“Don’t worry about her. She just doesn’t like competition.”
“For what?”
“Everything.” He strolled across the room, moved the curtain to look outside, then walked back toward the door.
“If I’m the only one who hasn’t been to a gathering, why is everyone else here?”
“We all request the time from our Houses every year.”
“So you can get a day off?”
“So we can get a day off, together, without being bothered by anyone in the world. It’s . . . rare to relax, game, eat, gossip. For a full twenty-four hours, we aren’t galvanized. We’re just people.” He smiled, but old regret shadowed his eyes. One day of freedom wasn’t nearly enough compared to years of captivity.
I opened my mouth to tell him I was sorry, or maybe to say something comforting and cheerful, but he shook his head and changed the subject.
“There is something else we should take care of,” he said. “I hoped we’d have time to do this in-city, but maybe here is better.”
“What?”
He held a small liquid packet the size of my thumbnail in his palm. “Your mother’s recording that sent me out to your property, looking for you and your father. I know now that she’s gone, but I promised I’d let you see this.”
I stared at the drop of liquid. I hadn’t forgotten. It seemed so strange that a message from my long-dead mother had mysteriously surfaced and sent him out to my farm. Changing my life so completely.
“Do you know where it came from?”
He shook his head. “We traced it but couldn’t catch the origin.”
Maybe Quinten had sent it. No, he had worked hard to keep our farm and me a secret. But who else would have access to such an old recording? And who would benefit from House Gray sending Abraham to look for me?
“I never asked,” I said, settling on the foot of the bed. “How did you get that gut wound?”
“In a fight.”
“With whom?”
“Someone else who intercepted this message. Robert.”
“Robert? The galvanized from House Orange?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said he was your friend.”
“He is.”
“Yourfriendsplit you open and nearly bled you out.”
“True. But he didn’t behead me, which I appreciate.”
“That is the lowest bar for friendship I’ve ever heard of.”
He chuckled. “Trust me, Robert is a good man.”
“Trust the word of a man who thinks a beheading is a flesh wound?”
“I didn’t say it wouldn’t have been inconvenient.”
“Death is inconvenient?”
