Chapter 1

Volume 14: Spitting Image

Chapter 1

The day Ceill Linnett’s world upended started out as a good day.It was the last day of fall term, and he was already packed for tomorrow’s flight to Thurskein. He and Dad and Tilrey would spend five days there, celebrating the winter solstice and Ceill’s birthday with Grandma Lisha, then proceed to the villa in the Southern Range to celebrate everything again with his mom and grandmother.But Ceill was most excited about the Thurskein part of the trip, because Sector Six would be holding a fitness fest with races and an obstacle course and an ice climbing wall, and he was desperate to get on that wall. He could already feel the crampons sinking into the ice as he pulled himself up. Dad didn’t like the idea, because you were supposed to be fifteen for that part of the course and Ceill was thirteen, but he was big for his age.He thought about the ice wall whenever he couldn’t endure another long, dark hour of teachers droning about test results. The midterm scores were in, and Ceill’s quants were in the seventy-eighth percentile, but it wasn’t like he’d failed. He wasn’t like Omi Kalberg, the class thug, who never scored higher than sixty on anything. Even two of the popular high-named boys, Fers and Ludo, had scored lower than Ceill had.He was average, he told himself, and that was fine. In his old class in Thurskein, he would have been better than average.But then he remembered his father patiently explaining the equations, pointing at the page with a pained, earnest look in his eyes, as if he couldn’t imagine why Ceill or anyone wouldn’t get it if you just made it clear enough. Then a pit opened in Ceill’s stomach, and he vowed to study harder next time. Dad had enough to worry about, trying desperately to keep everybody happy.At least Ceill had aced his verbal tests, his Whyberg, his history. And now he was running steadily around the track, legs and lungs pumping, closing in on five k and making good time. If only their fitness tests counted.He slowed to a walk, still feeling the high, and gazed longingly up at the gymnasium windows. They were black with premature darkness. Everywhere was dark now, but Thurskein would have outdoor floodlights and fairy lights and even torches shimmering on the snow. People liked being outside there.When he was little and stupid, Ceill used to brag about the three or four months he spent in ’Skein each year, telling the kids in Redda about everything they were missing. That was how he got the nickname “Dak Drudgebound,” after the lazy underachiever in the animated stream they all grew up with.Now that he was older, only five years from Notification, he knew enough to pretend he hadn’t enjoyed his years of schooling in the Laborer city. But nobody in Redda ever forgot anything, and he still heard the nickname from time to time.Privately, Ceill thought Dak Drudgebound was right about certain things. It would be nice to slow down and enjoy yourself from time to time, to sleep late and pause to watch a sunset. Maybe he was lazy, but he knew none of the cruel ways his peers described ’Skein and Skeinshaka were true—not even close.Footsteps echoed behind him. “Hey, ’Nett! Trying to give yourself a heart attack?”It was Ludo Akeina, the boy who hadn’t done well on his quants. He was barely attempting to exercise, but he didn’t need to—he was tall and broad-shouldered, like Ceill, and unlike Ceill he always knew the right things to say.Ceill slowed down and let Ludo catch up to him. The more he was seen with the popular high names, the less likely Om Kalberg and his gang were to peg him as easy prey.They’d been giving him trouble this term—tripping him or blocking his way in the corridors, only to step aside with nasty smirks. Stupid shit, just their silent way of telling him they knew he was on the fringes. But Ceill needed to make sure they remembered he had multiple Councillors in his family, just like Ludo. He didn’t want to end up like Ev Keralt, who’d spent a night locked up naked in the equipment room and didn’t dare rat on the jerks who put him there.So Ceill smiled at Ludo, trying to look unthreatened at the same time. Cool. “Hey.”“Hey.” Ludo fell a little behind Ceill, smoothing black hair off his forehead. He had long black lashes, too, like a stream star whom Ceill privately found very attractive.“Going South this break?” Ceill asked, trying to sound casual. All that time in Thurskein had left him unsure of himself; the right things to say were so different in Redda.“You bet.” Ludo grinned. “Hey, wanna see a pic I printed from my uncle’s desktop?”“A pic” always meant a photo of someone naked, and they were much in demand. Ceill nodded obediently, glad that Ludo had singled him out and hoping he wouldn’t have the wrong reaction.“Follow me.” Ludo veered off the track.Ceill followed him to the water station, where they both refilled their bottles. Then Ludo headed to a window in the corner, dodging a group of girls who were laughing excitedly about break plans.“C’mon.” His schoolmate motioned conspiratorially, drawing Ceill into the shelter of the deep windowframe. “Before Lazarat notices.” He unfolded a crumpled print-out and offered it. “Got enough light to see?”Ceill had seen a few pics over people’s shoulders, and they always made him blush. Sometimes they caused even more embarrassing reactions.He didn’t want that to happen in front of Ludo, so he gave the photo only a cursory glance. It was a boy older than they were, shot in profile, wearing only a robe and standing in front of a window. Ceill was about to pass it back with a generic Whoa, what a scorcher when he realized.The boy in the photo was Tilrey.The robe covered him—thank everything green for that. But it was him, no possible doubt.This Tilrey was young, so young that Ceill must not have been born yet. He stared out the window with a sad, dreamy expression on his unmistakable face. Bleary sun caught the blue of his eyes.Burning heat spread over Ceill’s own face and down his neck. Please don’t let Ludo know. Please, please, please.But one glance at Ludo—also blushing, but in an eager, excited way—told him that Ludo had given him this pic precisely to see how he’d react.Ceill was no fighter, but he had a saving grace—when he was attacked, the part of him that felt things simply shut down for a while. No one ever had the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Now he felt his face go rigid as concrete as he passed the printout back to Ludo, the contact singing his fingers. “Thanks,” he said.“You do know who that is?”If he pretended not to know, Ludo would tell him. “Of course.”Ludo leaned in, arching a brow. “Do you know everything?”The most important thing to remember at this school was never to care too much about anything except your scores and your name. People in Redda care about names, Tilrey had told Ceill long ago, and he was right. Tilrey was the one who’d told him what to do when other kids bothered him, too: Stand tall, look them in the eye, and know you’re as good as they are or better.Ceill tried to arch his brow like Ludo’s. He searched his mind for the crudest description, knowing that Tilrey would forgive him (if Tilrey ever knew, which he wouldn’t) because he had to do this to save face. “He fucks my dad, so yeah, I know him.”