Tandem

by Anna Jarzab

I shook my head, kneading my hands in my lap. I had no idea how to phrase what I was about to tell him. All I knew was that I couldn’t keep this secret from him anymore. Not telling Thomas that Juliana had arranged her own kidnapping with Libertas in order to preserve his good opinion of her was one thing, but I couldn’t hide his brother’s treachery from him. It made him too vulnerable, made it too easy for Lucas to manipulate him, and I couldn’t allow that. In spite of the fact that Thomas had brought me to Aurora, he had always tried to protect me, and I wanted to protect him, too.

  “Then what?” Thomas reached out and took my hands in his, a tender gesture that made me light up inside. Why did everything have to be so difficult? Why did I have to like him so much after everything that he’d put me through? But for better or worse, I cared about him, and I knew that he cared about me. So informing him that the two people he was closest to in the entire universe had betrayed him would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do.

  The hardest thing apart from leaving him when all this was over.

  “Thomas,” I said softly. “I know how Libertas managed to kidnap Juliana.”

  “You do?”

  I nodded. “It wasn’t a kidnapping. She wanted to escape, and Libertas helped her do it. They promised her a new life if she gave them a piece of information that they needed, something the king told her before he was shot. Lucas works for them. They planned the whole thing together.”

  “No.” Thomas snatched his hands away. “You’re wrong. Juliana would never do that. Neither would Lucas.”

  “She didn’t want to marry Callum. You told me that yourself,” I insisted. “And maybe she was afraid that what happened to her father would happen to her, too, if she stayed. I don’t know if Lucas approached her first, or if she somehow figured out what he was doing and struck a deal with him, but either way—”

  “Stop!” Thomas cried, rising to his feet. “Don’t say anything else. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, I do!” I was trying to keep calm—it wasn’t like I’d expected him to take this news well—but I was having a hard time controlling my temper. “I saw it!”

  “Then you misunderstood.” His voice was cold and vibrating with anger. “You said yourself the visions were intermittent and that you didn’t remember them well. You’re just mistaken.”

  “I remember them now, and I’m telling you that this is what I saw. I saw it, Thomas.”

  “If you’re not mistaken, then you’re lying,” Thomas accused. “You’re jealous of Juliana and you’re trying to get me to hate her, but it’s not going to work. I trust her. She’s my friend.”

  I reared back as if he’d hit me. “You really think I’d do that?” My voice was so small it would’ve fit inside a thimble. “You really think I’d lie about Juliana because I’m jealous?”

  “You asked me if I was in love with her and you—you—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, but I caught his implication just fine without it. He thought I was in love with him, and that I wanted to destroy what he had left of her to get my own way. I couldn’t believe that he would consider me capable of that, after everything we’d been through.

  “Be careful what you say next,” I warned him. “You won’t be able to take it back once you do.” But we both knew we had already gone past the point of no return.

  “I won’t stand here and listen to this,” he said. “I won’t.”

  “And what about Lucas? You think I’m lying about him, too?”

  Thomas’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know anything about my brother, or Juliana, either. You think you do because you’ve been here for three days, but you don’t know anything about this world or our lives. You’re just trying to manipulate me so I’ll send you back, but if you think that I’m going to take your word for it that the two people I trust more than anyone have been playing me for months, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

  “Thomas,” I said. I’d managed to get my anger under control somewhat, and my tone was even. “I know this is a shock. I know you don’t want to believe it. But I wouldn’t be telling you if I didn’t think you needed to know.”

  “You don’t know what I need,” Thomas snapped. “Our deal is off. I’m not going to tell the General about your little ‘ability,’ because I don’t think it actually exists. But you’ll stay here until he decides to send you back. I’m not going to stick my neck out for you anymore. From now on, you’re on your own.”

  Back in Juliana’s room, I sat immobile on the bed, trying to process the emotional runoff of what had just happened with Thomas in the library. I considered searching for him, but the Castle was huge, not to mention the rest of the Citadel—I’d never find him if he didn’t want to be found. I wanted to dissolve into tears, but they wouldn’t come; my entire body had frozen up.

  I felt like I’d been torn in half. One part of me was so angry with Thomas that I wanted to hit him until he felt even a small amount of the pain I’d felt at his unfounded accusations. Jealous? Manipulative? How could he believe those things of me? He knew who I was, more than anyone else, and yet it was so easy for him to just assume I was lying about Juliana and Lucas. I hated him for that. I hated him for having more faith in them than he had in me, when I was the one who’d done everything he asked, the one who’d tried to help him. How could he turn his back on me when I was the only one who hadn’t turned my back on him?

  But as much as I wanted to sink into my anger, there was another part of me that understood what he was going through. Thomas wasn’t difficult to figure out. He was a truth-teller, a boy with scruples and dignity and an outsized capacity for loyalty. He wasn’t naïve, but he trusted himself and his instincts, and those instincts had told him that Juliana and Lucas were loyal to him. Doubting them meant doubting himself, those things that he counted on every day in his job, to keep people safe, to keep me safe. From his perspective, I was telling him that he was a fool, that he’d let emotion override common sense and perhaps, unknowingly, jeopardized his own mission. My heart broke for him, because I knew what it was like to have your entire world ripped away, to discover that someone you cared about wasn’t who you thought they were.

  The two halves of me were playing tug-of-war with my brain and with my heart and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a distraction, something else to occupy my mind so I didn’t go crazy trying to figure out what I was going to do about Thomas. Because at the moment there was nothing to do except to hope that he would come to his senses. I opened the nightstand drawer and took out the copy of Twelfth Night that Thomas had sent through the tandem with me. Tears sprung to my eyes at the sight of it as I tried to reconcile the boy who’d thought to bring my favorite book into an alternate universe in the hopes that it would comfort me with the boy who’d just called me a jealous liar. No, I couldn’t read it, not today. I went to put it back when the little blue origami star caught my eye. I pulled it out and held it in my palm.

  I’d seen Juliana write something on the inside of the paper before she folded it up and placed it in the drawer herself, the night she had escaped. I didn’t even have to open it to know what it said, because I’d seen the words in a vision of Juliana, as if I’d written them myself:

  T—I’m sorry, but I can’t. I wish I was better, but I’m not. —J

  She’d wanted him to know what she had done. Or maybe she thought he’d figure it out on his own, that he’d suspect her without needing to be told, and this was her apology. It was a sorry attempt at making things right. Maybe those words would mean more to Thomas than they did to me, but they felt insubstantial for the amount of trouble she’d already caused, and the amount that I was sure would come. I placed the star on the nightstand and stared at it. I wasn’t sure yet what I should do with it. It felt obvious that I should give it to Thomas and allow him to make of it what he would, but what was the point? He’d already decided I was a liar; why would this note, which I could have easily forged, convince him of anythi
ng?

  I sighed and lay back on the bed, feeling very weary. As I shifted my back, I heard the familiar crumple of paper and, reaching behind, found that someone had laid a more traditional note on the pillows for me to find.

  Was looking but couldn’t find you. I’m in the garden, would love some company if you’re not busy.

  —Callum

  I walked onto the terrace and scanned the gardens; Callum was sitting on a low bench, sketching in the black notebook he always carried. There was something comforting about seeing him there, hunched over and absorbed in his task. I liked that I didn’t have to perform for him the way I had to perform for the queen, and that I didn’t have to answer to him the way I did with Thomas and Gloria. For better or for worse, I could be myself with Callum, or what was passing for myself these days, even if he didn’t know who that was.

  I called his name to get him to look up; I waved, and he waved back. I held up a handful of fingers and he nodded, then I went back inside, taking a brief moment to fix myself up before heading out to meet Callum among the roses.

  “Hey,” I said as I approached. Callum glanced up at me and smiled.

  “Hey yourself.”

  I nodded at the agents who were hovering within earshot; they shuffled off to stand in the shadows and give us our privacy.

  I joined Callum on his bench. “What are you drawing?” I asked, leaning over to take a look. “Oh,” I said in surprise. “It’s a window?”

  To be fair, it wasn’t just any window. The drawing was a simple black-and-white charcoal sketch, but it was obvious from the elaborate design that the original was stained glass. Callum had done all sorts of intricate shading to register the subtle differences in color.

  He pointed ahead with the tip of his pencil. “It’s that window.”

  We were seated about ten feet away from one of the Castle’s interior brick walls and, indeed, the window Callum was putting on paper was directly opposite us. At first, I thought it was abstract, just a hundred or so different colored pieces in various shapes and sizes, but as I stared at it a more deliberate picture emerged.

  “It’s the Seal of the Commonwealth,” I told him. I recognized it from the marble floor of the Castle’s grand entrance, in which a large bronze replica of the Seal was embedded. It showed an eagle, legs and wings outstretched, holding a rowan leaf in one talon and a bundle of arrows in the other. The shield over the great bird’s torso depicted a gold crown against an azure blue backing, crested by a golden sun with twenty-one rays. The sun itself was surrounded by an undulating pale green ribbon—I assumed it represented the aurora for which the planet was named. A rattlesnake wound its way around the seal’s edge, making it a perfect circle. The eagle clutched a scroll in its mouth upon which the motto of the Commonwealth was inscribed: Sic tyranno liberi sumus.

  Thus we are free from the tyrant.

  “Yup,” Callum said. “I’m not doing it much justice like this, but in black and white it’s easier to see the design.” He handed me the sketchbook. He wasn’t wrong. Though the stained glass was beautiful, the Seal popped so much better without the distraction of color and the glare of the setting sun. Still, it wasn’t quite right without those things. The starkness of the charcoal rendering gave the image a sinister quality, which was perhaps what Callum, until very recently an enemy of the Commonwealth, had intended.

  “You’re a really good artist,” I told him. “Where did you learn to draw like that?”

  “You can learn to do anything well with a lot of free time. I might not have any friends, but I do have a bunch of useless talents.”

  “They’re not useless,” I argued. “They’re impressive.”

  “Not really.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Do you want to know why I’m sketching this window?”

  “Because it’s beautiful?”

  “No. It’s because windows are all I draw.” He looked away, embarrassed by the admission, though I couldn’t quite see why. “Windows, and doors. See?” He flipped through the notebook, showing page after page of different kinds of windows and doors. Some of them were from the Castle, sketches he’d made in the short time since his arrival, and then further back, to renderings of portals and entryways I’d never seen before. They were intricate and flawless, masterfully shaded to reflect a certain time of day or amount of lighting in the room. I was enamored of his gift, even if his chosen subject was unorthodox.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just like the way they look.” His hand rested on the page, and I moved it to see what he was trying to hide. The drawing was very plain, just a steel doorframe. The strangest thing about it was that the space outside the frame was shaded, but the inside of the frame was blank, the cream color of the paper. The door was emitting a faint glow.

  “Where did you see this one?”

  He shrugged. “Nowhere. At least, I don’t think so. Sometimes I just make them up.”

  “What is it, then?” Something about the door bothered me. It gave me the same creepy feeling as the dark, colorless Seal, like it was something I should be afraid of.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I try not to question it.”

  “Well, I’m still impressed.” I smiled. “Even if you do only draw windows.”

  “And doors—don’t forget doors.”

  The crunch of gravel beneath a delicate stiletto heel attracted our attention. Gloria was approaching.

  “The concert,” Callum muttered, staring at the ground. I was beginning to suspect he didn’t like crowds. This didn’t surprise me much; he’d been raised in near-solitude, always shielded from the noise and activity of the common people. Public places were bound to make him uncomfortable.

