Light in Dark Places

Chapter Thirty-Five

"They're throwing me a welcome dinner," Mathiessen says, smug. "They're going to celebrate how much they want me here. Why shouldn't I bring who I want?"

Not many people would dare to advise Mathiessen to do anything. It had been one of his aides who'd suggested not taking the helpers with him to the dinner. Agatha, like all of the other helpers, keeps her face very indifferent, like it doesn't matter to her one way or another if Mathiessen takes her to the dinner.

"It's just that the Kings notoriously have very strong feelings about this sort of thing," his aide says, flicking his eyes briefly over to where the helpers stand like statues. "It might make the Kings unnecessarily out of sorts with you."

It's the wrong thing to say, and for that Agatha is glad.

"Kings, Kings, do you care more about what the Kings will think than what I think?" Mathiessen asks, incredulously. "Are the Kings more important to you than I am?"

"No, sir, of course not, but—"

"But nothing. They asked for me. They begged me to come. And I want them to know just who I am. I want them to know there's absolutely nothing they can do about their pansy delicate sensibilities. They need me, so they can choke on that."

Sempiternal isn't offering his opinion. He's watching Agatha.

*

Everyone has a part they have to play, Agatha thinks. Everyone has a role.

She's wearing simple blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt for the dinner. Mathiessen, Sempiternal, and the aids are all wearing suits. The helpers are in plain clothes, perhaps to emphasize they are no one important.

There is food on the tables, tiny and elegant bites of a little bit of everything. But Mathiessen told them the food was not for them, so the helpers are not eating. Agatha is hungry, but she's also nervous, a flutter in her stomach ensuring that even if she did dare to eat food right now, it wouldn't settle well.

Everyone has a part they have to play. She thinks, somewhere out in the desert is a man called Creosote, and he is even now plotting death.

Somewhere on the military base there are people called monsters because they don't look fully human. They're probably doing their homework right now, or watching TV with loved ones, or relaxing in their own homes.

Somewhere there is a boy touched by Misery. He is probably not relaxing, Agatha thinks.

And somewhere in this very hall, there is a girl who woke up from being Miserable, when no one has ever managed such a thing before.

And here, here is Agatha. Waiting to play her role.

*

Seung-ri and the others were dressed in their formal uniforms. "Everyone will be military, so just wear your cadet uniform," Seung-ri had told her. So Joan is wearing her cadet uniform to a fancy dinner, making her the only one who is not in dark red.

Well. Not the only one.

Mathiessen and his entourage, of course, are not in military red.

"Dear Ash, that man is insane," Jisu says under his breath. Joan doesn't think she's supposed to hear him.

"He brought them to rile us. So don't get riled, understand?" Hernandez says.

"Fine," Seung-ri says, disgusted. She glances back to Joan. "Stay close to us at all times, OK nabi? We can't prevent him from meeting you, but don't be alone with him, OK?"