“You know he used to be a piece?” Ludo’s eyes were saucers, eager for scandal. “That’s why there’s this photo of him. You know what a piece is?”Ceill knew enough. He knew that Tilrey was friends with a great many Councillors, or at least on intimate terms with them. He knew how unusual this was for a Skeinsha. For the past year or so, his dad had given him frustratingly vague warnings: You may hear things about Tilrey’s past. Please don’t let that ever affect your view of him, or of my relationship with him. Redda can be unkind.But Ceill hadn’t really understood until he watched So Close, the wildly popular and controversial sob-stream. It was about a boy from an Upstart family who scored so poorly on his E-Squareds that he had to sleep with a Councillor to keep himself from being Lowered. The hero befriended another Councillor’s kettle boy who taught him to manipulate the Councillor. As he watched, everything Ceill knew began to make a lot more sense.The only person he dared ask for confirmation was Morten Birun, who was the son of Bror Birun, an old friend of Tilrey’s, and two years ahead of him at school. Morten was the type of guy who wouldn’t even bother to take the E-Squareds; he spent all his time wisecracking, smoking pipes, and chasing girls.Morten wasn’t fazed by Ceill’s carefully worded question. “Sure,” he said. “My dad and Tilrey, that’s how they know each other—they both did it. There’s no shame in it, you know, for a Drudge. You can really boost your R-level that way.”Now Ceill tried to seem just as casual. “Sure, I know what that is. What about it?”Ludo looked like he’d wanted a bigger reaction. He waggled his eyebrows. “That boy was a real choice piece, my great-uncle says. He’s old now, though, right? How long’ve he and your dad been together?”“I don’t know. Since before I was born.” Hearing Tilrey talked about this way was wrong. Ceill wanted to say so, to draw a line. But he couldn’t tell Ludo that Tilrey had taught him to ski and read and possibly even helped him take his first steps. He couldn’t admit that he sometimes used to call both of them “Daddy.”“And he lives with your dad? In his apartment?”“Yeah.” Where was this going? Ceill wondered uncomfortably if he should say something crude again, just to prove how little he cared.“Oh man, that would be such a trip. Even though he’s old now . . . I dunno. Just knowing he was with all those people. Wasn’t that how they met in the first place? Because another Councillor gave him to your dad?”Ceill was starting to feel dizzy, as if all the air were being sucked out of the gym. Stand tall, look them in the eye, he told himself desperately, hearing the words in Tilrey’s voice. You’re better than they are. You’re better.“And you know what’s even weirder?”Ludo was way into Ceill’s space now, and Ceill felt as helpless as someone in a nightmare. “What?” he asked.“He looks just like you.”Ceill’s mind went blank. But Ludo held up the photo again, right in his face, and before he could stop himself, he saw what Ludo meant.Like many people his age, Ceill had only a faltering sense of how he looked. Ever since his growth spurt, he’d avoided mirrors because they embarrassed him. Was that tall, ungainly boy really himself?But he saw his likeness in this photo in a way he’d never seen it when he was looking straight at Tilrey. Tilrey was . . . Tilrey. This boy in the bathrobe by the window, looking so sad and lost, was Tilrey but also a stranger. With the wide-set eyes, the coloring, the cheekbones, he was a stranger who could have been Ceill.And he was someone that people like Ludo discussed in whispers. A real choice piece.Ceill snatched the printout from Ludo’s hand and tore it in half. He ripped the pieces in half again and in half again. He tossed them in the air.“I’m a Linnett and a Gádden,” he said, terror closing his throat. But he knew how to keep his chin up, just like all his high-named ancestors had, just like Tilrey had taught him to. He knew how to look a tormentor in the eye and keep his voice steady, his feelings safe in that hidden place inside him.“Mind how you talk about me,” he said. “I don’t even know what you’re suggesting, Akeina, but if you do it again, I’ll knock you flat. I’ve lived in Thurskein with all the brutes, so I know how.”Then he turned on his heel and walked away too fast, absolutely positive that Ludo was grinning behind him.*Tilrey was experimenting with wearing glasses. He didn’t need them, except for tiny print, but they made him look a little more serious, a little older. And he could use them for emphasis, as he did now, raising them as he shifted his gaze from the page on the lectern to the assembled Councillors sitting below him in the Chamber.“If this bill were to pass, Fira,” he said in his most serious voice, “it would be a grave blow to one of the most precious principles of our Republic: the equality of opportunity.”The full Council stared back at him. Saldegren, the Peninsula minority leader, looked intent on what Tilrey was saying. So did Gourmanian and Lindthardt. Enrik Lindahl, Alicia Linden, and Vreya Akeina were scowling the way they always did when he rose to speak, but they seemed to be listening, too. Good. Davita Lindblom looked smug, as if she’d taught Tilrey to give speeches herself (she hadn’t). Besha was doodling in his notepad, but he doodled through every session.With his eyes still on them, Tilrey delivered the rhetorical coup de grâce: “Does anyone here want that on their conscience?”He waited, letting that sink in. Then he cleared his throat and shuffled his papers into a stack. In a monotone, he added, “Such is the verbatim statement entrusted to me by Fir Councillor Gádden, as whose proxy I serve. Though indisposed to attend this session, he asks you to accept the words as his own.”It was a wonder anyone still took the formula seriously after hearing Tilrey recite it regularly for the past thirteen years. But he knew most of the Council had no choice but to take it at face value, for a simple reason: The alternative was to accept the reality that he was, for all intents and purposes, the Councillor.As he left the podium, he cast a glance, as always, at the centuries-old Council table. No one actually sat there; it couldn’t hold the modern, forty-five-seat Council. But it remained on the podium, a reminder of the early Councils that had given birth to the Republic.Tilrey had his own memories of that table. When he was eighteen, Malsha Linnett, then the General Magistrate, had brought him to see the Chamber after hours, then backed him up against the ancient table and kissed him. (It was the same night he’d first met Gersha.) When he was twenty, Majority Leader Verán had made him climb onto the table and fucked him there. Tilrey remembered how hard the wood felt under his knees; how he’d stared straight ahead at the paneling on the opposite wall, teeth clenched, determined not to make a noise or shed a tear.Both those men were dead now. He was