Chapter 18: Distractions — The Key of Oslov

Volume 1: A Serviceable Boy

Chapter 18 Distractions

Chapter Notes

This chapter features a memory of past gang rape. Things will get dark here for a few more chapters, but resolution will come soon. Thanks so much again for reading and leaving kudos and comments! They make my day.

Chapter Notes

The pub was in the city’s Sixth Ring, tucked in the underground passage between a semiconductor factory and a drab block of R3-Level housing. It was a musty hole in the wall with a fizzy heater, five booths, one high slit window, a dartboard, and a long bar gummy with the residue of drinks and elbows.Long ago, when Gersha was just out of Uni, one of his cousins had brought him here “to meet easy Drudge girls.” Gersha had no interest in girls of any Level, so while his cousin got a workingwoman liquored up, he let his eyes roam the room and tried to imagine the lives of the people who frequented this stale, wretched den.Now it was the only place he felt comfortable seeking solace. He could sap himself into a stupor at home, but that would remind him of his mother, and tonight, for once in his life, he wanted the noisy, ignoble effects of alcohol. He wanted to self-destruct the way Laborers did.“Grain liquor, please. Whatever you’ve got.” A scan of his ID would instantly reveal Gersha as an Upstart, so he dropped a vial of sap on the counter as payment. Hoping to blend in, he’d swapped his tunic for anonymous workout clothes and borrowed one of Bosh’s coats—an offense against Level Code, but not the kind a Councillor had to worry about.The bartender, a sharp-nosed R2 Laborer in her forties with a long scarf wound around her head, looked dubiously at him. “I’ll get you what’s on the top shelf, Fir, but it won’t be what you’re used to.”She turned away, leaving Gersha fuming. Could everyone smell the Upstart on him? Was it the accent—did his vowels make him sound like an uptight Sector prig?The glass sloshed as the woman placed it on the counter. Gersha flinched at the fumes that rose from it.“For a V you can drink all week here, Fir,” the barkeep said in a monotone. “Don’t worry, no one’ll bother you—unless you want them to. Boy, girl, something else, I can get you whatever you like.”“No thanks.” Gersha took his glass of poison and sank into an empty booth, as far from the bar as possible, his face flaming. How many slumming Strutters came here for a quick fuck, or to see how grungy a sanctioned, government-run “leisure establishment” could be and still pass inspection?He’d ducked out of the Sector before the end of the workday. Even the factories were still running, and the dull hum of machinery above him explained why the place was deserted.Grateful for the solitude, Gersha downed his glass quickly, wincing at the burn of black-market Harbourer spirits. A bar could only be licensed to sell beer and cider, but the manager had clearly found a way around such trivialities.Perhaps he should have been a Laborer. He tried to imagine leaving work every afternoon when a whistle blew. Spending the evening with friends, drinking and playing games, watching streams, sharing gossip. Cutting out early to spend the night with someone special—don’t think about that.By the time he was on his feet, the barkeep had a second glass all ready for him.With each swallow, warmth burgeoned in his head and chest, quickening his pulse and blurring his vision, bringing back the images of Tilrey—Rishka, my love, my Rishka—that he’d tried to dispel. But at least he was no longer seeing Ranek’s cold eyes, or the Council chamber, or the apartment he refused to return to while the boy’s room sat empty.He’d searched that room like a fool, thinking he could protect Tilrey, thinking he had some sort of control over the process. Fucking pussy.Numbness had to set in eventually. He took another gulp to make his body stop aching for the boy’s phantom touch. Hands, lips, strong arms, fingers . . .By the third glass, the pinprick lights above the bar had switched on, and the walls and tables were melting together. Men and women in coveralls had moved into the surrounding booths and tables, where they drank their own poisons with silent determination. The window-slit showed snow whirling under a floodlight.This is where I belong. Some of his mother’s ancestors could have been Laborers. Simple working people, content to let those who could grasp the precious legacy of Tangle technology make the decisions, while they broke their backs for nine hours a day and then drank themselves into oblivion.Would he be happier in a life like