She noticed my expression. “What?”
“It is just that you two . . . do not seem to have much in common,” I said delicately.
Ewan was long gone, but Cara continued staring out the window, as if she had vision that could penetrate through all the snow and houses and trees that separated the sight of Ewan from her eyes. “You know, at first, I think we hated each other. There wasn’t much, um, conversing when we were first meeting up, and neither of us wanted to talk about it or us or anything at all. And not only would I walk away resenting him, but I would feel ashamed of myself. All those things they tell us as children, about our responsibility to marry someone of good gentry stock, about how purity of breeding is what kept our world from sinking into another war—” She shook her head, brushing away the echoes of her memories. “I believed it my whole life. But there was nothing weak or craven about Ewan—not at all like how they describe the Rootless in school. He was strong and gentle and before I knew it, I wanted to do more than touch him. I wanted to know him. And you know what? I don’t think anyone, not even one of his fellow Rootless, had ever wanted to know him. To them, he was a soldier. A strong body. But to me, he is so much more.”
I felt a heaviness weigh on me as I thought of all the unfair things I’d thought—and said—about Cara. This whole year, she’d been risking everything to see the man she loved.
“So you were meeting secretly. And then you were going to see him at the Wilder debut. Wearing your pink coat.”
“It was supposed to be easy,” she said, suddenly flaring into emotion. “He took a friend’s job that day to collect the Wilder charges. No one would miss me at the ball, and I had already hinted to a few people that I would be occupied with Philip Wilder. We would be able to spend a few moments alone together, while the rest of the city was occupied.”
“What happened?”
Cara sat down on the bench under the window. When she looked up at me, her eyes were wet. “Mother.”
“Addison?”
“She followed me. She had noticed that I’d been acting differently, sneaking out at strange times. She followed me to the grove and found me with Ewan.” Tears clung to her eyelashes and dripped down her cheeks. “I made him run as soon as we heard footsteps, but he left his bag, and he still had my coat in his arms. . . . Mother was so angry. Said I was destroying my chances of having a healthy gentry heir. Said I was disgusting. That Ewan was vermin. She hit me, and I fell into the brambles nearby. She hit me again and again.”
I shuddered. I couldn’t imagine living with someone who had hurt me so viciously, who continued to hurt me afterward. And I couldn’t believe that there were times when I had almost liked Addison, with her acerbic wit and keen observations. But then again, there were times when I loved my father, and he left lacerations of his own, even if they couldn’t be seen.
“Cara . . .”
“I was too surprised to fight back, and then she left after I screamed, and you came. It all happened so fast. Your father was so intent on hunting down the Rootless, and the bag was right there and I knew my mother would . . .”
“But they could have hurt Ewan,” I pointed out.
“I was hoping they wouldn’t. There are so many other Rootless . . .”
“So it was okay if lots of innocent people got hurt as long as it was not the one you cared about?”
Her voice was fierce. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know what to do or what to say, and no matter what I did, my mother would be able stop it.” She drew a shuddering breath.
I put my hand on hers.
She brushed a lock of hair away from her face, the tear tracks still glistening on her cheeks. “Ewan was furious that I lied, that I protected my mother. He wanted the whole world to know how corrupt and violent the gentry could be. He wanted to go to the constables or to your father. He knew that he would most likely be arrested, but he accepted that, too. In fact, he told me he would rather be arrested and killed than watch his people suffer.”
“So why didn’t he step forward?”
“Jack,” she whispered. “He forbade Ewan to speak. He said that the more the Rootless suffered at the hands of the gentry, the more it primed them for their great revolution. He said that it was a pain akin to a birthing pain and that the pain was necessary for a new world.”
I saw with some surprise that my hand had tightened around Cara’s; my fingers were white and bloodless.
An echoing clunking and shuffling announced Jack coming down the hallway, and Cara and I both started, dropping each other’s hands. I swallowed back this new uneasiness and met his gaze with what I hoped was a composedly polite expression.
He smiled at Cara and me. “Hello, ladies,” he said. “I see we are all relieved that yesterday’s unpleasantness is over?”
“Yes,” Cara said.
“My son seems especially happy,” Jack mused. “I wonder why. Hmm.”
“Jack?” I asked. “I was wondering if I could speak to you?”
“Of course,” he rumbled.
I stood up and took his arm. “Miss Westoff,” he said with a tilt of his head. She inclined her head in response. He steered me back south, the direction of the foyer.
“What would you like to talk about?”
“You.”
We walked slowly to accommodate his limp.
“If I am not mistaken, you want to ask why I went to the trouble of running away and spending years among the Rootless planning a revolt with foreign help, only to come back to the very place I left.”
Or why you let your people suffer to encourage their hatred of the gentry. Or why you let my father be maimed in the name of vengeance.
“You are very astute,” I remarked instead.
“I have been accused of worse.”
We passed the bust of Jacob Landry. Jack paused to examine him. “Madeline, may I ask what your first reaction was upon reading those journals?”
I thought for a moment. “Shock, I guess. Horror. Fear.”
