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“I already shared with you everything I know about the dissidents’ plans,” I said quickly, keeping my eyes locked on his. “Caleb didn’t tell me anything beyond what I needed to know for us to leave. ”
“Explain to me how they’re coming into the City,” he said. A thin trickle of sweat came down the side of his forehead, catching in the hair above his ear. “The north gate still hasn’t been compromised, despite all their efforts. And yet there are thousands of them inside the walls. Thousands. ”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, more forcefully this time. “And we can do this again, with the Lieutenant here if you want, but nothing will change. I don’t have anything more to tell you. ”
Slowly, without saying anything else, his body relaxed into the pillow. He looked smaller somehow, his arms thin beneath his loose nightshirt. “They won’t take the City. I won’t let them,” he said. He didn’t look at me. Instead he stared out the window, at some indistinguishable spot near the east wall. “It will end soon. ”
I ran my hands through my hair. I’d never wanted to scream so loud or so long. The army from the colonies would not arrive. My father knew about the other tunnels in the Outlands. So where was Moss now? Where was I to go? Were the tunnels clear for me to pass through, or would I be caught there by rebels coming into the City, unaware that I was on their side?
I sat there, on the edge of his bed, listening to the faint sound of gunfire in the west. There was only one question that mattered now, as he lay there, between sickness and death. If he was right—if the rebels were defeated—would I be counted among them?
Twelve
THE NEXT MORNING I LAY IN BED FOR A LONG WHILE, MY EYES closed, studying the silence. My body felt heavy, my limbs weighed down by exhaustion. I sucked in air, trying to steady my breathing, as I’d done so many times in the past weeks. It took me a moment to register what I was responding to. The nausea had returned. The dense, heady feeling spread out behind my nose. My hand dropped to the soft flesh of my stomach, the gentle roundness hidden beneath my nightgown.
I smiled, allowing myself that simple, momentary happiness. Everything was all right. She was still here, with me, now. I wasn’t alone.
Down the hall, I could hear the faint clanking of pots as the cook prepared our breakfast. The room was otherwise quiet. The gunfire had stopped. There were no more explosions in the Outlands, only the sound of the government Jeeps, a horn blasting every now and then as one flew past the Palace. I lay there with my eyes closed, curled in on myself, trying to fend off the nausea.
“Are you sleeping?” Charles whispered from somewhere beyond me. He did that at times—it was one of the most normal things about him. Are you sleeping? he’d ask, after the lights had been turned off and we were suspended in the dark. If I were, how could I possibly answer?
I rolled onto my side, watching him at the window. The light was dulled by clouds. He held the curtain, working at the fabric with his thumb. “What is it?” I asked. He was already dressed, his tie hanging around his neck.
“Something’s going on outside. ” He didn’t look at me as he said it. He leaned forward, his face an inch from the glass.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” I asked. “The gunfire stopped sometime this morning. ”
He shook his head. He looked strange, his brows knitted together, as though trying to puzzle something out. “I think it’s just beginning. ”
His voice caught in the back of his throat. I went to the window, looking down at the City below. The crowd had spread out on the main road, a dense mass squeezed between buildings, just as they had been for the parades. But there was no waving of flags, no cheers or yells joining together, heard like a static hum from above. Instead they were clustered around the front of the Palace, right beyond the fountains, barely moving as the sun warmed the sky.
“What are they doing here?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“They’re waiting,” he said. “I don’t know for what. ” He pointed to the northern edge of the road, where a Jeep worked its way through the crowd, the mass of people parting, then swallowing it whole. A platform had been set up at the front of the Palace. The short, square block was visible from above.
“You haven’t heard anything about this?” I asked.
Charles raised his hand to his temple, as though his head hurt. “I’ve been here all night,” he said. “Why would I know anything more than you do?”
“Because you work for my father,” I said quickly, pulling a sweater and pants from the closet.
Charles followed me as I crossed the room to my dresser. He looped his tie around his neck, throwing one end over the other, moving his hands quickly until he slid the knot to his throat. “I’m running the construction sites. I’m not fighting a war against the rebels. I’m like everyone else inside this City, doing the best I can with what I’ve been given. ”
“That’s not good enough,” I shot back. This wasn’t his fault, I knew that, and yet he was here. He was the only person within range.
Charles stepped away from me, his eyes small and narrow. He hated it when I did this, placed him on the side of the King, held him accountable for what my father had done. But he had been there, hadn’t he? If he’d argued for improved conditions at the camps, as he said he had, then why had things continued as they were? Why didn’t he, of all people, put a stop to it?
I changed quickly, hiding from him in the cold, still bathroom. The quiet outside frightened me. It was no more than eight o’clock. If my father or the Lieutenant were giving speeches, they’d timed it before breakfast, when most of us were just waking up.
I started out of the room and into the hall, moving past the row of suites. It wasn’t long before I heard the door swing open and the sound of Charles’s footsteps as he started after me. I didn’t bother to turn around. “What are you doing?” I said.
“I’d ask you the same thing. ”
“I’m going downstairs to see what’s happening. ”
I kept walking, our steps in synch, until he darted up beside me. He was still straightening his tie. “I’ll come with you,” he said. The hallway was cool, the air raising goose bumps on my skin. At the far end of the corridor, near my father’s suite, I heard whispers of something, faint voices drifting out of the parlor. The soldiers who were normally stationed outside the elevator and stairwells were gone.
We turned in to the room. A group was huddled around the window—some soldiers, some of the workers from the Palace kitchen. One of the cooks who’d been stuck inside the tower for days, awaiting the end of the siege, had her hand pressed against the glass, her eyes red.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s happening?”
The soldiers hardly looked away from the window. I came up behind them, trying to see what was happening. Far below, the Jeep had made its way through the crowd, the soldiers swarming it as its back door swung open. It was impossible to tell who had gotten out, but as soon as the figure came into the crowd people started shifting, the shouts and yells blending together as one. A section of people came together then dispersed, like a great swarm of flies. “The rebel leaders,” one of the soldiers said, not turning to look at me. “They found them. ”