this, with someone always telling him what to do? Did it matter? All that mattered was that everyone had a place, Whyberg said so, and Whyberg . . . the Council . . . the Sector . . .Gersha reached reflexively for his handheld, because if work was over in the factories, it was also getting late in the Sector, and perhaps Ranek had an update for him. Then he remembered he was surrounded by Laborers, on their terrain. No devices.He’d look at it on the tram platform, if he could get there without falling down. He levered himself upright, using the booth as a crutch, and launched himself toward the door at the back of the room, hoping it led to the stairs.Tugging on the door futilely, he heard rough male chuckles behind him. “Need some help, Fir?”“Hey, Fir, you dropped your scarf. Wouldn’t want to freeze that pretty face off.”The hunger behind the words made Gersha’s spine prickle with an old dread, reminding him of his school days. If they knew he was a Gádden and a Councillor, not just a rank-and-file Upstart, would they be less likely to harass him, or more? Savages. They hate us, all of them.“I’m fine, lads.” Don’t raise your voice. You have control. He yanked desperately on the handle—and tumbled back into the room as someone pushed the door from the other direction.Gersha’s legs folded, but a pair of strong arms buoyed him up and carried him over the threshold into the cold corridor. Fighting dizziness, he opened his eyes to find his face pressed against a tweed-faced down coat. Another Upstart, this one not disguised.As he grasped for the strength to push the man away, to utter a threat to call a constable, a blessedly familiar voice said, “Hey, Fir. What are you doing in this hole?”“Bror.” He felt his knees give again, this time with relief, because the kettle boy was somehow exactly who he needed to see. “You were right. I’m so stupid. I need—I need him.”*Celinda’s tongue was in Tilrey’s mouth.The last thing he remembered was dozing off on the pile of rags. Their conversation had kept going in circles, her insisting that he “just listen to” a plan her friends had for him, while he countered that he had no interest in Dissident plans and schemes and felt safer not knowing. Eventually Celinda gave up—or so he thought—and went away, leaving him a bucket to piss in and hitting the light switch to send the basement back into oblivion.Now the lights were back on, and she was on top of him.As he tried to orient himself, blinking his vision clear, an expert hand pulled his head back. Again her warm, full lips claimed his, one thigh rubbing knowingly against his cock. She’d half-unbuttoned his tunic and her own coverall, and her breasts pressed against his thin shirt, nipples hardening, while her hand reached down between his legs.When it came to arousing men, she was a professional. Tilrey groaned, feeling himself respond, but now he was alert enough to force himself upright and shove her away. “What’s wrong with you? You think you can fuck me into rebelling?”“You want it.” Celinda stayed where he’d put her, but he could see her eyes glitter. “You’ve always wanted me.”He yanked the tunic over his erection. “Please. I know all the same tricks you do.”“That doesn’t stop them from working. You’re a man, you know, not a machine. Not currency. Not a ‘piece.’”She hissed the word “man” as if it were something only she knew how to value. Tilrey tried not to hear it echoing in his head as he fastened the tunic. “I’m well aware of what I am.”“I’ve always liked you, too, you know. I could see you were different from the others. Not a stupid little ass licker like Ansha, or a dunderhead like Bror.”So she’d switched from provocation to flattery—an all-too-familiar tactic. He sighed.“You do like women, Rishka. I can tell you do.”“I like . . . everything.” And nothing at all. Except maybe what Gersha and I were doing last night.There was a frantic note in Celinda’s voice now, clashing with her attempt at seduction. “We could get married, you know. I could have your child. There’s nothing stopping us.”Married? Children? Was she truly unhinged? “And in what world would we do that?”She scrambled to her feet and looked down on him, buttoning up her coverall. “The world where you stop being a whore and start being a free man, and I start being a free woman, after you do one thing for us. After you kill Verán.”“After I what?” Was this what they’d dragged him here for—to make him commit a political assassination? He didn’t have to feign his shock at the idea. “That’s absurd, Celinda. Verán is practically the General Magistrate; that would throw the whole Republic into chaos. Anyway, I’m not a murderer, and neither are you.”