“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. Do come in.” I nod to the wiry man who looks like he survives on his wits rather than his fists. “And you are?”
“Skid. I head up sanitation.” He isn’t looking at me directly. This man is weak. No challenge.
The dirty, stoop-shouldered man beside him steps forward. “Jensen.” This one does meet my eye, with a weariness far beyond his twenty years. “I run the incinerator crew.”
“And last, but obviously not least…” I smile, but it lands nowhere with the broad, scowling woman.
“Dot—Laundry.”
I’m assuming that is her work position, not her last name. “Charmed. Now, how may I be of assistance?”
The three look at me as though I’ve two heads.
“I presume you want something? Or have you come to offer me the same loyalty you afforded your previous… master?”
I study them. They smell of bleach, ash, and the acrid scent of the sewers. It’s a sensory assault. Jensen flicks his eyes to the cell where the aforementioned master is silent and unmoving.
When no one speaks, Daniel pushes himself into the space, carrying a chair and puffing out his chest like a pigeon in agutter. He’s a hideous specimen of a man, morally bankrupt, but currently useful as a filter between me and these… laborers.
The three overseers look at Daniel and sneer in unison. A reaction I cannot fault them for. “You’ve got Danny on point?” the laundry-maid grunts. “You really have no idea how this block works, do you?”
“I know that like a clever rat, Daniel was the first to realize the current ship was sinking,” I reply, crossing one leg over the other and lacing my fingers. “I appreciate initiative.”
The wiry one—Skid—looks into the cage at the silent, poisoned man, and Aurora huddled beside him. He sighs, and runs a hand through his already thinning hair.
“Initiative, or whatever, is fine,” he says. “But we have people who need to eat, shit, and sleep. And they need the laundry quotas met so we can get our puny commissary rations. Danny doesn’t care about the block. He cares about what’s in it for him.”
“Watch it, Skid-Mark,” Daniel growls, getting annoyingly fired up.
“Calm down, everyone. Daniel is not ‘on-point’ as you put it, but I am happy to have him as my current eyes and ears. For now, just go about your business as you see fit. I’ll only become annoyed if a wheel comes off your operations, impacting my peace of mind.”
I make a shooing motion. “Run along now.”
I watch Jensen’s throat as he swallows. He is sensibly biting back any dissent. “We’ll do our jobs. Not for you. For the people.”
“A noble sentiment,” I reply. “Daniel, see our friends out.” My new manservant gives a yellow-toothed grin, clearly relishing the power.
As they file off into the dark, I turn to Aurora. She’s staring at me, eyes burning with a disdain I can taste.
Most would find it off-putting. I find it intoxicating. It is the friction that makes the spark. For years, I’ve watched her fromthe periphery of ballrooms and boardrooms, but this… this version of her, stripped of the Elite gloss and fueled by a futile rage? It is a sacrilege I find myself wanting to worship. I cannot deny the thrill it gives me. Why her defiance has such a hold over me is something I’ve never understood.
I just…enjoy it.
“So ill-tempered,ma petite,” I murmur, deliberately pushing her buttons. “But do not fret, François is here now.”
She recoils, hand dropping to an extraordinary carved toothbrush. A new “digger” instinct, no doubt.
That’s fine for now.
Our future is assured; she just doesn’t know it yet.
19. AURORA
The best thing about Quo was being locked away from Thomas Crankshawe and anyone to do with him.
And now his fucking son is staring at me through the bars, a stupid smile spread across his face as he asks me if I slept well.
No, I didn’t sleep well. Asshole.Just as I was getting comfortable with being in a prison, and nightly locked in a cage by Taliesin, everything goes off the fucking rails.
