by S. K Munt
It was easy to tell which was Kohén- not only because Kohl had his eye patch on, but also because he was MY Kohén and that had been my childhood best friend. I stepped up to the frame and touched his cheek dimple tenderly through the glass, and my eyes and nose began to sting.
‘Come again soon?’ Emmerly had asked.
‘Tomorrow,’ Kohén replied.
A sob escaped me, and I turned away.
Not now, Duckling! Keep it together!
The dining room was still set for breakfast but the plates look mostly untouched (no fruit there either) and when I walked across the formal lounge and looked out the rear window, I smiled to see that I had guessed right and Kohén, Kohl and their parents were all out on the lawn, surrounded by at least one hundred people who’d been let in to gawk at my statue, as well as a handful of the ‘special’ royal servants who should have been up there shooing flies off everybody’s breakfast in their golden aprons.
I moved closer and squinted down at the people below, trying to see if Karol was down there too but I couldn’t find him, and I smiled. I’d come upstairs seeking him on the instinct that he was the kind of guy who slept in and had breakfast delivered in bed on naked breasts, and it seemed like I was on the right track. Well, my breasts weren’t bare but they were obvious and I was serving myself to him on a platter so it was sort of the same thing. Either way, I felt cheap but prepared to face him down.
I momentarily stared down through the window, watching everyone admiring the statue, and was bewildered by how motionless and awed some of them looked, and how quickly the lawn had filled with people. Happy people. From above, it was pretty easy to see why we had handed the Barachiel family power. Everyone was clean and smiling and healthy. No one jostled roughly for the best spot, and kids stood watching patiently. The world really was a better place, and because of my influence on Kohén, this day had become miraculous to them.
This is… this is all because of me, right? This is the reach of my influence on this family or at least, the boys in this family? If I can get her here- what else can I do once I am free? Oh God Martya- give me strength like yours if you are watching over me!
Clearly everybody in Arcadia, and possible Calliel, had been aware of Lady Liberty’s relocation for the past five days and while I’d been locked in the east wing, and most of the castle had been working hard to make my birthday present comfortable. It must have been quite the spectacle, however they’d gotten her there, and the novelty probably wouldn’t wear off for months, if ever. I had a feeling that she would be on the front page of the next edition of the newspaper, which now came every two weeks, and that made me chuckle as I imagined a headline that would suffice: ‘Loss of liberty, gain of Liberty.’ ‘Prince spoils whore rotten!’ ‘Don’t lose hope yet, ugly women of the world!’
Okay so they probably weren’t going to word the story like that, but my statue would be the biggest news in the nation for weeks and I had a feeling that that had been Elijah’s motivation for agreeing to his son’s ostentatious request, and not because he treasured me so. Kohén would have barged into his office and made some passionate declaration to make a dream come true for me, and Elijah would have seen an opportunity to get the food shortage out of the headlines because as that creep Elbert Yael had said: money Arcadia had- finding food to purchase was the issue, so why not buy something awe-inspiring?
Would the world ever know that her move had been at a whore’s request? Possibly. It seemed like the sort of thing Elijah Barachiel would emphasise in order to hide the flaws in the caste system. ‘How dare you accuse me of hiding a cure for Locusts? I’ve been toiling away with my hands and knees all week to please a common hooker! See how equal we are? I am hungry too, but pride for my family I have in spades!’
But then again, he’d come off better if he’d said he’d done it for national pride, than for me. Although strangely, for all of the ill feelings I had towards Elijah now because of the Companion system, he’d never even frowned at me, not like his wife, or given any indication that I irritated him or was beneath him. Even when I’d been in trouble for discussing politics with the King of Yael, he’d still managed to look grudgingly proud of me for holding the other king’s attention for so long. So was that all an act, or I was a bug like Martya to him- one that needed to be squashed but was too clever to be allowed to see it coming? Could the descendant of angel be capable of such evil doings?
I glanced over at the abandoned plates of toast, and though I was fairly impressed to see that the royals weren’t eating anything as lavish as my Danishes, anger spiked inside me at the sight of the gold-edged china. I picked up a slice of buttered toast from a plate beside a juice glass with lipstick on it, and dropped it on the rug beneath the table, before picking it up and putting it back on the plate- fuzzy side down. Then, I moved to the plate next to it, which had a pipe beside it, and took a bite out of Elijah’s half-eaten toast. Chewing and moaning for how good the creamed cheese tasted (we hadn’t seen strawberry jam or marmalade for awhile either), I glanced over at the other two settings, deciphered which was Kohén’s by the pair of cufflinks sitting on the napkin beside it and then drank half of his juice before moving the toast around so that the better-looking ones were on Kohl’s plate.
Satisfied that I had treated the royal family by ranking them as they would us in the Given suite, I turned in a semi-circle, trying to work out which beautiful door was the one to the heir-apparent’s boudoir. Following my instincts again, I walked straight past the dining and lounge rooms and passed two locked doors, and then paused in yet another living space, which housed a grand piano, and to my absolute befuddlement- a television!
‘Okay… what?!’ I hissed and stomped over to it, needing to touch it to make sure it was real because its presence in the Barachiel living room made even less sense than the statue of Liberty standing on the west coast six hundred and fifty years after she’d fallen. I bent and looked for buttons to touch but there was nothing: the screen was black but when I peered around the back, saw that a power lead snaked it’s way to the wall, and was on, and another cord was going into the roof! I stood up, looking around suspiciously as though I expected to find a TV guide and a stack of what they’d called ‘discs’ but there was no sign that the television had ever been used. Was it just a conversation piece, like the grand piano in the corner? Or was I going to walk on and discover a garage full of working cars and a fast-food restaurant too?
I was in an indignant mood, but not so silly as to actually plonk myself down in front of the television to see if it worked, so I vowed to work the subject into what would be one of many stilted conversations between Kohén and I to come, and tried the first door on the right. It opened into a very simple space: a bedroom with a two-person, neatly-made sleigh bed carved from mahogany, a roll-top desk in the same timber, and absolutely no sign of personalisation anywhere, except for the packing trunk on the floor. Whoever lived in here was neat and transient and I knew that it had to be Kohl. I went over to the trunk and lifted the lid before slipping a token of my affection inside the inner pocket, along with the last of the writing paper that Kelia had stencilled for me on my fourteenth birthday, and ran my hand down a worn-looking pair of denim jeans, trying to imagine how Kohl would look in something like that and then, with a skipping heart, my Kohén. Tears threatened so I closed the lid and left the room, closing the door quietly behind me and looking around once more. This was the youngest, temporary brother’s suite, so, which was the eldest’s?
I heard it then- the door turning to the entrance of the formal living room and I squeaked and dove for the closest door, praying that it wasn’t Kohén’s because if he walked in and found me waiting for him on his bed, I’d be in serious trouble! And not the GOOD bad kind but the sleazy kind. As I was running for it, I realised that I’d never seen Kohén’s room before, and the thought gave me a pang and also a twinge of excitement. In the books I’d read, best friends lived in each other’s bedrooms, but a grey a
rea for had separated him and me so long that we’d convinced ourselves that it was a normal shade of our otherwise colourful life.
I closed the door quietly behind me, trying to think of a decent explanation for being in Kohén’s room that wouldn’t get me slobbered on again, and the bored voice spoke as soon as I did, making me freeze:
‘Are they delighted beyond measure?’ Karol asked, as though he already knew the answer.
‘They are,’ I said as calmly as I could, sort of impressed with myself for having been spot on with the locational instincts, if not dead wrong about the conditions.
I was in Karol’s room and so was he, but he wasn’t in bed licking sugar-dusted strawberries off a Companion- he was bent over a stately desk, reading. Around him, his bedroom (once again nice, but no fancier than mine) was in shambles. Everywhere I looked there was a half-packed trunk or storage crate- but the Prince had clearly gotten distracted mid-packing and had settled in to read instead and was apparently so engrossed that he hadn’t yet looked up and hadn’t managed to get any inflection in his tone either. I knew that pose- he was either lost in words, or feigning it to make the intruder buzz off. And because curiosity hadn’t quite managed to kill this cat yet I couldn’t help but ask: ‘Why do you guys have a television? I can see that you live as nicely as most people in Arcadia and so I believe that you are not spoiled unfairly… but a TV?’
He looked up then and when he saw me standing there, hugging a book to my chest and shifting from foot to foot, his eye colour shifted from the palest green to an emerald. For a moment he just stared at me, and I was so interested in the answer to the question that I forgot the whole reason why I was there and waited patiently why he tried to arrange his dazzling features into a suitable expression to convey how out of place I was there.
‘Am I having that dream again?’ he asked, turning to look beside him as though the sandman was there, waiting to consult with. Then, he looked back at me and shook his head a little. ‘Wait… what?’
‘Why do you have a television?’ I asked, jerking my thumb to the closed door behind me. ‘Do you have cable too? Wi-Fi? Is the expense of owning one the reason why you don’t have any Danishes, or is the bangle on Emmerly’s arm that’s got you living so modestly?’
Karol blinked, rising. ‘How do you even know words like Wi-Fi?’
‘I read.’ I tapped the book in my hands with one polished fingernail. ‘See?’ Then I nodded to his open book. ‘You too? Huh. I’ve got to admit, that surprises me.’
Karol’s eyes darkened again and he stepped away from his desk chair. ‘Is the girl who just snuck into a forbidden wing actually insinuating that I’m stupid?’
‘No,’ I said, though I had been. ‘I just heard that people got hooked on television and it rotted their brains in the time before, so reading went out of style.’
Karol’s lip twitched. ‘It’s not a television so much as it is a monitor, Larkin. A security monitor…’
I felt the air on my eyeballs. ‘You have surveillance cameras?! In which rooms?! Oh I KNEW that Kohén was cheating at hide and seek!’
But Karol chuckled. ‘Not in the rooms, no- Santa didn’t get that Christmas Wish-’
‘Santa Claus was a fallen Nephilim who turned hearts away from another overblown Nephilim,’ I reminded him, ‘and Kohén told you that you’re not allowed to flirt with me anymore.’
Karol raised his palms. ‘Who said I wished for it to be in your room?’ I rolled my eyes but he grinned and went on: ‘And to answer your question, we have thirty-four cameras in Arcadia- all of which are directed to face the surveillance fences so that we can monitor the activity outside of the city’s perimeters…’ his lip twitched. ‘And yes, Kohén most likely used them to cheat in hide and seek because I taught him to do that long before you came along to catch Coaxley and father.’
‘Are they there to watch people trying to get in?’ I asked. ‘Or out?’
‘Both,’ Karol said matter-of-factly. ‘And don’t even give me that invasion of privacy look- do you know how many heinous people have tried to breech those fences in the past to get in and cause trouble?’
I swallowed, remembering the man who’d had designs on stealing me. ‘I do, actually.’
‘Good then, so I don’t have to explain myself. We take security seriously Larkin- and that makes it easier for us to be more lax with punishments. If a murderer doesn’t get to sneak in to Arcadia a second or third time, we don’t have to take drastic measures.’ He began to walk toward me and stopped a meter or so away. ‘And now that we’ve straightened everything out, can I ask what the hell you’re doing in my room without permission… and in piggy tails?’
My heart skipped a beat- I’d been so caught up in the conversation that I’d forgotten my purpose for coming again and now that I was remembering it, I was feeling a bit intimidated by my own ambition. But it wasn’t for the first time. In fact, being more ambitious than I ought to have been was a condition I’d been suffering since birth and seeing as how I wasn’t being cured of it, I’d resigned to the fact that I may as well just see it through.
‘I came to see you,’ I said frankly, and frank interest was the look I got in return. I relaxed my book and let it slide down my hip until my arm was hanging at my side, and then bit my thumbnail of the other hand, making my eyes look as big and vulnerable as I could manage. ‘Is that okay? I didn’t know how to find you without alerting Kohén to the fact that I wanted to see you alone so…’ I dropped my eyes and tried to look sorry, and though I felt like a complete idiot, when I looked up again through my lashes, I was pleased to see that his pupils had dilated. ‘I mean…’ I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and aimed for self-conscious bunny-wabbit. ‘I… I can go and summon you officially if I have to-’ I turned to move and when his fingers wrapped around my arm, holding in the grin was almost impossible.
‘It’s fine Larkin,’ Karol’s voice had dropped an octave, and he rubbed my arm, fixing me with a concerned look that was every bit as fake as my self-consciousness was. His eyes drifted from mine, to my hair, then down to my chest and then back up again. ‘I had cause to speak with you this morning anyway, and my door’s always open for you- you know that.’
Cause to do what… apologize perhaps? Or gloat?
‘I do?’
He smiled his flagitious smile. ‘You do now.’ He glanced at my hair again and I saw him swallow. ‘What did you need?’
‘I need to trust you,’ I responded quickly, keeping my voice soft and feminine as Maryah had taught us to do. I widened my eyes a little and added: ‘And I need you to keep what I say between us… it’s a confession of sorts, and one with possible ramifications for me that I couldn’t bear to...’ I lowered my head and sighed, shaking my head. ‘I’m so scared…’
‘Don’t be,’ his voice was as silken and sticky as cobwebs, ‘I’m sure that I can help. But tell me first… does Kohén know that you’re here?’
‘No,’ I whispered, and let my lip tremble. ‘This is the first thing I’ve ever felt the need to keep from him, and I feel sick about it but I know that you’re the only man in Arcadia with the power to…’ I bit my lip. ‘I mean, you’re the only one who can…after I woke up this morning I realised…’
Karol’s eyes flared and he leaned against the door, blocking my exit while caging me in. And he was so tall and broad that I did feel caged. ‘Just say it, Larkin,’ he whispered. ‘My power has limits, but my mind has always managed to find a way around those limits…’
‘Really?’ I breathed, trying to look hopeful.
He dragged his teeth across his lower lip. ‘Actually yes- just last night I gave the girl of my wet dreams her first orgasm, even though I’m forbidden from making advancements on her for another five years.’
Okay yeah, he wanted to gloat...
‘Well then…’ I said, for nothing else to say that wouldn’t get me whipped.
‘I’m damned well, for it.’ He rubbed my arm again and this time, he d
id so slowly and smoothly, and left his hand lingering near my breast. ‘So tell me what you need from me now, and I’ll do whatever I can in my power to help- and then some.’
I smiled and moved into him. ‘Is it true that you’re leaving tonight for Janiel?’
Karol’s brows pulled together in confusion. ‘Yes… why?’
I inched in closer. ‘Are you going alone? Or are you permitted to take… servants?’
Karol blinked. ‘Why do you ask?’
I bit my lip and said. ‘There’s a servant who needs to go with you. She’s in trouble, and if she’s left behind…’ I reached up and touched his hair, brushing it behind his ear and almost jumped when his entire body folded in toward mine like a magnet had been activated. What was with this guy? Did he know what a lousy, reluctant lay I’d be? ‘Well, I don’t even want to think of how she’ll suffer. But if you take her with you- you’ll be rewarded for it, that I can promise you.’
‘Larkin!’ Karol had the grace to look shocked. ‘That’s a VERY big request! What’s brought this about?’