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55
Finlay wakes earlier than all of us. When he sees my head poking out blearily from the blankets, as he struggles to yank his school shoes onto his feet, he murmurs in explanation, “Gonnae get a’ the papers before anyone else can nab ‘em. See whit they say. Hide them from the others and stick ‘em back only when we’re done.” His gaze falls to Luke, whose eyes are now closed while maintaining the same position as earlier, only this time his arms are crossed over his chest. “When’d he come back?”
“I don’t know. It was light outside.”
“He’s covered in soot,” Finlay grumbles, dusting himself down. “And nowI’mcovered in soot.”
“Give him a break,” I say around a yawn, slumping back down onto Danny’s chest and drawing Rory’s tight arms around me more.
Finlay’s mouth twists to the side. “I’m just tryin’ tae act normal.” As he gazes down at Luke’s typically serene face, he says, “I’ve nae idea how tae talk tae him. No’ when this is a’ my fault.”
It strikes me how curious it is that so many of us can lay claim to the death of the queen. The only one who hasn’t tried so far is Danny, and that’s because Danny is a pure and gentle soul who’s smart enough to stay far away from all politics, while the rest of us gravitate toward it like idiotic, flame-attracted moths.
“He’d tell you to stop being an egoist, you know,” I murmur, and only then does a faint smile appear on Finlay’s mouth.
I wave him off as he leaves. He tells me he’ll be in the library if we need either him or the newspapers he’s planning on poaching. I remain in bed, surrounded by the protective warmth of the others, and think about how the world is closing in on all of us. If this is the ritual, then is it planning to offer a reprieve? Or is this it until the end of days, bad news followed by worse news until it feels like there’s literally no point in getting out of bed?
My desire to hibernate is fast increasing.
In catastrophes, doing the normal thing takes a superhuman amount of strength. It’s why I remain curled between Rory and Danny for as long as I can, gazing at Luke in sleepy wonder.
But then morning turns into routine, and as quickly as we’d fallen asleep together, the desire for human essentials, primarily food, eventually claims us. Rory looks startled but pleased to find Luke deeply snoozing on the opposite side of the bed. All of us go down to breakfast as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb Luke, and find out what Finlay’s learned.
“Sophia Milton was murdered,” Finlay informs us by way of a greeting when we go to see him in the library after a particularly cardboard-tasting breakfast. “No’ that they’re tryin’ tae hide it or anythin’.”
He spins a newspaper around, gesturing to a headline.Sophia Milton Dead: Insurgent Palace Insider. There’s a blurry inset photo of a man I recognize. Rory frowns down at it and instantly says, “That’s Irons.”
“Agreed,” Finlay says grimly. “They huvnae named him — only ‘palace official’ — but even wi’ a photo that shite, it’s definitely him.”
“Insurgent doesn’t necessarily mean Antiro, though,” Rory points out, and Finlay raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“No, ye’re right, the press have been careful no’ tae mention them. But it’s no’ gonna be anyone else, is it?”
“Irons… that’s the guy who was Luke’s bodyguard last year?” I whisper in shock, and the others nod. “He murdered the person he was supposed to be protecting?”
Finlay’s brows furrow at the article. “I’m no’ so sure. I think he turned a blind eye, so tae speak, and let some o’ the other nutjobs get on wi’ it.” He ruffles through the other newspapers, which lie jumbled beside him. “They all tell the same tale, wi’ bonusanti-monarchy propaganda.”
I swallow. There’s something cold and undetailed about someone being dead, but when Finlay says those words about the killersgetting on with it, it makes me wonderhowexactly they went through with it. The method of death. What they did. How much suffering they gave to a woman whose life they’ve been determined to snuff out for months if not years.
How much pleasure they derived from the act.
Bile rises to my throat, and although Finlay keeps speaking in low, informative tones, I find myself tuning him out for my self-preservation. She was a woman. A queen. An enemy to be taken down a peg. Murdered at the hands of men who hated her, of men who hate women enough to kill them.
Someonebeing deadis a sanitized version of events. It doesn’t pay tribute to the real grit and horror and pain that had been endured before one’s last breath.
My own breath grows shallow as the world shrinks to the blurred ink of the newspaper, and my eyes fill with heat.She was a woman, I think to myself over and over,killed by men. The breathtaking unfairness of it — that these zealots should think themselves in the right, when they’re but a group of men attacking and killing a woman.
I find myself praying her death had been merciful, but you can’t make deals like that with killers or men. I hope in her final moments she’d been spoken to with humanity, treated with dignity and decency, everything an enlightened population should strive for.
But she was a woman.
And these are the worst of men, celebrated in a looking-glass world that will go on to regard them as political heroes.
The last word she heard had probably beenbitch.
The last act she endured one of brutal violence.
Laughter, mocking and cruel, all around her as they delivered her from life.
