Green Jack (9 page)

She skirted the
booths of the fortune tellers, the repurposed clothing, and piles
of old gas masks left over from the Lake Wars. She usually came
down here to sell Oona’s ointments. Her usual contacts wouldn’t be
able to afford what she had to sell today. Alaia might, she had the
kind of presence that let her get away with anything. She was dark
and tall and elegant, with a shaved skull and long slinky dresses
totally unfit for life underground. How she managed to keep the hem
clean of dirt and water was a spell she could have made a fortune
on, if she could find some Enclave kids to sell it to.

“Saffron,” she
said with a welcoming smile. There was a red glitter star on her
Adam’s apple. “And Killian. Mmm, handsome, you just get yummier.”
She blew him a kiss. “What have you got for me?”

Saffron went
around to the side of the table scattered with a strange collection
of miniature tarot cards painted with all the known seasons, even
the Toad Rain which had only happened once; cat teeth, painted rat
bones, pigeon feathers made into earrings. Saffron showed her the
potato, still hairy with dirt clinging to the roots.

Alaia’s mouth
dropped open for barely a second, and she murmured something in
French, something half-awed, half-terrified. She glanced around, as
though soldiers might be lurking in the shadows. Worse than
soldiers, something as simple as a potato could cause a riot down
here. One potato could grow a dozen more. She reached out to touch
it, stopped herself. The white tattoo of leaves curled around her
wrist and up her arm glowed in the uncertain light.

“So, do you
want it?”Saffron asked impatiently.

“Of course, I
want it.”

“Can you afford
it?”

“That’s the
real question, isn’t it?” She crossed her arms, drumming her
fingers on her elbows. “Take a turn, petite. I’ll have something
when you come back this way.”

“Four credits
worth.” Usually, Killian did the bartering. It unnerved people, the
way he wouldn’t speak, would only hold up two fingers, or three.
But it wouldn’t work on Alaia; she’d been trying to get him to go
home with her for a year now. She might ask him to be part of the
bargain.

“Three.”

“There and a
quarter.”

“Done.”

It was more
than she’d ever seen at one time, never mind held in her own hand.
They got an assortment of things for the rest of the produce
(honey, cricket meal, oregano oil) and then circled back to Alaia.
She now wore a leather pouch strapped cross wise between her
breasts and next to two curved daggers. Enough to be safe, not
enough to give it away that she was protecting something valuable.
“Take the feathers, petite,” Alaia said. “It will look as though
you bought something instead of sold something.”

Saffron reached
over to pick up a pair of blue jay feather earrings. The potato
rolled from her hand under a swath of beaded material that hadn’t
been there before. Killian blocked them by leaning on the table and
looking bored.

“Let me help,”
Alaia smiled, pushing Saffon’s braids off her shoulder and
inserting the first earring in her left earlobe. As she attached
the second into the pierced hole above the first, a packet of seeds
and one small battery slipped down the back of Saffron’s collar.
They lodged against the spot where the knife strap cut across her
jacket.

The walk across
the rickety bridge back out into the moldy basement was
considerably more cheerful.

If just as
vengeful.

Chapter
12

Jane

When Jane left
to fetch a book from the library, a guard was posted outside to
make she sure didn’t leave the Collegium grounds. The Garden video
played endlessly, augmented with polls and percentages to encourage
citizens to vote on their favourite couples. Jane knew the pairings
would come down to science and genetics but that hardly made for
interested viewers. Now they were invested, curious, desperate to
be entertained when the reality outside the door was curfew, riots,
and bonebirds.

The next test,
more terrifying than the threat of the Amphitheatre, was a
publicized, filmed date with another candidate.

Asher, to be
precise.

“The ‘date’ is
in three days, Jane,” Kiri said. “I say “date” loosely because even
though I don’t know exactly what’s going on, something clearly is
not right. I mean, Asher?” Disgust boiled off her like waves of
heat off concrete. She was a smoldering coal, Jane was grey
ash.

