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Now, she wasn’t so sure.
She wasn’t sure about other things. She and her father had always kept highborn crimes quiet in an attempt to prevent anarchy and chaos.
But Tristan’s words had eaten at her over the last few days.
How much longer did the workborn have to wait?
They saw highborn after highborn charged with lesser crimes, escaping a hangman’s noose while those of their station did not. The same crime she’d keep within the family for a Randolph—so long as it happened on a Randolph property—she’d send along to Bullstow as an arrest if a workborn had done it.
It had seemed right at the time.
“As long as the poor aren’t starving, as long as they have just enough to buy a few trinkets to take their minds off the inequality around them, most of them will never think too deeply or complain too much,” Olivier said. “They have the next game to buy, the next movie to see, the next book to read. But some of your workborn are struggling to pay the circus’s admission. You’re beginning to lose more of them. The puppeteer has turned on the music, and he jiggles the strings and watches his little army dance.”
“Who is the puppeteer?”
“No idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in a position of power. Someone has created a release valve. They spin the nozzle and wait for the discontents to blow off a little steam. All controlled, just like everything in these people’s lives.”
“So are you a fan or a member?”
“Both.” He laughed. “I joined the Red Phoenix Army and the ones who wear the brown coats.”
Dixon pulled off the wall and scribbled on his notepad. Never seen him before. He’s lying.
“What have you done as a member of the Red Phoenix Army?” Lila asked.
“I’ve attended a few meetings and protests. I protested outside your trial, and I protested when Bullstow set you free. It stirred up the group, but they don’t seem to be doing anything about it. Not yet, anyway.”
“And the other group?”
“I heard only rumors at first. I had to get a job at the Holguín winery before they’d take me on. A favor here, a favor there. I guess that’s how—”
“You let them in for a robbery.”
Olivier grinned.
“That wasn’t the only robbery you let them in for. The nitro?”
He laughed. “I had a job at the Weberly compound before the winery. I made myself valuable to their interests.”
Who’s your captain?
“Frank Tully. He’s doesn’t trust me yet. He didn’t even contact me about the warehouse job. My friends died because of that oaf. I’ll kill him for it one day.”
Dixon and Lila breathed easier. “Somehow I doubt you’ll get your chance,” Lila said. “Did Camille know of this other mission?”
“Why would she? She and Achille had one task. I had the others.”
“Tell me about the rest.”
“I was also sent to observe Fort Rose and get a feel for how well armed the capital is.”
“What did you find?” prompted Connell.
“That you train the starving to be killers, that you buy their loyalty with better prospects and the illusion of hope. Our army is better and far less civilized. If we had the same numbers as the Allied Lands, we could have taken you ages ago, regardless of what your oracles see. Our error was in letting you ally. Our error was in allowing you to colonize.”
“You didn’t have a choice. You failed to stop us.”
“Proxy wars,” Olivier spat. “American colonists lobbing rocks against our empire in the south.”
