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Lila wondered how he’d earned it.
“Yes, and those stories have muffled a great deal of the outrage against you,” the oracle said. “If you attend your trial—”
“If I attend? I’m a highborn. We don’t run from our duty, no matter how unpleasant it might be. Neither does the disciplinary committee. Put away your childish ideas, oracle. Public perception does not sway the will of Bullstow. Senators aren’t so preoccupied with romance and love matches. Only the poorer classes can afford such whimsy.”
Dixon hugged Lila, squeezing her tightly. His cold leather coat sucked the heat from her chin.
She wondered if he and Tristan believed the stories in the news. The pictures would have dug under his skin, regardless of whether or not she’d had had some torrid romance with Senator La Roux. She’d told Tristan that her family needed an heir, which was the only reason why she and La Roux had spent a night together in the first place. It hadn’t mattered to Tristan, though. It wouldn’t matter that she’d called out Tristan’s name the entire time. It wouldn’t matter that she’d not realized her true fe
elings about him until that night.
It wouldn’t matter to Tristan that La Roux had turned violent, punching her in the ribs and stomach, strangling her so fiercely that she could not breathe. It wouldn’t matter to him that La Roux had been the source of the Great Purge, a source who had destroyed her life.
Tristan would probably think she deserved it.
Perhaps she did.
“Intervening in my affairs must have cost you,” Lila said after she and Dixon broke apart. “What exactly do you want?”
“I want you to live. The oracles need you to live. Ten hackers have earned the hangman’s noose so far, and fifteen highborn have earned a lifetime of slavery for hiring them. No one has escaped with a day of freedom. The source of the Great Purge had quite the file on each of them.”
“I know. I’ve kept up with the trials.”
“Good, then you know they have a file on you, too. I don’t have to tell you what is plain. No one knows how the committee will rule on your case, but neither punishment works for me and mine. Nor will it work for you. We need you alive, Lila, and we need you free.”
Lila shuffled her boots on the dock. The oracle had never used her first name before. It was a bit presumptuous, but perhaps after Lila’s help six weeks ago, formality had flown out the window. “I think you need my assistance for something now, not for some opaque task in the future.”
“And you’ll need a place to stay, a place where Bullstow can’t touch you.”
“You want to hide a criminal?”
“I want to shelter a friend. A friend who can help us. A friend who, I’m guessing, has done nothing to warrant the trouble she finds herself in.”
“You want to strike a bargain, is that it? I help you, and you’ll help me?”
“No, I’ll help you regardless, and I hope you’ll be bored enough to help me.”
Lila licked her lips. The simple path seemed so easy.
Too easy.
It wasn’t just duty that kept her from running from her trial. If she didn’t go, the committee would condemn her anyway. They’d sentence her to hang, and her father and Chief Shaw would confess their role in her activities, all to save her life. Their testimony would probably reduce the charges against her, but their necks would most likely be forfeit for granting a highborn full access to BullNet. Two would die to protect one. The math didn’t add up.
She’d only run to give them more time to work behind the scenes, and only because her father had ordered it.
She hoped she’d given them enough.
“My matron doesn’t have to force me to attend my trial. I won’t run from it.”
“Fine. Go see what they have to say.”
“You say that like you have a few senators in your pocket.”
The oracle led her down the dock. Dixon and Connell followed along behind them. “I’m afraid I don’t. The fools on the disciplinary committee do not believe in the gods, just like you. Even the lowborn senators don’t. My influence can’t save you, but my people can. They’re already making plans to break you out of Bullstow’s holding cells and deposit you at my gate. I have sovereignty. Bullstow’s laws mean nothing inside my compound.”
Lila paused. If the oracle could do what she said, it might give her father and Shaw a way out. If the hangman’s noose no longer threatened, if her only punishment would be a lifetime spent among the oracle children, then perhaps their part in her troubles could remain hidden.
Unfortunately, running and hiding would harm the Randolphs, crashing the family’s stock. Thousands of people could be affected, highborn and workborn alike.