“We could give
him stomach cramps,” Kiri suggested suddenly. “Hydrangea petals or
philodendron leaves ought to do it. It should buy you a few days at
least.”

“If they don’t
kill him.”

She made a rude
sound. “I’m a Seedsinger, remember? I know what I’m doing.”

Jane nodded,
different plans forming slowly in her head, closing over, choking
her like weeds.

“I’ll get extra
for you to keep in your Oracle pouch, just in case,” Kiri said.
“And then I’m going to find Micah and hug him. Because, damn. He’s
looking better every day.” She rushed out, muttering to
herself.

Jane followed
at a much slower pace. She wished she could talk to her mother, but
she couldn’t talk to anyone. And her mother would just tell her to
do her duty. She barely saw her sisters, but she wouldn’t risk them
either. She’d never felt so alone.

She took the
back stairwell because the last time she’d passed by the Common
Room, Belinda tried to read her palm to help place her bet for the
Garden. But apparently, Jane had something in common with Asher
after all. He was keeping to the back steps as well, punching the
wall by the door. There were holes in the plaster and blood on his
knuckles. Jane froze, but he’d already noticed her. His face
changed: vulnerable anger to jagged fury. “Well, if it isn’t my new
wife,” he said silkily, staring her down.

“I’m not any
happier about it than you are,” Jane pointed out. It was too much
to hope he’d be reasonable. She felt the usual frisson of fear, the
hot-cold sweat prickling her spine. She was going to feel it
anyway, she realized, so she may as well make it worth
something.

“Get out of my
way, Asher.” It wasn’t much, but her voice didn’t tremble. She
sounded strong, even if she didn’t feel it. It was something.

It wasn’t
enough, of course.

Asher yanked
her off the last step, pressing her cheek against the jagged
plaster before she could think of fighting back, never mind
convince her body to obey her. His hand was a fist in her hair,
burning her scalp. She realized there was another reason Enclave
girls never grew their hair: it was too easily used as a weapon
against them. “You’re the reason I’m trapped in the jackshit
Garden. You and your damn genes.”

“Not strong
enough to fight in the Amphitheatre, are you?” Jane said softly,
plaster dust dry and gritty in her mouth.

His breath
hissed out between his teeth. “Oh, you’re dead now, Highgate.” He
twisted her arm behind her back, her wrist bending inexorably to
the breaking point. Pain snarled and but up to her elbow, like dogs
attacking. Finally, just before her tendons popped, the soldier set
to watch her came through the stairwell door.

“That’s
enough.”

Asher didn’t
let go right away.

“I said,
enough,” the soldier barked, reaching for his Taser. “She belongs
to Cartimandua now.”

The other
soldier set to watch Asher came up the steps at a dead run. “Settle
it in the Amphitheatre, son.” But he couldn’t. He was sorted to the
Garden. To her.

The smile Asher
shot at her may as well have been a poisoned arrow. The violence it
promised made her feel pale down to her bones. When he stalked
away, Jane smoothed back her hair with shaking, bruised
fingers.

Class wasn’t
much better. Hieromancy was bad enough, but reading omens through
the entrails of a bird was even more disgusting directly after
dinner. Asher’s nails were red with the blood of the white dove. He
loved hieromancy; he always found a way to touch the glistening
insides, even though it wasn’t required. When the professor
scrambled to his feet, bowing his head respectfully, everyone
turned to follow his gaze.

Cartimandua
marched inside and suddenly everyone was standing. Jane tried to
make herself small and invisible as Cartimandua walked the aisles
in her in her leather tunic and tall boots. She admired numen
tattoos, glanced at homework. She was friendly, interested. She
paused beside Jane. “You’re Amaryllis’s daughter.”

Jane nodded,
her mouth too dry to form actual words. The throbbing inside her
skull intensified. She rolled her neck slightly, trying to soothe
the scalding licks of pain. “Headache?” Cartimandua asked,
sympathetically.

