Stiletto (73 page)

“...I think there were traces of nut in that little pastry thing, does anyone have an epi-pen...”

“Hush, there’s a Grafter walking by.”

“I love her dress.”

“Yeah, but God knows
what’s
squirming underneath.”

At that last remark, Odette had moved away, focusing on keeping her countenance calm, her complexion unflushed, and her spine straight.
You never thought it was going to be easy,
she told herself.
And one speech from the Prime Minister isn’t going to change minds instantly.
For a moment, she considered taking refuge in one of the little clots of Grafters, but then decided against it.

I’ve sculpted bones, delivered babies, and held off a gang of thugs,
she told herself.
I’m not going to be intimidated by some snobs at a cocktail party.
Taking even herself by surprise, she abruptly turned a sharp ninety degrees to the left and stood expectantly by a little clump of Checquy operatives. Their conversation died away awkwardly.

“Good evening,” she said brightly. “I’m Odette Leliefeld. It’s a lovely party tonight.”

Now make pleasant conversation, you fucks.

And make pleasant conversation they did. It was clumsy and stilted at first — none of them had actually met or chatted with a Grafter before — but she had to give them credit, they rallied magnificently. As it turned out, they all worked in Analysis and Assessment: three Pawns (two men and a woman), and three Retainers (two women and a man). They’d discussed trivial things to begin with: the orchestra, the food, the men’s suits. Then they’d moved on to other, more important topics: the attacks on various British cities, the merger, the ladies’ dresses. Everyone had taken care not to say anything that could be considered offensive, but Odette had taken extra care to condemn the attacks and mention that she’d been caught up in one.

“So, what are your preternatural abilities?” she asked during a lull in the conversation, and there was a pause. “Oh God, have I committed some supernatural faux pas?”

“No,” said Pawn Grasby, whose first name she had forgotten. “Not at all. It’s just that we’re used to everyone knowing what we can do.”

“I can summon and command wasps,” said Pawn Harriet Collinge, whom Odette suspected of being a little bit tipsy. “Roger disrupts mathematics, and Louis can draw wasps to him.”

“Very cool,” said Odette. “Wait, so you can
both
do things with wasps? Are you two related?”

“Oh, no,” said Louis. “Sorry, she does the thing with insects. I can attract white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.”

“That must come in handy,” said Odette.

“What about you?” asked Pawn Grasby curiously.

“Oh, I’m a regular little Swiss army knife,” said Odette. “But nothing as impressive as maths, or, um, white people.”

“Oh, come on,” said Harriet.

I should give them something,
thought Odette.
Something they can understand.

“Okay, well, I can rearrange my muscles,” she said. She held up her arm and concentrated, and they watched as ripples moved underneath her skin. There were some polite comments, although she suspected that they were used to much more impressive effects among their own. “It lets me perform incredibly tiny microsurgery better than any robot, but it takes a bit of time to arrange the muscles properly. Though I don’t think of that as the coolest thing I can do...”

“All right, then, what’s the coolest thing you can do?” asked Monique, one of the Retainers.

“It’s going to sound
terrifically
nerdy,” Odette cautioned them.

“We’re analysts,” said Roger, “we like nerdy things.”

“We prefer them,” said Harriet.

“I performed a heart transplant on an unborn baby.”

There was a startled silence.

“That’s actually way more cool than controlling insects,” said Monique.

Then the extremely nice Pawn Louis Marshall had invited her to dance. She’d been conscious of everyone’s eyes on her and him and was thankful that her dress had obligingly absorbed her perspiration, which had been copious. Then more couples had joined them on the dance floor, and suddenly it felt as if a dam had broken. The music swelled, and the party began.

At one point, Great-Uncle Marcel had tangoed by with the headmistress of the Estate. Odette saw Marie whirling with a man whose suit had steam pouring out the collar and sleeves. Odette herself moved from partner to partner, being as charming as she knew how to be.

