The Scorpion Rules (16 page)

I was thinking about electricity, suddenly. And not in punishment.

“I'm not going to go quietly, Greta.” There was no defiance in his voice. It was soft as a lover's whisper. “They'll have to drag me off.”

“You might surprise yourself.” I put my hand on Elián's knee.

He looked down at it. I could see his throat move as he swallowed down his fear. “Might, I guess. Life is full of surprises.”

He turned to me. