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28

AMITY

I havebutterflies all afternoon while Ren flits around the main house, working on a project to put new windows in. I’m glad it’s warm out today.

By evening the banging of the hammer is so loud I head over to the trailer to hide in my room. There’s no more word from the PS so I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, faded and grubby.

I'm not equipped for this mission, or anything else we’re doing tonight. I have two knives now, that I bought at the market, but still no training in how to use them.

I’m better off with the self-defense skills we practiced at school. Our instructor emphasized how vital it is to protect yourself and your friends. But we mostly ignored her. I’m lucky I tried because that’s what I do. I’m a trier. I like to do a good job. I like to please my teachers.

So here I am. Just stick me on a depo train and send me out into the world with nothing but money and highlysketchy instructions for getting to Anchorage and spying on the Forge.

I stare at the ceiling some more, thinking about it all, when I hear voices through the window. They’re coming from the main house. Two low voices, and one of them is Vale.

I hurry out of bed, grabbing a brush to run it through my hair. I’m dressed in dark jeans and one of the T-shirts I’ve been wearing around. Hopefully this will work for the party we’re going to. I have a feeling it won’t be like a PS party. I hardly ever went to them anyway.

When I get to the main house Eli is there. I haven’t seen him in a couple days. He’s working on the revolution at all hours of the day and night, apparently.

At the moment he’s spouting off about authoritarianism masquerading as harmony, and the uses of destabilizing insubordination.

“Eli.” I turn, seeing Ren and Vale. Vale is on this side of the empty window frame, and Ren is on the outside.

I laugh. Ren put Vale to work installing our windows.

“And you have to remember that the consolidation of power ensures that the parameters of existence are dictated by the elite,” Eli lectures Vale.

I don’t know Eli well enough to ask him to leave Vale alone, but Ren jumps in.

“Eli. Give the man a break, he just got here.”

“Hi, Ami,” Vale says, scraping the exposed wood. Ren is pulling off old pieces of the sash and liner.

“Just a second, let me get this,” they grunt at Vale, pulling a long strip of wood from the side of the window frame.

Sorry,I mouth to Vale and he shrugs helplessly. At the Forge he’s in charge, son of the king. Here he’s free labor, apparently.

“Ami, can we talk someplace?” Vale asks.

“Hang on there, handsome,” Ren cuts in and I bite back a smile. “One more in the back.”

“It’s okay,” I tell Vale as he follows to scrape another frame for Ren.

Eli and Qilan are chopping vegetables in the kitchen and I offer to help. Eli is talking a mile a minute but Qilan is quiet, watching me.

“You’re going off with him?” she asks me.

“Yeah. To a solstice party?” I say it like a question.

Qilan’s forehead wrinkles. “Where?” she asks.

“At the Brotherhood.”

Even Eli stops talking to stare at me. “I hope you have a good reason. You’re going with him?”

“He was invited,” I say defensively. “I’m just going along as a…guest.”

Qilan snorts and together they start shoveling vegetables into a pot. She and Eli exchange a wry look.