Volume 18: Oslov Unlocked
Chapter 11
Psychological Warfare
25 October, year 374, 9:30 p.m.
The Council’s second emergency session dragged on for nearly four hours. Gersha returned from the chamber to find Tilrey and Detmer Verán deep in conversation in the antechamber to his office, Detmer perched on Tilrey’s desk.When he saw Gersha, the young man scrambled down, looking embarrassed. “I’d better go back to Blas, Fir Councillor,” he said, darting past Gersha to the door with a saucy wink. “He’ll be in his office late, and someone needs to keep him company.”Gersha watched as Detmer closed the door behind him. The man’s bouncy vigor would have amused him if he hadn’t been so worried. “Does young Verán have a crush on you?” he asked, taking Detmer’s place, though the perch didn’t suit his older joints.Now it was Tilrey’s turn to look embarrassed. “Detmer’s naïve and impressionable.”“I can see that. But he has good taste. What did he tell you?”Tilrey’s face brightened as he rose to give Gersha his chair. “He thinks he can get into the apartment with Blas. He’s invented a pretext. Meanwhile, he says, Einara is back in the Brothel, but the whole place is guarded—yes, even the back entrance. He checked.”Gersha sat down—ah, that was more comfortable. “What about Ceill? Did Detmer hear anything?”“Young Lindblom was scheduled to interview Ceill around now. So there’s a chance—a slight one, anyway—that he might be released afterward.”Please. Gersha reached for Tilrey’s hand and squeezed it, trying not to let too much hope show on his face. “Ring Eight isn’t settling down,” he said, “and there are signs of trouble in Seven. They’ve shut down the trams and closed the gates in the underground city. But the news is still spreading somehow.”Because the cold made long-distance walks on the surface impossible, most Reddans used the trams or the underground tunnels to travel from Ring to Ring. The tunnels had been equipped with steel gates that could separate the underground part of one Ring from another, isolating outbreaks of rebellion—in theory, anyway.But now the workers might be angry enough about Stefan’s imprisonment to risk frostbite. Even Davita had seemed worried at the latest session, though she insisted that her son’s impeccable detective work would quell the unrest.Tilrey clasped Gersha’s hand back. “The people have never risen this way before—not that I’ve heard of. Why are they so obsessed with young Stefan?”“It’s Darius more than Stefan.” Gersha recalled his conversations about the stream with Ceill. “He’s a hero to them because he was born an Upstart and then Lowered to set an example for his peers. It affirms what they’ve probably already guessed—that ‘merit’ is a social construct.”“Too bad Darius doesn’t exist. We could put him in charge.”“Doesn’t he, though?” Gersha said. “Ceill says the stream maker based his hero on himself. And there are other people who’ve been on both sides of the divide—Aleks Snowblind. Ceill, in a way. You.”Tilrey laughed at that, a little wildly. “Both sides of what? I’m a Drudge, son of Drudges. No one would accept my leadership, not in any official way.”I would. But Gersha swallowed the words; he knew they would make Tilrey uncomfortable. “You know how to deal with Upstarts. You’re Davita’s most trusted advisor, whether she admits it or not. And you know Laborers, too.”“The majority of Reddan Laborers would never accept my authority. Even if they throw off their chains, they’re too proud to be led by a Skeinsha whore.”“Darius works in the Brothel,” Gersha pointed out.Tilrey shook his head as if to dispel the idea. “The outrage could simmer down any minute. We don’t know. Meanwhile, I’m going out to liaise with Bror and Mirella. We need to discuss uniting this organic Darius movement with ours. Why don’t you go home and rest, love?”“Not yet.” Gersha knew that if he sat at home waiting for Ceill to appear, he would go mad. “One of us needs to touch base with Einara and find out what on earth she thinks she’s doing.”“But how?”Gersha had to smile at the incredulity on Tilrey’s face. “They haven’t actually closed the Brothel, have they? No—Upstarts need a release valve now more than ever. I’m going to request the director’s services, and I doubt she’ll dare to refuse me.”“Are you sure I can’t get you tea, Fir Examining Magistrate?” the Brothel director asked, hovering over Blas.“No, thank you.” Her office was plain but serviceable enough for a follow-up interrogation; she’d seated him on the sofa. “I’m here to discuss an inconsistency in your testimony about the night of the incident.”The Brothel director nodded, the finest furrow appearing in her brow. “I’m happy to help you in any way I can, Fir.”She was younger and more attractive than Blas had expected—maybe he’d been thinking of her predecessor. But he could already tell he wouldn’t easily catch her in a lie. If Ceill Linnett was a cloudy window, revealing glimpses of the truth, she was opaque.