Was this what Varin’s normal life was like? Did he catch the commuter into the Concord every day, engaging with no one aside from his boss via a comm line? Sure, the Jetée was dirty and smelly, and everyone there had questionable morals, but we acknowledged each other when walking down the street. I knew most people by name, if not by reputation.
“Good evening,” a smooth voice said. I startled as a woman in an off-white dermasuit blinked into being in the middle of the carriage. “Whether you are returning home or visiting from another quadrant,” she said with a robotic, disjointed smile, “we welcome you.”
“Welcome? Yeah, right. And please leave as quickly as you arrived.” I snickered to myself. Eonia was known to conduct what they called “head counts,” searching houses to ensure no one had snuck into their perfect quadrant, intent on making it their new home.
The man sitting beside me glanced at me in disapproval. I smiled serenely.
“Eonia is a harmonious community of wondrous accomplishment and outstanding technological development,” the woman continued. “We do hope you enjoy your stay.” For a quadrant claiming to focus on harmonious community, I’d seen little accord here.
“What is this?” I asked Varin. The woman continued looking ahead, a distant expression on her face.
“A hologram,” he replied. “All commuter carriages have them. They’re for general announcements.” Hmm, still no announcements about the queens.
I put my hand through the woman’s mouth and wiggled my fingers out the other side.
“Stop that,” Varin hissed at me.
I studied her bland, perfect features. “Seems like a waste of technology to me.”
Varin turned away as though I’d embarrassed him. Did Eonists feel embarrassment?
“You are now arriving in Eonia’s first precinct,” the holographic woman announced.
Varin stood. “This is our stop.”
I hesitated before stepping through the holographic woman. Her face distorted as my body passed through.
“Weird,” I muttered.
We exited the commuter. And though no snow fell from the sky, Eonia was easily twenty degrees colder than Toria. While I couldn’t see where the city ended, I knew if we continued on the commuter to the end of the line, we’d reach nothing but white. Snow and ice.
I shivered, cursing my decision to steal the Ludist dress, and tucked my hands under my arms. I cast a sideways glance at Varin, wishing I had a dermasuit, but he was focused straight ahead, his arms and legs moving uniformly, almost robotically.
Few people remained on the streets at this time of night. Everyone on the right side of the street walked in one direction, while everyone on the left walked the other. The pavement was clean. Polished. Organized. A man dropped a Ludist pastry, which must’ve been purchased at the Concord, but before he could reach for it, a woman dressed in a white dermasuit swept it into a dustbin.
“Everyone has their place here,” Varin said under his breath as I watched the woman scurry away to her next cleaning emergency. “Everyone plays their part.”
“And if they don’t?”
He glanced away. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
But I knew the answer. Mackiel’s henchmen were a perfect example of not fitting in. They were dead to Eonia. Or at least, Eonia had wanted them to be.
Varin’s apartment was on the twenty-eighth floor in one of the needle-thin skyscrapers. Inside, it was small, but not oppressive. I’d thought Varin would sleep inside an icebox, or a coffin, but was surprised to see a narrow white bed pushed into an alcove in the far corner.
I ran my hand over a sleek metal kitchen bench. It set off some sensors: a trash can appeared below, a sink rose from the middle, and a drawer opened at the end of the bench, revealing stacks of Eonist food bars and sachets of vitamin replacements.
Varin sighed, then swiped his hand back over the bench to return everything to its place. I moved toward a collection of paintings along the left wall that stood out in the otherwise featureless white room. One painting depicted a section of the colorful Ludist canals, another, the Torian harbor at night, and there was also a wide vista of the Archian mountains. All the other paintings were of the palace’s dome. I was drawn to the middle frame, illustrating a gray day, the muted palace dome glistening with rain. I ran my fingers over the golden brushstrokes, marveling at the texture.
“Pretty,” I murmured.
“Stop touching things,” Varin said. He pressed another button, and the paintings slid behind a cabinet.
“It’s my job to touch things.” I gave him a smirk, which he thoroughly ignored.
Aside from the paintings, there was a white couch placed against one wall and a small white table with one chair arranged in the middle of the room. With the paintings now hidden, the most striking thing about the apartment was the floor-to-ceiling window stretching across the far wall. The skyscrapers were alive with lights, appearing like a vertical gray sky. There was no such view in Toria; the streets were too narrow, the buildings too short.
“We should get started,” Varin said from behind me.
I hadn’t realized I’d migrated to the window, my hands pressed to the glass.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said without turning.
“It is, but it’s not why we’re here.”
I glanced at him, wondering if he could really see the beauty in it, but he’d turned away.
Even with such a prominent view and solar heating to ward off the winter winds, I’d rather have been back in my parents’ narrow cottage. I even missed my mother’s fish stew brewing on the stove, sending wafts of tomato and spices throughout the house. And while I hated sailing, I loved the briny smell that came with it. Whenever the salty scent would flood in from the front door, I’d know my father was back, ready to spin tales of seafaring and turning tides with such skill it sounded like song.
