Aimee Carter - Queen

“She’ll anticipate that. Sampson knows he ought to stop her anyway. He’s the one who helped me come up with this playbook. If he has any say at all, he’s already trying.”

“Then maybe he’ll succeed.”

Knox sighed wearily. “Maybe. What do you want, Kitty?”

“I—” A pang of pity needled my side as I took in the circles under his eyes and the lines in his face that seemed to grow deeper every day. Now wasn’t exactly the time, but there would never be a good time for this. “Did you hear Lila’s speech?”

“Yes. I take it you did, too.”

I nodded. “Most of it. You know she’s saying those things under duress.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s still saying them.”

“But—Benjy noticed something.” I took a step closer to the sofa. He watched me, his dark gaze unwavering. “She’s shoving it down our throats, that Daxton isn’t Victor. She said it at least a dozen times. Benjy said she’s pushing too hard—that any idiot with half a brain can tell she’s protesting too much.”

“Only those who are willing to hear it,” he said. “Perception, remember?”

I frowned. “Still. Don’t take this out on her.”

“You’ve already pardoned her,” he said. “I’m not going to undermine you, not when the public needs to trust you. But you will do and say exactly what I tell you to from now on, understood?”

Relief flooded through me, and I shrugged. “I could say yes right now, but we both know that would be a lie. But I do promise to talk to you about what I want to say ahead of time, if it comes to me. If something’s impromptu—”

“Try to do as little of that as possible,” said Knox.

“I’ll do my best.” I glanced at the door. “Dinner’s almost ready. Are we calling a meeting?”

Knox sighed and straightened, his hair sticking up. “Nothing we can do here to stop it. Whatever happens is going to happen, whether the rest of the Blackcoats are worrying about it or not. And the last thing we need is half of them agreeing with Celia while the other half agrees with me.”

“So...that’s a no?”

“That’s a no,” he confirmed, and I furrowed my brow. I couldn’t remember any issue within the past two weeks that the Blackcoats hadn’t discussed and dissected ad nauseam. The idea of Knox hiding something this big from them was practically unfathomable.

“If Celia and the D.C. Blackcoats go through with it, you’re going to upset everyone here when they find out you knew ahead of time.”

“I have no intention of letting them find out,” said Knox, and he leveled his gaze at me. “Can I trust you?”

It was the first time in weeks that he had even asked, let alone offered me the chance to prove it, and I nodded. “I’ll grab some dinner for us.”

“For us?” he said.

“I’m staying in here until we know what happened,” I said. Knox started to protest, but I cut him off. “Don’t pretend you’re not going to sit in this room all night, scouring the news for any sign of the raid. I’m watching with you.”

He rubbed his face with his hands. “It won’t change what happens. If Somerset falls, there’s nothing we can do but watch it burn. And if it does—”

“We’re screwed. I know.” I opened the door. “Chicken or tuna?”

“Chicken,” he said, and as I stepped out of the room, he added, “Kitty?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

There was a note of warmth in his voice that hadn’t been there before, and I offered him a small, but genuine smile. “You’re welcome.”

In the kitchen, Benjy helped two other Blackcoats prepare enough plates to feed everyone staying in the manor, and before I stepped into his view, I watched him chat with the woman with the scar running down her face. He smiled broadly, his eager voice filtering over the clatter of dishes, and for a moment I let myself be carried back to the countless evenings we’d spent in the kitchen of our group home, helping Nina with dinner or washing up after. The cold marble of Mercer Manor fell away, replaced with wood and brick and heat from the fireplace. I would have given anything to go back there, even for just a day, and have Benjy look at me like I was me again. Maybe I was imagining it, but now that I saw him like this—with someone else, when he didn’t know I was watching—it was clear that there was something missing from the way he talked when we were around each other. An easiness to our banter, jokes that made us both laugh, the way we used to tease each other without wondering if it was the last conversation we would ever have—even though I couldn’t name it, I knew it wasn’t there anymore. Maybe he was the one who felt he couldn’t wholly be himself now that I wasn’t completely me.

After I’d been Masked, we hadn’t had much time at Somerset to be together, and any time we did have was spent worrying that someone would catch us. In Elsewhere, before the battle, we’d been separated—and, for several days, I’d thought he was dead. That all-encompassing grief had turned into unbridled joy and relief when Knox had revealed Benjy was, in fact, alive—and the weeks we’d spent together since had been comfortable and more like a taste of home than I’d thought I would ever have again. But maybe that was an illusion. Because we weren’t home; we would never go home again. Benjy was the closest thing I would ever have to home again, but as I watched him turn to ladle gravy onto a plate, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was, yet again, holding him back.

He caught my eye, and something in his expression changed. Once upon a time, seeing me would have sparked joy, and to some extent, it still did. But it was tainted with something else now, and I couldn’t blame him for it. As much as I knew he loved me, I was also tied to the worst memories of his life, and I didn’t know how many more he could stand before he cracked. I’d lost count of the number of times he’d nearly died because of me, and each one was another lifetime of guilt looming over me, knowing I’d never be able to make any of this up to him. We’d been here before, with me holding him back—when I’d achieved only a III on my test, and he was bound to get a VI. I would never be good enough for him, and the more I tried to hold on to him, the harder his life would be. The more his smile would fade every time he looked at me.

“Kitty—are you hungry?” He quickly finished preparing the current plate before grabbing another. “Chicken, right?”

“Two. One for Knox, too,” I said, moving forward to help him. The portions were meager at best, but they were exactly what the former prisoners ate, too, and after today, I had no complaints. “How did everything go with Strand?”

“We’ve brainstormed a few ideas that we can implement starting almost immediately. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is, right?” He grinned. “Rivers told me about the tunnels. If they really do extend as far as he thinks they do, that will make our jobs infinitely easier.”

“Yeah, well, let’s hope he’s right,” I said. It was hard to say when he’d never tried to explore them, but then again, with the guards keeping such a close eye on the prisoners, I wasn’t sure how he ever could have slipped away long enough to do so.

“He said you’re going to start mapping it tonight—do you mind if I join you?” added Benjy, and I blinked. With the news of Celia’s plan to attack Somerset, I’d completely forgotten.

“Actually, do you mind taking my place? I—” I hesitated. “I’m going to spend the evening with Knox.”

Internally I winced, knowing how it must have sounded to Benjy, and sure enough, his hand stilled in the middle of placing a piece of chicken on a plate. “Oh. I thought we could spend some time together tonight.”