Shatter

  Saber turns away from the mirror. “Even if you found some, how would you know it was older?”

  “I’m not certain.” I pause, considering. “Do you think there’s any in Duke Spencer’s apartment?”

  “Maybe. They were both cutting down.”

  “Theirs would be at least four weeks old. That would work. Assuming I can…” I shake my head. One step at a time. “I should be able to slip up there before the assembly if I rush my toilette a bit.”

  “Sixteenth-century hair would be faster than a pompadour,” Saber suggests, and I kind of adore that even he knows the difference now. He certainly didn’t when he first arrived at the palace.

  “Perfect. I can slip up there on the excuse that I think I left a trinket. Assuming anyone asks, which I doubt.” Part of my new influence at court—no one questions me.

  Except the King, but he’s his own problem.

  “Why do you want old Glitter?” Saber is clearly trying to keep the judgment out of his voice, but I hear it. I always hear it.

  “I’m just…curious. I—” I hesitate. “I want to check it before I get either of us too paranoid.”

  Saber looks at me hard but doesn’t argue. I suspect he really would rather not know, but that’s not a choice he’s ever been allowed to make. “I’ll come with you,” he says after a moment.

  “I’d love that,” I say, pleased. Maybe I am being paranoid. On the other hand, is it still paranoia if someone really is plotting against you?

  BY CHOOSING A velvet gown with a plain skirt and stiff bodice, then catching up my hair in a jeweled net before it’s even quite dry, I’m able to finish early while still looking Queenly. I add a little extra shimmer to my makeup to offset the less intricate hairstyle; then Saber and I are off to Duke Spencer’s apartments to “find” the ruby-and-pearl brooch I want to wear to tonight’s festivities.

  Lord Aaron and Duke Spencer have been gone for a month; their secret can’t last much longer. Even the King asked me the other day—in passing, luckily—if I’d heard from them. I answered, honestly, that I hadn’t, and suggested I missed them and hoped they were enjoying themselves. When His Majesty claimed to feel the same, I was surprised, but on reflection concluded that my husband has ample reason to miss influential young shareholders on whom he can lean for favors.

  I’ve been to the Tremain-Harrisford residence only once since my friends departed—strictly to ensure that everything was as it had been left—but Julianna’s specter haunts every darkened corner. I can only imagine how bad it would have been for Duke Spencer. Why would she do that to him? He says she was his only ally in the Tremain family, but her choice of places to hang herself leaves me wondering.

  “Bedside tables,” I say to Saber—if I let myself dwell too long on ghosts, Lady Julianna’s is sure to recruit others I’m less able to exorcise from my thoughts. “Bathrooms next.”

  We split up and check drawers and cupboards throughout the dwelling. The near-absence of personal effects makes for easy looking. Saber finds a Glitter canister in a bathroom medicine cabinet, and I pull one from the back corner of Duke Spencer’s office desk.

  “This one’s just about gone,” Saber says, showing me little more than a shiny residue of a colorless gloss.

  I give a soft sniff of amusement as I take it. “This is from back when you and I were making it.” I proffer my own canister—almost full. “This is Reginald’s stuff, but old enough for comparison.”

  “What are you thinking, Danica?” Saber asks.

  “I can’t say,” I whisper, my eyes darting to the ceiling.

  He opens his mouth, then closes it, taking my meaning. The walls have ears.

  I drop the canister into my reticule and palm the ornate brooch, giving us our reason for searching the Harrisford apartments in the unlikely event that someone should question it. “I’ll com Lady Mei and Lady Nuala and see if they can bring canisters to the revels tonight. I’m completely out.”

  I pause in the doorway of Duke Spencer’s abandoned home. “It feels like leaving a little bubble of freedom that isn’t really part of this world,” I say very quietly.

  Saber comes up behind me and kisses the nape of my neck. “I know.”

  “My rooms represent who I’ve become in the public eye. Here? I could be no one. We could be no one.”

  “Did you ever think you’d sacrifice so much to be no one?” Saber asks, close to my ear.