still here.Before he could return to his seat at the rear of the amphitheater, the page announced a recess. Tilrey folded his glasses and followed the Councillors into the hall for a cup of tea.The long speech had parched his throat. He’d been preparing for several days, rehearsing it for Gersha, and now that he could finally relax, his thoughts skittered aimlessly, refusing to focus.These days, Tilrey brought his own loose tea blend from home. He’d shown Gersha how to grow it from bonsai tea trees and home roast it, just as Malsha had taught him long ago, and Gersha amused himself by creating ever-improved blends, supplementing them with imports from Harbour.Today it was a classic smoky mixture—Tilrey’s favorite. As he drenched the sachet with water from the steel dispenser and breathed in the fragrant steam, he heard a familiar voice rise over the crowd.Councillor Saldegren was holding forth, drawing murmurs and titters from the surrounding Councillors. The old man had a pleasant voice—ringing and resonant, perfect for a politician—and for a moment Tilrey heard only the music of it.Then he heard the words.“—such a tragedy to see him always in those drab jerkins,” Saldegren was saying. “You should have seen him in the old days, when he was dressed up like us—sweet little high-collared tunics, always cinched so very tight at the waist. And what a waist! He was positively ravishing.”Someone else said something Tilrey didn’t hear. There was laughter. Tilrey gave a start as hot water overflowed the cup onto his hand.There could only be one person Saldegren was describing. Tilrey poured out the excess water and turned around slowly, deliberately.Saldegren had gone quiet. The whole hall was suspiciously still, in fact. A woman laughed, he couldn’t tell who.For a bare instant, Tilrey caught Saldegren’s eye. He was tempted to speak up then and there, for once, but to have it out in public would be foolish. All the assembled Councillors would feel offended by his speaking out of turn, and they would complain among themselves and even to Gersha. No, he would wait until the statements were over and they all returned to their offices.It wasn’t the first time Tilrey had heard such comments, of course—about his appearance, his past, and how much his very presence “livened up” the Council Chamber. He always let them slide off his back. In the early years, when he had no choice, he’d even smiled and played along.But it was time to draw a line, and it made sense to start with Vanya Saldegren. The man was an ally, at least when he wasn’t asserting his independence with capricious swing votes. He was a friend of Gersha’s and claimed to be a friend of Tilrey’s. He had dined with them half a dozen times over the years, bringing sesame biscuits for Ceill and telling the boy silly stories and exclaiming on how much he’d grown. And, if Tilrey wasn’t entirely comfortable with the way Vanya looked at him, or the memories that Vanya’s presence aroused, he always smiled and held his tongue.For the man to behave this way, however, was unacceptable. He couldn’t let it go.All the same, two hours later, he had to steel himself to knock at the door of Saldegren’s office.It didn’t help that the woman who opened up was a Sector veteran, Saldegren’s secretary for the past twenty-five years. She took one look at Tilrey and hoisted an iron-gray brow. “Fir Councillor’s busy, Bronn. Unless you had a prior appointment?” Her expression told him exactly what she thought a “prior appointment” might involve.“No.” Tilrey stepped past her into the antichamber. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d obliged Vanya in this office, getting on his knees to speed the passage of a bill. It wasn’t his fault if she could. “I’ll wait here for him.”The brow arched higher. “This isn’t a lobby.”Tilrey went over to the window and nudged a shutter aside. “Then I’ll wait standing up. I know he’s always here after the session, Krimheld,” he added, peering into the black winter night.He heard a sigh. Then the click of the inner door, and voices behind it—the secretary irritated, Saldegren reassuring.The door opened again, and Vanya Saldegren emerged, beaming warmly as he beckoned Tilrey into the inner office. He’d always been a big man with an expansive presence, and advancing age had scarcely shrunken him. “Always a pleasure, Rishka,” he boomed. “And how is Gersha these days? It’s been too long.”The Councillor closed the door on his disapproving secretary, sat down at his desk, and waved at the second chair. “I hope he’s not actually indisposed?”Tilrey was tempted to stay standing, but the offer of a seat was a gesture of respect. He took it. “You know Gersha. He’ll take any excuse to stay by the hearth and work on his database—and Ceill’s needed some tutoring lately.”“Such a devoted father, that Gersha.” Vanya actually looked misty-eyed. “I wish I’d had more time with mine when they were young.”“Yes, it goes quickly.” But Tilrey couldn’t get sidetracked by platitudes. He fixed his gaze on Vanya, hard.The man’s smile faded. “What’s the matter, lad?”Tilrey drew out the silence a few seconds longer. He was in uncharted territory, but long-simmering anger swept away his usual careful politeness. He and Vanya knew each other so well, and not at all. “You’re asking me what’s the matter? After this afternoon?”Vanya looked blank, as if replaying the events of the afternoon in his head. “Oh,” he said at last, casual. “I was rude—forgive me. I should have kept my voice lower.”Tilrey’s throat tightened. Vanya would see his white knuckles on the chair arm, but he didn’t care. “That’s all you have to say? That I wasn’t meant to overhear?”“Well, of course not.” Another affable, well-bred smile. “To be honest, though, Rishka, I didn’t expect you to react this way. Surely you’ve heard worse over the years.”“Yes.” And I didn’t like it then, either. Vanya had a point, though—how could he object now when he’d never appeared to before?Vanya went on: “We all have long memories here in the Sector, and the past . . . well, you do have a past, don’t you?”Tilrey wasn’t good with anger. Over the course of several long discussions with Gersha—longer than he would have liked—he had confessed that his go-to strategy when he felt murderous rage was to smile coldly and submit and dare the object of his rage to hurt him. A heady cocktail of pain and hatred and dissociation made everything better.But he couldn’t do that anymore, he and Gersha had agreed—or only in play. In real life, he needed to “be himself.” Never mind that he barely knew where to start.Tilrey cleared his throat, fighting the sensation of choking. His voice was a problem; it was deep, which meant he had to work to keep it from sounding intimidating. If Saldegren actually felt threatened, things could shift between them in a disastrous way.He said, “I know I’ve let it go for years, Fir—Vanya. But I shouldn’t have. And that’s why I’m here: to tell you that kind of talk isn’t acceptable to me, or at least not from you. You can’t support Gersha in the Chamber and turn around and make me into an object of . . . mockery.”Saldegren’s brows drew together, snowy on his brown forehead. He looked genuinely confused. “Mockery? I was paying you a compliment. It’s not like people don’t notice that you are a ravishing boy.”Tilrey leapt to his feet, but there was nowhere to go. He just couldn’t sit anymore. “You do know how old I am?” Saldegren looked blank, so he supplied the answer: “Forty-three.”Vanya looked horrified by the reminder that he himself was pushing seventy. “You mustn’t say things like that. Verdant hells, you don’t have a wrinkle or a gray streak. You don’t dye your hair, do you?”Tilrey just looked at him.