Dear Elliot, It depends. Will you make boxes for this new list?
Yours, Kai.
Seventeen.
"YOU LOOK RADIANT, DEE," Kai said. "I"m so glad you could make it tonight."
He looked radiant, too. Smack in his element, decked out in an oxblood jacket that soaked up the light from the lanterns and set off the darkness of his black hair. In these colors, he stood out from all the other partygoers, but then again, Elliot might have thought he stood out anyway. She drew her knees up to her chest. She wore her old black dress with a lavender sweater over it. It didn"t hold a candle to the Post clothes, but it was the brightest color she owned. Now, she didn"t know what she"d been thinking. Trying to emulate the Post style of dress did nothing to make her fit in. It only served to highlight her shortcomings.
"I"m happy to see you, too, Malakai," said Dee, stressing the last syllable. "I have heard some disturbing things. Perhaps you wish to clarify for us-"
"I"d be happy to, later," said Kai. "Right now, I need to dance with Ro. She"ll think I"m snubbing her." Ro looked up at the sound of her name. "Dance with me, Ro?"
The girl hopped up and right into his arms. Kai laughed and spun her away. Elliot tugged at the fraying cuffs of her sweater and tried to forget how well she knew that laugh.
"Try as I might," Dee said, "I can"t hate him completely, Elliot. He hasn"t forgotten where he came from."
"I wouldn"t want you to, Dee. You"d be no better than Andromeda if you did." The jig went on and on, and Donovan"s music became more frantic and frenetic by the moment. As mournful as his last piece had been, it was utterly eclipsed by the melodies reeling off his fiddle now, as if he could exorcise his pain if only he could find the proper chord progression. The music was overwhelming in its intensity. Donovan must be some sort of prodigy-even Luddites with a lifetime of training didn"t possess such talent.
Dee still watched Kai. "But his behavior now is inexcusable."
"He doesn"t want to be my friend. It"s his choice."
"What choice did he give the Fleet girl, or did he simply poison her mind against you?"
"Drop it, Dee. This is the way it is. Like so many other things." Elliot took a breath. "The way it is."
Dee shook her head. "I refuse to believe that. Look at us, here. Together, listening to music on a Luddite estate. It"s like the old days, Elliot. And look at Kai, who went away and made something of himself. I want that for Jef. I want it for this baby, whoever he or she is. They have been born into a thrilling time. It"s even like that song Donovan sang-the world isn"t a certain way. We reinvent it, every day, something new. It"s changing around us, as fast as a weed taking root."
And yet, Thom was still in exile. And her father had plowed under her wheat. And her grandfather lay dying in his room back at the house because treatments that could help him were illegal under the Luddite laws. This winter they had money and food, thanks to the Cloud Fleet. But what would become of the people on the North estate in the years to come? What else could they rent? How could they make do?
If things were changing, it wasn"t nearly fast enough to suit Elliot.
She watched Kai and Ro dance. Long after the song ended and another began, they remained out there. Kai danced with Olivia again, and Ro with anyone-Grove Posts, Jef, all by herself beneath the swinging lanterns. Part of Elliot wished to join her, but then she caught sight of Kai whirling very close, Olivia Grove held tightly in his arms, and her legs remained glued to the blanket. She could not dance on the same ground as him.
She shouldn"t have come tonight. She"d thought she could enjoy the company of friendly faces and ignore the ones who weren"t, but she couldn"t. Not until she could teach herself to stop looking for Kai at every chance.
The dancers whirled on inside their island of light. Above the bobbing lanterns, Elliot could see a few stars flickering in the sky-the Cross; the pointers; Scorpius, its tail slashed across the sky; and Antares glimmering like the red heart of one of Ro"s flowers. Most of the smaller stars weren"t visible in the glow of the sun-lamps. Elliot wondered if this is what the skies had looked like once upon a time, when there was so much light in the air that no one could see the stars.
"Are you here to keep the pregnant woman company?" Dee asked.
"I"m tired myself," Elliot said, and hoped she sounded convincing. "It"s been a long week, and I still haven"t figured out what"s wrong with the tractor."
"Don"t beat yourself up too hard, Miss," said Gill, looking up from his third mug of cider. "We won"t need it again for another few months."
"We could always have a visiting mechanic take a look," Dee suggested, a mischievous smile on her face.
"Don"t you dare," Elliot said. If it were spring, she"d consider swallowing her pride enough to ask Kai for help. But she had a few more months yet. The crops weren"t in any danger. She still had time to fix it without risking Kai ill.u.s.trating her incompetence.
By now, many of the Posts not dancing had taken out their instruments and were adding to the din. There was still an undercurrent of melody, if you listened hard enough, but with dozens of string-boxes and pipes, with the drums and the fiddle and the voices and the hand clapping, it was difficult to identify exactly what the song was.
It was also growing harder and harder to hear the flow of conversation. Over here, a bunch of Grove Posts were talking about the likelihood of getting jobs and leaving with the Fleet. Over there, a knot of North Posts was discussing a drainage problem on the new racetrack.