  The search took less time than I’d feared it might, so we arrive at the Hall of Mirrors almost unfashionably early. His Highness swoops down like a brocade-clad bird of prey, carrying me off into a dance. “You look different tonight,” he says.

  I don’t even glance down at my ensemble. “I do vary my style sometimes.”

  “I’m a fan of this one on all the ladies,” he says with a lascivious glance toward my bodice—which, in keeping with the style, serves my pushed-up cleavage for public display atop a square neckline.

  Old Danica would probably have snapped, “You’re disgusting.” New Danica is amenable and always looking for the advantage, so I take a deep breath instead, further enhancing the King’s view.

  “I’m leaving again in a few days,” he says, pulling me closer, our cheeks almost touching as we dance.

  “I saw that on my calendar,” I say smoothly, “though like your last trip, you’ve left out the details and made no public pronouncements.”

  I let my sentence hang, question unasked.

  He lets it go unanswered.

  He’s not getting off that easy. I need answers, and this is the best opening I’ve gotten in three weeks. “Something to do with all those charts from the shareholders’ meeting?” I press.

  A half-smile. “Perhaps.”

  “So mysterious,” I tease. I’m going to have to give something to get something. What can I give? “Your profit projections for our robotics division involve Amalgamated. Rumor among the courtiers is that it has something to do with our bots.”

  “And that interests you?”

  Does it ever. “I inherited a rather substantial number of Amalgamated shares from my mother when she passed,” I say, lowering my eyelashes.

  He hums in agreement. “That’s right. I’d forgotten.”

  “Sonoma has always specialized in agriculture. You have a great number of people here at court wondering why we’d try to break into robotics at all.”

  He lifts an eyebrow and says, “I can neither confirm nor deny—”

  I cut him off. “What those people don’t see is that we’re already in robotics. We’ve got M.A.R.I.E., the most sophisticated distributed robotic intelligence network in the world, humming away in our basement. We’ve got purpose-built bots crawling all over the palace, cleaning, repairing—but they’re old news, of course. People have been building those for ages. What good is a bot that makes macarons when I want crème brûlée?” I hesitate. Can I make this jump without him knowing I’ve found out what he’s up to? “The true innovation would be general-purpose bots—ones that can fasten corsets as easily as they can serve drinks.”

  “Purpose-built bots are far more economical,” Justin says, not taking the bait. “Fortunately, we needn’t concern ourselves overmuch with economy, here.”

  “Fortunate indeed,” I say. “Still, a bot with strong arms must still be shown how to lift. A bot with nimble fingers must still be taught how to sew. And a bot that can sew a chemise à la reine can apply almost none of that ability to sewing a jabot.”

  “You see the challenge, then.”

  I shrug demurely. “Challenges are easy to see. Overcoming them is where we prove our worth. Hypothetically, if it were my job to develop a general-purpose bot, I’d want to deploy a huge number of networked test units inside a closed, heavily monitored proving ground. Oh, rather like this palace.” The King doesn’t so much as glance around the room as I gesture; he only has eyes for me.
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  “That approach would take longer than you might think,” he says. “The testing. It’s endless. You know, our pharmaceutical division has a product in testing now, and it seems a task with no end.”

  “Oh?” I say, hoping I sound unaffected. Ignorant.

  He grins, an expression I don’t understand. “Finding willing volunteers for the early rounds of testing proved most difficult, but thankfully we’re past that stage now.”

  “Still, robots aren’t pharmaceuticals,” I say, trying to yank the conversation back on track. “Information technology doesn’t develop on a linear scale. It progresses exponentially. The smarter machines get, the easier it becomes to make smarter machines. They’re tools that make better tools.”

  “My father would have liked you, I think,” Justin says, and there’s an odd mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. He misses his father—an emotion I truly don’t understand. I suppose I miss who my father used to be, but he was retreating into himself even before Reginald found him. And my mother? The less said of her, the better.

  “Why?” I ask. “Because I figured out that the reason we buy bots from Amalgamated is only to sell them back the testing data they need for a successful global launch? Which we then also gain profits from?”

