I’d heard this, of course. Over and over. At every invocation before mealtime. At every assembly. Every graduation. But those words had felt abstract, as empty as murmuringstarlight bless youwhen someone sneezed. Studying Julian’s face, I looked for signs of disbelief or insincerity. “Yes,” I said, because it was the correct thing to say. “Of course I believe that.”
He watched me. “Then why do you ask why we are all orphans, Apprentice?”
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure.
Was it the dead trees? The sickness spreading at the work camp? The way Ezra wilted around me? I felt like a horse in blinders, unable to see the shape of the question right beside me.
But to placate Julian, I told a half-truth. “Being in this beautiful countryside today made me think of my parents. Or the idea of them. I can’t remember them clearly.”
I was too ashamed to tell Julian that I tried not to think of them. When I did, a chasm of pain threatened to swallow me whole. I’d never know if they’d loved me, or what my life might have been like if they hadn’t been taken from me.
“You’re better off for it.” Julian’s eyes clouded briefly, and I imagined him as a boy, barefoot at the seaside, clasped in the arms of a woman with his high cheekbones and bronzed skin. He sighed and continued in a voice I could hardly hear: “You’re better off not remembering.”
Something about Frostbrook drove the strangest thoughts into my mind. I barely stopped myself from wondering aloud if radiance was a manifestation of our grief. The lingering forever pain of losing the people who had loved us and wanted us and were lost to us.
Instead, I gave his words space to roam and picked at my meal, no longer particularly hungry.
When the silence became too much to bear, I filled it with another question. “Have you been lonely here?”
“Not terribly.” Julian looked down at the bread in his hands, and a small smile twitched at the sides of his lips. Seeming to recall himself, he cleared his throat and adopted the vaguely irritated expression I’d come to recognize as his resting state. “We are meant to be fulfilled by radiance, Apprentice Haven. When we properly attune to our calling, there’s no place for loneliness. I’m honored by my position here in Frostbrook. As you should be.”
“I am!” I said—before wincing. I sounded so defensive, so childish. This was what I’d been trained for my entire life. What I’d wished for. Now that I was here, I could hardly believe that I’d been so disappointed over my assignment. In another place like Sterling City, I’d have never seen impossibly high mountains or rivers with clear water. I’d have never learned what the color green smelled like. I’d have never met a bewitching boy with magic too wild to be governed.
I wanted to stay, I realized. I wanted to stay here for a while and work and live and—and even get to know Julian. Was it really that important to be in charge of a Mission? Maybe all I really wanted was to belong somewhere. Take root like one of Ezra’s vines.
Julian tilted his head at me, like a puzzled cat. “Is your bread particularly spicy, Apprentice?”
I blinked until my vision cleared and the threat of tears passed. But not quickly enough to hide the evidence of emotions I could neither name nor contain.
“I was thinking about working at the rail yard today,” I said, after a long struggle to steady my voice.
“Did something happen after I left?” he asked sharply.
“No, no.” Starlight, I wanted to shove the rest of the bread into my face so that I’d never have to speak again. I could have picked a better lie. Now I had to pretend working made me cry like a child. “It was unsettling having everyone watching.”
“You performed complicated tasks in front of your entire class at the House of Industry. Many times. Surely a handful of uneducated—”
My face heated, and I found myself standing, my knees jarring the table. A copper cup rolled off and clattered against the stone floor. “They’re not uneducated!” I shouted. “Forewoman Alice knows as much of machinery as I do. The people in this town work with their hands, but that doesn’t mean they’re worthless.”
Julian dabbed at the spilled water with a flour-sack napkin. He took a long time before looking up at me. A complicated expression made its way across his face before it settled on disdain. “I hope you save these sorts of outbursts for within these Mission walls. There are some who believe Children of Industry are dangerous, and a temper like that won’t dissuade them of those beliefs.”
My hands trembled. I pulled them into fists at my side, shame and anger mingling in a heady cocktail that loosened my tongue. “I know what people believe! There are people who say that we only do what we’re told and don’t question what we were taught!”
“There are certainly people who say that.” Julian let out a soft rueful sigh. For a moment, he almost looked fond. “Are you letting it get to you?”
He didn’t sound surprised.
Or concerned.
I sat down heavily, painfully aware of the steady drip of water from the table. It was my mess to clean once I regained control of my limbs. Hot emotion was already giving way to embarrassment that swept like ice water through my veins. Apprentice Conductors had been dismissed for less, had been sent back to the House of Industry to live as servants, performing tasks any child could do. Endless monotonous chores.
“Please forgive my impertinence,” I whispered.
“You’re not the first apprentice Conductor to struggle to settle into a new assignment. But if you cannot control yourself, it is my duty to send word that I need a replacement. Do you understand what’s at stake?”
His calm, assured voice grated at me.
“Didyoustruggle to settle in your previous Mission?” I asked, wanting to crack his exterior and see how he could be so unwilling to question the rules that caged us. “Is that why you’re here? You could have stayed in the city.” He acted so superior to me, but he had to have made a mistake somewhere along the line. Frostbrook wasn’t even an operating Mission. Senior or not, this was a demotion to a promising Child of Industry.