“Chaos is the point. Anyway, don’t pretend you’ve never thought about killing the bastard.”I can’t say I’d mind if he died. But he wasn’t fool enough to say so. “Talk sense, Celinda. A few hours ago, you were telling me I’m a wanted man now. If it’s true I’m already bound for a cell, how on earth would I get to Verán?”Celinda began to pace in small, tense steps, all her sensual languor gone. “Gádden is the one who reported you. Verán thinks Gádden is a prudish little fool. If you go to him on your knees, say it was a misunderstanding, and promise to be good, the old man will let you back into his bed, believe me.”“You’d let me go?” He couldn’t let her see how his pulse raced at the thought of getting out of here. He’d take his chances with Verán.“I know what you’re thinking. But if you don’t execute the plan, Tilrey, we have ways of reaching you.”Not if I rat you out to Int/Sec first. He didn’t want to do it, but what choice was she leaving him? To kill a man in cold blood or to send a crew of would-be murderers to prison.“I don’t see why you want to kill him,” he said, stalling again. “I saw what happened in Thurskein: violence always just makes them crack down harder.”She stopped short. “So if I give you a good reason, you’ll consider it?”What if, somehow, they were being surveilled? “I didn’t say that.”“It would be so easy, Rishka. Verán’s an old man who can’t walk without a cane; you’re in the prime of life. Go make up to him. Grovel. Be his pretty piece. Then, once you’re alone in the bedroom, you whip out a garrote”—she demonstrated with an invisible cord— “or even smother him with a pillow. Slip out the front door, and we’ll have you on a cargo plane to Harbour hours before his driver even finds the body.”This wasn’t real. It was like a scene from a melodramatic stream, and the look on Celinda’s noble features said she was enthralled by her own performance.“You can get me passage to Harbour? Letters of introduction?” Tilrey didn’t believe it for a second, but that wasn’t the important part. “You still haven’t given me anything approaching a reason,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with the proper self-righteousness.Celinda shook her head. “Seriously? You’re asking me for a reason?”“He’s a human being.”“How principled of you.” It was practically a snarl. “I don’t get you, Rishka. How many times will you let them hit you and come back begging for more?”He started to speak, but she went on: “Bror told me, you know—about what happened your first night in Verán’s house. What he made you do.”“Bror told you that?” Tilrey couldn’t quite keep the edge off his voice. He’d trusted Bror.“He was concerned about you,” Celinda said primly.Well, fuck. Tilrey wouldn’t have told Bror about that night if they hadn’t been drinking too much rotgut liquor in the wretched factory pub where Bror liked to pick up girls.Bror had already heard the rumor from someone’s driver: “Is it true they made you suck off every member of the Island Party on your first night?”And, because he was wasted and miserable, instead of dodging the question, Tilrey said, “They tried.”It had all come spilling out then, everything that happened after the Voice left him. Verán had come to the cell and given Tilrey proper clothes and led him back into a world of freedom and light, and oh, how pliable he’d been.Back in Verán’s apartment, he obliged Verán, though only after he coaxed the new majority leader into telling him exactly what had happened to Linnett. Then the other Party members arrived and started drinking, and they took him into the bedroom, where he blew man after man until his aching throat and stiff tongue refused to cooperate. He begged and made excuses, and they gave him more sap and rolled him on his back and took turns riding his mouth while he concentrated on not choking.Besha, of all people, came to his rescue, insisting on taking him off to wash his face and drink some water. Tilrey was pathetically grateful for the respite, and Besha didn’t touch him the whole time. When he emerged again, Verán’s driver shoved him down on his hands and knees and whispered, “They want to see me take you,” and he spread his legs and cooperated just to get the night over with.And all the time they called him by the name of the man who’d shaped and broken him—“Nettsha”—and Tilrey didn’t understand, kept trying to correct them, until Besha took pity on him and explained: “It’s because you were Linnett’s boy. When we do things to you, it’s almost like we’re doing them to him.”

