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Lila turned off the radio. “The oracle’s compound. I should have known.”
Dixon drove up to the guardhouse. Over the wall, Lila spied the green roofs and smoking chimneys of a hundred log cabins, their expans
ive windows letting in the midday sun. Unlike a highborn estate, the oracle’s compound lacked a central tower piercing the sky. Instead, a five-story building crafted of log and stone sat in the middle, its roof shallow, its balconies wide and inviting.
The oracle’s administration building. Lila had seen a picture once.
The gatehouse door opened. A purplecoat marched crisply to the truck and knocked on the glass.
Dixon rolled down the window.
“Lila? Dixon?” he asked as he tapped out the truck’s information into his palm. Bursts of static hissed from the radio perched on his shoulder.
“How do you know our names?”
First names.
It annoyed her that he’d referred to her so casually.
Then again, perhaps she didn’t belong to the highborn any longer.
Perhaps she’d have to get used to it.
The purplecoat didn’t seem to notice her irritation. He unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket. Her face had been drawn as though she’d sat for a sketch artist. Lila had been scrawled along the bottom in block letters. “We all know your face and your name. We were told to expect you this afternoon with a man named Dixon.”
He folded up the sketch, returned it to his pocket, then quickly finished taking down her information on his palm. His fingers darted to the radio on his shoulder. “Delilah, grab a cart and take our guests to see Kenna. I’ll send a message on ahead to let her know that you’re coming.”
“Yes, sir,” Lila heard through a cluster of fog and scratches.
The metal gate opened slowly. “Follow the cart to the administration building,” he said. “You can leave your truck parked outside.”
The guard marched away and reentered the gatehouse.
“Did you contact the oracle while I was speaking with my father and let her know we’d be coming?”
Dixon nodded sheepishly.
“Good. It gives me the creeps when she says she saw me in a vision.”
Dixon pulled the truck through the open gate. They followed an electric cart as it wheezed its way toward the main building, barely faster than walking. Purplecoats and the occasional woman dressed in fur and white robes flitted throughout the compound. Most people wore normal clothes, though, clothes Lila might have seen in New Bristol.
Sort of.
Here people wore color. Lots of it. Lila had never seen such a rainbow in one place, for highborn only wore their family’s color. Lowborn tended to pick their own and wear it exclusively, trying to start a tradition amongst their own family. Workborn and slaves could only wear color if they held a contract, and only the color belonging to their employer’s family.
The oracles had no such rules, save for the lilac robe of the oracle and the purple coats and gray uniforms of the militia. Lila saw bright pink jackets and navy hats, forest-green trousers and plaid socks, bright red boots and aqua sweaters.
All mixed and matched and rarely monochromatic.
“I believe we have found your people, Dixon.”
His dimples reappeared.
The cart stopped before the central building. The first floor had been made of the same stone as the wall around the compound, and it extended several meters before pine took over. Columns of the uncut timber burst through the front of the building, looking as though they’d been planted and coaxed into place, rather than cut and hewn. The top blended into the same darkly stained wood as the cabins throughout the compound.
The purplecoat hopped out of her cart. Her dark hair curled around her ears, barely reaching her chin. “If you’ll follow me, please.”
Lila followed as the young woman spun and marched away. It felt odd not to hear “madam” or “chief” after every sentence. Perhaps the purplecoat did not know she was highborn. Perhaps none of them knew her as anything more than Lila.
