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When she returned to the High Council chamber and plopped into her crimson chair, Johanna held up her palm. Five minutes past seven flashed back at Lila.
“Let’s begin,” Élise said. “We have a few items to discuss before we call Ms. Park.”
The
group waded through the several items of expected legislation and court cases, weighing convictions and judging laws as good or bad for business. The Low Council of Judges would do the same, one wing over. Whenever the two groups didn’t agree, the highborn would look to the populace to make their decision. If polling indicated a high surge of lowborn and workborn support and it wasn’t too bad for business, the High Council often allowed themselves to be swayed. That was rare, though. Usually, they merely took the most prominent among the Low Council out for tea, offering gentle reminders about who allowed their businesses to run in the city unfettered.
Usually that solved the problem.
From time to time, though, a lowborn disobeyed the highborn and charged ahead on a piece of legislation. From time to time, that lowborn’s business went under.
The matron who conquered the lowborn would win her in the auction house by default, for the other matrons wouldn’t bid. It was one of those unwritten rules of being a highborn. A rare instance of solidarity among rivals.
But nothing tonight was that contentious. The High Council finished their last vote within an hour and sent a servant to fetch Ms. Park from a nearby waiting room.
Lila checked her messages in the interlude, gratified to find Max’s information waiting, as promised. She’d also received a voice message from Captain Regina Randolph, most likely Natalie’s test results. Unfortunately, Lila had no clever excuse to sneak from the room.
The three messages the captain left afterward piqued her curiosity, though.
With effort, she put away her palm as Ms. Park entered, taking her place at the podium, ready to walk them through her proposal. Her silver hair had been tied into an elegant bun, and she wore a simple dress cut in silver. It was daring, very daring to wear silver on such an occasion, but the future chairwoman did not shrink under any displeased looks that came her way. Instead, she matched them, chastising anyone who gave her a critical stare.
Finally, her gaze stopped on Lila’s blackcoat. It was the first time Ms. Park lost her composure, though only for a split-second. As far as she was concerned, Lila had taken down an entire family, a family her mother had already put in checkmate years before. That was what happened to families who angered the Randolphs.
The blackcoat might be the most dangerous one of all.
Lila wondered if Ms. Park knew she could crush her dreams in an instant. Her eldest son had made a mockery of Bullstow, and the woman likely knew everything he’d been up to. She had to suspect that Lila could have found out as well, that she could stop the entire meeting and have her son brought before the council to answer for every piece of circumstantial nonsense he’d done in his not-so illustrious career. If that didn’t work, she could always mention Bo Park, that distant cousin who had just been arrested in the same sting as Natalie Holguín. She too had been caught in Reaper’s web.
After that, the council would balk at admitting her into the highborn.
But Lila didn’t believe that Ms. Park should lose her shot due to an idiot son and a distant relation, though it did make for an awfully nice trump card until the Park family’s confirmation became official.
Ms. Park cleared her throat and looked away, shuffling the papers on the podium.
“The next item on the agenda,” Élise began, “is Ms. Suji Park’s request to join New Bristol’s highborn. Ms. Park, we have copies of your proposal. Begin when you are ready.”
Lila flipped through the booklet, which described Ms. Park’s tenure on the Low Council of Judges, as well as the facts and figures of her family, outlining every company and holding, at least the ones she wanted the rest of the highborn to know about. Her R&D departments seemed much too small, but they all knew the bulk of it would be hidden to stave off corporate espionage. Lila skimmed the sections detailing how the Parks might partner with each family, expanding upon their business interests and increasing everyone’s revenue.
As Ms. Park droned on about her proposed expansions, Lila put down the booklet and studied the woman, ignoring the whole load of fluff and twaddle coming from the potential matron’s mouth. Ms. Park would sit on the council in a few months. They’d throw her a party, and she’d be thrown into the viper pit.
Gods help the woman.
Lila’s mother had called them potential allies, which meant that Lila would be sent to meet with her and her eldest daughter, to explain in blunt detail how to navigate the new world they’d been thrust into, to give them the cards of a few tailors, not tailors that impressed the lowborn, but tailors who were only acceptable to the highborn and their spoiled children.
Ms. Park had been ballsy to dress as she had, and she’d been ballsy to look the High Council in the eye and not flinch, except perhaps a bit with Lila. Ms. Park’s daughter was a copy of her mother. She’d make a strong prime and a strong matron. Neither understood the show of it, though. Neither understood how to play their parts.
That was half the game.
One thing was for sure: if Ms. Park grew annoyed at the appalling waste of time Lila often encountered during High Council meetings, then Lila might have found a friend.
Well, not exactly a friend. Matrons and primes were never friends. Lila and Alex couldn’t have been, not if Alex had become the Wilson’s prime.
But they could be friendly.
“If you’ll look on page forty-two,” Ms. Park said, moving on to the most trivial bits of her proposal, “I have included the request for my family’s colors.”
Lila sat up, mildly curious what color the new family would wear. But when she turned the page, she couldn’t help but laugh.
Gold. Ms. Park would ask for the Wilson family color before their matron had even been executed. She either had moxie, or she was completely blind to the significance of her play.