Jane nodded
again. Having her mother’s full attention was bad---having
Cartimandua’s full attention was so much worse. Cartimandua smiled
and Jane wondered why it made her knees knock together. It was a
normal enough smile. Except that it hid people in basements being
experimented on, leaf masks being grafted onto human skin, blood on
a linoleum floor. Jane fought against a flare of light behind her
eyelids, showing her more images. Dryads with savage teeth, babies
with oak leaves for hair, acorns for eyes. She swayed slightly.

“Too much
studying, no doubt.”

A bell sounded,
explaining her presence. Everyone knew the sound of that bell. It
was clear and musical and terrible. “You know what to do,” the
professor snapped. “Calmly proceed to the gates.”

The bell called
them form the Collegium grounds, down the streets to a cobblestoned
courtyard by the parapet. Soldiers flanked the gate and stood on
the ramparts. Cartimandua climbed a small set of stairs with a
group of Enclave elders. Jane’s mother stood at the bottom of the
steps, not close to Cartimandua’s inner circle, but not as far as
she used to be. Kiri’s hand slipped into Jane’s, holding tightly as
a woman was led through the crowd, weeping. The closer she came to
the gate, the more pathetic her weeping became.

“Lettice
Warwick’s demerits tells us that she no longer wants to live here
in the Enclave,” Cartimandua announced.

“No, I’m
sorry,” Lettice sobbed. “Please, I’m sorry.”

Banishments
were rare. The Enclaves offered relative luxury; hothouse gardens,
mint tea, a parapet to protect them. But rules were rules, even
here. And if you broke them, you were banished. Even if you were
the sister of one of the elders.

“We only value
what is most important when it is taken away.” Cartimandua’s voice
was gentle and all the more horrible for it. “This place is a
privilege, not a right.”

Lettice was
forced through the gates of the parapet. She wore a lacy, beaded
dress suited to a garden party. They gave her no supplies, no
survival gear, no weapons. She would have to make it to the City
before the Red Dust found her, or the wild dogs. No one moved to
help her or to appeal for her reversal. She’d earned too many
demerits and there was nothing else to be said.

Jane knew she
was looking at her own future if she tried to fight the
Program.

When Lettice
tried to claw her way back inside, she was shot.

There was a
price to pay for living in the Enclave.

Chapter
13

Saffron

Being in the
Rings was like eating cake for breakfast. You knew it would make
you sick but you did it anyway, and it seemed worth it. And
sometimes Saffron just couldn’t help herself.

Today wasn’t
one of those times. She was only here to be seen. Argent spent a
lot of time here and she needed to found. Quickly.

Fire breathers
and dancers spinning devil-sticks poured into the street. If the
cheerful carnival atmosphere was strained, it was better than the
cold wet streets of the Core and protein paste bars. Vid screens
clamped to the sides of buildings espoused Directorate values and
gossipy dramas without any kind of resemblance to real life.
Commercials for the Garden reality matchmaking show played
endlessly. Announcements interrupted, encouraging people to get
tested and tagged so they could join the Numina if they qualified,
followed by fearsome warnings about Numen poisoning and the harm it
could do if left unchecked. The same Elysians were who encouraged
to get tagged were encouraged to turn in their neighbours, friends
and families, for their safety. Numen poisoning caused physical
illness as well as aggression and only Tagging and study at the
Collegium could prevent it. Saffron had thrown a can at the screens
once and a soldier had broken three of her fingers. That was months
ago, she wouldn’t risk it now.

She passed the
Art Lofts across from the Libraries. She always knew where she was
in the Rings in relation to the Art Lofts, like a sunflower
tracking the sun across the sky. The warehouse was made of red
brick with acres of glass to let in the sunlight, when there was
any to be had. She had a favourite easel on the third floor, tucked
into the corner where she could pretend she was alone. The pottery
wheels and kiln were on the ground floor, the printing screens on
the second. It almost seemed worth it when she was surrounded by
paintbrushes and art.

Argent finally
strolled out of a bar, blocking her way. He smiled, showing off his
silver tooth. “Evening, Saffron. How’s your granny?”

“Bite me,
Argent,” she returned, throwing the pouch at his head. He caught it
reflexively. “Consider my debt paid.”