AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He took her arm to guide her down the narrow and somewhat treacherous path that led to the dock, then glanced behind him once. “Do you need any help?” he asked Jayla.
“I’m fine,” Jayla said. Madeleine thought she sounded amused.
In a few moments, they had boarded their rented boat. It was about forty feet long and half as wide, with an open doorway that led to a lower level. Above the main deck was an elevated station where a captain already hovered at the controls. Set against the railing at the bow was a small linen-covered table flanked by two chairs. In the middle of the table was a vase filled with more vivid roses.
“Let’s cast off,” Reese said, “and then have lunch.”
It was the best day Madeleine had had for longer than she cared to remember. The weather was ideal, sunny without being oppressively hot; the boat rocked so serenely across the water that the wine in their glasses barely trembled. A silent footman brought them food at discreet intervals, but otherwise no one came near them. Even Jayla, who had taken a seat near the captain, appeared to be staying as far away as possible.
The combination of sunshine, wine, and isolation made Madeleine feel like her whole body was unclenching from a pose she had held so long she hadn’t even been aware of the effort she was making. It seemed easier to breathe, somehow, even though it hadn’t seemed hard before. Easier to smile. Possible to relax.
They talked idly, trading stories about growing up, Reese on his father’s extensive property in Chibain, Madeleine in the city house with its bright mosaics. Reese admitted that, as a child, he had been terrified during his rare visits to Corcannon when he had to take noisy rides on the confounding gridway. Madeleine had enjoyed her trips to family properties in northern Marata, tumbling through the sprawling mansions in the company of her brother and an undifferentiated host of cousins.
“Once Logan died, I didn’t want to go any more,” she said with a sigh. “The first year, my father insisted, but after that he gave up. So I haven’t been back to Marata for years. I see my cousins when they come to town, of course, but it’s easier somehow.”
“How long has it been now?” Reese asked.
“Ten years. He was twelve, I was fourteen.”
“How did he die? I remember getting the news, but not the details.”
She made a small sound that might have been a laugh. “Given his general fearlessness andstupidity,you’d have thought it was from some kind of crazy stunt—”
“Like swinging down from the pillars.”
“Like swinging down from the pillars, which hedid!And he also learned how to run the cables, just like a courier.”
“I didn’t know that! I’m impressed.”
“It was so typical of Logan. He wanted tobea courier. He couldn’t believe it when our father told him Council families don’t do menial work.”
“So what happened?”
“He was out with my Uncle Archer—my father’s brother. They were in the Quatrefoil—I think he was taking Logan to some special exhibit at the museum. They were crossing the street in front of a fleet of parked gridcars. There was some kind of electrical malfunction and the lead car came loose and went careening down the street. Archer jumped out of the way but Logan—” She shook her head. “His body was so mangled they wouldn’t even let me see it. My father said it was better that I never had those pictures in my mind. But I wish—I really wished they’d let me say goodbye.”
She fingered the slim gold bracelet on her right wrist. “Foryears,I let myself believe he wasn’t really dead. That some other poor boy had gotten run over by the gridcar. That someone had scooped Logan up just in time to save him, and in all the confusion he got separated from my uncle, and he was so disoriented he couldn’t remember his name or where he lived, so this kind man took him home and raised him like his own son. . . .” She shook her head again. “I still can’t help myself. When I’m out in public, and I see a young man who’s about Logan’s age, I study the shape of his face, wondering, ‘Is that him? Would I recognize him after all this time? Wouldherecognizeme?’ But I’ve never seen anyone who looks enough like him for me to go over and strike up a conversation.”
Reese reached across the table to cover the hand that still toyed with her bracelet. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
She tried to shrug. “It’s a stupid little fantasy.”
“It’s a form of hope, and hope is never stupid.”
She wanted to reply that hope was the stupidest emotion in the whole human repertoire, making people pine for impossible things, but she didn’t want to give Reese an excuse to talk about impossible things he still hadn’t quite given up on. Or maybe she did, but she shouldn’t. She gently pulled her hand away.
“Well, you’ve had your own losses,” she said. “I know your grandfather’s death was hard on you.”
He nodded. “As if the world broke into a thousand pieces and reassembled itself in the wrong configuration,” he said. “It’s still never gone back to its proper shape, and that was five years ago.”
She echoed his own words. “I’m so sorry.”
“I worry about my father,” he added. “He’s been turning over more and more responsibility to me, and I know he’s constantly tired. The last few times I’ve been home, he’s said he needs to talk to me about something—and then changed his mind and said he’ll tell me next time. So I know something is weighing on him, but I don’t know what.”
Madeleine rested her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together. “Oooh, a mystery! Maybe he’s going to confess that you have an illegitimate half-sibling somewhere.”
Reese laughed. “Hard to imagine which of my parents islesslikely to have produced that child.”
“Maybe the whole estate is in debt and you’re about to be a pauper!”