Ro came rushing up to her and broke her from her reverie. The girl was breathing hard, her face flushed, her scarf askew. She held tight to Kai"s hand, but he was a few steps behind her, their arms outstretched to their limits. Dee regarded him coldly, and Elliot did her best to keep her eyes averted.
"Dance!" cried Ro. She held out her other hand for Elliot.
"No, I"m fine right here," said Elliot. As Ro captured her hand, she squeezed back to rea.s.sure her, but refused to let the Reduced girl pull her to her feet.
Ro shook her head with gusto. "No! Dance!" She yanked on Kai"s arm to bring him forward, then tried to place his hand in Elliot"s.
For a moment their knuckles brushed, then they each pulled back.
"Ro, please don"t do that," said Elliot. "I don"t want to dance."
"And certainly not with me."
Elliot"s gaze shot to Kai, but as usual, his face was unreadable. At least tonight he was looking at her, though she found herself fighting the urge to squirm beneath his gaze. His eyes had become so cold, so alien, in the past four years.
"Certainly not," repeated Dee. "Not with the way you"ve been treating her ever since you showed up here."
"Dee!" Elliot cried.
"Oh," said Kai. "Have I been somehow remiss in my duties as a North Post? How rude of me. Guess it"s good I"m not a North Post anymore."
Elliot closed her lips over a gasp.
"None of that, boy!" said Gill. "You"re not too old for me to turn you over my knee. Your da would expect me to if he heard you talking that way about Miss Elliot."
"My father would be glad to know I"m no longer forced to pretend I"m happy with a slave"s lot in life."
Her breath became choked in her throat. That couldn"t be true. He couldn"t have been her friend all those years simply because she was the master"s daughter. Not all those letters. Not all those hours in the barn. Not what they"d shared.
"If you are . . . ," Kai said, and let his words hang in place.
"Kai!" Elliot cried, and stood. It was a lie. It was a lie because he was still angry at her. It had to be. "Stop it. Stop it right now. You can be as cruel as you want to me, and I"ll bear it with no complaint. But do not take your anger out on these people who have never done anything to you." Andromeda might hate her because of how the Post girl thought she"d betrayed Kai, but it was Kai who"d left Elliot and the others alone on the estate. They had a right to anger as well.
"Protecting your CORs, how n.o.ble," he replied. "And how effective it is-at least when your father"s not around."
Elliot blinked, then blinked again, as her eyes began to burn. Ro started to whimper.
"Any Post who remains on this estate is a slave, and they know it. And if they are afraid to leave, that makes them cowards as well."
"That"s it," said Gill, standing and brushing crumbs of pie from his pants. "I"ve had enough lip from you-"
"You have no right to belittle the choices made by me and mine, Malakai Wentforth, or whatever you"re calling yourself these days," said Dee, still seated. Her voice was calm, but then again, she"d been defending her choice to stay after Thom left for years. "Not when you"re off flirting with Olivia Grove all night. She"s a Luddite, too, don"t forget."
"Olivia has no love for the estate way of life. She knows we"re the future and embraces it."
"Easy for her to do, when she"s grown up in the Luddite lap of luxury," Dee pointed out, her voice textured with the patience of a decade spent dealing with children.
The same could not be said for Gill. "You"re upsetting a pregnant woman, boy, and you"re disrespecting all the people who helped you get raised-including Miss Elliot here. And you"ll stop it right now or I"ll fight you and I don"t care if I"ve got twenty years on you . . ."
"Stop it," said Elliot, holding out her hands between Kai and Gill. Nearby, Ro was openly weeping. These were her friends. Her true friends, not nice to her because she was a North, not nice because she might be able to help them. Kai could hate her now, he could even claim he hadn"t loved her at all, but he couldn"t speak for the rest of them. "There will be no fighting at the Innovations" party."
"Oh, yes, Miss," Kai drawled in a mocking appropriation of Gill"s voice. "Whatever you say."
"That"s it," said Gill, and stepped forward. Elliot moved in between them.
"I said stop it!"
Kai grabbed her by the wrists. "You"ll fight . . . for her?" he asked them.
Elliot tried to move away, but his grip was too tight. Ever since the day on the beach, she"d wanted him to touch her again. But not like this.
"You"ll do anything . . . for her?" He shook their hands as Elliot struggled to get free. "And you don"t sit here and wonder why none of you have string-boxes anymore, why none of you have listened to a lick of music in three years?"
"Let go," Elliot said. The folks on other blankets had begun to look over, despite the music and the revelry. Ro was tugging in vain at Kai"s sleeve. Gill"s face had turned crimson with anger. "Let go. Please, let go."
"You don"t miss the people she"s responsible for driving away? Dee? You don"t?"
"I put the blame where it belongs, Kai," was all Dee said. "Now stop making a scene. This is no example for my son."
"Neither is living here," Kai growled. "You"re idiots, all of you. Believe me. I thought that way once." He drew her in and stared into her eyes. Elliot flinched. His gaze was dark, so dark. His eyes seemed filled with more stars than the sky above. Now she could see it was more than just a trick of the light. His eyes had changed in the last four years. She didn"t know such a thing was possible.