  “No, no,” Justin says. “Everyone knows Google ruled the twenty-first century because their business model was doing just that thing. And if they can’t see those parallels today, that’s hardly my fault. No, it’s because you’re interested.” He sweeps me into a low dip. “Because no matter how much you loathe me, you loathe ignorance more.”

  “I am interested. My mother’s bullish outlook on Amalgamated isn’t the only thing you forget about me.” I raise an eyebrow. “Before I had my coming out, I was training to work with M.A.R.I.E., down in the basement. Machine intelligence happens to be my specialty.”

  “Why, Dani,” the King breathes, close to my ear, and it takes all the willpower I can muster to not flinch away from him. “Are you asking me for a job?”

  I laugh—carefully, delightedly, so it’s very clear I’m not laughing at him, or even at his proposal, but at myself. “Of course not—I’m nowhere near qualified for the life of an executive. But I enjoy my little hobbies.” I hesitate, and then dive in. “And I have to say that if there were—hypothetically, of course—if there were someplace I could get a sneak preview of a production-model, general-purpose Amalgamated bot before the public even knew such a thing existed…Well, that,” I say with a coy smile, “would be very, very exciting.”

  “If I did know of such a place, I certainly couldn’t say anything about it,” the King muses. “But my assistant has a knack for ferreting out interesting locales. Shall I have him make a few inquiries on your behalf?”

  “Could it be done before you leave on your trip?”

  He pauses, as if he’s forgotten what started this conversation to begin with. “If you like.” He pulls me closer. “I would love a night out with you.”

  “A night out?”

  “In Paris. Dinner. The theater.” He shrugs. “Might be fun.”

  I smile, hoping the expression reaches my eyes. “I’d be delighted.”

  As the dance comes to an end, he bows low, and I curtsy in return—and then we’re beset by the inevitable tide of nobles whose petitions simply cannot wait until their scheduled meeting. His Majesty, clearly feeling indulgent, allows me to slip away as he undertakes the arduous diplomatic task of refusing to speak with any of them without actually telling them so.

  “He looks pleased,” Saber says when I reach his side again, my arm sliding onto his. It’s a formal escort, but it’s as much as we’re allowed to touch in public.

  “Terrifying, isn’t it?” I say, my placid smile clashing with my words. “Apparently my husband and I are now to begin dating.”

  “Dating?”

  I hum a vague response and Saber maneuvers me around a raucous group, somewhat worse for drink.

  “He’s looked happy with you often of late.” There’s the tiniest note of censure in Saber’s words.

  I can’t look at him. “I’m trying a new method of catching flies.”

  “Honey instead of vinegar?” he says ruefully.

  “Exactly.”

  We walk silently for a long while before he asks, “Why do you need to catch the fly? Why can’t you go on avoiding the fly and then leave the fly behind? You never thought you needed the cooperation of the fly before.”

  I can’t help but smile at the transparency, the bluntness of Saber’s allusion. “It’s more than me now. There’s another fly, and I need what one fly has to swat the other.”

  Saber lets out a noisy sigh.

  “You asked,” I say wryly.

  “I guess I should just stop asking.”

  “Actually, I think that’s a fairly good idea. For your sake,” I add, turning to look at him. “Because if you really asked, I would tell you everything. But you don’t want to know. You’re safer this way. But it means you have to trust me to go on as I see fit.” I pause and then add, “In this case, he has something I need, and I suspect a night on the town is the best trade I’m going to get.”

  “I worry for you,” he whispers.

  “I know. But I’ll be safer if the fly thinks I’m an ally. This is exactly what I’ve been working toward,” I add in a whisper.

  He grimaces. “I wish I were the recipient of all your honey.”

  “Believe me, all the honey that means anything belongs to you.”

  “Then I’m honored,” he whispers, and bows low over my hand and kisses my glove.

  I’m feeling quite warm and pleasant when Lady Mei appears at my side, linking our arms. “I brought my Glitter; what’s the matter?”