Damn you, Bror. How many people did you tell?

“Verán treated you like a prisoner of war that night,” Celinda said. “Not even like a whore, a proper sanctioned one, but like something he owns. He still does that, doesn’t he? Everyone knows what happened on Election Night.”Do they? Tilrey rubbed his mouth, inching away from her. Stick to the party line. “Fir Verán hasn’t always been the gentlest to me, I suppose. But—”“Gentlest? After he had you gang-raped, he gave you to Linden, who beat the shit out of you on a weekly basis.”His past sounded so harsh when you stripped it of euphemisms. “Linden was a feeble old man. He barely put a scratch on me.”“Really? Because I heard he broke your jaw once. You’re lucky he didn’t disfigure you.”Tilrey felt a muscle tense in his jaw as he remembered how fucking much that had hurt. But it had been his fault for disobeying the unspoken rules, for raising his hand and trying to stop a beating. He hadn’t done that again.“None of that is your business,” he said. “Or a reason to kill Fir Verán. He was exercising the prerogatives of his station, and me, well . . .”He rose, swaying a little on his shackled foot. “I mean, look at me, Cela. Like you say, I’m in the prime of life. No one makes me do anything. Anything I do, anything I let people do to me—well, I’m no victim.”Celinda was silent. In the dim light, it took Tilrey a few moments to realize the expression she wore was pity.Rage clamped his throat, but no, no, rage was weakness. He’d show her he wasn’t weak.You have more stamina than I’d have expected, the Voice said in his head.“You still haven’t given me a real reason to ice Verán.” He stepped toward her until the chain brought him up short. “Kill him, and another just like him comes along. If he weren’t whipping the Party into shape, someone else would be.”“It causes chaos, like you said, and it sends a message.” At least now she looked furious again, that horrible condescension gone. “Verán is pure oligarch arrogance, Rishka—you know that better than me. He didn’t earn his position; he was born to it. He’s the worst of the system in one man’s body.”“Taking down the body won’t take down the system.” Do I want to take down the system?“It’s a start.”Just for a moment, Tilrey allowed himself to imagine doing what she wanted. Because, no, it wasn’t that hard.He and the majority leader would enter the bedroom, still damp from their bath, as they had dozens of times before. Seeping that smug air of possession, Verán would lower himself onto the bed and carefully prop his cane against the nightstand. He would settle himself and reach for the lube and flick his index and middle finger sideways (“strip”) and point to the spot beside him (“there, face down”).Tilrey would unbutton his tunic and deposit it on a chair, moving languidly as a sleepwalker. He might even smile as he sank onto the bed. Then, before Verán could ask querulously why he hadn’t removed the rest of his clothes, he would pick up a pillow and clamp it tight to the old man’s mouth and nose, pressing him flat to the duvet.Verán’s arms and legs would flail like an insect’s. The majority leader’s muffled voice would cry “Please,” and Tilrey would press the pillow tighter to choke off his frantic cries until, at last, all movement ceased. It might not even take long.Imagining Verán’s dying eyes brought him out of the fantasy with a jerk, because those eyes were full of contempt. Verán might plead, but he would not expect mercy. He would die thinking Tilrey had simply reverted to the animal savagery that was the natural state of Drudges.That wasn’t what he wanted, even in his cruelest imaginings.“If I were to do anything to Councillor Verán,” he said slowly, “I wouldn’t kill him. I’d crush him the way he crushes his enemies. I’d humiliate him.”Celinda edged closer to him, her beautiful eyes glinting. “And that would be how?”To humiliate someone, said Linnett, target their greatest weakness. I, for instance, enjoy being in control. You would simply need to manufacture a situation in which I control nothing.Tilrey knew exactly how he could humiliate Verán if he chose, but he had no intention of handing Celinda and her friends the most—only—valuable secret he had. What could they do with it other than get themselves killed?With a rattle of steel, he sank back down on his pile of rags and spoke loud and clear, imagining hidden microphones. “You don’t seem to understand, Celinda. I’m grateful to Fir Verán for giving me a home with the Island. I respect all his decisions for me. If he and Fir Gádden really think I belong in a cell for reading Harbourer books, I respect that, too.”He had to stop there, swallowing down the bitterness in his throat, to remind himself she’d probably made up the part about Gersha. Had to have.Celinda looked as if she’d stumbled on a sewage spill. “Just stop it, Rishka. No one’s monitoring you here.”He needed to stall, to figure out how to get himself out of here without consenting to murder. “If you want help bringing down the ‘system,’ you’ll have to find another hero.”

Long ago, when Gersha was just out of Uni, one of his cousins had brought him here “to meet easy Drudge girls.” Gersha had no interest in girls of any Level, so while his cousin got a workingwoman liquored up, he let his eyes roam the room and tried to imagine the lives of the people who frequented this stale, wretched den.

Now it was the only place he felt comfortable seeking solace. He could sap himself into a stupor at home, but that would remind him of his mother, and tonight, for once in his life, he wanted the noisy, ignoble effects of alcohol. He wanted to self-destruct the way Laborers did.

“Grain liquor, please. Whatever you’ve got.” A scan of his ID would instantly reveal Gersha as an Upstart, so he dropped a vial of sap on the counter as payment. Hoping to blend in, he’d swapped his tunic for anonymous workout clothes and borrowed one of Bosh’s coats—an offense against Level Code, but not the kind a Councillor had to worry about.

The bartender, a sharp-nosed R2 Laborer in her forties with a long scarf wound around her head, looked dubiously at him. “I’ll get you what’s on the top shelf, Fir, but it won’t be what you’re used to.”

She turned away, leaving Gersha fuming. Could everyone smell the Upstart on him? Was it the accent—did his vowels make him sound like an uptight Sector prig?

The glass sloshed as the woman placed it on the counter. Gersha flinched at the fumes that rose from it.

“For a V you can drink all week here, Fir,” the barkeep said in a monotone. “Don’t worry, no one’ll bother you—unless you want them to. Boy, girl, something else, I can get you whatever you like.”

“No thanks.” Gersha took his glass of poison and sank into an empty booth, as far from the bar as possible, his face flaming. How many slumming Strutters came here for a quick fuck, or to see how grungy a sanctioned, government-run “leisure establishment” could be and still pass inspection?

He’d ducked out of the Sector before the end of the workday. Even the factories were still running, and the dull hum of machinery above him explained why the place was deserted.

Grateful for the solitude, Gersha downed his glass quickly, wincing at the burn of black-market Harbourer spirits. A bar could only be licensed to sell beer and cider, but the manager had clearly found a way around such trivialities.

Perhaps he should have been a Laborer. He tried to imagine leaving work every afternoon when a whistle blew. Spending the evening with friends, drinking and playing games, watching streams, sharing gossip. Cutting out early to spend the night with someone special—don’t think about that.

By the time he was on his feet, the barkeep had a second glass all ready for him.

With each swallow, warmth burgeoned in his head and chest, quickening his pulse and blurring his vision, bringing back the images of Tilrey—Rishka, my love, my Rishka—that he’d tried to dispel. But at least he was no longer seeing Ranek’s cold eyes, or the Council chamber, or the apartment he refused to return to while the boy’s room sat empty.

He’d searched that room like a fool, thinking he could protect Tilrey, thinking he had some sort of control over the process. Fucking pussy.

Numbness had to set in eventually. He took another gulp to make his body stop aching for the boy’s phantom touch. Hands, lips, strong arms, fingers . . .

By the third glass, the pinprick lights above the bar had switched on, and the walls and tables were melting together. Men and women in coveralls had moved into the surrounding booths and tables, where they drank their own poisons with silent determination. The window-slit showed snow whirling under a floodlight.

This is where I belong. Some of his mother’s ancestors could have been Laborers. Simple working people, content to let those who could grasp the precious legacy of Tangle technology make the decisions, while they broke their backs for nine hours a day and then drank themselves into oblivion.

Would he be happier in a life like this, with someone always telling him what to do? Did it matter? All that mattered was that everyone had a place, Whyberg said so, and Whyberg . . . the Council . . . the Sector . . .

Gersha reached reflexively for his handheld, because if work was over in the factories, it was also getting late in the Sector, and perhaps Ranek had an update for him. Then he remembered he was surrounded by Laborers, on their terrain. No devices.

He’d look at it on the tram platform, if he could get there without falling down. He levered himself upright, using the booth as a crutch, and launched himself toward the door at the back of the room, hoping it led to the stairs.

Tugging on the door futilely, he heard rough male chuckles behind him. “Need some help, Fir?”

“Hey, Fir, you dropped your scarf. Wouldn’t want to freeze that pretty face off.”

The hunger behind the words made Gersha’s spine prickle with an old dread, reminding him of his school days. If they knew he was a Gádden and a Councillor, not just a rank-and-file Upstart, would they be less likely to harass him, or more? Savages. They hate us, all of them.

“I’m fine, lads.” Don’t raise your voice. You have control. He yanked desperately on the handle—and tumbled back into the room as someone pushed the door from the other direction.

Gersha’s legs folded, but a pair of strong arms buoyed him up and carried him over the threshold into the cold corridor. Fighting dizziness, he opened his eyes to find his face pressed against a tweed-faced down coat. Another Upstart, this one not disguised.

As he grasped for the strength to push the man away, to utter a threat to call a constable, a blessedly familiar voice said, “Hey, Fir. What are you doing in this hole?”

“Bror.” He felt his knees give again, this time with relief, because the kettle boy was somehow exactly who he needed to see. “You were right. I’m so stupid. I need—I need him.”

Celinda’s tongue was in Tilrey’s mouth.

The last thing he remembered was dozing off on the pile of rags. Their conversation had kept going in circles, her insisting that he “just listen to” a plan her friends had for him, while he countered that he had no interest in Dissident plans and schemes and felt safer not knowing. Eventually Celinda gave up—or so he thought—and went away, leaving him a bucket to piss in and hitting the light switch to send the basement back into oblivion.

Now the lights were back on, and she was on top of him.

As he tried to orient himself, blinking his vision clear, an expert hand pulled his head back. Again her warm, full lips claimed his, one thigh rubbing knowingly against his cock. She’d half-unbuttoned his tunic and her own coverall, and her breasts pressed against his thin shirt, nipples hardening, while her hand reached down between his legs.

When it came to arousing men, she was a professional. Tilrey groaned, feeling himself respond, but now he was alert enough to force himself upright and shove her away. “What’s wrong with you? You think you can fuck me into rebelling?”

“You want it.” Celinda stayed where he’d put her, but he could see her eyes glitter. “You’ve always wanted me.”

He yanked the tunic over his erection. “Please. I know all the same tricks you do.”

“That doesn’t stop them from working. You’re a man, you know, not a machine. Not currency. Not a ‘piece.’”

She hissed the word “man” as if it were something only she knew how to value. Tilrey tried not to hear it echoing in his head as he fastened the tunic. “I’m well aware of what I am.”

“I’ve always liked you, too, you know. I could see you were different from the others. Not a stupid little ass licker like Ansha, or a dunderhead like Bror.”

So she’d switched from provocation to flattery—an all-too-familiar tactic. He sighed.

“You do like women, Rishka. I can tell you do.”

“I like . . . everything.” And nothing at all. Except maybe what Gersha and I were doing last night.

There was a frantic note in Celinda’s voice now, clashing with her attempt at seduction. “We could get married, you know. I could have your child. There’s nothing stopping us.”

Married? Children? Was she truly unhinged? “And in what world would we do that?”

She scrambled to her feet and looked down on him, buttoning up her coverall. “The world where you stop being a whore and start being a free man, and I start being a free woman, after you do one thing for us. After you kill Verán.”

“After I what?” Was this what they’d dragged him here for—to make him commit a political assassination? He didn’t have to feign his shock at the idea. “That’s absurd, Celinda. Verán is practically the General Magistrate; that would throw the whole Republic into chaos. Anyway, I’m not a murderer, and neither are you.”

“Chaos is the point. Anyway, don’t pretend you’ve never thought about killing the bastard.”

I can’t say I’d mind if he died. But he wasn’t fool enough to say so. “Talk sense, Celinda. A few hours ago, you were telling me I’m a wanted man now. If it’s true I’m already bound for a cell, how on earth would I get to Verán?”