“Clearly not.” Vanya sighed. “I see this bothers you, and I’m sorry. But you can’t expect people just to forget who you are—who you were. There are so many . . . memories.”As he spoke, he played with a pen, his eyes going dreamy. Tilrey could imagine which memories the Councillor was reliving.There was the very first time, when he’d gone to his knees in Saldegren’s living room—young and scared, sent by Malsha as a gift to cement a political alliance. There were the many nights after that, when Vanya was voracious and tender by turns, insistent on what he called “mutual pleasures” even when Tilrey wanted to be done already and fall asleep. There was the time Vanya arranged for a photographer to take artful nudes of him—pictures that were still circulating, Tilrey knew all too well.Tilrey had never quite forgiven Saldegren for those photographs. But he’d still returned, years later, to this very office whenever he needed to make sure the man would support Gersha. He’d still traded on that old affection.He knew where Vanya had birthmarks, knew the texture of his skin, knew how the man’s cock felt down his throat and what it responded to. But that wasn’t the point.He sat down again. Squared his shoulders. Placed his hands at his sides. “I’m not asking you to forget anything, Vanya. What we had . . .” Wasn’t real. “Was meaningful to you, I know. But when we’re here in the Sector, I need people to see me differently. I need them to respect me. As Gersha’s proxy, of course,” he added, forcing the last words out.“Yes, but that’s just the issue.” Saldegren regarded Tilrey with his large, liquid brown eyes. “You and Gersha have an unusual relationship, and it’s even more unusual for a secretary to play the role in the Council that you do. Some would say it’s unprecedented. Furthermore, unacceptable.”Again Tilrey’s throat tightened, but he kept his voice even. “Are you saying that?”“Of course not! Those of us who are older understand your unique bond with Gersha. We know what a loyal, steadfast, capable boy you are. But you should know, Tilrey, that some of my younger colleagues are rather baffled by the whole situation. They ask me about you—what have you done with Gersha? Can we be sure he’s even fit to serve, considering we only see him a day or two out of every ten? Should there be an investigation?”Tilrey knew all this. He had his spies. “That’s mainly Akeina, and she mistrusts me because of her personal history. No one takes her seriously, not even her husband.”“For now, perhaps.” Saldegren’s eyes narrowed. “But Vreya’s a hard worker, and she could rise fast. What I’m trying to say here is that, when I talk slightingly of you in Chambers, I’m actually laying the groundwork for your defense.”For a moment, Tilrey was a teenager again, listening in awe to the Councillor’s convoluted eloquence. Then he snapped back to himself. “I don’t follow.”Vanya folded his arms on the desk. “Don’t you, my lad? The less the Council respects you, the more amusing and trivial they find you, the more easily they accept you.”“So you’re saying—”“I’m saying that you need to accept your role. Which I thought you did, because you played it so well—until today.”Sometimes, when Tilrey was really upset, he still heard Malsha Linnett’s voice in his head. This time it dictated words to him, along with their icy tone: “If you think I enjoy being leered at and made the butt of jokes, you’re a bigger fool than I ever imagined.”Vanya’s self-satisfied look faded. “I’m going to ignore the tone you just took with me. You seem so unhappy today, Rishka. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all. I could almost swear you want to really replace Gersha.”Maybe Tilrey was an idiot. Probably he was a idiot. But words rose to his lips, and he said them: “I don’t need to replace Gersha. I wrote the statement I read today. I write everything I read in the Chamber—I have for years. Gersha does no more than offer a few edits.” He managed to stop short of drawing the logical conclusion: Gersha never wanted to be the Councillor, and he isn’t anymore. I am.Vanya stared at Tilrey, his expression unchanging. “I will,” he said at last, “pretend I never heard that. And you, I hope, will have the sense never to mention it again.”Tilrey knew he was receiving a kindness. There was no way for a high-named Upstart of either party to hear what he’d just said and not report him as a subversive or a madman. Still, he ached with the desire to make Vanya acknowledge that he had heard and understood the truth of who Tilrey was—not a “ravishing boy,” not a compliant secretary, but a player of this game in his own right.He swallowed the desire. This wasn’t the time. Maybe there never would be a time. He rose to his feet, deliberately this time, and clasped his hands behind his back.“I appreciate your attempts to make me more palatable to your colleagues, Fir,” he said in his most formal way, “and the spirit of alliance that inspires them. But I fear you may have overplayed your hand and turned me into a laughingstock. I don’t see how this serves our joint goals.”Ah, that’s it, Malsha whispered inside Tilrey, as contrition snuck over Vanya’s face. You very nearly ruined everything, but this save will do just fine. Appeal to his dignity. His better nature.Tilrey tried to ignore the inner voice, but he could feel his own going cold again in imitation of it. “I hope you’ll forgive me my outburst just now. It was way out of line.”Vanya said quickly, “Of course.”“Our past means something to me, too.” The words tasted bitter. “But, from now on, I shall expect you to limit your fond reminiscences to informal settings like the Lounge, where I am not present. When I am, you can treat me like any other secretary—no winks, no nudges, no anecdotes, just business. Is that understood, Fir?” Tilrey paused. “Or is it too much to ask?”Vanya looked at Tilrey with eyes that were bright with the beginnings of tears. “All you really had to do was ask, lad. You know I can’t refuse you anything.”You’ve just made it clear what you refuse to do. But Tilrey knew he’d gotten the biggest concession he was likely to get. There was no sense in ruining things. “You do me honor with your trust, Fir,” he said and held out his hand across the Councillor’s desk, palm down to express his subordination.Saldegren grasped the hand and squeezed. “Send Gersha my good wishes,” he said. “Tell him I thrilled to the eloquence of his statement today, and I feel sure it will destroy any remaining support for that nasty Island bill. I hope we can all dine together again soon.”