The tempos changed, and she blessed her mother for insisting that she take dance lessons. She essayed a pavane with a man whose skin chimed whenever she brushed against it; she cha-cha’d with a man who was attended by a troop of hummingbirds that fluttered above him; and she did the twist with Harriet. There were even some slow dances. And always, she took the opportunity to say some pleasant words and leave a better impression than she formerly had.

Finally, a Pawn of the Checquy, with much urging from her comrades, had stepped up to the microphone and begun to sing. As far as Odette could tell, her voice was not supernaturally gifted — no strange emotions or sensations touched her from the sound — it was simply a lovely voice singing “At Last,” written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. The lights dimmed overhead, and the room was full of dancers. A hand touched her arm, and she saw that it was Grootvader Ernst, dapper in his tuxedo.

“Kun je je voorvader deze dans?”
he asked.
Would you grant this dance to your ancestor?

“Met alle plezier,”
she replied with a smile.
With all pleasure.

He was, of course, a good dancer. Centuries of practice ensured that. And there was a courtly dignity to the slow but stately steps he led her through.

“A big evening,” he said. “Are you having a good time?”

“I am,” said Odette. “They’re just people, once you get to talking to them.”

“Most people are,” he said. “I am very proud of you, Odette. You have been a credit to us this evening.”

“I think it will all work out, Grootvader.” He didn’t say anything but nodded, his face solemn. As the song drew to a finish, she stepped back and gave him a little curtsy. Then they joined in the applause for the singer.

“And that is the end of the evening, I believe,” said Grootvader Ernst. “We shall make our thanks, and then it will be time to go back to the hotel.” Making the thanks actually took another half hour; Odette circumnavigated the room, speaking with everyone she had danced with and then thanking the Court members. Alessio was nodding off on a chair against the wall and submitted to being guided up the stairs. Eventually she found Clements waiting by the door. The Pawn was quiet in the car but acknowledged that she’d had a good time.

The delegation was decanted at the front of the hotel. Yawning receptionists at the desk stood up straight when the elegant party glided by. As they walked through the lobby, Odette saw Pawn Sophie Jelfs sitting in the bar.
I’m so glad she wasn’t killed in the attack,
she thought, and she smiled, putting on an expression of exaggerated relief. The Pawn looked exhausted and her hair was messy, but she held up a drink in toast and smiled back. She raised her eyebrows at Odette’s dress and made an impressed face.

In Pawn Clements’s room, Odette helped Felicity take off her dress. As the gown shivered and unclenched, the Pawn slumped a little and took a deep breath. “Thank you for lending me the dress,” said Clements. “And putting all that work into tailoring it for me.”

“It really was my pleasure,” said Odette.

The Pawn gave the garment a wistful little stroke and then handed it back to Odette, wished her a good night, and closed her bedroom door. Odette wandered back into the room she shared with Alessio and carefully hung up the dress. She looked over at the bed, where her little brother was already asleep. Worn out by the revelations of the evening, he’d drifted off almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Odette gave a moment’s thought to picking up the tuxedo components that he had scattered across the room but then snorted and walked away.
I’m not his mother, and if he shows up looking crumpled at some other event, that’s his problem. It’s how he’ll learn.

In a fit of hypocrisy, she stepped out of her dress and just let it lie on the bathroom floor.
But at least my dress will straighten itself out,
she thought defensively.
Once it’s had a good meal of applesauce and been dusted with some paprika and cuprous sulfate.

As she ran her bath and added the various chemicals and powders, she thought wistfully of sleeping in an actual bed.
There really is something extremely comforting about a pillow and a blanket,
she mused.
And you hardly ever wake up to find that your sheets have congealed into a solid around you.
One of her fellow students had once mixed the chemicals wrong, and the staff had had to chisel him out. She contemplated just falling into the tub but remembered that she still had her makeup on. And the strategic underwear that she’d worn to suit the dress. If Alessio came in to wake her up and found her in that, they’d both be scarred for life.

“Oh,
fine
. I’ll be responsible, then,” she said to no one in particular. She even remembered to put her headphones on before sinking blissfully into the steaming slime.
I am going to sleep forever. And tomorrow is Saturday,
she thought blissfully as her heartbeat slowed.
I don’t have to do anything.

