The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (50 page)

Kor stood beside him.

Chapter 6 —Tarik

I drew up short, more stunned than I should have been. 
After seeing him so often in the palace, it didn’t surprise me that he actually
looked like he belonged, with his fine suit and copper-tipped cane.  But what
did surprise me was what he seemed to be doing, standing there with the Lord
Chamberlain.  Even as I watched, an impeccable older couple arrived and waited
to be announced.  While the Chamberlain called their names, Kor shook the man’s
hand, and kissed the woman’s hand, and then stepped back with a courteous
gesture to let them enter.

My spine tingled. 
He’s checking the guests for Jixies
,
I thought, and an uneasy little corner of my mind wondered what he would do if
he detected one.

“Your Highness!”

That would be Griff’s voice, always too loud for polite
gatherings.  Kor’s head snapped around when he heard my title, and just for a
moment I caught his eye.  But then I let my gaze drift away, disinterested, and
turned to find Griff.  He barreled up to me, seizing my hand and then hugging
me more enthusiastically than he should have.

“Gad, Tarik, they said you’d been killed!  Where the devil
have you been?”

“Traveling,” I said.  “Why was everyone so wild about it?”

“Because no one ever saw you.  It’s like you just
disappeared!”

I gave him a wicked smile, grabbing his elbow and leaning
close to whisper, “Maybe that was the idea.”  I stepped back and added,
“Traveling is brilliant when you haven’t got a legion of boxies chasing you
down everywhere you go.”

“That would be true,” he said.  I could see his curiosity
pitching a fit, and finally he clapped an arm around my shoulders and dragged
me away from the crowd.  “You’re a madcap, Tarik, you know that?  You honestly
went jaunting about all alone?  What if something
had
happened?  You’re
the bloody Crown Prince.  You know what Samyr would say.”

Believe me,
I thought,
I’d probably have been
safer in Istia all on my own than where I was.

“You’re back to stay then?” he asked, not noticing my
silence.

I froze, and tried not to panic.  It hadn’t even occurred to
me to think about what might happen after tonight, except that I knew I had to
get back to the Hole, and meet with Branigan without making an idiot of myself.

“We’ll see,” I said.  “I enjoyed traveling.  Samyr said
you’ve been flying a lot.”

Griff grinned.  “The sky’s
my
way of traveling.  Wish
you’d let me take you up some time.  The view’s splendid.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said.  “Any word on the Patrol?”

“Day after my birthday,” he said, proud, tossing his head
back with just a bit of the modock swagger.  “I’ll be commissioned six months
early.  It’s fantastic timing.  I’ll be just ready when things start going up.”

The younger Minister Bell bowed and shook my hand as he
passed us, and I waited until he’d gone before turning back to Griff with a
frown.

“Farro.  What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t you know?  No, I don’t suppose you would.  Some
members of the Court are saying that there’s a war brewing.  Could be I’ll be
fighting from the sky, what with the new guns they’ve mounted on my aeroplane. 
You should see how they work!  It’s fantastic.”

“Hold up.  War with whom?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know.  I don’t pay attention to politics,
you know that.  But if they tell me to mount up and fight, I’ll be there.”

I ground my teeth and looked away.

“Nice dance with Samyr you had there,” Griff said, nodding
at her across the ballroom floor.  “She missed you something awful, d’you
know?”

“Well,” I said.  “I missed her too.”

And a little corner of my heart twinged with guilt.  Had I
missed her as much as I ought to have?  I couldn’t even tell.

“Don’t be so glum.  Look, there’s Herril.  Have you talked
to him yet?”

I glanced the direction he pointed, but almost didn’t see
Herril through the crowd.  The poor fellow really had a dreadful time of it,
being painfully short and regrettably unremarkable in every way.  He had a nose
for science, though, like his father Dr. Baisell, and that made him special in
his own way.

I sighed and said, “No.  Just you and Samyr.”