The day Ceill Linnett’s world upended started out as a good day.

It was the last day of fall term, and he was already packed for tomorrow’s flight to Thurskein. He and Dad and Tilrey would spend five days there, celebrating the winter solstice and Ceill’s birthday with Grandma Lisha, then proceed to the villa in the Southern Range to celebrate everything again with his mom and grandmother.

But Ceill was most excited about the Thurskein part of the trip, because Sector Six would be holding a fitness fest with races and an obstacle course and an ice climbing wall, and he was desperate to get on that wall. He could already feel the crampons sinking into the ice as he pulled himself up. Dad didn’t like the idea, because you were supposed to be fifteen for that part of the course and Ceill was thirteen, but he was big for his age.

He thought about the ice wall whenever he couldn’t endure another long, dark hour of teachers droning about test results. The midterm scores were in, and Ceill’s quants were in the seventy-eighth percentile, but it wasn’t like he’d failed. He wasn’t like Omi Kalberg, the class thug, who never scored higher than sixty on anything. Even two of the popular high-named boys, Fers and Ludo, had scored lower than Ceill had.

He was average, he told himself, and that was fine. In his old class in Thurskein, he would have been better than average.

But then he remembered his father patiently explaining the equations, pointing at the page with a pained, earnest look in his eyes, as if he couldn’t imagine why Ceill or anyone wouldn’t get it if you just made it clear enough. Then a pit opened in Ceill’s stomach, and he vowed to study harder next time. Dad had enough to worry about, trying desperately to keep everybody happy.

At least Ceill had aced his verbal tests, his Whyberg, his history. And now he was running steadily around the track, legs and lungs pumping, closing in on five k and making good time. If only their fitness tests counted.

He slowed to a walk, still feeling the high, and gazed longingly up at the gymnasium windows. They were black with premature darkness. Everywhere was dark now, but Thurskein would have outdoor floodlights and fairy lights and even torches shimmering on the snow. People liked being outside there.

When he was little and stupid, Ceill used to brag about the three or four months he spent in ’Skein each year, telling the kids in Redda about everything they were missing. That was how he got the nickname “Dak Drudgebound,” after the lazy underachiever in the animated stream they all grew up with.

Now that he was older, only five years from Notification, he knew enough to pretend he hadn’t enjoyed his years of schooling in the Laborer city. But nobody in Redda ever forgot anything, and he still heard the nickname from time to time.

Privately, Ceill thought Dak Drudgebound was right about certain things. It would be nice to slow down and enjoy yourself from time to time, to sleep late and pause to watch a sunset. Maybe he was lazy, but he knew none of the cruel ways his peers described ’Skein and Skeinshaka were true—not even close.

Footsteps echoed behind him. “Hey, ’Nett! Trying to give yourself a heart attack?”

It was Ludo Akeina, the boy who hadn’t done well on his quants. He was barely attempting to exercise, but he didn’t need to—he was tall and broad-shouldered, like Ceill, and unlike Ceill he always knew the right things to say.

Ceill slowed down and let Ludo catch up to him. The more he was seen with the popular high names, the less likely Om Kalberg and his gang were to peg him as easy prey.

They’d been giving him trouble this term—tripping him or blocking his way in the corridors, only to step aside with nasty smirks. Stupid shit, just their silent way of telling him they knew he was on the fringes. But Ceill needed to make sure they remembered he had multiple Councillors in his family, just like Ludo. He didn’t want to end up like Ev Keralt, who’d spent a night locked up naked in the equipment room and didn’t dare rat on the jerks who put him there.

So Ceill smiled at Ludo, trying to look unthreatened at the same time. Cool. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Ludo fell a little behind Ceill, smoothing black hair off his forehead. He had long black lashes, too, like a stream star whom Ceill privately found very attractive.

“Going South this break?” Ceill asked, trying to sound casual. All that time in Thurskein had left him unsure of himself; the right things to say were so different in Redda.

“You bet.” Ludo grinned. “Hey, wanna see a pic I printed from my uncle’s desktop?”

“A pic” always meant a photo of someone naked, and they were much in demand. Ceill nodded obediently, glad that Ludo had singled him out and hoping he wouldn’t have the wrong reaction.

“Follow me.” Ludo veered off the track.

Ceill followed him to the water station, where they both refilled their bottles. Then Ludo headed to a window in the corner, dodging a group of girls who were laughing excitedly about break plans.

“C’mon.” His schoolmate motioned conspiratorially, drawing Ceill into the shelter of the deep windowframe. “Before Lazarat notices.” He unfolded a crumpled print-out and offered it. “Got enough light to see?”

Ceill had seen a few pics over people’s shoulders, and they always made him blush. Sometimes they caused even more embarrassing reactions.

He didn’t want that to happen in front of Ludo, so he gave the photo only a cursory glance. It was a boy older than they were, shot in profile, wearing only a robe and standing in front of a window. Ceill was about to pass it back with a generic Whoa, what a scorcher when he realized.

The boy in the photo was Tilrey.

The robe covered him—thank everything green for that. But it was him, no possible doubt.

This Tilrey was young, so young that Ceill must not have been born yet. He stared out the window with a sad, dreamy expression on his unmistakable face. Bleary sun caught the blue of his eyes.

Burning heat spread over Ceill’s own face and down his neck. Please don’t let Ludo know. Please, please, please.

But one glance at Ludo—also blushing, but in an eager, excited way—told him that Ludo had given him this pic precisely to see how he’d react.

Ceill was no fighter, but he had a saving grace—when he was attacked, the part of him that felt things simply shut down for a while. No one ever had the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Now he felt his face go rigid as concrete as he passed the printout back to Ludo, the contact singing his fingers. “Thanks,” he said.

“You do know who that is?”

If he pretended not to know, Ludo would tell him. “Of course.”

Ludo leaned in, arching a brow. “Do you know everything?”

The most important thing to remember at this school was never to care too much about anything except your scores and your name. People in Redda care about names, Tilrey had told Ceill long ago, and he was right. Tilrey was the one who’d told him what to do when other kids bothered him, too: Stand tall, look them in the eye, and know you’re as good as they are or better.

Ceill tried to arch his brow like Ludo’s. He searched his mind for the crudest description, knowing that Tilrey would forgive him (if Tilrey ever knew, which he wouldn’t) because he had to do this to save face. “He fucks my dad, so yeah, I know him.”

“You know he used to be a piece?” Ludo’s eyes were saucers, eager for scandal. “That’s why there’s this photo of him. You know what a piece is?”

