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28
“They don’t believe any of this crap,” the woman says the moment we enter the bright open grounds past the quadrangle. “Did you see that guy? He was shaking in his shoes. They’re saying all this stuff so their funding doesn’t get cut.” She pauses and thrusts out her hand, a broad beaming smile on her face. “I’m Jonie, by the way. Third year at St. Camford. Wish I wasn’t these days, but I’ve invested too much in tuition to pull out now. Sunk cost, y’know?”
Rory, Danny and I shake her hand in turn. She strides on ahead, full of flourishing confidence.
Unlike the Antiro brigade, she looks completely nondescript. She wears jeans and a dark blue gingham shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a light cotton jacket tied haphazardly around her waist. Her face is friendly but tired, lined with tension that’s clearly been building over the last year. I wonder if we all look like that these days — quiet and determined buttired. This woman could be anyone on the street, she looks so refreshingly normal.
“Where are you lot from?”
“Lochkelvin,” I answer, and she nods in recognition.
“Ah, that’s cool. I heard they were finally taking on female students. I went to an all-girls school myself, which I’ve got to say didnotprepare me for the stupidity of the male species.” She glances briefly at the chiefs. With an impish grin, she adds, “No offense — but then apparently you’re not ones for taking offense, anyway?”
I decide there and then that I like Jonie a lot. She radiates positive energy and the kind of open sincerity that seems nonexistent in the upper echelons of British society.
Rory shrugs. “You can say what you want — I don’t give a damn. I just don’t care for people throwing their toys out the pram because of some nebulous concept ofoffense.”
With a sad nod, Jonie says, “Yes, I find myself agreeing with that sentiment more and more these days.”
“The thing is,” Rory says slowly, and he stops walking, Danny and I on either side of him, “we don’t know if we can trust you.”
“Trust?” Jonie asks, looking bewildered. She turns her attention onto Rory. “What do you mean? Why should you need to trust me in the first place?”
“Well,” Rory drawls, “it’s notjustgirls that attend Lochkelvin, is it? You know that.”
It takes a moment for Rory’s words to click but then her eyes widen in realization. “Of course,” Jonie breathes, her expression growing fascinated. “You know Prince Lucas.”
Knowseems like quite the understatement when there are other words likecrave, touch, lickandsuck…
“Is he stillatschool? No one seems quite sure — never mind, you probably don’t want to say.”
As Jonie predicted, we remain silent. No one needs to know that Luke is both still a student at Lochkelvin and currently in the lecture hall opposite us.
“Okay, cards on the table, then,” Jonie murmurs, and she guides us to a grassy area far from the rest of the students. She takes the light cotton jacket tied around her waist and uses it as a picnic blanket. We follow suit, each of us sitting on the ground and brimming with curiosity. “I used to be one of them. Antiro.”
I stare at her in astonishment. “What?”
Rory stands slowly. “I don’t think we should—”
“Iwas,” she reiterates, “I’m not anymore, I swear.”
Danny tugs on the sleeve of Rory’s jacket. “Let’s just listen to her, yeah?” he says, and to my surprise he does as Danny suggests and sinks elegantly down to the grass.
Jonie brushes a restless hand through her short hair. “I don’t blame you — I bought into the movement a hundred percent. I was one of those flag-waving morons, so proud to chant their gospel. But… they don’t like it when their robots become self-aware and start asking questions. They don’t do well when the useful idiots realize they’re trapped in a cult.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Danny says quietly, and I notice that the kindness in his tone is enough for Jonie’s eyes to turn shiny. This is not a woman who has forgiven her past self. “Antiro is everywhere. The media only shows one side, and it shows them as something positive. So you think you’re doing something good, that you’re participating in justice, but really you’re signing up for your own downfall.”
“That’s exactly it,” she says, looking stunned. “I’m sorry — you just don’t understand how rare it is to hear people talk the way you do. The way you all did inside. So blunt. So…true. It gives me hope that the younger generation isn’t like us. You aren’t scared of anything.”
Rory still hasn’t spoken, his gray eyes assessing Jonie carefully. But I know more than most that Roryisscared. It comes out in his unflinching protection of Luke, in his tender attention toward the gremlins, in his ability to keep us all safe as the unquestionable ruler of Lochkelvin. But he has on more than one occasion shown that small, vulnerable side of himself to me. No one wants their beloved school to fall, their world to implode, their best friend to be killed. We’reallscared — some of us are just better at hiding it.
“And you completelyget it,” Jonie enthuses. “No one else does. Not in St. Camford, anyway. Half the time, I think I’m surrounded by zombies, because no one’s infallible — some of the most intelligent people I know are eating up Antiro’s words. The rest of the time, I’m wondering ifI’mthe crazy one for objecting to this.”
“So then why…” I try to find the right words. Rory’s hand slides on top of mine and I feel a brief flash of comfort. “Why were you with Antiro in the first place?”
“Antiro — anti-royal. That’s all I wanted: the monarchy gone. Like, they were useless — everyone could see that.” She pauses. “After the king died, they became an embarrassment to the country. Too many scandals. They should never have been in power after the referendum but they justkept — clinging — on. It was inevitable there’d be a backlash.” Jonie glances between us warily. “Again, no offense — but it’s hardly Prince Lucas’ fault. He might have even made a good king but I doubt we’ll ever know now. People have run out of patience with the whole system to see it through another generation.”
She picks at a frayed edge of the inside-out jacket she sits on cross-legged. “But endorsing Benji into power? No way. I didn’t sign up for that. He’s not my king — the whole point was that we didn’tbelievein kings. At least, that was the case before they got a taste of power. The other Antiro activists, they don’t see that they’re being taken for a ride. They think Benji claiming the throne is all in good fun. The new Antiro was born here yet these activists’ goodwill is being exploited.”
