WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

forty-one | mountainous mysteries

"You don't understand, Fab. If you don't marry, neither of us gets the money – and do you want to know why? Because our father is a greedy git who doesn't think we're responsible enough to handle it!" It was Felix's voice, all sharp and bitter.

The Lady heaved a long, exhausted sigh. "Please, Felix, I can't do it. I won't do it. You know how I feel about marriage – it'll lock me in for life, keep me tied to a man I won't even properly know, and then I'll be his. Just like that, no questions. That's my nightmare!"

"You know why I need the money."

"Yes, and it's ludicrous. You think you're filling out some heroic fantasy, don't you? Well you're not. The advena are happy here, Felix!"

Tris could hear Felix shush her from behind the large oak door, where the Lady's chambers were sprawled out in livery, canvases and paintings littered about seemingly without thought. He could see it all through the crack between the doorframe and the door, wedged open just an inch, enough to peer in as he waited for the argument to finish. The guard had dropped him off and fled quickly after, leaving him with the awkward decision to either knock on the door and interrupt their conversation, or wait for it to be over.

Tris, being highly non-confrontational, decided on the latter.

And oh – maybe he was hearing things that he shouldn't, that he would be cleansed for knowing, but he couldn't stop now. This was far too interesting.

Felix sounded completely and utterly frazzled. "You can't – say that out loud. You know what would happen if father were to find out? He'll hire a mindrenderer of his own to set his dastardly son straight!"

"He wouldn't," Fabia sounded horrified.

Tris could sense rather than see Felix nodding from where he was stepped outside of his field of vision. "He would, plenty of big families use mindrendering as a form of therapy, and I bet more than one of those families have used it to keep their morally-superior kids in line."

"This talk is... well, we just shouldn't be talking about this. And morally-superior, that's what you think you are? Think of how the advena were forced to live before Chrysos, Felix. Oh, gods! I called for Tris half an hour ago, and he's still not here!"

Tris stiffened from where he was pressed against the door, raising a hand to push it open. But Felix said something that stopped him from moving, kept his hand raised and poised in the air, and the breath stilled from where it lingered in his throat.

"Fitting in another painting session? And you'll use Tris like you've used the rest of them, will you?"

Tris could hear Fabia fussing with her equipment. "Oh, stop it, Felix. He's advena, he'll probably forget about all this by next month."

A coil tightened from inside Tris' stomach, and something with all the bite of frost spread like mould throughout his insides. Was that what the Lady thought of him? Did she not care at all – was he really just a face to sketch and paint, a body to illustrate? She didn't care about him, not really. She didn't care at all.

Seb warned him about this. You won't like what she thinks.

And what was Felix saying, defending him like that? He didn't even know him – in fact, Tris would've thought the young Lord hated him after their last altercation, in which he'd been stupid enough to let a multitude of foolish words slip out without thinking. Not to mention his lie; that the Lady had called him to her chambers, when, in reality, she hadn't called him at all.

This was too much thinking for an advena as young and stupid as himself. He was working himself into a headache. But now there was so much mystery to unravel, mysteries needling their way into his thoughts, occupying most of the space inside his head. He was tangled up now. Tangled up and trapped.