Ceill knew enough. He knew that Tilrey was friends with a great many Councillors, or at least on intimate terms with them. He knew how unusual this was for a Skeinsha. For the past year or so, his dad had given him frustratingly vague warnings: You may hear things about Tilrey’s past. Please don’t let that ever affect your view of him, or of my relationship with him. Redda can be unkind.

But Ceill hadn’t really understood until he watched So Close, the wildly popular and controversial sob-stream. It was about a boy from an Upstart family who scored so poorly on his E-Squareds that he had to sleep with a Councillor to keep himself from being Lowered. The hero befriended another Councillor’s kettle boy who taught him to manipulate the Councillor. As he watched, everything Ceill knew began to make a lot more sense.

The only person he dared ask for confirmation was Morten Birun, who was the son of Bror Birun, an old friend of Tilrey’s, and two years ahead of him at school. Morten was the type of guy who wouldn’t even bother to take the E-Squareds; he spent all his time wisecracking, smoking pipes, and chasing girls.

Morten wasn’t fazed by Ceill’s carefully worded question. “Sure,” he said. “My dad and Tilrey, that’s how they know each other—they both did it. There’s no shame in it, you know, for a Drudge. You can really boost your R-level that way.”

Now Ceill tried to seem just as casual. “Sure, I know what that is. What about it?”

Ludo looked like he’d wanted a bigger reaction. He waggled his eyebrows. “That boy was a real choice piece, my great-uncle says. He’s old now, though, right? How long’ve he and your dad been together?”

“I don’t know. Since before I was born.” Hearing Tilrey talked about this way was wrong. Ceill wanted to say so, to draw a line. But he couldn’t tell Ludo that Tilrey had taught him to ski and read and possibly even helped him take his first steps. He couldn’t admit that he sometimes used to call both of them “Daddy.”

“And he lives with your dad? In his apartment?”

“Yeah.” Where was this going? Ceill wondered uncomfortably if he should say something crude again, just to prove how little he cared.

“Oh man, that would be such a trip. Even though he’s old now . . . I dunno. Just knowing he was with all those people. Wasn’t that how they met in the first place? Because another Councillor gave him to your dad?”

Ceill was starting to feel dizzy, as if all the air were being sucked out of the gym. Stand tall, look them in the eye, he told himself desperately, hearing the words in Tilrey’s voice. You’re better than they are. You’re better.

“And you know what’s even weirder?”

Ludo was way into Ceill’s space now, and Ceill felt as helpless as someone in a nightmare. “What?” he asked.

“He looks just like you.”

Ceill’s mind went blank. But Ludo held up the photo again, right in his face, and before he could stop himself, he saw what Ludo meant.

Like many people his age, Ceill had only a faltering sense of how he looked. Ever since his growth spurt, he’d avoided mirrors because they embarrassed him. Was that tall, ungainly boy really himself?

But he saw his likeness in this photo in a way he’d never seen it when he was looking straight at Tilrey. Tilrey was . . . Tilrey. This boy in the bathrobe by the window, looking so sad and lost, was Tilrey but also a stranger. With the wide-set eyes, the coloring, the cheekbones, he was a stranger who could have been Ceill.

And he was someone that people like Ludo discussed in whispers. A real choice piece.

Ceill snatched the printout from Ludo’s hand and tore it in half. He ripped the pieces in half again and in half again. He tossed them in the air.

“I’m a Linnett and a Gádden,” he said, terror closing his throat. But he knew how to keep his chin up, just like all his high-named ancestors had, just like Tilrey had taught him to. He knew how to look a tormentor in the eye and keep his voice steady, his feelings safe in that hidden place inside him.

“Mind how you talk about me,” he said. “I don’t even know what you’re suggesting, Akeina, but if you do it again, I’ll knock you flat. I’ve lived in Thurskein with all the brutes, so I know how.”

Then he turned on his heel and walked away too fast, absolutely positive that Ludo was grinning behind him.

Tilrey was experimenting with wearing glasses. He didn’t need them, except for tiny print, but they made him look a little more serious, a little older. And he could use them for emphasis, as he did now, raising them as he shifted his gaze from the page on the lectern to the assembled Councillors sitting below him in the Chamber.

“If this bill were to pass, Fira,” he said in his most serious voice, “it would be a grave blow to one of the most precious principles of our Republic: the equality of opportunity.”

The full Council stared back at him. Saldegren, the Peninsula minority leader, looked intent on what Tilrey was saying. So did Gourmanian and Lindthardt. Enrik Lindahl, Alicia Linden, and Vreya Akeina were scowling the way they always did when he rose to speak, but they seemed to be listening, too. Good. Davita Lindblom looked smug, as if she’d taught Tilrey to give speeches herself (she hadn’t). Besha was doodling in his notepad, but he doodled through every session.

With his eyes still on them, Tilrey delivered the rhetorical coup de grâce: “Does anyone here want that on their conscience?”

He waited, letting that sink in. Then he cleared his throat and shuffled his papers into a stack. In a monotone, he added, “Such is the verbatim statement entrusted to me by Fir Councillor Gádden, as whose proxy I serve. Though indisposed to attend this session, he asks you to accept the words as his own.”

It was a wonder anyone still took the formula seriously after hearing Tilrey recite it regularly for the past thirteen years. But he knew most of the Council had no choice but to take it at face value, for a simple reason: The alternative was to accept the reality that he was, for all intents and purposes, the Councillor.

As he left the podium, he cast a glance, as always, at the centuries-old Council table. No one actually sat there; it couldn’t hold the modern, forty-five-seat Council. But it remained on the podium, a reminder of the early Councils that had given birth to the Republic.

Tilrey had his own memories of that table. When he was eighteen, Malsha Linnett, then the General Magistrate, had brought him to see the Chamber after hours, then backed him up against the ancient table and kissed him. (It was the same night he’d first met Gersha.) When he was twenty, Majority Leader Verán had made him climb onto the table and fucked him there. Tilrey remembered how hard the wood felt under his knees; how he’d stared straight ahead at the paneling on the opposite wall, teeth clenched, determined not to make a noise or shed a tear.

Both those men were dead now. He was still here.

Before he could return to his seat at the rear of the amphitheater, the page announced a recess. Tilrey folded his glasses and followed the Councillors into the hall for a cup of tea.