Celinda began to pace in small, tense steps, all her sensual languor gone. “Gádden is the one who reported you. Verán thinks Gádden is a prudish little fool. If you go to him on your knees, say it was a misunderstanding, and promise to be good, the old man will let you back into his bed, believe me.”

“You’d let me go?” He couldn’t let her see how his pulse raced at the thought of getting out of here. He’d take his chances with Verán.

“I know what you’re thinking. But if you don’t execute the plan, Tilrey, we have ways of reaching you.”

Not if I rat you out to Int/Sec first. He didn’t want to do it, but what choice was she leaving him? To kill a man in cold blood or to send a crew of would-be murderers to prison.

“I don’t see why you want to kill him,” he said, stalling again. “I saw what happened in Thurskein: violence always just makes them crack down harder.”

She stopped short. “So if I give you a good reason, you’ll consider it?”

What if, somehow, they were being surveilled? “I didn’t say that.”

“It would be so easy, Rishka. Verán’s an old man who can’t walk without a cane; you’re in the prime of life. Go make up to him. Grovel. Be his pretty piece. Then, once you’re alone in the bedroom, you whip out a garrote”—she demonstrated with an invisible cord— “or even smother him with a pillow. Slip out the front door, and we’ll have you on a cargo plane to Harbour hours before his driver even finds the body.”

This wasn’t real. It was like a scene from a melodramatic stream, and the look on Celinda’s noble features said she was enthralled by her own performance.

“You can get me passage to Harbour? Letters of introduction?” Tilrey didn’t believe it for a second, but that wasn’t the important part. “You still haven’t given me anything approaching a reason,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with the proper self-righteousness.

Celinda shook her head. “Seriously? You’re asking me for a reason?”

“He’s a human being.”

“How principled of you.” It was practically a snarl. “I don’t get you, Rishka. How many times will you let them hit you and come back begging for more?”

He started to speak, but she went on: “Bror told me, you know—about what happened your first night in Verán’s house. What he made you do.”

“Bror told you that?” Tilrey couldn’t quite keep the edge off his voice. He’d trusted Bror.

“He was concerned about you,” Celinda said primly.

Well, fuck. Tilrey wouldn’t have told Bror about that night if they hadn’t been drinking too much rotgut liquor in the wretched factory pub where Bror liked to pick up girls.

Bror had already heard the rumor from someone’s driver: “Is it true they made you suck off every member of the Island Party on your first night?”

And, because he was wasted and miserable, instead of dodging the question, Tilrey said, “They tried.”

It had all come spilling out then, everything that happened after the Voice left him. Verán had come to the cell and given Tilrey proper clothes and led him back into a world of freedom and light, and oh, how pliable he’d been.

Back in Verán’s apartment, he obliged Verán, though only after he coaxed the new majority leader into telling him exactly what had happened to Linnett. Then the other Party members arrived and started drinking, and they took him into the bedroom, where he blew man after man until his aching throat and stiff tongue refused to cooperate. He begged and made excuses, and they gave him more sap and rolled him on his back and took turns riding his mouth while he concentrated on not choking.

Besha, of all people, came to his rescue, insisting on taking him off to wash his face and drink some water. Tilrey was pathetically grateful for the respite, and Besha didn’t touch him the whole time. When he emerged again, Verán’s driver shoved him down on his hands and knees and whispered, “They want to see me take you,” and he spread his legs and cooperated just to get the night over with.

And all the time they called him by the name of the man who’d shaped and broken him—“Nettsha”—and Tilrey didn’t understand, kept trying to correct them, until Besha took pity on him and explained: “It’s because you were Linnett’s boy. When we do things to you, it’s almost like we’re doing them to him.”

Damn you, Bror. How many people did you tell?

Do they? Tilrey rubbed his mouth, inching away from her. Stick to the party line. “Fir Verán hasn’t always been the gentlest to me, I suppose. But—”

“Gentlest? After he had you gang-raped, he gave you to Linden, who beat the shit out of you on a weekly basis.”