  “Your Highnesses, I’m so sorry, but I have to interrupt. Juliana, you need to get ready for the concert, and your valet is waiting for you upstairs, Prince Callum.” Gloria eyed us both sternly, as if she was a teacher and we were pupils who had forgotten our homework. “I must insist that you head back inside.”

  “We’re right behind you,” I told her. As I rose from the bench, Callum ripped the sketch of the mysterious doorway out of his notebook.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting it into my hand. “That’s for you.”

  “Oh, Callum, I—” It would have been rude to refuse it, but all the same, I didn’t want it. The longer I looked at it, the more unnerving it was.

  “I was thinking of you when I drew it,” he confessed. “I was thinking about leaving home, and meeting you, and our future, and I … It’s an allegory. Don’t you see? A doorway into the unknown.”

  Well, that explains it, I thought. Of course I found the drawing unsettling—that door, with its unseen destination, was exactly what I saw when I pictured my own future.

  I smiled down at him, knowing what he needed to hear. “I’m looking forward to finding out what’s behind that door.”

  “Me too,” he said, with a sincerity that broke my heart. “Me too.”

  THOMAS IN THE RAMBLES

  “This whole thing is a goddamn security nightmare,” Agent Bedford griped, coming up to join Thomas on the stage, behind the backdrop. “I hate open-air events.” He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “What’s up with you, Mayhew? What’re you looking at?”

  “Just confirming a position on the Sparrow,” he said. He could see Sasha on the enormous North Terrace, surrounded by the guests who’d come for the concert, with Callum at her side. He watched the Farnham prince put a hand on her shoulder and whisper in her ear. She nodded and turned to smile at Callum, her lips coming close to brushing against his cheek. Thomas couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. She wore an elaborate headpiece of delicate chains studded with silver thorns that wound their way over the crown of her head, into her plaited hair, and around her neck. It reminded him of her captivity, but she still looked resplendent in it. Sasha and Callum had made their first public appearance together on the Grand Balcony an hour earlier, to the wild cheers of thousands of onlookers
and well-wishers. Not everyone in the UCC was enamored of the royal family, but there were plenty who still believed in the power and dignity of the monarchy, and they were overjoyed to see the beautiful couple. And they did look perfect together; even Thomas couldn’t deny that.

  Thomas closed his eyes and tried to dispel the pangs of guilt and longing that sprung up in him every time he saw Sasha, but he was only moderately successful. You’re a KES agent, he scolded himself. Act like it. All this emotional turmoil was unbecoming of his position, but he couldn’t quite banish it. He wasn’t just a name and rank; he was a person, too, and it was no longer possible for him to behave like he wasn’t.

  Since his argument with Sasha a few hours before, all he could think about was her and Juliana and Lucas. He was consumed by confusion and questions and anger, which he’d unfairly taken out on Sasha. She was only trying to help, even if she was wrong. There was no way that what she’d said to him could be true. It was impossible. He knew his brother, and while Lucas had certainly been acting strangely the past few months, Thomas was sure it was because he was attempting to regain their father’s favor, to rise up in the KES the way Thomas had. Otherwise, why would the General have consented to allow Lucas to take the KES Trials this fall? Such a thing almost never happened. There was one way into active KES service and that was through the KES Academy, from which Lucas had been rejected three times—the maximum amount—before giving up. According to KES rules he was ineligible to apply again. That was why he was being so diffident and mysterious; he thought Thomas would resent him for trying to better his situation.

  And Juliana—well, it wasn’t even worth considering Sasha’s claims about her. Perhaps it had been hasty of him to imply that Sasha had developed a romantic attachment to him, that she was jealous, but it was the only conclusion he could reasonably come to. Sasha didn’t know Juliana; he did. He knew her better than probably anyone else alive. She’d confided in him. She trusted him with her life. If she’d wanted out, she would’ve come to him. At least, he thought she would. But even if she had, what would he have said to her? What would he have done?