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It is recommended the Cypress Project experiments be expanded to candidates regardless of age or gender.
Our eyes meet and I know we’re both thinking the same thing. Whatever this means, it’s nothing good.
“Do you know what the Cypress Project is?” I ask her.
“No, but I don’t like the sound of it.”
Smart girl, I think, considering whether I should tell her and whether the Guild might have a violent response to a Spinster knowing about the Cypress Project. If the Agenda starts sharing info about it, Cormac will know it started with me. “Spinsters aren’t natural. The Guild created us through genetic experiments.”
“But if they did that…” Her voice fades away as she bites her lip. “Why girls?”
“Control,” I say in a flat voice. “Any of the boys who showed the ability were erased from existence.”
“Tailors?” Pryana guesses.
I nod, impressed with how much she’s learned from the Agenda in Arras. Then again, even my parents had known this. They had merely chosen not to share the information with me. I ignore the tremble that races up my back at the thought of my parents and the secrets they kept from me. It hardly even bothers me anymore.
“But I don’t know what they mean by expanding the experiments,” I say as I push away from the desk and stare at the clinic’s white walls. They glare back at me like a blank canvas waiting for me to make my move. The longer I look at them, the more questions tumble through my brain until one latches on and then breaks past my lips. “Do you think it’s strange that they keep this information here?”
Pryana shrugs as she scrolls through the files on the companel. “They’ve probably done some of the experiments here.”
I recall the metal helmet and the blinding light, followed by a series of questions meant to map how my mind worked. I’d been brought here for that. If I hadn’t escaped when I did, I would have wound up on one of those slabs while Tailors altered my memory to make me more docile. This is where they would have taken Loricel on the night of my escape.
“Have you been back here?” I ask her.
“Yes.” She turns away from the companel and stares me down. “The night you escaped. When they tried to alter me. Cormac wanted to splice me with Loricel’s genetics so I could take over as Creweler. Any more tests for me?”
I don’t even blink. Pryana must know how suspicious her change of heart seems. “One.”
“What’s stopping you? I’m dying to know how I can prove myself to you.” There’s hurt in her words.
“Why didn’t he wipe you? You knew too much to be trusted. Why didn’t Cormac alter your memories?”
Pryana snorts, shaking her head. “He did. At least he thinks he did. There’s one thing you should know about the Coventry, Adelice. This place is teeming with Agenda.”
“And the Agenda saved you?”
“A Tailor did,” she says. “You have no reason to believe me, but who else can you trust?”
Albert’s words echo in my mind. Know their hearts. I’m not sure I could ever know Pryana’s heart.
But Amie does. “If Amie trusts you, then I do, too.”
Pryana doesn’t seem terribly moved by my admission. Instead she focuses on the companel. “We don’t have much time. You need to tell me what you’re actually looking for.”
“I told you—”
“Don’t try to sell me that line about finding out what happened to Amie. We both know what happened to her. You need something else from here, and I’m dying to find out what it is.” Her dark eyes sparkle as her mouth curves into an arrogant grin.
The problem with Pryana is that we’re alike in too many ways. It’s hard to fool someone who thinks the same way you do. That doesn’t mean I want her to know I’m here to find information about putting the pieces of my mother back together. She would say it’s endangering the Agenda.
“A girl’s gotta have her secrets,” I say with a shrug.
“She also has to have her allies.”
Her choice of words stops me. Enora told me the same thing, and so did Albert—two people much wiser than myself.
“My mother’s soul strand is here somewhere,” I confess. “If I can find it.”