“You told Fir Karishkov that you were here starting at eight,” he said, “and didn’t leave your quarters until morning. But a witness reports seeing you enter the laundry room between 8 and 10 p.m.”Einara Derán was not a suspect. Karishkov, who knew her better, had confirmed her lack of motivation. But if she were protecting Stefan or someone else, a threat to her own safety might make her more talkative.Her head jerked a fraction of an inch, but her expression didn’t change. “Oh! I suppose I did fetch fresh linens for myself. I thought that was earlier in the evening, but I didn’t check the time.”Blas’s witness was an inarticulate, slovenly young woman, very likely a sap addict, whose job was cleaning Brothel suites. When he’d located her to follow up on her original statement, he hadn’t been able to pin her down to a time beyond “in the evening.” Nor had she lingered long enough to see when Einara left the laundry room.She had told him one useful thing, though. “The laundry room connects with the tunnel system that staffers use to travel from their quarters to the suites without being seen by patrons. Correct?”The director took slightly too long to nod. “I suppose you’ve already explored our hiding places, Fir.”Blas had. “From the laundry room,” he said sharply, “it takes only four minutes to reach the suite where Councillor Lindahl died.”The director stared at him. For a moment, she had the blank gaze of someone caught in a searchlight. Then she blinked, and tears clouded her eyes.“Poor Stefan,” she said. “If I could say anything that would help him, I would. But I saw no intruder enter the tunnels from the laundry room that night, Fir. Unless you’re suggesting I used the back way to kill the Councillor myself?”“If I considered you a suspect, you’d be in a cell.” Blas rose briskly from the sofa, intuition telling him he wouldn’t get anything more from her. “But it was unwise of you to omit that detail from your statement. It makes me wonder what else you’re omitting.”“I’m sorry, Fir.”“Yes, well.” Blas gave her a hard look. Whatever you thought of Outers’ native intelligence versus Oslovs’, this Einara Derán was no fool. He hoped she wasn’t protecting someone else in the Brothel, such as her husband. But Kai Meirthal had an alibi even more convincing than her own.“Perhaps you’ve heard about the unrest in Ring Eight,” he said. “People have died because they confused the hero of a sobstream with the actor who portrayed him. Your husband cast Stefan Altmering in the stream, I believe?”The corner of her mouth quivered. “Kai never wanted any of this to happen, Fir.”She was afraid for the stream maker, alibi or no. That might be useful. “I certainly hope not,” Blas said. “With any luck, we can protect Kai from the consequences of the public’s tragic misunderstanding of his work.”He paused at the door. “If you remember anything else that wasn’t in your statement, let me know.”The door of the suite opened, and Einara stood on the other side. “Welcome, Fir Councillor Gádden. You honor us.”The first thing Gersha noticed was that she was very beautiful, with the same strangely ageless look that Tilrey had. The second was that she was brittle with exhaustion and trying not to show it.“I thank you for accommodating me on short notice, Director,” he said. “You must be having quite the day.”“So must you, Fir Councillor.” She ushered him into the room. “Please, take a seat. May I get you tea or something else?” She touched the sensor, and the door hissed closed. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to go straight to the bedroom?”Tilrey had tried to talk Gersha out of this visit, to no avail. He had made Einara sound formidable: Don’t show weakness. Don’t appeal to her pity. Don’t talk about your feelings for Ceill or for me. Challenge her at every turn. Don’t underestimate her.With all those frightening instructions in his head, Gersha had no idea how to respond to her show of deference. Maybe he would have to provoke her into showing her true colors. “Yes, the bedroom.”“Of course, Fir.” She led the way.Gersha closed the door behind them and turned his back to it. Then he explained: “Tilrey says you’re less likely to have this room bugged.”Einara dropped the formality immediately. She sat down on the bed without waiting for him to seat himself first. “It was reckless of him to send you. It looks suspicious—everyone knows you have no interest in women.”It was reckless of you to turn Lindahl’s death into a spectacle. But he couldn’t let her see his frustration. A lifetime of training had taught him to hide his weakness from Laborers.He said, “I know everything.”“I thought as much, Fir Councillor.”She couldn’t placate him with meaningless honorifics; he wasn’t a spoiled child. “Tilrey didn’t send me. He didn’t even want me to come. But I risk nothing by coming here. If anyone asks, I’ll just say I wanted to grill you about my son’s relationship with Stefan Altmering—and I do. Can you imagine how I feel right now?”He wasn’t supposed to talk about his feelings—oh well, too late. Anyway, it gave him a certain satisfaction to see Einara stiffen as she registered the controlled fury in his tone.“I never meant for Ceill to be involved,” she said, sounding surprisingly sincere. “I like him, Fir Councillor. I’m sorry to have made you worry.”Worry? You don’t know the half of it. “I want no fake respect from you. No polite censorship of the truth. Tilrey’s told me all about your bag of tricks—including what you and he do in bed.”He couldn’t look at her when he said that. But the room was small, without much to look at—and so, before he knew it, he was looking at the bed itself. Glancing up, he caught her following his gaze, and his cheeks warmed. What if this were the very same bed? “Did you think he’d be too ashamed to tell me?”Einara pulled her feet up and leaned back against the pillows, as if to emphasize that she wasn’t ashamed at all. “It’s more that I didn’t think he’d bother.”“We don’t keep secrets from each other.” Mostly. “Tilrey and I are partners in all things. I want you to be as frank with me as you’d be with him.”He seated himself on the edge of the bed, its width between them. She said, “What do you want me to be frank about?”“Everything.” Gersha cleared his throat; he couldn’t seem to find the breath to speak. Where was the beautiful orating voice he used to have in the Council chamber?Gone, that was where. He didn’t have the patience for pretty, roundabout words anymore. “I want to know where Janta is, whether he’s okay, when he’s coming back, and what the fuck your plan is for him and me and Tilrey and this poor Stefan and the rest of the city. Because right now I don’t get any sense you know what you’re doing. And that scares the shit out of me.”Einara’s eyes were very blue, just like Tilrey’s. As she gazed back at him, they turned to ice. “I don’t answer to you, Fir Councillor Gádden. Or to anyone.”Gersha didn’t break the gaze, though her stark defiance chilled him. “I imagine the Bureau of Diversions would beg to differ.”“And I imagine your fellow Councillors would beg to differ with your fomenting rebellion.” A smile curved her lips. “Janta’s fine. He’ll appreciate your concern for him. But he doesn’t live under your protection anymore. He has his own ideas about what he wants to do with his life.”I never forced him to do anything! But that wasn’t worth arguing about. “Tilrey told me about the facilities and the backdoor passwords,” Gersha said. “The Republic’s ‘nervous exoskeleton.’ Even if you and Janta can seize control of the Net—and I have serious doubts about that—it’s madness to think you can bring down the Republic. Is that what you’re hoping for?”“Who says I’m hoping for regime change? Why should I care?” Her smile widened. “If I understand correctly, Fir Councillor, you’re a Dissident. You and your friends have ideological differences with the Republic of Oslov. I have no ideology at all.”“Revenge. That’s what you want.” Tilrey had made that clear. “But on Oslov generally, or just on the people who hurt you?”Einara shrugged. She seemed confident now that she knew where she stood with him. “Do you know anyone who might deserve my revenge?”Besha. Tilrey hadn’t told her about Besha’s role in her family’s deaths, and Gersha understood that choice. But now that the stakes were so high, he couldn’t help wondering if it might be better to let Besha suffer the consequences of his own choices.He couldn’t give her Besha unilaterally, though, without Tilrey’s approval. “Revenge is destructive and pointless. Are you so selfish that you don’t care who you hurt? I know you despise Upstarts like me, with reason. But what about Tilrey? Your husband? What about Janta?”He was nearly shouting. He’d been trying so hard not to think about what might happen to Janta in a worst-case scenario. “If he tries to take over the Net and fails, or if they figure out his location, Davita Lindblom will send a drone strike to eliminate him!”Ceill in prison was bad enough, but Davita would never allow Ceill to be hurt. Janta she would crush without a second’s thought.Einara said, “Janta is an adult. He knows the risks of what he’s doing.”“Yes, but—”“He does! And so did your son when he slipped into Stefan’s bed.”“Ceill did not know the risks!” Gersha sprang to his feet, his face burning. “He couldn’t have known what you were about to do. And Stefan—did he know? Are you going to let him freeze to death just so you can turn Oslovs against each other?”She blinked—the ghost of a flinch. “Stefan did know the risks. We both hoped that if he were in prison, the city would rise in his defense. And we were right, weren’t we?”Had she heard the news about Ring Eight, then? Blood throbbed in Gersha’s temples. “A rebellion has to be carefully mapped out. The more people rise spontaneously, the more people die.”“Maybe it’s time for a few people to die. Maybe it’s time for them to have something to die for.” Einara’s eyes narrowed, and Gersha realized he was playing into her hands. Appealing to her conscience was pointless if, like Besha, she prided herself on being a force of chaos.Besha believed in his family, at least, in some twisted way. What did she believe in?“Tilrey seems to think a revolution can be bloodless,” she continued, a hint of mockery in her tone. “It’s a very Oslov attitude—so high-minded. Not very human.”“Tilrey doesn’t want to cause needless suffering, especially when more Laborers than Upstarts are likely to die in any open conflict.” Gersha made himself breathe and unknot his fists. “I agree with him. I’m not sure what’s inhuman about that.”Einara rose from the bed in one fluid motion. Something had changed: Two crimson spots glowed on her cheeks.“What’s inhuman,” she said, “is how little interest your precious Tilrey seems to have in punishing the people who raped, enslaved, and tormented him. You included!”Gersha opened his mouth to object, but her accusing finger stopped him. “You think you’re better than men like Lindahl. But you sent him to their beds. You never questioned why he had to lower himself to serve your kind. For years! For decades!”Gersha swallowed hard. “Maybe. But that’s between Tilrey and me.”