“Thousands.”
“—of people. Why?”
He turned back to me. “It was the only fair way to deal with the situation while calling attention to the problem in a manner House Red would respond to.”
“Couldn’t he have called off that one workforce?”
“Yes. But it would have painted a target on the Fessler compound, on the families who were running for their lives, and on the people who took them in. House Gray oversees people, but every House has ways to make life miserable for those who cross them. People who remain unclaimed, the rebels—House Brown—are uncounted, unnoticed, and, therefore, very easy to eliminate.”
“House Red would have been angry enough over stopping one work site that they would have eliminated people?Killedpeople?” I pictured Aranda Red’s stern image in the training room, everything about her hard and perfect and edged.
Holy crap, I thought she might be angry enough to do just that.
“Hell,” I exhaled. “I made you call off all the workers in North America to cover for one small group of people who should have had the sense to run when they had the chance.” I scrubbed my fingers back through my hair.
How many other people had that one small action affected? Would any of them come to harm, or be seen as suspicious enough that Aranda Red would order them eliminated?
“Let’s be clear on this, Matilda,” he said. “I asked Oscar to call them off. I knew the consequences.”
And he’d gone forward with it.
“Because you were that desperate to get me off my property and signed up to your House?”
Something dangerous kindled deep in his eyes. “Because there were children in that compound. Families.” His gaze challenged me and my judgment of him.
I finally looked away.
“There is a reason I claimed House Gray,” he said. “Reasons I drafted the peace treaty that ended the Uprising between galvanized and the Houses.”
“So you could destroy the only chance House Brown had at making the world a different place for people? A better place?”
“So House Brown had a chance to survive. At all. As long as galvanized fought alongside House deserters, they would remain a target.”
“And how did leaving them help? House Brown scratches by on luck and pure stubbornness. If the galvanized had continued to fight for House Brown to stand equal to the other Houses, the world would be a better place.”
“One,” he said, “House Brown will never be equal to the other Houses, because it is made of people who think for themselves, fight for themselves, and care for their neighbors. It is not a power-hungry monarchy. The day it turns into that is the day it is truly dead. Two, galvanized can’t die. Cannot. The Houses knew that. The soldiers knew that.
“If the fight had continued, it wouldn’t have been galvanized blood that was spilled, wouldn’t have been the galvanized hearts that were stilled. Men, women, and children fell. By the thousand. Too many dead. Far too many.”
I knew what he’d bargained away for that peace between House Brown and the other Houses. The right to be recognized as human. The right for the galvanized to be free.
For the first time, I wondered how he’d talked the other eleven galvanized into signing away their freedom for House Brown. I wondered how he’d convinced them to bow to the shackles of the Houses.
“I never looked at it quite like that,” I admitted.
“This training is important,” he said, changing the subject, for which I was grateful. “We will go over the basics of what’s expected of you at the gathering.”
“When Oscar announces I’m a part of House Gray?”
“Yes. And when the other Houses verify and give their approval.”
“We’re still waiting on their approval? I thought we just did that this morning. I proved I was strong in front of everyone. I let them scan me to see that I’m galvanized.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean the Houses will stand by and allow Gray to claim you. The gathering will be their last chance to negate your contract.”
“They can do that? How?”
“If you step out of line, if you offend another head of House, if you offend another galvanized or in any other way break the code of conduct expected of you at the gathering, the contract will be voided, your loyalties put into question, and your service will go to the highest bidder.”
