Rise

six

THE PARTY WAS STILL GOING ON, EVEN AFTER THE MUSICIANS had left for the night and the last of the cups and saucers had been cleared from the tables in the parlor. My father was more animated than I'd ever seen him, gesturing with his crystal glass, rambling on to Harold Pollack, an engineer in the City. "It's something to celebrate," I heard him say, as Charles and I started for the door.

"In a time when things aren't as certain," Harold agreed.

At this the King waved his hand dismissively, as if swatting away a fly. "Don't believe everything you hear," he said. "A few riots at the labor camps are hardly a threat to the City."

I lingered there for a moment, watching them as Charles spoke with the Head of Finance. My father withstood Harold's presence a moment longer before excusing himself. There had been talk of the labor camp riots all night. In between congratulations, people mentioned rumors about the labor camps, asking my father about the rebels outside the City. With every question he laughed a little harder, made more of a show of just how confident he was. He called them riots, not sieges, and made it sound like it had only happened at one or two of the camps.

"Ready to go?" Charles asked, offering me his arm. I threaded mine through it as we started down the hall. Neither of us spoke. Instead I listened to the sound of our footsteps and the faint echo of the soldier's behind us.

We got to the suite, the lock clicking shut behind us. I watched Charles as he moved around the room, slinging his suit jacket over the armchair and loosening his tie. "You didn't have to do that today," I said. His back was toward me as he stepped out of his shoes.

"Of course I did," he said, pushing his hair off his face. "I wasn't about to tell your father the truth. You know what kind of position that would've put you in." He turned, and for the first time I noticed that his cheeks were splotchy and pink, as if he'd just come in from the cold. "No one can find out, Genevieve-no one."

"It's not your problem to fix," I said. "I did this."

After what happened at the construction site, I'd gone to my appointment with the doctor, then met Charles at the reception. The gratitude I'd felt for him had lessened, giving way to a kind of quiet resentment. He had saved me. He believed he had, at least, and I could feel the implied debt between us whenever his hand found mine, his fingers clamped down on my palm. We're in this together, he seemed to say. I won't leave you now.

He pressed his palms to his face, then shook his head. "Is this your way of thanking me? I didn't want this, you know, when we were married. I didn't want to feel like I was some horrible, second choice forced upon you. I am trying here, and I always have been. You could've at least told me before you ambushed me at the site."

"I didn't know until this morning," I said. I stepped away from the door, trying to keep my voice down. I was thankful. What he'd done was kind and decent. He'd given me at least one more day inside the City walls, a chance to speak with Moss before I escaped. But I had never asked for his help.

Charles rubbed his forehead. "You spend hours in the gardens, walking in circles, taking the same path three times as if it's always new. I see the way you stare off when we're at dinner. It's like you're in this unseen world that no one else can reach. I know you had feelings for him-"

"I didn't have feelings for him," I corrected. "I love him."

"Loved. He's gone," Charles said. My whole body went rigid, as if he'd pressed his fingers into a new bruise. "I don't like what happened either, but I believe you could be happy. I believe that's possible still."

Not with you. The words were so close to coming out. I held them somewhere behind my teeth, trying not to launch them unkindly. I studied Charles's face, how oddly hopeful he looked, his eyes fixed on me, waiting. Yes, it would be easier if I felt something for him. But I couldn't ignore the small, cowardly things about him. How he always said "what happened," as if Caleb's murder were some uncomfortable dinner party we'd attended weeks before.

"I'm grateful for what you did today," I said. "But it won't change how I feel." His eyes filled suddenly and he turned, hoping I wouldn't see. I grabbed his hand without thinking. I held it there for a moment, feeling the heat in his palm. Even here and by my own doing, it felt strange and forced. Our fingers didn't naturally fold into each other's the way Caleb's and mine had, the ease of it making it seem that was just the way fingers were supposed to be-entangled forever with someone else's. I let go first, our arms dropping back to our sides.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. He was more upset than I'd ever seen him. I sat down beside him, watching the side of his face, waiting until he turned to me. "Tell me this," he said softly. "You were involved with the rebels. Is what they're saying true?"

I fixed my gaze on the floor. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"How they took the labor camps, and they're coming here. There are all sorts of rumors-that they'll burn the City, that there's a huge faction already inside the walls." He let his head fall back as he spoke. "They say everyone who works for the King will be executed. No one will survive."

I remembered Moss's warning of the dissidents who'd been reported and killed, some tortured inside the City prisons. I could not tell Charles anything-I wouldn't. And yet as I sat there, listening to his uneven breaths, I wished there was some way I could warn him. I rested my hand on his back, feeling his chest expand through his shirt. "You might've saved my life today."

"And I would do it again." He turned and went in the bathroom, the door closing tightly behind him. I sat, listening to the tap running, the drawers sliding open, then banging shut. He worked for my father, just as his father had. In Moss's mind he was no better than the King. But right then he was just Charles, the person who stole peonies from the Palace gardens because he knew I liked to press them in books. He hated tomatoes and was tyrannical about flossing, and he sometimes held the smell of the construction sites in his hair, even after a shower.

I pulled on my nightgown and lay under the covers. He stayed in the shower for nearly an hour. Then he finally flipped off the light and curled up on the lounge in the corner, his breath slowing in sleep. I remained awake, studying the shadows on the wall, trying to imagine what it would be like to be here, inside the City, when the rebels came. How long would it take them to reach the Palace? I imagined the terror of it, pictured Charles in the stairwell, his hands bound. What would he think, what would he say when they came for him? They'd kill him, I felt certain of it now.

My limbs went cold. I lay there, willing myself to stay quiet, willing myself to keep the secrets I'd promised to keep. But I knew something else-perhaps just as certainly, the thought tightening my lungs.

He didn't deserve it.