“I used to admire him, but now I know better. Do you know what a hideous, knotted mess you’ve made of him? The things he asks me for, the things he craves?”The lump in Gersha’s throat kept growing, and the hot flush of shame was back. “Those things are between him and you. Not for me to judge.”There was nothing theatrical about the repulsion on her face. “Gersha, he can’t even show you the darkest parts of himself. He’s afraid to. He has demons he needs to exorcise, just as I do. Why do you hold him back?”“I don’t!” Gersha wanted to say that Tilrey was too good, too strong, too special to thirst for Strutter blood. Only barbarians believed in “demons.” But in this moment, he wasn’t sure any of those things were true.“Tilrey makes his own choices,” he said, his voice cracking. “Believe me, if I tried to hold him back from revenge—or to push him toward it—I wouldn’t succeed. If there’s going to be a revolution, the word will have to come from him.”“So he keeps telling me. But years have passed, and I’m tired of waiting.”Einara’s eyes burned, and their fire was pure hatred. “Go home, Fir Councillor, and remind your lover that Lindahl died at his command. As for everything that happened after that—well, that’s just a not-so-gentle nudge. My way of telling him it’s time.”*Tilrey paced the floor of the sitting room. “She’s a bit mad, Gersha. She just wants to cause everyone pain. But she’s isolated, too. She can’t command anyone who matters.”“She seems to think she can command Janta.” Gersha curled up on the sofa, knees hugged to his chest. Meeting Einara had left him raw and fragile. He wanted to ask for comfort, but Tilrey had warned him this would happen.“Then we’ll prepare for the possibility of infrastructure sabotage.” Tilrey stopped pacing abruptly and sank down beside Gersha. “Bror and Mirella are working all their contacts, trying to get control of this Darius movement. We can use it.”“What good is that if Einara’s working against us? She’s the reason Stefan is headed for exile. And Ceill—she isn’t afraid of casualties!”“Shh. That won’t happen to Ceill. You let her upset you.” Tilrey slid over and tugged Gersha into his arms. “I told you she’d try to get inside your head.”And the worst thing is, she succeeded.Gersha closed his eyes and allowed himself to savor the warmth of his husband’s arms around him. To pretend everything could be the way it had been before. But the spare room was empty; Janta and Ceill were gone.He said, “Besha’s the living Oslov who’s the most responsible for what happened to her family. He’s never expressed any real remorse. What if we . . . gave him to her?”“What, to control her better?” Tilrey’s hands moved over Gersha’s back, strong and steady. “She would kill Besha without a thought, exactly the way she killed Lindahl. No matter what he’s done, you don’t want to be responsible for that. And you wouldn’t want his life to be the price of helping Ceill and Stefan and Janta.”Gersha lowered his head and pressed it against Tilrey’s shoulder. “But we have to make . . . sacrifices.”“Not Besha. We can’t spare him.”“We can, though.” Gersha opened his eyes and looked up at Tilrey. They needed to be clear on this. “I know you mean we can’t spare him politically. But would I trade Besha for our son? In a heartbeat.”“So would I, but it won’t come to that! As soon as I can, love, I’ll talk to Einara. Long ago, I promised her I’d bring her back to Harbour to face the person who’s directly responsible for her family’s deaths. I can still do that.”“She doesn’t trust you. She thinks that you’re . . . brainwashed. That your feelings for me are keeping you from doing what you have to.”“Gersha.” Tilrey’s fingers sifted gently through Gersha’s tangled curls. “That’s just psychological warfare. She knows you feel guilty—about Besha, about me—and she uses that. Don’t let her.”“But there’s truth to it. I let people do terrible things to you, and Besha was one of them. I did terrible things to you.”“Not you, love. Never you.” Tilrey sighed as if to say they’d had this conversation too many times. “But you know that. All that was decades ago. Whatever you’ve done, you’re making up for it now.”“You don’t understand.” Gersha sat up. The motion jerked Tilrey’s soothing hand out of his hair, but this was important. “I want you to promise me something. If you ever have to choose between my life and the revolution, you won’t choose me.”“That won’t happen,” Tilrey said too quickly.“I hope not. But I need to know you wouldn’t make a mistake that could doom all these people who’ve staked their lives on a better future. For Ceill—I could understand that. But not for me. Will you promise me, Rishka?”A muscle jumped in Tilrey’s jaw. He looked fierce for a moment, but when he turned to Gersha, his eyes swam with unshed tears.“I can’t make that promise,” he said. “I don’t want to.”You have to! Gersha shuddered as if Einara’s rage had taken over his body. She had filled him with shame, and the only way he could think of to expel it was to make Tilrey vow to sacrifice their love to something greater than either of them.But he was just a person, and Tilrey was just a person. They weren’t characters in one of Kai’s overblown streams. There would be no grand promise, no renunciation. All Gersha could do was hope that if circumstances forced Tilrey to make such a choice, he would rise to the occasion.For Ceill. For the future.He bent close to his husband again and whispered into his ear, “I’m sorry, Rishka. But I need you to know you can tell me anything. Your darkest thoughts, your greatest fears. There’s no part of you I don’t love. Anywhere you lead, I’ll follow.”
And if you ever have to, I know you’ll let me go.