I’d have given anything to hear his voice again. Now I never would.
“Ah,” Varin said, drawing me from my memories. His face distorted in discomfort, his shoulders shifting a little. “I have to change before we can begin.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” I replied facetiously.
A slight crease formed on his forehead. “I don’t have another room.”
“Where’s the bathroom, then?”
“Keralie.” He said my name as though it were a sigh. “I need you to turn back around.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s rude to watch me change.”
I laughed. “I meant, why do you need to change? I thought your wonder-suit did everything for you . . .” I scrunched my nose. “Eww. Is that why there’s no bathroom? It does do everything for you.”
He held up his hand to cut me off. “No. There’s a compartment over there.” He pointed to a section of his wall. It probably popped out like parts of the kitchen. “But there’s not enough room to change, and this suit needs a break from being worn.” He pressed a panel by the side of his bed, and a rack of two identical dermasuits sprung out. “The organisms need time to rest.” The muscles in his shoulders shifted beneath the black suit. “I can feel their exhaustion.”
“That is disgusting.”
“Can you please turn around?”
“Fine,” I huffed.
He should’ve known better. As soon as the suit’s clips clicked apart, I peeked.
His back was to me. Good. He’d learned I couldn’t be trusted. Then he began pulling his suit down, revealing perfect, unblemished tan shoulders. I sucked in a breath as he pushed the material toward his hips.
Turn back around, Keralie. Turn around. Do the right thing. For once.
But I’d had a hard day, to say the least. I ignored that little voice and what was left of good Keralie.
His shoulders were muscular, defined, and the opposite of Mackiel’s
scarecrow frame. But Varin’s shoulders weren’t as square as Mackiel’s; they were less assured, as though his job, life or something had beaten him down. I shook that thought away. Eonists didn’t question their standing in life. Varin had made that clear.
I still couldn’t tear my eyes from his body. He was beautiful—no one would deny that—but a shell of a person. His eyes lacked fire, and that was something Mackiel had in spades. Perhaps too much.
Why couldn’t I stop comparing Varin to Mackiel? Even though I was free of Mackiel—for now at least—my thoughts remained tangled in him.
“I can feel you watching me,” Varin said, stilling his movements.
“What? No—I—” I stuttered, quickly turning to face the glass wall.
I thought he let out a soft laugh but couldn’t be certain. I stayed where I was; the reflection in the glass provided a good enough view.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m done.”
I bit my lip to hide my grin. “What now?”
My warm pinked cheeks probably gave me away, but he didn’t seem to care. He held out a small contraption. “It’s a recorder,” he explained at my blank look.
“Okay. Let’s get this over with.” Although I didn’t want to leave this striking, but cold, place. Not yet. But no Eonist would hire me; I wasn’t engineered for anything. Perhaps Ludia would take me in? While I didn’t know of anyone who’d relocated to another quadrant, it was possible. A few were permitted each year through a lottery system. But to enter the lottery, you had to meet the criteria of the quadrant you wished to relocate to. Eonia’s was pages and pages long, making it almost impossible to meet. The way they intended it.
“Where do you want me?” I asked.
He pointed to the one chair in the room.
“What if you have company?” I took the seat.
He fiddled with the machine, his tall frame towering over me. “I don’t.” The machine made a few beeps, then a soft whirring sound.
“No friends?”
“No.”
“Family?”
He pressed a few more buttons before replying, “No.”
“Everyone has a family. You didn’t spring from the ground like a mushroom.” I cocked my head. “Did you?”
“I’m just like you,” he replied, missing my joke entirely. “As hard as I might find that to believe.”
I ignored his jab. “So, your family . . . ?” I prompted. Talking about family was dangerous. He could easily turn the question back on me.
“Men and women are assigned multiple birthing partners throughout their lifetimes, matched for genetic excellence,” he said, gazing out the window. “Once the mother gives birth, the child is handed over to the schools to raise.”
I couldn’t reply. That was too cruel. How could the Eonist queen allow babies to be taken from their parents? What could they possibly gain from that?
He glanced back to me. “I suppose the children I grew up with are closest to a family.”
I let loose a breath. There was hope for him after all. “How often do you see them?”
“I haven’t seen them since I graduated school a year ago.”
Okay, maybe not.
“And your mother and father?” I almost choked on the words.
He shrugged. “I don’t know who they are. It doesn’t really matter anyway. They were genetic donors, nothing more.”
“That’s terrible.”
Something flickered behind his eyes—was it doubt? “If you have no personal connections, there is no reason for jealousy. We have no crime, no hatred, no sickness.” He sounded like the holographic lady on the commuter.
“No family, no friends, no love,” I said.
“Do you have all these things?”
