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“Did you bring chocolate?”
“No.”
“Then this is a crap Candygram,” Lila said, snatching up her novel. “Bullstow might have followed you. I have to go.”
“I wasn’t followed. Give me more credit than that.” The oracle turned and jutted her chin toward the massive purplecoat. “That’s Connell. He’s the chief of my militia. He’s—”
“Sloppy. Or at least he could be. I don’t know him well enough to trust that he’s competent.”
“You know that I am. I think I’ve proven it. If you challenge me again, then I’ll have Connell toss you into the lake. Do you want to go for a swim?”
“I have tranqs.”
“Fine. I’ll push you in myself. I enjoy getting my hands dirty from time to time.”
“You think I won’t shoot an oracle?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” she said. “Chef Ana isn’t the only one who’s worried, you know. Dixon and Tristan are worried too, though Tristan has too much pride to say so. You two broke up, I see.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Lila stood up and tucked her novel into her coat pocket.
“Maybe we should.”
“Why? There’s nothing to tell. Don’t let the newspapers fool you.” Lila’s throat closed at the truth of it. When she’d left her mother’s compound, she’d intended on confessing her feelings to Tristan, to beg for his forgiveness, to admit that she loved him even though she’d realized it too late.
She’d been ready to lay out her feelings and have a real conversation, rather than push him away. She’d even been ready to succumb to his terms, to vow that she’d never take another lover if that was what he wished.
Unfortunately, she’d never had the chance. The day after the New Bristol Times broke her story online, they’d published two more in the print version. One story gave an in-depth account of how she’d pilfered information from BullNet, located on page two. But on the first page, Heartbroken Heir Runs Away from Home had been written in bold font. A picture of the grinning Senator La Roux lay underneath. The gossip columnists had kept up the romance angle all month until her arrest warrant had become a side story. They claimed that she’d fled because of La Roux’s death and her sorrow over it, rather than the charges against her and her arrest warrant. The daily barrage must have slapped Tristan every time he opened the paper.
Her father had likely planted the stories while he parlayed with the senate disciplinary committee, trying to get her sentence reduced or lifted.
“The heartbroken heir,” the oracle said, standing. “I like it better than the hanged heir, don’t you?”
“Heartbroken? I hardly knew Senator La Roux.”
“That’s not what I read. You’d been friends for years, and he died the night after you finally consummated your relationship. How tragic.”
Lila stuffed her hands into her pockets.
“Of course, I also read that you and Senator La Roux had been secret lovers for years, which is why he rarely took other partners. You were a rare love match among the highborn. Another said you’d both had plans to elope. It’s a tragedy that Senator La Roux died so suddenly, but you’ve become quite the sympathetic figure.”
“Yes, my father’s been hard at work.”
“Your father?”
Lila shrugged uncertainly. “Or my mother. She had to explain my absence somehow. Matrons don’t look too kindly upon those who steal from Bullstow. They look even less kindly on those who run from a warrant. Luckily, she returned my mark before I ran. It looks good for her. It makes it look like she figured out what I’d done and kicked me out of the family, just as a matron should.”
“Your parents didn’t place those stories, and you know it. I have many contacts, Ms. Randolph, and I’ve used those contacts to good advantage. I needed time to find you, and I didn’t want competition. No one wants to cash in a bounty on a tragic figure. They’d be in the papers for all the wrong reasons.”
“You don’t get into that line of work because you care about things like that.”
“I thinned the competition, then.”
“Spoken like a matron. Why bother helping me?”
“I told you before that you’re important to us. Your upcoming trial hasn’t changed that.”
“That upcoming trial begins tomorrow,” Lila reminded her as Dixon and the purplecoat joined them. A scar ran across the purplecoat’s throat. He hadn’t gotten it by digging out a slave’s chip before his sentence ended, like Dixon. Dixon’s scar was tidy and medical and rested on the side of his throat. The purplecoat’s scar was messy and full of intention.