The long speech had parched his throat. He’d been preparing for several days, rehearsing it for Gersha, and now that he could finally relax, his thoughts skittered aimlessly, refusing to focus.

These days, Tilrey brought his own loose tea blend from home. He’d shown Gersha how to grow it from bonsai tea trees and home roast it, just as Malsha had taught him long ago, and Gersha amused himself by creating ever-improved blends, supplementing them with imports from Harbour.

Today it was a classic smoky mixture—Tilrey’s favorite. As he drenched the sachet with water from the steel dispenser and breathed in the fragrant steam, he heard a familiar voice rise over the crowd.

Councillor Saldegren was holding forth, drawing murmurs and titters from the surrounding Councillors. The old man had a pleasant voice—ringing and resonant, perfect for a politician—and for a moment Tilrey heard only the music of it.

Then he heard the words.

“—such a tragedy to see him always in those drab jerkins,” Saldegren was saying. “You should have seen him in the old days, when he was dressed up like us—sweet little high-collared tunics, always cinched so very tight at the waist. And what a waist! He was positively ravishing.”

Someone else said something Tilrey didn’t hear. There was laughter. Tilrey gave a start as hot water overflowed the cup onto his hand.

There could only be one person Saldegren was describing. Tilrey poured out the excess water and turned around slowly, deliberately.

Saldegren had gone quiet. The whole hall was suspiciously still, in fact. A woman laughed, he couldn’t tell who.

For a bare instant, Tilrey caught Saldegren’s eye. He was tempted to speak up then and there, for once, but to have it out in public would be foolish. All the assembled Councillors would feel offended by his speaking out of turn, and they would complain among themselves and even to Gersha. No, he would wait until the statements were over and they all returned to their offices.

It wasn’t the first time Tilrey had heard such comments, of course—about his appearance, his past, and how much his very presence “livened up” the Council Chamber. He always let them slide off his back. In the early years, when he had no choice, he’d even smiled and played along.

But it was time to draw a line, and it made sense to start with Vanya Saldegren. The man was an ally, at least when he wasn’t asserting his independence with capricious swing votes. He was a friend of Gersha’s and claimed to be a friend of Tilrey’s. He had dined with them half a dozen times over the years, bringing sesame biscuits for Ceill and telling the boy silly stories and exclaiming on how much he’d grown. And, if Tilrey wasn’t entirely comfortable with the way Vanya looked at him, or the memories that Vanya’s presence aroused, he always smiled and held his tongue.

For the man to behave this way, however, was unacceptable. He couldn’t let it go.

All the same, two hours later, he had to steel himself to knock at the door of Saldegren’s office.

It didn’t help that the woman who opened up was a Sector veteran, Saldegren’s secretary for the past twenty-five years. She took one look at Tilrey and hoisted an iron-gray brow. “Fir Councillor’s busy, Bronn. Unless you had a prior appointment?” Her expression told him exactly what she thought a “prior appointment” might involve.

“No.” Tilrey stepped past her into the antichamber. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d obliged Vanya in this office, getting on his knees to speed the passage of a bill. It wasn’t his fault if she could. “I’ll wait here for him.”

The brow arched higher. “This isn’t a lobby.”

Tilrey went over to the window and nudged a shutter aside. “Then I’ll wait standing up. I know he’s always here after the session, Krimheld,” he added, peering into the black winter night.

He heard a sigh. Then the click of the inner door, and voices behind it—the secretary irritated, Saldegren reassuring.

The door opened again, and Vanya Saldegren emerged, beaming warmly as he beckoned Tilrey into the inner office. He’d always been a big man with an expansive presence, and advancing age had scarcely shrunken him. “Always a pleasure, Rishka,” he boomed. “And how is Gersha these days? It’s been too long.”

The Councillor closed the door on his disapproving secretary, sat down at his desk, and waved at the second chair. “I hope he’s not actually indisposed?”

Tilrey was tempted to stay standing, but the offer of a seat was a gesture of respect. He took it. “You know Gersha. He’ll take any excuse to stay by the hearth and work on his database—and Ceill’s needed some tutoring lately.”

“Such a devoted father, that Gersha.” Vanya actually looked misty-eyed. “I wish I’d had more time with mine when they were young.”

“Yes, it goes quickly.” But Tilrey couldn’t get sidetracked by platitudes. He fixed his gaze on Vanya, hard.

The man’s smile faded. “What’s the matter, lad?”

Tilrey drew out the silence a few seconds longer. He was in uncharted territory, but long-simmering anger swept away his usual careful politeness. He and Vanya knew each other so well, and not at all. “You’re asking me what’s the matter? After this afternoon?”

Vanya looked blank, as if replaying the events of the afternoon in his head. “Oh,” he said at last, casual. “I was rude—forgive me. I should have kept my voice lower.”

Tilrey’s throat tightened. Vanya would see his white knuckles on the chair arm, but he didn’t care. “That’s all you have to say? That I wasn’t meant to overhear?”

“Well, of course not.” Another affable, well-bred smile. “To be honest, though, Rishka, I didn’t expect you to react this way. Surely you’ve heard worse over the years.”

“Yes.” And I didn’t like it then, either. Vanya had a point, though—how could he object now when he’d never appeared to before?

Vanya went on: “We all have long memories here in the Sector, and the past . . . well, you do have a past, don’t you?”

Tilrey wasn’t good with anger. Over the course of several long discussions with Gersha—longer than he would have liked—he had confessed that his go-to strategy when he felt murderous rage was to smile coldly and submit and dare the object of his rage to hurt him. A heady cocktail of pain and hatred and dissociation made everything better.

But he couldn’t do that anymore, he and Gersha had agreed—or only in play. In real life, he needed to “be himself.” Never mind that he barely knew where to start.

Tilrey cleared his throat, fighting the sensation of choking. His voice was a problem; it was deep, which meant he had to work to keep it from sounding intimidating. If Saldegren actually felt threatened, things could shift between them in a disastrous way.

He said, “I know I’ve let it go for years, Fir—Vanya. But I shouldn’t have. And that’s why I’m here: to tell you that kind of talk isn’t acceptable to me, or at least not from you. You can’t support Gersha in the Chamber and turn around and make me into an object of . . . mockery.”

Saldegren’s brows drew together, snowy on his brown forehead. He looked genuinely confused. “Mockery? I was paying you a compliment. It’s not like people don’t notice that you are a ravishing boy.”

Tilrey leapt to his feet, but there was nowhere to go. He just couldn’t sit anymore. “You do know how old I am?” Saldegren looked blank, so he supplied the answer: “Forty-three.”

Vanya looked horrified by the reminder that he himself was pushing seventy. “You mustn’t say things like that. Verdant hells, you don’t have a wrinkle or a gray streak. You don’t dye your hair, do you?”

Tilrey just looked at him.

“Clearly not.” Vanya sighed. “I see this bothers you, and I’m sorry. But you can’t expect people just to forget who you are—who you were. There are so many . . . memories.”

As he spoke, he played with a pen, his eyes going dreamy. Tilrey could imagine which memories the Councillor was reliving.

There was the very first time, when he’d gone to his knees in Saldegren’s living room—young and scared, sent by Malsha as a gift to cement a political alliance. There were the many nights after that, when Vanya was voracious and tender by turns, insistent on what he called “mutual pleasures” even when Tilrey wanted to be done already and fall asleep. There was the time Vanya arranged for a photographer to take artful nudes of him—pictures that were still circulating, Tilrey knew all too well.

Tilrey had never quite forgiven Saldegren for those photographs. But he’d still returned, years later, to this very office whenever he needed to make sure the man would support Gersha. He’d still traded on that old affection.

He knew where Vanya had birthmarks, knew the texture of his skin, knew how the man’s cock felt down his throat and what it responded to. But that wasn’t the point.

He sat down again. Squared his shoulders. Placed his hands at his sides. “I’m not asking you to forget anything, Vanya. What we had . . .” Wasn’t real. “Was meaningful to you, I know. But when we’re here in the Sector, I need people to see me differently. I need them to respect me. As Gersha’s proxy, of course,” he added, forcing the last words out.

“Yes, but that’s just the issue.” Saldegren regarded Tilrey with his large, liquid brown eyes. “You and Gersha have an unusual relationship, and it’s even more unusual for a secretary to play the role in the Council that you do. Some would say it’s unprecedented. Furthermore, unacceptable.”

Again Tilrey’s throat tightened, but he kept his voice even. “Are you saying that?”

“Of course not! Those of us who are older understand your unique bond with Gersha. We know what a loyal, steadfast, capable boy you are. But you should know, Tilrey, that some of my younger colleagues are rather baffled by the whole situation. They ask me about you—what have you done with Gersha? Can we be sure he’s even fit to serve, considering we only see him a day or two out of every ten? Should there be an investigation?”

Tilrey knew all this. He had his spies. “That’s mainly Akeina, and she mistrusts me because of her personal history. No one takes her seriously, not even her husband.”

“For now, perhaps.” Saldegren’s eyes narrowed. “But Vreya’s a hard worker, and she could rise fast. What I’m trying to say here is that, when I talk slightingly of you in Chambers, I’m actually laying the groundwork for your defense.”

For a moment, Tilrey was a teenager again, listening in awe to the Councillor’s convoluted eloquence. Then he snapped back to himself. “I don’t follow.”

Vanya folded his arms on the desk. “Don’t you, my lad? The less the Council respects you, the more amusing and trivial they find you, the more easily they accept you.”

“So you’re saying—”

“I’m saying that you need to accept your role. Which I thought you did, because you played it so well—until today.”

Sometimes, when Tilrey was really upset, he still heard Malsha Linnett’s voice in his head. This time it dictated words to him, along with their icy tone: “If you think I enjoy being leered at and made the butt of jokes, you’re a bigger fool than I ever imagined.”

Vanya’s self-satisfied look faded. “I’m going to ignore the tone you just took with me. You seem so unhappy today, Rishka. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all. I could almost swear you want to really replace Gersha.”

Maybe Tilrey was an idiot. Probably he was a idiot. But words rose to his lips, and he said them: “I don’t need to replace Gersha. I wrote the statement I read today. I write everything I read in the Chamber—I have for years. Gersha does no more than offer a few edits.” He managed to stop short of drawing the logical conclusion: Gersha never wanted to be the Councillor, and he isn’t anymore. I am.

Vanya stared at Tilrey, his expression unchanging. “I will,” he said at last, “pretend I never heard that. And you, I hope, will have the sense never to mention it again.”

Tilrey knew he was receiving a kindness. There was no way for a high-named Upstart of either party to hear what he’d just said and not report him as a subversive or a madman. Still, he ached with the desire to make Vanya acknowledge that he had heard and understood the truth of who Tilrey was—not a “ravishing boy,” not a compliant secretary, but a player of this game in his own right.

He swallowed the desire. This wasn’t the time. Maybe there never would be a time. He rose to his feet, deliberately this time, and clasped his hands behind his back.

“I appreciate your attempts to make me more palatable to your colleagues, Fir,” he said in his most formal way, “and the spirit of alliance that inspires them. But I fear you may have overplayed your hand and turned me into a laughingstock. I don’t see how this serves our joint goals.”

Ah, that’s it, Malsha whispered inside Tilrey, as contrition snuck over Vanya’s face. You very nearly ruined everything, but this save will do just fine. Appeal to his dignity. His better nature.

Tilrey tried to ignore the inner voice, but he could feel his own going cold again in imitation of it. “I hope you’ll forgive me my outburst just now. It was way out of line.”

Vanya said quickly, “Of course.”

“Our past means something to me, too.” The words tasted bitter. “But, from now on, I shall expect you to limit your fond reminiscences to informal settings like the Lounge, where I am not present. When I am, you can treat me like any other secretary—no winks, no nudges, no anecdotes, just business. Is that understood, Fir?” Tilrey paused. “Or is it too much to ask?”

Vanya looked at Tilrey with eyes that were bright with the beginnings of tears. “All you really had to do was ask, lad. You know I can’t refuse you anything.”

You’ve just made it clear what you refuse to do. But Tilrey knew he’d gotten the biggest concession he was likely to get. There was no sense in ruining things. “You do me honor with your trust, Fir,” he said and held out his hand across the Councillor’s desk, palm down to express his subordination.

Saldegren grasped the hand and squeezed. “Send Gersha my good wishes,” he said. “Tell him I thrilled to the eloquence of his statement today, and I feel sure it will destroy any remaining support for that nasty Island bill. I hope we can all dine together again soon.”