“Maybe you will when more people come, when the radiance line is finished and the Mission is up and running. People will flock to Frostbrook from all over. It’ll be a real city before you know it.”
Ainsley, without looking up from hand stitching a button, rolled her eyes quite spectacularly.
“Are you not excited for it?” Since she wasn’t watching me, I licked the plate clean. And then licked my fingers to try to get the reddish juices off.
“I have no reason to be excited. More people means more interference in our lives and how we live them.”
“But it also means schools! Commerce. Prosperity.” My radiance, as if responding to my passion, made my fingertips feel tingly. I clenched my hands into fists, willing it to settle down.
“Strangers.” Ainsley jabbed her sewing needle with force. “Rich fools.”
“What are you really afraid of?” I asked, taken aback by the anger in her voice.
Her fingers stopped moving. She looked at me. “I’m not afraid of anything. I’m weary of wealthy men building their fortunes on the bones of good people. I grew up in Sterling City. My parents came to Frostbrook with the first group of settlers to make their homes here in the foothills. But it was already too late for them. Cities are full of rot and ruin. So I hope I never see this town corrupted byProgress.”
What she said was dangerously close to the rhetoric of the resistors who assassinated Children of Industry. But on her lips, it sounded like truth, not the ravings of violent extremists. I struggled to find the words to dispute her, so I sat in silence, cursing my inability to defend what I believed in. What I was destined to do.
“Does that make you cross with me?” she asked, her fingers once more flying along the fabric. It didn’t sound like she cared one way or another.
“How could I be cross with you when you’re being honest about how you feel?” I managed to say. “I don’t wish to see Frostbrook corrupted, but I believe Progress can come …”
What did I believe? That it could come gently? I knew nothing of gentleness.
And I also knew that Progress wasn’t free. Someone like Ainsley might never be able to pay the fees associated with running a private radiance line to a residence. And even if she did, what radiance-powered machines could she possibly afford?
“I want it to come without … spoiling anything here,” I finished, my words weak and hollow.
“Do you know anything but what you’ve been taught?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying not to sound as offended as the question made me feel. I knew plenty of things.
“At your famous school. The place where radiance comes from. Did they allow you to study literature or art? Did you read about history? Ethics?”
“We were taught how to control radiance and build Progress,” I said. “There was no time for the rest.”
She kept her eyes on her work. “No time at all?”
“We were busy. I was very busy. It takes years and years to become an apprentice. I worked nearly a dozen hours a day my final year to become proficient enough to assist a Senior at a Mission.”
“Staying alive keeps everyone busy, Josephine. Has it ever occurred to you that you were deliberately prevented from learning anything but what they wanted you to believe?”
A fine tremor ran through my body. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness, but either way I hated how it felt. I hated that this talk of knowledge and Progress was driving a wedge between me and Ainsley before we’d even had a chance to become properly acquainted.
I hated that I wanted to become properly acquainted with her at all. It was forbidden. How could her words trouble me so when I was rebelling against the House in my own small, foolish way?
“Why are you saying these things?” I finally asked, my voice shaking.
Ainsley exhaled noisily, as if my question were preposterous. “I’m saying what I believe. This is my house, isn’t it?”
“It is.” I stood and took the plate to the butcher block in her kitchen, then wiped it clean with a pitcher and rag. When I returned, she was still working, calm as could be, while I trembled.
“You should get used to being challenged,” she said softly. “If you believe everything you’re told, people will treat you like a child for your whole life.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Ainsley laughed. “You already asked me that. Maybe I’m pleased to meet someone my age in this town. Maybe I’m hoping you won’t be an empty-headed fool.”
“Th-that’s rude,” I sputtered.
