Bethany Hagen - Landry Park

“You are so brave,” he said.

“You are, too.”

“Not like you.”

I had the paralyzing premonition that this was good-bye, that David would be seized the moment he emerged from the snow and that these would be the last words we shared as free people.

“Be careful,” I begged him.

“If I don’t come back…”

He took a step closer. Clouds of steam from our breath mingled between us. I could see the violet streaks in his eyes.

“Then I’ll go with you,” I vowed. Even to the gibbet. I would not stand by as David sacrificed everything; I too would finally play my part.

“Madeline…”

His hands were on my waist. I felt everything fade away to snow and white fire; my inhibitions, my fears, my revolutions—gone at his touch. I slid my hands up his arms, up to his neck, and put my fingers in his hair. It was as silky and as fine and as light as it had been in my daydreams, like holding sunlight between my fingertips.

“I want to kiss you,” he said, his mouth very close to mine now.

That white fire was dancing from his hair to my hands to my chest to my stomach to my lips—

“I’ve wanted you to kiss me again for a long time,” I whispered.

“Then I shall.” And he did. His lips were on mine, warm and spicy and smoky. Something needy and hot pulled at my stomach, and I pulled him closer, kissed him harder, breathed him in deeper and deeper until I saw stars and static at the edges of my eyes.

His hands slid under my coat, and his lips found my neck and my hair, and now there were galaxies, a million infinitesimal stars pricking at my eyelids.

“I love you,” he said breathlessly. Then, without warning, he was off. He crouched, moving from tree to tree, edging closer to the stage.

I pressed a hand against my hammering chest, the other to my mouth. I had to wait now, even though my pulse pounded and my heart thrummed with adrenaline and something lighter, something that could pull me up into the clouds if I let it. Up to the sun.

He’d said he loved me.

I had to wait.

The Rootless waited, too. There were no hisses or shouts from their ranks. They stood still, shoulder to shoulder, making no sound save for shuffling feet and ragged breaths in the cold.

“We do not take punishment lightly. I would not have built this gibbet and brought you all here if I was not convinced of the absolute danger of this anger you have harbored against us.” Father flung an arm back at Charlie. “I found this boy under my daughter’s bed, on what was supposed to be the merriest of holidays, the celebration of light against darkness.” At that, the sun finally glinted between the skyscrapers of downtown, sending shafts of blinding light dancing across the glazed trees.

David was almost to the terrace now. No one seemed to have seen him. Then Jude looked up to the sky, as if pleading with the dawning sun and still-visible moon to send him back to the mountains, where the morality was as clearly drawn as a line on a map. He lowered his gaze and his eyes widened as he saw David.

I felt a thrill of panic. Jude was a soldier, loyal to his government and to the gentry. He was here of his own free will, willing to watch Charlie killed in a barbarous method that hadn’t been used in two hundred years, yet I knew he was a good person and David’s best friend.

David and Jude locked eyes, and I could see Jude wrestling with himself. After a second that lasted hours, Jude gave the slightest of nods, then deliberately turned his head away.

My father continued. “We cannot tolerate the cold-blooded murder of our own. And so, here with a representative from our noble army”—he indicated Jude—“and the circle of the Uprisen, we are determined to crush this insolence once and for all. What happens to this boy this morning will happen to each and every one of you if you do not find it in your hearts to serve.”

He turned, nodding to the constables, and then David turned, looking at me. He was at the side stairs to the terrace, squatting behind a row of shrubs. The next move he made would be seen by everyone in the crowd, including the police.

It had to be done, Charlie had to be saved, but I granted myself a moment to say good-bye to the university, to my father’s affection, to my freedom. When my father saw the scarlet-coated girl emerge from the snow, it would not be his daughter, but someone who had permanently cast her lot with his enemies.

I squeezed my hands into fists and willed myself forward.

“I will not serve!” I yelled. My voice carried across the snow and ice, and bounced off the stone and concrete of the memorial, reverberating back to me in a fractured chorus. Thousands of Rootless eyes turned to me. My father’s hand dropped to his side, and for once, he looked completely at a loss for words. Of all the contingencies he’d planned for, he’d probably never considered that his daughter would come tramping through the snow in her debut dress, shouting at him.

“I will not obey you,” I shouted. I moved my feet forward, toward my father step by slippery step. “And if your own child will not listen to you, how can you expect them to?” I was almost to the front of the crowd. All eyes were on me as David crept up another stair. His head was visible now.

“Charlie is innocent. All of these people are innocent. All they want is to be free and to be healthy, just like we are.”

“Madeline,” Father said, the shock in his face slowly changing into stone. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” I held up the journal I’d put in my coat pocket. “I know all about Jacob Landry exploiting the people displaced by the Empire’s conquest. I know that he invented a war to justify enslaving those people into handling the charges for free. I know that everything I have been told about the nobility of the gentry is a lie.”

Behind me, the Rootless grew restless. Murmurs and whispers swelled through the crowd, and I heard the constables grunt as the crowd pressed forward. Smith actually shoved one of the men holding him back.

For a moment, Father said nothing, his steel eyes locked onto mine.

“I have sent the pages of the journals to everyone I know. To the press.”

“The Uprisen own the press,” my father scoffed. “You can do no damage there.”

“Maybe, but some people will see the truth for what it is. And now that I know the truth, I can’t go back. I can’t pretend it away. What we are doing is wrong, and I won’t do it any-more.”

His expression hardened. “Then you will be punished along with everybody else.” He came to the front of the terrace and knelt so that his face was very close to mine. The Uprisen and the police around Charlie all leaned forward to hear my father speak.

“I never wanted to be like my father, Madeline, but you have given me no choice. It broke my heart to see my mother locked in the house like a bird in a cage, and it will break my heart to do the same to you. You could have been such an asset to our family.” He shook his head, as if saddened by the waste. “All I have ever wanted was to see you ready to rule over Landry Park. Why can you not see that this is what you are made for? To be my heir? To lead the gentry and to take your place among the Uprisen?”

My throat constricted and I looked down. Maybe I wasn’t made of glass after all. Disappointing Father was almost more than I could bear.

Charlie , I told myself. Think of Charlie.

Seizing the moment of my father’s inattention, David darted forward and took the steps three at a time, pushing past a constable and grabbing another’s arm while he fumbled with the constable’s belt for the keys to Charlie’s handcuffs.