Without warning I found myself dragged back into the throng
of guests, accosted on all sides by well-wishers and flatterers.  I shared a
few friendly words with Herril and the usual stale niceties with every member
of the Ministry—even Batar, who seemed more flustered than ever.  I danced with
Vessa and Samyr and ten other ladies whose names I had already forgotten, and
listened to Ministers Farro and Von argue about foreign policy until I forgot
what they were talking about, and they forgot that I was there. 

I must have walked the length of the ballroom fifty times at
least, drinking just the right amount of fizz to be fashionable, holding myself
straight and tall with one hand behind my back just as I should, bowing to all
the right people, while my thoughts turned to a muddle.

And suddenly I realized that all I wanted was to be back at
my cot in the Hole.  Listening to Anuk and Link arguing till too late at night,
watching Bugs trying to bait Pika and getting Hayli all sore over it…sparring
with Jig in the cold night air as we had the last few nights, swapping insults
as fast as strikes.

Here I couldn’t breathe.  I was warm and clean and tricked
out in the finest fashion, standing at the swirling center of attention, but it
felt like madness.

I belong here,
I told myself. 
I belong here.

The words fell hollow in my thoughts.  I knew I didn’t
belong.  I never had.  Sometimes…sometimes I wasn’t even sure I
wanted
to belong.

And did I want to belong with Coins and Hayli in the Hole? 
A raw, sick pang in my heart made me catch my breath.  I couldn’t.  I hated
them.  They were filthy, and ignorant, and…and yet they were more
real
than anyone I’d ever known.

My head pounded.  All the noise of conversation and laughter
and the swirling music drifted into the corners of my thoughts, buried
somewhere behind the keening voice that kept calling me…calling me…

“Tarik?”

The voice vanished, the noise of the ballroom rushed back. 
I jerked my head up and found myself facing Trabin, who was studying me with a
faintly wary shadow in his eyes.  He hadn’t moved from his place by the stairs,
so somehow I must have made my way to him.  I swallowed, hard, and nodded.  Now
that I’d heard firsthand the rumors about our difficult relationship, I
couldn’t miss the constant buzz of attention we got, standing there side by
side in strangely untroubled silence—strange, given everything I knew, and
everything he didn’t realize I knew.  With the chatter of the guests all around
us, no one would have heard us speak, but for several long moments conversation
felt unnecessary.

Finally Trabin said, “Zagger got word to you.”

“That’s why I’m here,” I said, watching Griff and Samyr
dance.  “Have your people gotten any closer to discovering the mole?”

He shook his head, just barely.  “I’ve got Kor and some of
my other agents looking into it.  It’s their damn line of work, you’d think
they could get results.”

“Griff said things were heating up.  Are we headed for war?”

He shifted and met my gaze evenly.  “It looks that way. 
Tulay has sided with Istia against the Accord.  And stars know they won’t go
peacefully from a fight.”

I resisted the urge to put my hands in my pockets and
swear.  Like a good prince I stood straight and still, one hand behind my back,
head up.

“Tulay.  What does Her Majesty think of that?” I asked,
referring to my mother by her title as I always did in public.  “I thought they
were our allies.”

He made a little grimace.  “If they keep on this track,
there will be no alliance to speak of.  Her Majesty is prepared to break ties
with her former country if it comes to that, but I know she hopes it won’t. 
The Istian ambassador will be arriving soon for a last attempt at negotiations,
and we are supposed to have a summit meeting in a few weeks with all the world
leaders who will come, to try to end this thing peacefully, but I don’t have
high hopes for it.  And that would be just the sort of opportunity…”

His voice trailed off, and his face paled a little.

“You’re worried it won’t just be a war?” I asked, quietly.

“Yes,” he said.  “That Ghost who shot me…I doubt he acted on
a whim.”

“You think Istia sent him?  Or Tulay?”

“Possibly.”

“Not Rivano?” I asked.

He met my gaze.  “Honestly, I’m not convinced Rivano isn’t
an Istian plant.”