25 October, year 374, 9:30 p.m.
The Council’s second emergency session dragged on for nearly four hours. Gersha returned from the chamber to find Tilrey and Detmer Verán deep in conversation in the antechamber to his office, Detmer perched on Tilrey’s desk.
When he saw Gersha, the young man scrambled down, looking embarrassed. “I’d better go back to Blas, Fir Councillor,” he said, darting past Gersha to the door with a saucy wink. “He’ll be in his office late, and someone needs to keep him company.”
Gersha watched as Detmer closed the door behind him. The man’s bouncy vigor would have amused him if he hadn’t been so worried. “Does young Verán have a crush on you?” he asked, taking Detmer’s place, though the perch didn’t suit his older joints.
Now it was Tilrey’s turn to look embarrassed. “Detmer’s naïve and impressionable.”
“I can see that. But he has good taste. What did he tell you?”
Tilrey’s face brightened as he rose to give Gersha his chair. “He thinks he can get into the apartment with Blas. He’s invented a pretext. Meanwhile, he says, Einara is back in the Brothel, but the whole place is guarded—yes, even the back entrance. He checked.”
Gersha sat down—ah, that was more comfortable. “What about Ceill? Did Detmer hear anything?”
“Young Lindblom was scheduled to interview Ceill around now. So there’s a chance—a slight one, anyway—that he might be released afterward.”
Please. Gersha reached for Tilrey’s hand and squeezed it, trying not to let too much hope show on his face. “Ring Eight isn’t settling down,” he said, “and there are signs of trouble in Seven. They’ve shut down the trams and closed the gates in the underground city. But the news is still spreading somehow.”
Because the cold made long-distance walks on the surface impossible, most Reddans used the trams or the underground tunnels to travel from Ring to Ring. The tunnels had been equipped with steel gates that could separate the underground part of one Ring from another, isolating outbreaks of rebellion—in theory, anyway.
But now the workers might be angry enough about Stefan’s imprisonment to risk frostbite. Even Davita had seemed worried at the latest session, though she insisted that her son’s impeccable detective work would quell the unrest.
Tilrey clasped Gersha’s hand back. “The people have never risen this way before—not that I’ve heard of. Why are they so obsessed with young Stefan?”
“It’s Darius more than Stefan.” Gersha recalled his conversations about the stream with Ceill. “He’s a hero to them because he was born an Upstart and then Lowered to set an example for his peers. It affirms what they’ve probably already guessed—that ‘merit’ is a social construct.”
“Too bad Darius doesn’t exist. We could put him in charge.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” Gersha said. “Ceill says the stream maker based his hero on himself. And there are other people who’ve been on both sides of the divide—Aleks Snowblind. Ceill, in a way. You.”
Tilrey laughed at that, a little wildly. “Both sides of what? I’m a Drudge, son of Drudges. No one would accept my leadership, not in any official way.”
I would. But Gersha swallowed the words; he knew they would make Tilrey uncomfortable. “You know how to deal with Upstarts. You’re Davita’s most trusted advisor, whether she admits it or not. And you know Laborers, too.”
“The majority of Reddan Laborers would never accept my authority. Even if they throw off their chains, they’re too proud to be led by a Skeinsha whore.”
“Darius works in the Brothel,” Gersha pointed out.
Tilrey shook his head as if to dispel the idea. “The outrage could simmer down any minute. We don’t know. Meanwhile, I’m going out to liaise with Bror and Mirella. We need to discuss uniting this organic Darius movement with ours. Why don’t you go home and rest, love?”
“Not yet.” Gersha knew that if he sat at home waiting for Ceill to appear, he would go mad. “One of us needs to touch base with Einara and find out what on earth she thinks she’s doing.”
“But how?”
Gersha had to smile at the incredulity on Tilrey’s face. “They haven’t actually closed the Brothel, have they? No—Upstarts need a release valve now more than ever. I’m going to request the director’s services, and I doubt she’ll dare to refuse me.”
“Are you sure I can’t get you tea, Fir Examining Magistrate?” the Brothel director asked, hovering over Blas.
“No, thank you.” Her office was plain but serviceable enough for a follow-up interrogation; she’d seated him on the sofa. “I’m here to discuss an inconsistency in your testimony about the night of the incident.”
The Brothel director nodded, the finest furrow appearing in her brow. “I’m happy to help you in any way I can, Fir.”
She was younger and more attractive than Blas had expected—maybe he’d been thinking of her predecessor. But he could already tell he wouldn’t easily catch her in a lie. If Ceill Linnett was a cloudy window, revealing glimpses of the truth, she was opaque.
“You told Fir Karishkov that you were here starting at eight,” he said, “and didn’t leave your quarters until morning. But a witness reports seeing you enter the laundry room between 8 and 10 p.m.”
Einara Derán was not a suspect. Karishkov, who knew her better, had confirmed her lack of motivation. But if she were protecting Stefan or someone else, a threat to her own safety might make her more talkative.
Her head jerked a fraction of an inch, but her expression didn’t change. “Oh! I suppose I did fetch fresh linens for myself. I thought that was earlier in the evening, but I didn’t check the time.”