“Fear? That’s interesting. Jacob Landry is dead. Why should you fear him?”
“I do not know.” I thought back to two nights ago, trapped in my debut dress, trapped in my house, trapped in my father’s will. “Except it seems sometimes like he is not really dead. Like his wishes still live on through my father and everyone who listens to my father.”
“And in you?”
In me? I wanted to object, but when I considered it, I’d spent my life doing nothing to help the Rootless, and even after seeing the sorting yards and meeting and befriending them, I’d still taken the first chance at a Landry life when my father offered it. That fear then—could it be the fear of becoming like my father? Like Jacob?
“You see,” Jack said, turning away from the statue, “I had been meeting with the Rootless for a few years before I read those journals. Something tugged at me watching them. I knew something was wrong. My father crushed them tighter and tighter in his fist, killing more and more, and it never seemed to satisfy him. It was never enough to make him feel safe, and the funny thing was that I never felt safe either.
“No matter how many women I bedded or how much wine I drank, I felt as if this life were tenuous. Precious. It all hung on a delicate thread, and sometimes, I found myself secretly grateful for my father’s tenacious hatred. I was like you, Madeline, and David, too. I wanted my comfortable life and a comfortable conscience. I could decide on neither.”
We were in the ballroom now, the wall of windows and glass doors giving a breathtaking vista of the snowbound world.
“And then you read Jacob’s journals,” I guessed.
“Quite right. And I felt everything that you felt. Especially the fear.” He flicked a switch on the wall, and the solar heaters began melting the snow on the patio. “Especially the fear.”
“You see, I could feel everything that Jacob felt. Disgust for the helpless. Lust for power. For money.”
“But he was inhuman,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. “Yo
u are completely different—” But then I stopped myself. I didn’t know if Jack was completely different. Not anymore.
“Don’t make a caricature of him,” Jack said. “Jacob was passionate about many things. His family. Science. When you read the journals looking for the man and not the legend, you will see it. He doubted himself, and he doubted his inventions. He could have made any number of choices, even after the Last War. What makes him cruel is that he continued to choose abuse and power, despite his doubts. Even when he could have turned back.”
“You were not going to make the same mistake.”
Jack nodded. “Quite right. I felt acutely aware of his blood in my veins, of his genes shaping my mind and my emotions. I was made of the same stuff and surrounded by the same temptations, so how could I hope to choose differently? If I were in charge of Landry Park and the leader of the Uprisen, I feared I would never leave Jacob’s legacy behind. So I removed myself from the estate, and chose a new name, and in doing so, committed myself to the maintenance of my conscience. I have never regretted it.”
“So why now?”
“An excellent question.” Small lakes formed in the snow, forcing tiny rivers of icy water down the steps. “I had felt for years that we needed a true uprising. With the help of the Empire and with much careful planning, I felt we could succeed and hopefully with minimal loss of Rootless life. After all, what army would dare fight the Empire for long? With them as allies, we could finally shake off the yoke of the gentry. But your father forced my hand. He had Charlie, and I damn well was not going to wait for a foreign army to stop him. My first instinct was to have my people attack, to pretend submission and then swarm the terrace at the last instant. It would, of course, have little likelihood of working, and would probably result in many deaths, and war for the whole country, if the Empire belatedly came to our aid.
“But then David messaged me on the tablet I had been given by the Empire. He was coming to help. We might have a chance to stop the execution and overwhelm your father. But how to stop him from striking back at us? From hunting Charlie again? And punishing you and David? And then it occurred to me that I did have the legal power to stop him, still, after all these years, thanks to the gentry’s foolish obsession with birth order.”
Chunks of snow were sliding off the patio now, carried by the water underneath like icebergs, revealing the platinum symbol below.
“Do I possess the self-control I feared I lacked as a younger man? That remains to be seen, but now I have children who are Rootless, and one may hope that one’s children’s well-being is a sufficient incentive.”
Jamie approached us, and Jack fell silent. “Madeline, can we talk?” Jamie asked. “It’s about your father.”
Jack, who was feeling stiff from the cold, opted to stay downstairs, but Jamie and I climbed up to Father’s room. Inwardly, I prepared myself for the sight of his ugly wounds, but it was unnecessary—clean white bandages had been wrapped around the lower half of his face. He was tucked under several blankets and surrounded by black beeping machines that showed diagnostic interfaces of all his body’s systems. A nurse in white nodded at us and left the room.
“Jamie? What is this about? Is Father okay?”
“Yes. More than okay, actually.”
Jamie walked up to one of the machines and pulled up a screen showing three-dimensional DNA strands, spiraling slowly like a ribbon in the breeze.
“This is your father’s DNA. When we ran tests on his cells to determine if any had become cancerous, not only did we find no trace of pre-cancer, but we saw a type of DNA that we had never seen before.” He zoomed in on part of the strand, and used his finger to highlight part of it. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s seamlessly grafted onto the rest of his genetic code. And what is more, we found that the DNA was repairing itself.”
“Is that strange?”
