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24
Ihunt the castle in search of Luke and warn him not to see the career adviser as a matter of urgency. He gives me a grim nod when I explain the weirdness that occurred during my session, and informs me in a dry tone it’s not like he’d been planning on having much of a career anyway.
At dinner, Headmistress Baxter strolls up to me and barks the word “DETENTION” so loud that Danny’s fork clatters to the stone floor. It takes me all my time to figure out who I’ve offended now, and I settle on it being the career adviser ratting me out as a heretic to Baxter. So shehadbeen a spy after all. Rory lifts his glass sarcastically to me as a comrade-in-arms gesture, and I recall our politics lesson from earlier, when he’d been hammered with around a month’s worth of detentions for speaking his mind about Benji.
King James.
Rory had been right.
Tell the truth, get punished.
“It’s part of the plan,” Rory states with an elegant shrug. “We need to take this thing underground. Send a message to my dad. Before this year, I’d never had detention in my life.”
Danny looks skeptical. “And your dad — what, you’re expecting him to save you?”
“Of course not. But if he refuses to pay attention to his school, to his son, to hislegacy, then I’ll show him that I can go off the rails and destroy everything he’s created around here.” I find it sad that Rory emphasizes Oscar Munro’s legacy as more significant than his duties as a father. “I can ruin his reputation as easily as I’ve ruined mine. Besides,” Rory adds, his voice dropping to a murmur, “where do heretics go? Underground.”
“Why areweheretics?” I whisper, all too aware of Baxter stalking between the tables, her boots clicking on the great flagstones. “No oneactuallybelieves Benji can become king.” It’s more for comfort at this point, as I remember the words of the career adviser all too well, and I glance nervously at the rest of the chiefs. “Right?”
Finlay’s mouth gives a humorless twist. “No’ so sure about that any mair.” He flicks back through the newspaper he’s reading and holds up a colored photo of what looks like a protest. Benji’s front and center, as usual, wearing a black mask, and his hair is styled differently from before. The youngish crowd surrounding him wear the same stylized T-shirts with Benji’s determined face on them, the iconography identical to the famous clear-eyed portrait of Che Guevara. “If I’m no’ mistaken, I’d hazard a guess that the world’s about tae be whipped intae a frenzy o’ Benjimania.”
Beside me, Luke drags the newspaper across the table and gazes down at the image. It’s powerful. The way the photo is composed, every area of it is filled with the faces of Benji’s supporters, with Benji holding court directly in the middle. It looks like an election rally with the year’s most promising candidate.
“He looks different,” I murmur. There’s something about his hair. Bearing in mind, the last time I saw him in person, he’d been living behind a sooty fireplace for weeks. But now he looks… groomed. Styled. Rich.Serious. In the still of the image, he’s encouraging his supporters, and there’s invincibility shining in his amber eyes, like he knows he can do absolutely anything, say absolutely anything, and get lauded for it.
He’s ascended. He’s sacred.
And yet some things remain the same. As my gaze drifts down Benji’s exposed arm, my eyes widen as I notice a familiar flash of red tied around his wrist.
“He looks like a twat,” Luke mutters, tossing the paper back at Finlay.
Rory grabs it instead, sneering down at the image. “Look at the state of this. All of them with hearts in their eyes for Dear Leader. His whole act is one big ego trip. Your bog-standard extremist believes they’re the next Che Guevara, when really their head will be first on the chopping block the moment Benji throws them to the wolves.”
“So has he actually started his own merch line?” Danny asks, peering down at the paper. “Days after we make our badges, suddenly he’s bringing out T-shirts with his stupid face on them?” He squints down at the photo. “They all have those red tag things on their belts, too.”
“Maybe there’s an informant in the castle,” Finlay suggests, his brows knitting together. “It’d make sense if someone’s feedin’ info about Luke tae Antiro.”
My eyes immediately snap to Arabella, whose head is bent low as she whispers across the dining table with Li. “Don’t need three guesses for who.”
“God, I wish this could all be over,” Luke murmurs, rubbing his heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes. “I am so very tired of his endless victory parades.”
My heart pangs for him, and even as Rory and I get ready for detention, my mind is still caught on the sorrow in Luke’s voice and the fact that this circus couldn’t have sprung up around a less deserving person.
Rory takes my hand in his, and it’s the first instance of skin-on-skin contact I’ve had with him in far too long. My pulse rockets beneath my uniform. In front of the rest of the school, Rory makes no bones about the fact we’re together, and I note our joined hands attract the attention of several curious gremlins.
Together, we walk past the lion and the unicorn statue and up the main staircase. Our detention is being held on the third floor, in an empty history classroom near to where my career advice session had been. When we arrive, the door is already unlocked and we step inside.
Posters blare from every wall. In a way, it resembles the art class I’d been inside with Danny — but the posters only depict a very specific type of art. Harsh lines. Bold type. Muted colors.Male. Illustrations of soldiers, army majors, naval commanders. Different weapons. The Union Jack features on almost every poster as an ominous portent, as do crowns. And there follows an array of catchy, impactful slogans.
Loose lips sink ships.
Careless talk costs lives.
Keep calm and carry on.
Your country needs you.
“Luke does history,” I murmur, spinning around the room with interest and taking in all the war propaganda posters. I have the curious sensation of being screamed at from every angle.