  “Retiring room,” I say to Saber. Then, feeling suddenly desperate, I add, “I’ll be back soon.” He merely nods as Lady Mei sweeps me off.

  “Lud, the two of you,” Lady Mei says. “I don’t know how His Highness convinces himself you care for him a whit when the glances you share with your secretary are so fiery.”

  Fiery? I like that.

  “Now, what’s the emergency?” Lady Mei asks as soon as we’ve stepped into the retiring room—mercifully empty, at least for the moment.

  “Let me see your canister,” I whisper, digging into my own reticule. “I just want to compare. You’ll have it back momentarily.”

  Lady Mei hands hers over, and I place both on the brightly lit makeup counter, careful not to mix them up. Then I remove a white handkerchief from my bodice, and using opposite corners, I rub a bit of pink rouge from each of the canisters onto the fabric.

  I hold them both up to the light and call Lady Mei closer even as my heart falls. “Do you see a difference?” I ask, my fingers trembling at the hope that my eyes are deceiving me.

  Lady Mei looks and then sets her face closer, her nose almost brushing the soft linen. “That one is more sparkly,” she says, pointing at the smudge from her own pot of rouge. “Significantly more.”

  “I knew it. Bastard!” I snap, wadding up the handkerchief and throwing it at the wall in a pointless show of pique. Reginald has been raising the concentration of Glitter in the makeup, without telling me. “That’s why everyone’s been so much happier. I’m going to kill him.”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE HE DID THIS,” I say, pacing back and forth in front of my enormous bed, where Saber sits, cross-legged. He looks weary, but I’m too keyed up to sleep. “I’m the one who decides how much Glitter everyone gets, not him!”

  “What, you expected him to act with honor?” Saber scoffs.

  But I hardly hear him. “The next time you speak with anyone connected to him, send a message that I need to meet with him. In Paris.”

  “No!” Saber says. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “It can’t be here,” I say softly. “If you have a better idea—”

 
“My better idea is that you let that damned Foundation take you away with the money you already have, and you don’t look back.” His voice is a whispered hiss, but I know he’s barely keeping himself from shouting at me.

  “I…I can’t, Saber. Don’t you understand? You are my life. My motivation for waking up every day. None of this—none of it—is worth anything if I can’t take you with me.” I hold his clenched hands in both of mine, rubbing them gently, but his fingers don’t relax. “It’s more than Reginald’s…power over you.” I can’t even bring myself to talk about his enslavement. Not in those words. “I love you so much. You want me to escape? It’s not an escape without you. Merely jumping from one hell into another.”

  “Nothing has changed for me, Danica! This is my life, it’s all my life will ever be, and I accept that. But you have a chance for something better.” He pauses and then adds, “I think my life would be better, too, if I knew you were safe. Safe and away from this life. This drug. You may not be using, but it’s making you crazy all the same. Maybe you can think about it that way.”

  I hate that this makes me angry at him. The last person I want to have any sort of negative feelings toward is Saber. But for him to truly believe that I could bear to be in my own company if I left him to Reginald makes me wonder whether he knows me at all. I tried to leave him once and it almost killed me. Despite everything that’s happened since Reginald dumped me back on the palace steps, I’m glad—yes, glad!—that he did. Leaving Saber would have been the greatest mistake of my life. And considering the last six months, that’s really saying something.

  I sigh and let my head fall against his chest. “I’m in so deep,” I say, my face muffled in his linen shirt. “But it’s the whole sunk-costs thing. I’ve invested so much. When you’re halfway into the woods, it’s easier to go forward than back, right? I know I’ve got to be close to breaking through the murk. Just a little while longer. But every time I say that, I go a little further and I’m still not there. Where is the end, Saber?”

  He lets out a sigh and holds me closer, knowing I’m not actually looking for an answer. That there simply isn’t an answer. I run my hands down the sides of his face and pull him forward. Kissing him never gets old. His mouth is warm and soft, a tentative exploration that grows quickly bold until we’re both making little sounds of want and his hands are pulling at the laces at the back of my dress.