Fists full of starchy cotton sheets, I’m jerked from a jarring dream by a rapping on the door. It takes me several seconds to orient myself, but I realize with a heavy heart that the previous night was not a fanciful dream about a book I read. It is reality.
Taylor stands in my doorway when I open it, looking a world away from the dashing woman from the ball. In place of a suit, she’s clad in a green tank top darkened with sweat, exposed olive skin decorated with tattoos. Her hair is loosely tied back in a ponytail, face free of any makeup and sporting light, yellowish-blue bruises. The sun has barely risen over the horizon—how did she already work up such a sweat? If I were home I’d probably have just climbed in through my window.
“Good morning,” she says with an odd air of informality. “Breakfast is in thirty minutes. Be dressed and ready to go in twenty sharp.”
Before she can close the door, I slap my palm on it. “My uniform?” She nods past me and into the room. I follow her gaze to the dresser, where a pile of folded clothes sits on the top. “When did you?—”
“Twenty minutes.”
Along with my uniform, a new hairbrush and toothbrush appeared in my room. With a shrug I avail myself of the scant amenities and tuck into fresh clothes, then tie my hair back.
“Four minutes early,” she says, glancing up from her watch when I enter the living room. “Good. I like to stay on schedule.”
“Is this loud citrus color a target?” I peer down at a horrid shade of tangerine.
She shakes her head. “No, it is standard issue for anyone of lowest rank. And children.”
“That feels passive-aggressive, but okay.” Taylor opens the door, and lets in a hard gust of cold air. “I’ll catch my death out there without a coat. I didn’t get to pack a bag when you flew me through the roof.”
Clearly exasperated, she disappears into her bedroom. She emerges with a leather jacket, and without looking in my direction, tosses it toward me. I don’t try to catch. It lands on the floor with a thump, and I follow her eyes up from the jacket, crossing my arms.
“What are you doing? Pick up the jacket and let’s go.”
“Do not throw things at me. I’m not a dog.” I snatch the jacket off the ground, and roughly shove it over my arms. The leather is warm and soft, and it smells of balsam and snow, like she does. “Your manners were much better at the ball.”
“My manners are the least of your concern.”
“Fine. Let’s get to breakfast before your boss throws another hissy fit about you sharing jackets.” This puts a frown on her face and she gestures for me to leave.
Several dozen more cabins are revealed in the morning light. The area in which they operate is more breathtakingly expansive than it appeared last night. Moderately rested, it’s easier to appreciate the surprising grandness. This is no ragtag operation. It is a highly sophisticated outfit hiding in plain sight.
“That is Headquarters,” Taylor says, motioning to the right at the building from last night. “We call it HQ. They conduct research and run the recruitment office. Anything other than training.” We amble across the expansive courtyard from HQ toward a longhouse on the other side. “These are our cabins.” She points to the two lines of cozy, identical cabins connecting HQ to the longhouse on both sides in a circle, set back against the forest. “Not all of them, but most. There are other, smaller ‘villages’ within the woods. Beyond that are the training areas.”
In the spaces of the treetops, the shiny blue roofs of brick buildings peek out. “School and other educational buildings, the infirmary, and the gym where people may exercise off-schedule, if they have time.”
“Solar panels,” I say. “That’s how you stay off the grid.”
“Correct. The cabins use an individual generator for their heat and electricity, but sparingly, as repairing and maintaining generators is difficult.”
“Why not outfit the cabins with solar panels too?”
“It was extremely dangerous to acquire what we have. It took decades of work to get the panels.”
Papa is fervently opposed any sort of solar- or wind-powered energy; his life and legacy is invested in “clean nuclear energy,” and the whole operation feels wrong to me. It’s hard to shake the blood-deep bias.
“Mess hall,” she says, gesturing forward. “Where everyone takes breakfast and lunch, in shifts. Dinner is served in the cabins, at individual discretion.”
The mess hall is a sprawling, wooden longhouse with no signage on the front. Plumes of smoke billow from holes in the thatched roof; the smell of cooking bacon wafts out through windows. A pang of longing hits me square in the chest.
I’m struck by the memory of waking up to Jean’s breakfasts, stumbling down the stairs in the late morning to gobble upwhatever he’d prepared. I’d sit on a free surface in the kitchen and let him tell me about growing up in the countryside of France. As a kid I never understood who would leave such an idyllic place, especially to come to the Five Regions. It’s never been welcoming to immigrants. But, if you can get a wealthy Upperclass family to sponsor you, the money is good. Considering the continuously volatile state of the world economy, indentured servitude is at least a step above poverty. A better life looks different to everyone.
The inside of the longhouse is cavernous, with endless picnic tables in neat rows along the walls and down the middle of the room. A winding queue of people wait around the perimeter with plates in hand, eager for their rations of whatever delicious food is simmering in metal tins. I spot the end of the line and start toward it when Taylor grabs me by the elbow with surprising gentleness.
“We do not eat in here.”
“Why not? Everyone else is.”
“You and I are not everyone else.”