“Is that why you’ve got Kor greeting the guests tonight?”

“It is,” he said.  “Did he prepare you well enough?  I know
I had to pull him away from helping you, but I needed him here for another
job.”

“I’m still alive,” I said.  “Out there you have to learn and
adapt, or the city will devour you.  He taught me how to adapt.”

“I asked him how you were doing on gathering information,
and he passed along his reports.  Good work so far.”

I nodded, anxiety squirming in my stomach.

“I had my patrol report on the day of Griff’s crash.  One of
them mentioned finding a tramp girl on the grounds and giving her the boot. 
You never mentioned to me that you’d been in a motorcar accident with someone
like that.”

Oh, God.  No.

“It didn’t seem relevant to anything at the time,” I said. 
“I’d forgotten all about it until you just mentioned it.  You think she might
involved?”

“Could be.  Are there many girls in Rivano’s little
company?  Or at the Hole?  Would you remember who she was?”

I swallowed back bile, offering a faint smile to a
curtseying guest as she passed by.  “Oh, stars, I don’t know.  I was so out of
sorts with Griff’s crash.  I’ll try to figure it out, though.”

“I was going to call in Zagger,” he said.  “He might
remember some other details about her, since he’s the one who crashed into
her.”

I nodded.  “He’s got a stellar memory, too.”

I barely managed to hold in a sigh of relief as one of the
Court Ministers came threading his way toward us, looking keen on a
conversation with the King.  I knew my cue when I saw one, and turned to take
my leave.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Trabin said.

“I promised the reporters an audience.  And after that…”  My
voice trailed off, and I backed a step away.  “I’ll try to put in a few
appearances the next few days, but then I’ve got to stay away.  Zagger will
know how to get in touch with me if you need to send me any information.  I’m
sorry.  If I stay here…it’s all over.  Everything I’ve gained.”

To my surprise, he nodded.  “Be careful,” he said, and
turned to greet his minister.

I bowed and retreated back into the crowd, and finally made
my way out onto the terrace.  Only a few minutes later Samyr found me, bundling
herself in the fur stole one of the footmen offered her.  She slipped up beside
me, holding the fur closed at her throat. 

“Not very fashionable to hide out on the balcony all alone.”

“I’m not alone,” I said, and I meant to soften the words
with a smile, but the smile never surfaced.

“What’s wrong, Tarik?  You seem…changed, somehow. 
Different.”

“I suppose that’s what seeing the world does to a person.”

“Really, what nonsense.”  She laid her hand on my cheek,
meeting my gaze steadily.  “It’s your eyes.  I don’t know what it is.  There’s
a hardness there that I don’t remember.”

I didn’t reply.  I just turned away, moving free of her
touch.  For a while we stood side by side in silence, and I could feel her gaze
fixed on me.

“Stars, Tarik,” she murmured.  “Things were so hard when you
were away.  I missed you so much.  And now…I don’t understand.  It’s like you
don’t even care.  Like we’re all nothing.  Don’t you care about anyone?”

I stiffened, but kept standing still, hands clasped behind
my back, staring out at the city.  I didn’t know what to say.  Didn’t know how
to tell her the truth, or gently break her heart.  Because somewhere along the
way, Samyr, Griff and I had stopped being just the childhood friends who got
each other into mischief.  Samyr had changed.  Grown up, maybe.  I’d tried to
ignore it for so long, but I knew it was cruel.  Cruel to keep drawing her
along, knowing that every smile I gave her was a snare.

“I don’t suppose I do,” I said, finally, the words burning
in my throat.

She gave a little stifled gasp.  “You don’t mean that.”

I turned toward her.  Her grey eyes were bright, shining in
the lamp light, the mist like diamonds gathering in her hair and on the fur. 
There had been a time I’d fancied her.  I’d even imagined I loved her.  But I
couldn’t tell myself that any more.  I’d loved a shadow, an idea, probably in
just the same way she cared about me.