*

“
Wake up!”
the voice thundered in her ears. She thrashed in the slime, her brain jolting into action. As she opened her eyes, something floated down through the murk and clonked her on her forehead. She clutched at her forehead and instinctively opened her mouth to make a noise, and the slime rushed into her mouth.
Oh, gross!
Fuming, she clamped her mouth shut and scrabbled around for whatever had hit her. It was her phone. Apparently, her jerkings had yanked the cord of the headphones and pulled the phone into the tub.
I may have to murder someone,
she thought. When she surfaced, she saw that the murderee would be her brother. She spat out the mouthful of slime, which, though it smelled delightful, tasted like a combination of shampoo, antifreeze, and Bloody Mary mix.

“It’s Saturday morning,” she said acidly.

“Grootvader Ernst has called a meeting,” said Alessio.

“It’s Saturday morning.”

“Everyone except me has to be there,” he said.

“It’s Saturday morning.”

“It’s in fifteen minutes, so you’ll be eating breakfast there,” he said, leaving the bathroom.

“But... it’s Saturday morning,” she said to the cruel, uncaring empty room.

*

Odette was well aware that she was not looking her most impressive as she entered the royal suite. A frantic shower had gotten most of the slime out of her hair, but it was still damp, and, in a moment of resentful rebellion, she had pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.
It’s Saturday morning, after all,
she thought sulkily.
They can’t expect me to be wearing a business skirt the morning after a party.

As it turned out, everyone was dressed casually, which rather took away from her rebellious gesture. Even Grootvader Ernst, behind his newspaper, was wearing a button-down shirt without a tie or cravat. There was a contemplative silence in the room that suggested that nobody was particularly thrilled to be awake. Much yawning took place behind hands. Odette helped herself to the buffet that had been laid out and then slumped into her chair at the conference table. She realized that, in the present company, she would not be able to have her illicit coffee without receiving pointed remarks about her throat.

Resting her chin on her hand, she took a mouthful of scrambled eggs and looked resentfully up the table to where Grootvader Ernst sat. He was reading the
Times,
the front page of which was completely devoted to the attacks. Too tired even to turn her head, Odette moved her eyes in their sockets and saw that almost everyone was staring at their leader. He turned a page.

Thank God we were summoned early to watch you read the paper,
she thought. Then everyone jumped as he scrunched the paper down and regarded them all.

“It is early,” he said, “but there are things I want us to deal with immediately.”

And that is as close as we are going to get to an apology.

“Last night went very well. I am proud of you all. You conducted yourselves admirably, and I am confident that the Checquy has come to terms with the problem of the Antagonists. It seems that we drastically overestimated what their reaction would be to our, ahem, insurrection. Last night I spoke with the Prime Minister, and he assures me that they completely understand the situation. He was especially grateful for our work in the aftermath of the attacks. Marcel’s and Odette’s efforts with the casualties have not gone unnoticed, and they have put us in a very strong position in the negotiations.”

Well, if you want to take a selfless act and make it selfish, I suppose that’s your privilege,
thought Odette.

“Now, it is important that we continue to build upon this excellent foundation. I am aware that this is the Saturday morning after a long and exhausting week, but we must strike while the iron is hot and before the tumor spreads.” The meeting attendees were quickly given assignments. To Odette’s bewilderment, she received no task.
Even Alessio has something to do this weekend,
she thought. Her brother was going off with the school group for a day of various activities that would culminate in a night at the theater to see a production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. The next day, he’d go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum, and then some famous restaurant.

No explanation was given for Odette’s lack of orders, and when she offered to assist people, she was politely but firmly rebuffed.

“The Checquy provided the placements for the day,” said Marie as she bustled off to address a million pressing tasks. “And you’re supposed to stay in the hotel. Maybe they want you to keep an eye on your damaged bodyguard. Anyway, it’s a day off. Enjoy it!” Odette nodded glumly. It was too late to go back to sleep, and even if she’d wanted to, the bathtub of gel would be cold. She returned to the suite, where Alessio was just heading out the door.