Ruth nods very obviously at Prudencia. “Don’t let the good ones get away.”
Nineteen
The Cloaked Phantom
NESS
The Senator has spent the afternoon watching final cuts of my propaganda videos.
We’re up in the attic with Roslyn, and she’s explained her updated rollout plan. The majority of videos will be fed out online through sock puppet accounts. The ones capable of doing the most damage to celestial reputations—also known as the Senator’s favorites—will be offered to pro-Iron networks such as Wolf News for more prominent airing.
Roslyn pulls out a script from her folder. “I wrote this one last night. I created a victim who claims that Iris Simone-Chambers broke her arm and threatened to punch a hole in her stomach if she didn’t turn over surveillance footage that would’ve identified her as guilty of a robbery.”
The Senator slides the script back across the desk. “We can’t involve detailed personal accounts like that. Not for the Spell Walkers or Sunstar or any of my opponents. If they sense something is off, it could open an investigation that would stanch the wound we’re trying to widen. Only videos that can’t be traced back to us.” He turns to me, where I’m sitting in the corner by the window. “We can’t have Eduardo’s wonderful work go to waste. Isn’t that right, son?”
I don’t react. That’s what he wants and I’ve given him enough.
Filming for the past two days has been absolutely draining. The closest I’ve come to actively using my power for long stretches of time like this is when I once went undercover as one of Luna’s rival alchemists to get him some intel for blackmail. For how physically exhausting this has all been, it’s got nothing on how it’s affected me mentally. I’m the person behind all these masks of lies. Once these videos are out there, everyone who suffers—rights taken away, jailed, killed—will be because of my performances. The whole thing makes me want to morph into a little boy and cry into my mother’s chest.
The Senator stands. “Great work, Roslyn. I have to finish getting ready, but we can discuss your phase two proposals on the way to Florida. Be downstairs in three.” On the way out, he looks over his shoulder and says, “Behave while I’m away, Eduardo. Don’t stay up too late.” His laughter follows him out of the attic.
Roslyn lets out a happy sigh.
“How do you sleep at night, fraud?” I ask.
“A lot better since I started sharing a bed with your father,” she says with a smile.
So they are together now—or at least, hooking up. It seems like there are only a handful of people on the Senator’s team who know about me being alive. I haven’t seen any other bodyguards except Jax and Zenon, and Jax truly should’ve been fired for the way he failed at his job during the break-in this week. But if it’s really just those two, Bishop, and Roslyn, I have to manipulate them. Get into their heads.
“You’re never going to be his First Lady,” I tell her. “I know what it looks like when he talks to a woman he loves. That’s not what’s happening here.”
“My love for him and his work is enough for the both of us,” Roslyn says as she finishes packing up her laptop and files. “That’ll keep me warm in the White House’s master bedroom.”
She leaves the attic.
I want to call her a monster, but that won’t faze her. Roslyn needs time to become unsettled and I have to trust that I’ve planted a seed. I didn’t even have to lie. My mom wasn’t perfect. Her views weren’t always in line with where mine are now, and she didn’t always challenge her husband like she encouraged me with others, but she would’ve never supported all this cheating, let alone help engineer it. She didn’t have to perform her loyalty to the Senator to get him to love her. I saw his private grief when she was killed.
I hope every corrupt person on this team ends up in prison like the criminals they are. Right on cue, Jax arrives—his face fully healed because of Eva—to lock me back in my cage after this torturous session in the attic. I would’ve been happier alone and peeling paint off my walls than having the Senator and Roslyn for company. But Jax doesn’t take me to my bedroom. We go downstairs, where the Senator, Roslyn, and Zenon are waiting by the front door with luggage.
“We said bye already,” I say to the