"I thought she could protect me, too. I thought she cared. But it"s all a lie." He released her and she stumbled back, holding tight to her wrists and her tears. This was Kai. The Kai she"d loved from the moment she knew what that meant.
But she didn"t know him at all.
"Ma!" Jef came running up. "Ma-"
"Not now, Jef," said Dee, standing and putting her arms around the boy. "It"s all right."
"But Ma," said Jef, as the music died. "It"s not all right. The baron"s here."
Eighteen.
BARON NORTH WAS NOTHING if not civil to his tenants, but declined to stay more than a few moments at the party on the Boatwright lands. He paid his respects to Felicia Innovation and made arrangements for a more thorough meeting with the admiral the following day. Then he crooked his finger at Elliot, who"d trailed forward a few steps from the near-melee going on at the North Posts" blanket. Had he seen what had transpired among his servants? Had he recognized Kai? Elliot got the distinct impression that she was very close to making a bad situation much worse.
"You will meet me in my office in half an hour," said Baron North, in a voice barely audible over the few instruments still in use.
Elliot nodded. "Yes, sir." But her father had already climbed back into his carriage. Elliot caught a glimpse of another male figure inside as it drove away. He hadn"t even offered her a ride back to the house. She should leave quickly, if she hoped to make herself presentable before she was required to meet with him.
"I"ll take care of Ro," said Dee, coming up to her. "You should hurry."
Gill and Kai were still glaring at each other as if they"d come to blows the moment she turned her back.
"I won"t let them fight," Dee said. "Gill wouldn"t risk it now, anyway."
No one knew what the baron might do, least of all Elliot. He couldn"t hold the concert against them, could he? They were merely listening to the music provided by the Fleet, Olivia, and the Grove Posts.
Elliot quickly took her leave of her hosts and turned toward the path leading home. If she ran, she"d have more time to prepare herself, but then again, she might be in worse shape.
What was certain, however, was that she had no time to think about Kai. She rubbed her hands over her wrists, which still tingled where he"d touched her. His grip hadn"t been hard enough to hurt, but it had hardly been tender, either. And his words . . . she"d known he was angry, but now she wondered if he hated her. If he"d always hated her.
Had he hated her the day her mother died? Had he hated her the day after?
No. She refused to believe it. Hating her now was bad enough, but she could survive it. She"d been doing well these past four years, like a fallen tree that clung to the ground and continued to grow, despite all odds. Elliot"s roots were buried deep, and nothing Kai could say would convince her that the soil was any less solid.
The temperature had plummeted in the hours since the sun had set. They"d have a frost tonight. Above her head, branches waved in the autumn wind, sending dry, crackling leaves into the air, and swirling them into eddies and tiny tornadoes at her feet. She couldn"t see them well in the darkness, but she heard their crunch and whisper, and caught glimpses of their movement. They were lucky in the islands, she had always learned. Lucky to be free of wolves and bears and giant, fanged-toothed cats. There were rabbits, and possums, and egg-eating stoats, but nothing that could hurt a person. She"d read stories, growing up, where children were attacked by lions or eaten by wolves, but she"d never feared the darkness or the forest. The Luddites ruled the world.
Elliot was barely one hundred meters down the road when she heard the crunch of gravel beneath wheels. She turned, and saw a sun-cart gaining on her, its headlights unlit, even in the darkness. The cart pulled up beside her. Andromeda and Ro sat inside.
"Get in," said Andromeda. "I"ll take you back."
Absolutely not. "This isn"t necessary-"
"Of course it is," the older girl said. "You"re terrible at protecting them, but you"re all they"ve got."
Elliot climbed into the car. "I am doing this because the cart will get me back to my house more quickly."
"I am doing this," the Post girl said, her tone world-weary, "because I don"t think I"ve been entirely fair to you."
That was putting it mildly. In the privacy of the darkness, Elliot thought it safe to roll her eyes.
"Yes," Andromeda said, as if in agreement. "I don"t have too much pride to admit that." She took off. Within moments, the sun-cart seemed to have reached full speed-or at least as fast as it went on reserve power. They whizzed past the shadowy silhouettes of trees and bounced hard over tree roots and dips in the trail. Elliot couldn"t even see the path in front of the wheels, but it didn"t seem to slow Andromeda down. At least she could be certain of reaching home in time. She might even catch up to her father.
"Besides," Andromeda went on, "there must be some reason you can collect all these Post admirers. And I hear Ro here has excellent taste."
In the darkness, Elliot squeezed Ro"s hand. How much of their conversation could the Reduced girl pick up? "I thought the prevailing opinion would be that someone Reduced doesn"t know any better."
"My mother was Reduced," said Andromeda. "Still had more sense than most people I know."
She steered them around a corner at a speed Elliot found imprudent, given the darkness. She couldn"t see a thing ahead of her. "Don"t you want the headlights on?"
Andromeda grunted and flicked a switch. Elliot and Ro flinched in the sudden glare, but Andromeda didn"t slow down at all.