“DNA repair happens every second of every day—repair from toxins and UV rays and the like. But repair at this speed and efficiency from a radiation injury so severe? I have never heard of anything like it.”
“Does this mean that he will make a complete recovery?” I asked. “Does this mean he will be healthy again?”
Jamie shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m going to ask to use the university’s laboratory to examine this further. It’s fascinating. I wish there were still geneticists who could help us, but I don’t know of any, not around here in any case.”
I sat on the bed and stared at Father. I wondered if he knew about his strange DNA, and if he knew that he was going to be all right. That some strange mechanism that lived within his cells was going to save his life.
I held up my hand, pale and slender in the faint light, and examined it. I shared the Landry name and looks with Father. What else did we share?
• • •
The next week, Father and Mother were removed to the Lodge, along with several nurses and equipment to help in Father’s convalescence. Father was sedated and placed on a gurney. When they loaded him into the ambulance, I realized that I couldn’t see his mouth under the bandages and had no way to see if he was healing as well as Jamie claimed. I kissed his forehead and sent him on his way with as many good wishes as I could muster.
Mother opted for the limousine. I hugged her good-bye.
“Your father and I will be back,” she said, wrapping her fur coat more tightly around herself. “Once your father wakes and regains his strength, Landry Park will belong to him once more. The Uprisen will never acknowledge Jack as their leader.”
“Maybe,” I said. She looked around the house one last time and sniffed in disapproval. I watched their car leave with a mixture of regret and relief.
But I knew she was right. Jack had plans, of course. Plans to pay the Rootless fair wages and give them legal rights. Plans for hospitals and schools. Plans to build solar panels and wind turbines. Plans that sounded idyllic and utopian, but made me wonder if they were going to be subsidized with blood and suffering.
And now that the Empire had all but revealed their alliance to the Rootless outright, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. The government would never stand for a revolt funded by the Empire and the Uprisen would never stand for an attack on their way of life.
Rumors began to swirl of tanks and plans on the other side of the mountains. Jack seemed certain that it was all for our benefit, but I could not summon up the same confidence. I could only remember the horrible pictures from the battle last year.
“We will prevail,” he said one night at dinner. “Perhaps within a few months, this city will change. And when it changes, the country will see how much better things can be.”
Nobody else at the table was listening. Cara and Ewan were whispering and nuzzling at one end, while Charlie was drawing a picture at the other, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Despite a dip in his exuberance and a certain twitchiness in response to sudden noises, he seemed okay. He was alive. Now Cara and Ewan were tracing each other’s features, as if they’d never seen a thing as wondrous as a face before. Jealousy pinged inside me.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I think I’m tired.”
“Go rest. We have been very busy these past two weeks.”
I set down my napkin and left the dining room for the staircase. Someone stepped out of the shadows and bowed. My heart lifted. David.
But it was Jude, smiling and square-jawed and dashing, but Jude all the same. He offered an arm and I took it. In the insanity of the past fortnight, I had forgotten about my debut, about his determination to marry me and have me be his perfect military wife.
“Sorry for the surprise, but I wanted to speak to you alone. Just for a minute.”
“Of course.”
We walked up the stairs, our footsteps muffled on the lush carpet.
“David told me that you and he had kissed.”
I stopped. “Oh, Jude.”
“And that he had feelings for you.”
“I am so sorry,” I said. “I never meant
to lie to you.”
Jude shrugged, but I could see the pain in his face. “I won’t pretend that it doesn’t hurt. I had thought, at least, I had hoped—” and here his fingers found my ring finger. “I would have been a good husband, you know,” he said softly. “Anything you wanted, I would have given to you. Anything.” He leaned in and kissed my hand, his lips warm and dry.
A curious sense of regret tugged at me, along with the feeling I had when I first met him, of having known him before. Maybe I had been wrong in thinking he only wanted me for a partner in his ambition. Maybe he did really care for me.
I swallowed something I didn’t know was in my throat, feeling my chin quiver.
“Go get your coat,” he said, indicating my bedroom. “I will wait here.”
“Why should I get my coat?”
He smiled, a real smile, even though it was thin and small. “Because we are going outside and I’d like to keep my cloak on this time.”
Once I was clad in my coat, Jude led me downstairs and outside, where, in the light of a Cherenkov lantern hanging from the front of the house, David sat in a large sleigh. Two horses stomped impatiently in the front.
“Madeline!” David said cheerfully. “I’ve got enough sake to float this sleigh to St. Louis.”
“I forgot my gloves inside,” Jude said, and disappeared back through the door.
David jumped easily out of the seat and came toward me.
“Did he mention . . .”
I nodded, unable to bring myself to talk about it directly.
David looked downcast. “I had to tell him. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
It seemed to me like Jude had kept my debut a secret from David for long enough, but if male relationships were anywhere near as complicated as the relationships I had with the women in my life, then I knew loyalty could coexist with doubt and omissions and outright lies.
“I understand.” David reached for me, and I couldn’t help it, I reached for him, too. His lips were just as warm, just as searching as they had been the other day in the park, and the same white fire as before lapped at everything with insatiable flames.
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