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“I don’t think so. He’s a terrible man.”
“Madeleine!”
“Well, he is.”And so are you.She managed not to say it out loud.
“What do you plan to do next?” he asked. “You can tell me that while I try to adjust my mind to the idea that you are no longer in my life.”
“I will marry Reese. I think.”
“Ah. Well, then—I hope—I hope you and I will still be friends.”
She rubbed her hands across her face, inhaled deeply, and finally turned to look at him. “I hope so, too,” she said. “But it might be hard.”
“Almost impossible,” he agreed. “But truly impossible would be losing you altogether.”
She rearranged her lips, but she was sure her expression did not resemble a smile. “Don’t be angry with Reese,” she begged. “It’s not his fault.”
“Isn’t it?” he said. “I’d rather blame him than you. I’m not sure I’ll be able to avoid punching him in the face next time I see him.”
Her expression of alarm was only half false. “Then you must avoid him!”
“I will as much as possible. But I assume he will be at the next Council meeting, as I understand his father is too frail to travel.”
“I hope the next meeting is a long time from now, so that you will have gotten used to all this by then.”
He sighed. “Sadly, no, it is the day after tomorrow. We will all be meeting at Harlo’s apartment. You would know this, of course, if your father was still in the house.”
“No, I wouldn’t. My father rarely told me anything.”
He gave her a serious look. “Your father always underestimated you, I think,” he said. “I believe people often make that mistake with you.”
She held her breath as she stared back. That didn’t sound like a rejected lover speaking. That sounded like a man acknowledging a skilled opponent. She wondered if he had not been fooled, after all, by this afternoon’s charade. “I think my father never bothered to get to know me,” she said softly. “And maybe I never tried hard enough to understand him.”
“Maybe that will change in the coming days.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “But lately I’ve found that I’ve been wrong about almost everything.”
Tivol lingered much longer than she would have expected, still playing the part of the wounded suitor determined to accept his dismissal with grace. She finally had to ask him plaintively to leave so that she could try to sleep away her headache. He kissed her cheek, gave her one more sorrowful look, and departed.
But before she could even leave the room, the next visitors were at the door. Two of her friends, who had also heard the news and were agog to learn the details. And once they left, her cousin arrived; and the whole afternoon went like that.
Eventually her headache was bad enough and the gossip had been spread far enough that she decided she could just tell the servants to stop admitting any other visitors. Massaging the back of her head where the pain was worst, she went looking for Jayla, and found her in the kitchen with Aussen and Norrah. Madeleine beckoned, and Jayla followed her out into the hall.
“The day after tomorrow,” Madeleine said in a low voice. “The Council is meeting at Harlo’s. I have to attend.”
Madeleine chose her favorite dress, a simple scarlet sheath that made her skin and hair looked radiant, and topped it with a scarf shot through with orange and yellow and red. “You look like a walking bonfire,” Jayla said.
“Exactly the impression I’d like to give,” Madeleine replied.
They took a public chugger to the Quatrefoil, something Madeleine had only done a few times in her adult life, though when she was younger, she and Logan had hopped off and on the big transports all the time. Jayla seemed perfectly at ease navigating the route, despite having lived in the city for a relatively short time. But then, casual competence was Jayla’s defining characteristic.
They stepped off at the stop nearest the temple and walked the three blocks to Harlo’s residence. The streets, as usual, were packed with attractive young people dressed for a night out. They were greeting each other with warm hugs and chattering excitedly about the theater or the restaurant they planned to patronize that night. Madeleine was surprised at the strength of her conflicting reactions. Jealousy, because their lives were so simple and joyous in a way that hers would never be again. And scorn, because they wasted their days in such meaningless pursuits.
Five days ago, she had been one of them.
What would have to happen to make all of them as angry and desperate and afraid as she was?
Unlike the last time she had visited it, Harlo’s residence was not gaudy with lights and crowded with partygoers. Instead, a few soft lamps threw the white walls into inviting relief, and only two guards watched the entrance.
