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I’d come to the conclusion that the best solution would be to level this city, tear down every cell wall everywhere, and let everyone go free to choose their own lives. Total anarchy, in other words. It would be so awesome.
“Just go.” Her snide voice broke into my fantasy. “I’m tired. You can do this tomorrow, after you bring up my breakfast tray.”
It took a lot of willpower to keep my face expressionless, and to ruthlessly force down the shriek boiling up inside me over the words “breakfast tray.”
But this wasn’t about me, my feelings. I was on a mission. I was supposed to be an emotionless weapon, as I’d been trained. Somehow the last month had broken down some of my walls. I was tired, too.
I nodded to her, my eyes down, and backed out of her highness’s room.
This job had no set hours—it was ten o’clock at night now, and I’d just been let go. If she’d wanted to keep me working till three in the morning, she could. That was one way living in a cell was better than here—we had regular work hours, by law.
The servants’ rooms were up in the attic, but I took a chance and headed to the basement, where the kitchen was. I saw the occasional roving guard—sometimes we nodded at each other. The rest of the house was quiet—all the privileged people were of course asleep in their feather beds.
In the servants’ dining hall, I found Nate asleep, his arms pillowing his head on the table. For just a minute I looked at him, remembering that Cassie loved him. He was no longer the smooth-talking, finely groomed Provost’s son. Once upon a time, he may have fit in here at the palace. He was rougher now, his hair longer and unkempt, a shadow of red beard across his jaw. I saw his hands—they were red and chapped, almost raw. How the Provost’s son had fallen.
I shook his shoulder—we had a lot of information to exchange. He woke, drowsy and grumpy. “Come on, Cinderella,” I said briskly, and he frowned.
Just then the head housekeeper, Mrs. Argyle, came in. “What are you two still doing down here?” she snapped. “Get upstairs, and mind you be quiet about it!”
Nate looked at me, and I barely managed a shrug. The male servants slept in one attic wing, and the females on the other side of the house. We couldn’t exchange info tonight.
Ten minutes later I lay on my narrow, hard cot (which was still heaven after the Crazy House) and wondered where in the world the President was. How could I kill him if I couldn’t even find him?
91
THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I delivered Miss Mia’s breakfast tray, she wordlessly pointed to a small pile of lacy bits of cloth that barely deserved to be included in the clothing category. I took them into the bathroom and filled the sink with soapy water.
This was all bullshit, I fumed. This couldn’t have been what Strepp had in mind. True, Blondie McMystery Man had seemed pretty solid in his creds and planning. But really? How was washing goddamn underwear part of the larger plan? I wondered how Bunny and the rest of the squad were managing in their new roles. Each of them had been assigned a role to play—not in the palace, like me and Nate, but still decent assignments.
I was rinsing the clothes maybe a bit too roughly when Miss Mia came in and I had to put on my ridiculously inappropriate submissive face.
“I’m going to a riding lesson,” she said without looking at me. “Change the sheets on my bed and be sure to dust the bookshelves.”
Okay. This was more like it. As soon as I was sure she was gone, I searched her room again, tapping the walls, listening for hidden doors to a safe room or an escape route. I found nothing. Simultaneously I looked for bugs and cameras, any kind of alarm system, any kind of surveillance, and to my surprise I found nothing. The only visible alarm nodes were on the windows. Strepp had explained that rich people usually had personal surveillance or panic buttons.
Next, the bookcases. Dust cloth in hand, my eyes raked the titles of hundreds of books, looking for anything that could help me. The Proud History of the United caught my eye and I pulled it out, then pushed it back in fast as the door was opened.
That was a quick lesson, I thought, but turned blank-faced to see—not Mia.
“Well, hello there,” a guy said. I guessed he was from the family—he had Mia’s dark hair and blue eyes but hadn’t been so lucky in the bone structure or the acne-free skin. I just looked at him.
“I’m Master Kirt,” he said. “Miss Mia’s big brother.”
92
RIGHT AWAY MY FINGERS ITCHED for a weapon. His oily voice made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“Sir,” I said quietly, and continued to carefully dust the books.
“They said the new maid was a looker,” Kirt said. “They weren’t wrong.”
I said nothing—all I needed was Mrs. Argyle hearing me telling Kirt to go stuff himself. She’d probably cut my tongue out.
He came closer. He reminded me of a snake, the kind of snake that farmers cut the head off of with a shovel.
“Are you assigned only to my sister?” he asked. “Or are you part of my father’s entourage as well? He’s due back today.”
I almost stopped dusting. Finally! Something useful from this most useless of families! The President was due back today!