Blas’s witness was an inarticulate, slovenly young woman, very likely a sap addict, whose job was cleaning Brothel suites. When he’d located her to follow up on her original statement, he hadn’t been able to pin her down to a time beyond “in the evening.” Nor had she lingered long enough to see when Einara left the laundry room.
She had told him one useful thing, though. “The laundry room connects with the tunnel system that staffers use to travel from their quarters to the suites without being seen by patrons. Correct?”
The director took slightly too long to nod. “I suppose you’ve already explored our hiding places, Fir.”
Blas had. “From the laundry room,” he said sharply, “it takes only four minutes to reach the suite where Councillor Lindahl died.”
The director stared at him. For a moment, she had the blank gaze of someone caught in a searchlight. Then she blinked, and tears clouded her eyes.
“Poor Stefan,” she said. “If I could say anything that would help him, I would. But I saw no intruder enter the tunnels from the laundry room that night, Fir. Unless you’re suggesting I used the back way to kill the Councillor myself?”
“If I considered you a suspect, you’d be in a cell.” Blas rose briskly from the sofa, intuition telling him he wouldn’t get anything more from her. “But it was unwise of you to omit that detail from your statement. It makes me wonder what else you’re omitting.”
“I’m sorry, Fir.”
“Yes, well.” Blas gave her a hard look. Whatever you thought of Outers’ native intelligence versus Oslovs’, this Einara Derán was no fool. He hoped she wasn’t protecting someone else in the Brothel, such as her husband. But Kai Meirthal had an alibi even more convincing than her own.
“Perhaps you’ve heard about the unrest in Ring Eight,” he said. “People have died because they confused the hero of a sobstream with the actor who portrayed him. Your husband cast Stefan Altmering in the stream, I believe?”
The corner of her mouth quivered. “Kai never wanted any of this to happen, Fir.”
She was afraid for the stream maker, alibi or no. That might be useful. “I certainly hope not,” Blas said. “With any luck, we can protect Kai from the consequences of the public’s tragic misunderstanding of his work.”
He paused at the door. “If you remember anything else that wasn’t in your statement, let me know.”
The door of the suite opened, and Einara stood on the other side. “Welcome, Fir Councillor Gádden. You honor us.”
The first thing Gersha noticed was that she was very beautiful, with the same strangely ageless look that Tilrey had. The second was that she was brittle with exhaustion and trying not to show it.
“I thank you for accommodating me on short notice, Director,” he said. “You must be having quite the day.”
“So must you, Fir Councillor.” She ushered him into the room. “Please, take a seat. May I get you tea or something else?” She touched the sensor, and the door hissed closed. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to go straight to the bedroom?”
Tilrey had tried to talk Gersha out of this visit, to no avail. He had made Einara sound formidable: Don’t show weakness. Don’t appeal to her pity. Don’t talk about your feelings for Ceill or for me. Challenge her at every turn. Don’t underestimate her.
With all those frightening instructions in his head, Gersha had no idea how to respond to her show of deference. Maybe he would have to provoke her into showing her true colors. “Yes, the bedroom.”
“Of course, Fir.” She led the way.
Gersha closed the door behind them and turned his back to it. Then he explained: “Tilrey says you’re less likely to have this room bugged.”
Einara dropped the formality immediately. She sat down on the bed without waiting for him to seat himself first. “It was reckless of him to send you. It looks suspicious—everyone knows you have no interest in women.”
It was reckless of you to turn Lindahl’s death into a spectacle. But he couldn’t let her see his frustration. A lifetime of training had taught him to hide his weakness from Laborers.
He said, “I know everything.”
“I thought as much, Fir Councillor.”
She couldn’t placate him with meaningless honorifics; he wasn’t a spoiled child. “Tilrey didn’t send me. He didn’t even want me to come. But I risk nothing by coming here. If anyone asks, I’ll just say I wanted to grill you about my son’s relationship with Stefan Altmering—and I do. Can you imagine how I feel right now?”
He wasn’t supposed to talk about his feelings—oh well, too late. Anyway, it gave him a certain satisfaction to see Einara stiffen as she registered the controlled fury in his tone.
“I never meant for Ceill to be involved,” she said, sounding surprisingly sincere. “I like him, Fir Councillor. I’m sorry to have made you worry.”
Worry? You don’t know the half of it. “I want no fake respect from you. No polite censorship of the truth. Tilrey’s told me all about your bag of tricks—including what you and he do in bed.”
He couldn’t look at her when he said that. But the room was small, without much to look at—and so, before he knew it, he was looking at the bed itself. Glancing up, he caught her following his gaze, and his cheeks warmed. What if this were the very same bed? “Did you think he’d be too ashamed to tell me?”
Einara pulled her feet up and leaned back against the pillows, as if to emphasize that she wasn’t ashamed at all. “It’s more that I didn’t think he’d bother.”
“We don’t keep secrets from each other.” Mostly. “Tilrey and I are partners in all things. I want you to be as frank with me as you’d be with him.”
