betray her people. Her guilt probably rivaled Addie’s.
“He’s impossible,” I said.
“Find a way to make it work,” she said. “Having a Consort member’s support will open up all sorts of doors, but only if you succeed. They care about results, not intentions.”
Once again my dad stepped in, trying to defray the tension. “Why don’t you head back to class? You could catch the last hour, at least.”
“No way. I got yanked out by the Consort on my first day back. I go in there, and they’ll treat me like a circus freak.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Mom said.
“Really? Don’t people look at you strangely now? Don’t they watch you out of the corner of their eyes, or go quiet when you walk past?”
She folded her arms. “My work speaks louder than anything they could say.”
“Or maybe you’re not hearing it.”
She looked at my dad, who lifted his hands and eyebrows in unison. “Fine. Today only. You’ll be back in class on Saturday, no excuses.”
“Whatever. Can we get out of here now?”
“You can head home,” my dad said as they exchanged glances again. “We have work to finish.”
The Tacet. “Addie said the Consort’s planning a big cleaving. Tons of branches?”
My dad nodded. “A project this complex requires a lot of planning. Every branch has to be analyzed, every cut orchestrated. It’s hard to pull off correctly, but the results will be worth it.”
The results would be catastrophic.
“You’ve already done the crazy hours thing,” I said. “Can’t someone else handle it?”
If I couldn’t tell them the truth, at least I could steer them away from committing more cleavings.
“It’s only a few more weeks,” Mom promised, her expression softening. “Besides, when the Consort asks . . .” She trailed off, and I knew she was thinking of Monty. She straightened her shoulders. “. . . we’re happy to help.”
To prove her loyalty, she meant. We were all paying for Monty’s sins, and in the process, committing our own.
CHAPTER TWELVE
OUR RAMSHACKLE QUEEN ANNE WAS dark when I arrived home. No lights, even on the porch. No sound once I’d let myself in, except for Amelia’s pivots quivering and rustling like the wind through grass.
What would happen if the Free Walkers brought down the Consort? Would there be a place for my family? Would they take it? Walking shaped every aspect of my parents’ lives. The Free Walkers would unravel their world as swiftly as a cleaving, and I didn’t have a clue if they’d be able to knit it up again.
I was starving, so I munched a piece of peanut-butter toast while I turned on every light in the house. The shadows fled, but my dark thoughts lingered, and my footsteps sounded too loud. I needed music.
The honeyed wood of my violin felt warm and reassuring as I positioned it under my chin. Without thinking, I began to play Simon’s song.
We hadn’t meant for it to sound sad—some phrases were sly, some were merry, some were tender—but the ache of missing him found its way through my fingers, turning the notes unbearably wistful.
I heard Eliot let himself in, but I kept playing, improvising well beyond the tune Simon and I had written together. I was on my own.
“Sounds good,” Eliot said when I’d finished.
It sounded incomplete.
“You’re out early.” I tucked the instrument into its case.
“Shaw let me go.” Eliot unwound his scarf and threw his coat in the chair. “Which you would know, if you’d checked your phone. Tell me what happened.”
“Cocoa?” I replied.
He groaned but followed me into the kitchen, squirming on the kitchen stool while I warmed cocoa and sugar and milk on the stove. “You’re killing me. Why’d they yank you out of class?”
I passed Eliot a mug dotted with extra marshmallow fluff, just the way he liked it. “Lattimer wanted me to visit Monty. Technically, the Consort asked, but it was totally his show.”
He choked on the first sip. “You said no, right?” he asked between coughs. “Because if there are two people in the world you should be avoiding, it’s Lattimer and Monty.”
“I wish. There was no way out of it.”
“This is not going to end well,” he said. “No prison visit ever does.”
“This one certainly didn’t.”
It took a moment for my words to register. “You’ve already gone in?”
“Monty won’t talk, and Lattimer basically said I could do it or leave the Walkers.”
Eliot scowled. “He wants something.”
“Yeah. The Free Walkers. They have some sort of weapon, and he wants to find it before the Consort’s big cleaving.”