I smile as well, thinking back on this night again, this time allowing myself to remember the details. Finn was my partner. We were dating for real at the time, but we knew that the moment I got in to the top ten it would be over. Not for real—well, yes for real, but it was just temporary and we both knew that. We were gonna wait for each other.
If I were making that promise to him today, I would understand that it was just a way to make ourselves feel better and the chances were very slim that we would still be in love ten years later. I was naïve back then. We both were. So we didn’tunderstand that the odds were against us. We just carried on like it was already true.
Of course, we’ve seen each other nearly every day for the last decade of my service to the god in the tower. And we’ve had lots of meals together. Both private, at Finn’s family home, as well as in public for gatherings and galas and such.
We even got together for a few trysts, like the one we had this afternoon. But all in all, he did his thing and I did mine. He didn’t date anyone else, even though I never made a rule that he couldn’t. And I didn’t date anyone else, either. We didn’t need the rule. We are in love. We only want each other.
He was my partner through all of it so my very first Dance of Sisters was with the man I loved. All the dances in my Choosing stage were with the man I loved. It was a good time. A fun time. A much more innocent time too.
I have been paired up with many a man for the galas that came after, of course, but none of them got anything out of me other than some light conversation. My heart belongs to Finn Scott. I haven’t even imagined another. If something were to happen to him and we didn’t get married, I would die a spinster.
“Will you miss it?”
I turn and look at Haryet, shaking my head. “I like the memories. It’s been a great adventure and I have nothing but good things to say about my time in the Extraction. But I won’t miss it.”
She smiles and nods. “Me either.”
Gemna dissents to my right. “I’ll miss the maids.” We all chuckle. “I mean, people have been picking up after me for ten years now, girls. That’s a luxury you get used to quickly.” Then she sighs and her real answer comes out. “But… it will be a relief, ya know?”
Both Haryet and I turn our heads to look at her, nodding.
“I’m number ten, girls. I’m not going into that tower. There was never any chance of it. But still, especially in these times, it’s a weight on me and I want it to be over.”
Haryet lets out a small laugh. “Oh, tell me about it. I’m number eight, Gemna. Remember when the bell rang for number seven?”
Gemna and I both huff. We remember. Haryet screamed like she woke up from a nightmare. But of course, it was worse than that because it wasn’t a nightmare, it was reality.
After Brooke Bayford went in, Haryet was a mess. Jittery, and sensitive, and emotional. She had long bouts of insomnia, endless weeks of bloodshot eyes, and lost twelve pounds—which is way too much weight for someone so tiny. It made her look malnourished.
She got through it, of course. It’s been over a year since Brooke’s bell rang. But it’s horrifying to realize that your life could be over at any time and you have no control at all.
I can’t even imagine what it’s been like to be Haryet this past year. I want this to be over. For all of us. It’s been a good decade, but it’s also been a stressful decade. Probably the most stressful Extraction ever. Never, in the entire history of this contest, has a Spark Maiden with a number higher than two been called into the tower.
Three months.
It feels very far away when the bell could toll at any time.
CHAPTER SIX
The Dance of Sistersis the most stressful part about the Choosings because there are seventy-five girls, plus the boys we’ve been partnered up with. I guess we could just enter in two single-file lines and meet somewhere in the middle—it would get the job of getting us in here and with the right partner done in a much more efficient manner, but this is up-city and what is the point of a gala if you’re not gonna put on a spectacle?
And so the Matron choreographers came up with the Dance of Sisters… oh, hundreds of years ago, probably. Maybe every Little Sister in the history of Tau City kicked off the first Choosing in this manner, I’m not sure. And it doesn’t matter. For this is the way we begin tonight. Eight stairwells deliver lines of exquisitely dressed young men. But the boys closest to us are not the boys we have been partnered with. That’s much too simple for a gala this important.
No, there are many steps to take and turns to make before we will end up with the boys chosen to be escorts for the Extraction. We are stuck with them for the duration.
So I count my steps and focus my attention on the other hundred and forty-nine people dancing, and twirling, and walking across the glossy stone floor with me until finally, a good seven minutes after the young men have joined us, I am staring up at Donal Oslin.
Every boy here tonight is handsome. Just as every girl is pretty. That’s a given. I mean, why spoil the night with ugly people when you have specimens such as us?
But Donal Oslin is a whole other kind of handsome. He’s got dark hair that’s always been a little bit too messy for his status in life. But no one seems to care because this tousled look only accentuates his perfect dimples flanking his charming smile.
And that’s just where the handsome starts with Donal, because even covered by the flawless, sand-colored suit his body is on full display. His shoulders are broad and his chest wide, tapering down into a v-shape at his narrow waist. The shirt he’s wearing under his jacket is so tight the ripped muscles of his stomach make a pattern of hills and valleys under the fabric.
I’ve seen him shirtless. We didn’t practice this dance in suits and dresses. So it doesn’t take much imagination on my part to conjure up a reliable image of what those muscles look like without clothes.
But Donal and I? Not a thing. He comes from an entirely different kind of family than I do.
Well, kind of.