He seated himself on the edge of the bed, its width between them. She said, “What do you want me to be frank about?”
“Everything.” Gersha cleared his throat; he couldn’t seem to find the breath to speak. Where was the beautiful orating voice he used to have in the Council chamber?
Gone, that was where. He didn’t have the patience for pretty, roundabout words anymore. “I want to know where Janta is, whether he’s okay, when he’s coming back, and what the fuck your plan is for him and me and Tilrey and this poor Stefan and the rest of the city. Because right now I don’t get any sense you know what you’re doing. And that scares the shit out of me.”
Einara’s eyes were very blue, just like Tilrey’s. As she gazed back at him, they turned to ice. “I don’t answer to you, Fir Councillor Gádden. Or to anyone.”
Gersha didn’t break the gaze, though her stark defiance chilled him. “I imagine the Bureau of Diversions would beg to differ.”
“And I imagine your fellow Councillors would beg to differ with your fomenting rebellion.” A smile curved her lips. “Janta’s fine. He’ll appreciate your concern for him. But he doesn’t live under your protection anymore. He has his own ideas about what he wants to do with his life.”
I never forced him to do anything! But that wasn’t worth arguing about. “Tilrey told me about the facilities and the backdoor passwords,” Gersha said. “The Republic’s ‘nervous exoskeleton.’ Even if you and Janta can seize control of the Net—and I have serious doubts about that—it’s madness to think you can bring down the Republic. Is that what you’re hoping for?”
“Who says I’m hoping for regime change? Why should I care?” Her smile widened. “If I understand correctly, Fir Councillor, you’re a Dissident. You and your friends have ideological differences with the Republic of Oslov. I have no ideology at all.”
“Revenge. That’s what you want.” Tilrey had made that clear. “But on Oslov generally, or just on the people who hurt you?”
Einara shrugged. She seemed confident now that she knew where she stood with him. “Do you know anyone who might deserve my revenge?”
Besha. Tilrey hadn’t told her about Besha’s role in her family’s deaths, and Gersha understood that choice. But now that the stakes were so high, he couldn’t help wondering if it might be better to let Besha suffer the consequences of his own choices.
He couldn’t give her Besha unilaterally, though, without Tilrey’s approval. “Revenge is destructive and pointless. Are you so selfish that you don’t care who you hurt? I know you despise Upstarts like me, with reason. But what about Tilrey? Your husband? What about Janta?”
He was nearly shouting. He’d been trying so hard not to think about what might happen to Janta in a worst-case scenario. “If he tries to take over the Net and fails, or if they figure out his location, Davita Lindblom will send a drone strike to eliminate him!”
Ceill in prison was bad enough, but Davita would never allow Ceill to be hurt. Janta she would crush without a second’s thought.
Einara said, “Janta is an adult. He knows the risks of what he’s doing.”
“Yes, but—”
“He does! And so did your son when he slipped into Stefan’s bed.”
“Ceill did not know the risks!” Gersha sprang to his feet, his face burning. “He couldn’t have known what you were about to do. And Stefan—did he know? Are you going to let him freeze to death just so you can turn Oslovs against each other?”
She blinked—the ghost of a flinch. “Stefan did know the risks. We both hoped that if he were in prison, the city would rise in his defense. And we were right, weren’t we?”
Had she heard the news about Ring Eight, then? Blood throbbed in Gersha’s temples. “A rebellion has to be carefully mapped out. The more people rise spontaneously, the more people die.”
“Maybe it’s time for a few people to die. Maybe it’s time for them to have something to die for.” Einara’s eyes narrowed, and Gersha realized he was playing into her hands. Appealing to her conscience was pointless if, like Besha, she prided herself on being a force of chaos.
Besha believed in his family, at least, in some twisted way. What did she believe in?
“Tilrey seems to think a revolution can be bloodless,” she continued, a hint of mockery in her tone. “It’s a very Oslov attitude—so high-minded. Not very human.”
“Tilrey doesn’t want to cause needless suffering, especially when more Laborers than Upstarts are likely to die in any open conflict.” Gersha made himself breathe and unknot his fists. “I agree with him. I’m not sure what’s inhuman about that.”
Einara rose from the bed in one fluid motion. Something had changed: Two crimson spots glowed on her cheeks.
“What’s inhuman,” she said, “is how little interest your precious Tilrey seems to have in punishing the people who raped, enslaved, and tormented him. You included!”
Gersha opened his mouth to object, but her accusing finger stopped him. “You think you’re better than men like Lindahl. But you sent him to their beds. You never questioned why he had to lower himself to serve your kind. For years! For decades!”
Gersha swallowed hard. “Maybe. But that’s between Tilrey and me.”
“I used to admire him, but now I know better. Do you know what a hideous, knotted mess you’ve made of him? The things he asks me for, the things he craves?”
The lump in Gersha’s throat kept growing, and the hot flush of shame was back. “Those things are between him and you. Not for me to judge.”