“I have my memories. I had a happy childhood.” I swallowed roughly. “I had a family that cared for and protected me.” I’d thought I had Mackiel. Someone I loved. I guessed he was a fleeting part of my life, like my parents had been.
He blinked. “Had?”
I couldn’t talk to him about my past. How could he understand my pain when he felt nothing? “Having something, even if in the past, is better than nothing at all.”
“And you believe memories are enough to sustain us?” he asked. “Through the darkness?”
I’d known dark times; often I’d created them. Were happy memories enough, if you were never to experience it again? I hoped so.
When I didn’t reply, he pulled out a black container and lifted the lid. Inside lay hundreds of clear chips divided into two sides. I picked one up.
“Is this what we record on?” I twirled the chip in my fingers. There was a cloudy dot in the middle.
“Not that one.” He grabbed the chip from my hand and placed it back into the right side of the container.
“Why not?”
He removed a chip from the left side and clicked it into the recorder. “That’s not blank.”
“What’s on it? A memory to deliver?”
“No.” He studied his recorder, avoiding my eyes. Hmm. He was hiding something. While Eonists didn’t lie, they could conceal information. I grabbed for another chip, checking for the cloudy dot.
“So if I was to put this on my tongue . . .” I stuck my tongue out at him.
He reached out and touched my hand, pleadingly. “Please don’t.”
I held the chip above my lips. “Why not? What’s on them?”
He shook his head slowly and let out a breath, as though he was tired or, rather, tired of me. “They’re snippets of memories.”
“Your memories?” Now this was interesting. What in Varin’s life had he recorded, if his childhood was unremarkable?
His lips pressed into a thin line. “No. Often we make duplicates at work, in case there’s a problem with the delivery.” Before I could ask, he said, “We didn’t make a copy of the ones you ingested. We were instructed not to.”
That didn’t surprise me, knowing what was on the chips. “Then you stole these? You stole other people’s memories?” I wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted or impressed.
His back went rigid at the accusation. “I didn’t steal them. They were going to be destroyed. And there’s nothing confidential on them.” But there was no way of proving that; once he’d ingested the chips, the evidence was gone.
“Why keep them?” I asked. If they weren’t confidential, then they were hardly valuable.
He hesitated for a moment. “We only have a short time to experience the world, and there’s so much out there to see.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll never get to see it all.”
This boy was sitting in this stark room, watching other people’s memories to get a taste of a life he’d never live. It was pathetic, but also incredibly sad.
“When we’re done,” I said, “I’ll record a memory for you to watch.”
His eyes flicked open. “Really?”
“Sure.” I had plenty of happy childhood memories to share. Someone should get a little enjoyment out of them.
“Thank you.” He looked at me as though I was offering him gold quartiers.
“Okay, let’s do this before I change my mind.” All this talk about memories was reminding me of the blood-soaked images I’d been trying to suppress all evening.
Varin pulled out two sets of round pads, placing one set in front of me and keeping the other. The Torian part of me was intrigued as the machine hummed to life, wanting to know how it worked. And of course, wondering what it would fetch at auction. Varin pushed the hair back from his forehead and placed a pad against each temple.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m going to watch the recording,” he explained. “To make sure you’re giving me what I need.” He was going to regret that decision.
He crouched beside me and placed the pads on either side of
my head, biting his lip in concentration. Electricity, which I wasn’t sure was from the recorder, sparked through my veins. His eyes found mine, and I sucked in a breath. Those strange, but beautiful, pale eyes. My gaze wandered to his lips. When I looked back up, I found he was watching my mouth. Something lingered behind his usual stoic expression. Something like desire.
His eyes snapped to mine, and he pushed away from me, the moment gone.
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to start the recording now.”
“Good, that’s what I’m waiting for.” I stumbled over my words, my cheeks warming.
He nodded, short and sharp. “Start with the first thing you remember from when you ingested the chips, and the recorder will guide you to recall the rest.”
I didn’t want to remember. It was brutal. Bloody. Unbelievable.
“Ready?” he asked.
No. But I had no choice. Even though Varin appeared to be living a heartless life, I wasn’t willing to take it from him. He needed this information. And I needed to stay far away from Mackiel.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes and remembered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Corra
Queen of Eonia
Rule five: A queen must be raised within her own quadrant to learn the ways of her people and not be influenced by the palace’s politics.
A storm raged inside Corra, as though half her body was on fire, the other half as cold as ice. And everything hurt. Her head. Her chest. Her heart.
Her heart . . .
She couldn’t dwell on it. Couldn’t feel it. Shouldn’t. And yet she did. She felt everything with such a precise clarity, her head pounded as though it might split in two to allow the pressure to escape. I am Eonist, she reminded herself. Detached, logical, composed. But with the inspector interrogating everyone inside the palace, she knew her secret was bound to be uncovered.
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