

  The three of them study the file from the thumb drive I brought with me on Jester’s laptop in sober silence.

  “This . . . this is something, Audra. Truly fantastic,” Jester says, turning to look up at me. “We only have one problem: I’m certain there will be extra security. In the past, a Progeny guard was all it took to know that those coming in were Utod. But Nikola has every justification he needs now to require anyone coming in to show his or her face.”

  Claudia grimaces, and I understand that for a longtime member of any Progeny court, it’s practically a human rights violation.

  “And why wouldn’t he? It’s a handy way to take census of his growing court . . .”

  “And keep an eye out for me.”

  She nods.

  “As far as Nikola knows,” I say, “my two priorities are keeping Luka safe beyond the reaches of anything associated with the Historian, and protecting the new contents of my brain—ostensibly by staying away myself.”

  “That is what a sane person would do, yes,” she says wryly.

  “What entrance are they posting?”

  She glances at her screen. “One four blocks from here, on the other side of the hill.”

  “Well, I happen to know there’s a house that leads to the main underground grotto, just down the street.” I don’t mention that I wasn’t supposed to live to retain that information.

  “You don’t think they’ll be using it for VIPs or something?” Claudia says.

  “She is a VIP!” Piotrek says, gesturing at me.

  I shake my head. “The tunnel was too long and winding to usher any kind of traffic. For all we know, it’s the same entrance the Historian used herself.”

  I actually pause, considering that.

  “Have you tried getting into Serge’s surveillance systems at all?” I say.

  Jester shakes her head. “The last thing we can afford is a digital trail or single mistake when we’re leaking the things we are. Why risk it if you’ve got Serge in pocket?”

  “Excuse me. Back to a practical matter,” Claudia says. “What are we going to wear? Housecoats and babushkas?”

  “Come here,” I say, going into the bedroom.

  I shed my jacket, drop it on the bed. Cross to the closet and slide the pocket door open. It’s full of the tenants’ dresses, blouses, and men’s tailored shirts. I shove them all to one side, get down on my knees. Reach to the dusty floorboards along the back.

  “Is this Prada?” Claudia says behind me. I glance back to find her searching for the label on my jacket.

  “It’s all yours,” I say, digging my nails beneath a piece of wooden molding.

  Piotrek comes to stand in the doorway, steaming mug in one hand. “Audra, my dear. What are you doing?”

  “She’s lost her marbles,” Claudia says, sliding my jacket on.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I murmur. “Claudia, how many times have you been in this room?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  I glance back at her, weirdly. She shrugs. “It’s true.”

  “And I used to think I was strange.” Though I note I haven’t resorted to my old habit of comparing anyone’s ears to eggs in days.

  “Does this room look different to you?” I say. An instant later, the molding rips from its nail and I fall onto my butt.

  Claudia comes to peer into the small space and gasps. “I didn’t even notice!” she exclaims. “Your memory is better than mine. How is that possible?”

  “I remember patterns and you have OCD?” I say, tugging a chunk of drywall free.

  Piotrek hands his mug to Claudia. By the time Luka and Rolan arrive, he has torn most of the closet’s back wall open.

  “Do I even want to ask what’s happening in here?” Luka says, walking into the bedroom.

  I take one look at him and laugh hard enough to hurt myself. He and Rolan are both dressed in housecoats and head scarves, and while Luka makes an almost pretty little old lady, I have to admit, Rolan looks positively hideous.

  At first I think that’s what causes Claudia and Jester to stand off and stare. But then I realize they’ve never met Rolan in person. And despite his obvious aid to me through the last several weeks, they have no reason to trust him.

  Rolan seems to sense this, too, as he slides the scarf from his head.

  “This is Rolan,” I say
, wiping my hands on my designer jeans and standing. “But I guess you got that.”

  Silence from the others. And I know what they’re thinking: Two full-blown hunters stand mere feet away from four Progeny. A single one of them could go to the Historian with everything she has ever wanted from my memory alone. How many Progeny lives could they expose and destroy from the knowledge contained in our four memories combined?

  The answer: all of them.

  Piotrek is the first to step forward and shake Rolan’s hand, before giving Luka a more comfortable clap on the shoulder.

  And tense and strange as this scene might be, it gives me hope for a future beyond this one.

  If we survive the night.

  31

  * * *

  By ten o’clock, the closet is open. And by “open,” I mean that the entire back and one side have been ripped away to reveal a space nearly six feet deep and twice as wide.

  I reach inside to flip the second switch. As the interior comes to life, Claudia steps over the ruined back wall through what might as well be an invisible looking glass.

  “Ah . . . I wondered what happened to this one,” she says, lifting out an abbreviated ball gown dripping bullion fringe. The tapestry of the bodice showcases the image of some French medieval emperor. Embroidery covers the sleeves. And though the costume is breathtaking, I know the reason she sighs is that it belonged to Katia.

  Claudia slides down the rack, fingering one garment after another, talking about the time so-and-so wore it, how much better it fit someone else. How that one used to be so plain until some Progeny girl inherited it—and completely made it over so that everyone else wished they had it . . . and this one tore when one of Katia’s crazy friends leapt from a fifth-story window onto one of the ornate statues outside a building near the opera house.

  “She was killed two days later. Drella, we called her. Her real name was Giselle. The last time I saw her, it was morning. She turned one way down the street, and I went another. When I looked back, she did, too, and waved. Her shoes were in her other hand.”