There was nothing theatrical about the repulsion on her face. “Gersha, he can’t even show you the darkest parts of himself. He’s afraid to. He has demons he needs to exorcise, just as I do. Why do you hold him back?”
“I don’t!” Gersha wanted to say that Tilrey was too good, too strong, too special to thirst for Strutter blood. Only barbarians believed in “demons.” But in this moment, he wasn’t sure any of those things were true.
“Tilrey makes his own choices,” he said, his voice cracking. “Believe me, if I tried to hold him back from revenge—or to push him toward it—I wouldn’t succeed. If there’s going to be a revolution, the word will have to come from him.”
“So he keeps telling me. But years have passed, and I’m tired of waiting.”
Einara’s eyes burned, and their fire was pure hatred. “Go home, Fir Councillor, and remind your lover that Lindahl died at his command. As for everything that happened after that—well, that’s just a not-so-gentle nudge. My way of telling him it’s time.”
Tilrey paced the floor of the sitting room. “She’s a bit mad, Gersha. She just wants to cause everyone pain. But she’s isolated, too. She can’t command anyone who matters.”
“She seems to think she can command Janta.” Gersha curled up on the sofa, knees hugged to his chest. Meeting Einara had left him raw and fragile. He wanted to ask for comfort, but Tilrey had warned him this would happen.
“Then we’ll prepare for the possibility of infrastructure sabotage.” Tilrey stopped pacing abruptly and sank down beside Gersha. “Bror and Mirella are working all their contacts, trying to get control of this Darius movement. We can use it.”
“What good is that if Einara’s working against us? She’s the reason Stefan is headed for exile. And Ceill—she isn’t afraid of casualties!”
“Shh. That won’t happen to Ceill. You let her upset you.” Tilrey slid over and tugged Gersha into his arms. “I told you she’d try to get inside your head.”
And the worst thing is, she succeeded.
Gersha closed his eyes and allowed himself to savor the warmth of his husband’s arms around him. To pretend everything could be the way it had been before. But the spare room was empty; Janta and Ceill were gone.
He said, “Besha’s the living Oslov who’s the most responsible for what happened to her family. He’s never expressed any real remorse. What if we . . . gave him to her?”
“What, to control her better?” Tilrey’s hands moved over Gersha’s back, strong and steady. “She would kill Besha without a thought, exactly the way she killed Lindahl. No matter what he’s done, you don’t want to be responsible for that. And you wouldn’t want his life to be the price of helping Ceill and Stefan and Janta.”
Gersha lowered his head and pressed it against Tilrey’s shoulder. “But we have to make . . . sacrifices.”
“Not Besha. We can’t spare him.”
“We can, though.” Gersha opened his eyes and looked up at Tilrey. They needed to be clear on this. “I know you mean we can’t spare him politically. But would I trade Besha for our son? In a heartbeat.”
“So would I, but it won’t come to that! As soon as I can, love, I’ll talk to Einara. Long ago, I promised her I’d bring her back to Harbour to face the person who’s directly responsible for her family’s deaths. I can still do that.”
“She doesn’t trust you. She thinks that you’re . . . brainwashed. That your feelings for me are keeping you from doing what you have to.”
“Gersha.” Tilrey’s fingers sifted gently through Gersha’s tangled curls. “That’s just psychological warfare. She knows you feel guilty—about Besha, about me—and she uses that. Don’t let her.”
“But there’s truth to it. I let people do terrible things to you, and Besha was one of them. I did terrible things to you.”
“Not you, love. Never you.” Tilrey sighed as if to say they’d had this conversation too many times. “But you know that. All that was decades ago. Whatever you’ve done, you’re making up for it now.”
“You don’t understand.” Gersha sat up. The motion jerked Tilrey’s soothing hand out of his hair, but this was important. “I want you to promise me something. If you ever have to choose between my life and the revolution, you won’t choose me.”
“That won’t happen,” Tilrey said too quickly.
“I hope not. But I need to know you wouldn’t make a mistake that could doom all these people who’ve staked their lives on a better future. For Ceill—I could understand that. But not for me. Will you promise me, Rishka?”
A muscle jumped in Tilrey’s jaw. He looked fierce for a moment, but when he turned to Gersha, his eyes swam with unshed tears.
“I can’t make that promise,” he said. “I don’t want to.”
You have to! Gersha shuddered as if Einara’s rage had taken over his body. She had filled him with shame, and the only way he could think of to expel it was to make Tilrey vow to sacrifice their love to something greater than either of them.
But he was just a person, and Tilrey was just a person. They weren’t characters in one of Kai’s overblown streams. There would be no grand promise, no renunciation. All Gersha could do was hope that if circumstances forced Tilrey to make such a choice, he would rise to the occasion.
For Ceill. For the future.
He bent close to his husband again and whispered into his ear, “I’m sorry, Rishka. But I need you to know you can tell me anything. Your darkest thoughts, your greatest fears. There’s no part of you I don’t love. Anywhere you lead, I’ll follow.”
And if you ever have to, I know you’ll let me go.