His past sounded so harsh when you stripped it of euphemisms. “Linden was a feeble old man. He barely put a scratch on me.”

“Really? Because I heard he broke your jaw once. You’re lucky he didn’t disfigure you.”

Tilrey felt a muscle tense in his jaw as he remembered how fucking much that had hurt. But it had been his fault for disobeying the unspoken rules, for raising his hand and trying to stop a beating. He hadn’t done that again.

“None of that is your business,” he said. “Or a reason to kill Fir Verán. He was exercising the prerogatives of his station, and me, well . . .”

He rose, swaying a little on his shackled foot. “I mean, look at me, Cela. Like you say, I’m in the prime of life. No one makes me do anything. Anything I do, anything I let people do to me—well, I’m no victim.”

Celinda was silent. In the dim light, it took Tilrey a few moments to realize the expression she wore was pity.

Rage clamped his throat, but no, no, rage was weakness. He’d show her he wasn’t weak.

You have more stamina than I’d have expected, the Voice said in his head.

“You still haven’t given me a real reason to ice Verán.” He stepped toward her until the chain brought him up short. “Kill him, and another just like him comes along. If he weren’t whipping the Party into shape, someone else would be.”

“It causes chaos, like you said, and it sends a message.” At least now she looked furious again, that horrible condescension gone. “Verán is pure oligarch arrogance, Rishka—you know that better than me. He didn’t earn his position; he was born to it. He’s the worst of the system in one man’s body.”

“Taking down the body won’t take down the system.” Do I want to take down the system?

“It’s a start.”

Just for a moment, Tilrey allowed himself to imagine doing what she wanted. Because, no, it wasn’t that hard.

He and the majority leader would enter the bedroom, still damp from their bath, as they had dozens of times before. Seeping that smug air of possession, Verán would lower himself onto the bed and carefully prop his cane against the nightstand. He would settle himself and reach for the lube and flick his index and middle finger sideways (“strip”) and point to the spot beside him (“there, face down”).

Tilrey would unbutton his tunic and deposit it on a chair, moving languidly as a sleepwalker. He might even smile as he sank onto the bed. Then, before Verán could ask querulously why he hadn’t removed the rest of his clothes, he would pick up a pillow and clamp it tight to the old man’s mouth and nose, pressing him flat to the duvet.

Verán’s arms and legs would flail like an insect’s. The majority leader’s muffled voice would cry “Please,” and Tilrey would press the pillow tighter to choke off his frantic cries until, at last, all movement ceased. It might not even take long.

Imagining Verán’s dying eyes brought him out of the fantasy with a jerk, because those eyes were full of contempt. Verán might plead, but he would not expect mercy. He would die thinking Tilrey had simply reverted to the animal savagery that was the natural state of Drudges.

That wasn’t what he wanted, even in his cruelest imaginings.

“If I were to do anything to Councillor Verán,” he said slowly, “I wouldn’t kill him. I’d crush him the way he crushes his enemies. I’d humiliate him.”

Celinda edged closer to him, her beautiful eyes glinting. “And that would be how?”

To humiliate someone, said Linnett, target their greatest weakness. I, for instance, enjoy being in control. You would simply need to manufacture a situation in which I control nothing.

Tilrey knew exactly how he could humiliate Verán if he chose, but he had no intention of handing Celinda and her friends the most—only—valuable secret he had. What could they do with it other than get themselves killed?

With a rattle of steel, he sank back down on his pile of rags and spoke loud and clear, imagining hidden microphones. “You don’t seem to understand, Celinda. I’m grateful to Fir Verán for giving me a home with the Island. I respect all his decisions for me. If he and Fir Gádden really think I belong in a cell for reading Harbourer books, I respect that, too.”

He had to stop there, swallowing down the bitterness in his throat, to remind himself she’d probably made up the part about Gersha. Had to have.

Celinda looked as if she’d stumbled on a sewage spill. “Just stop it, Rishka. No one’s monitoring you here.”

He needed to stall, to figure out how to get himself out of here without consenting to murder. “If you want help bringing down the ‘system,’ you’ll have to find another hero.”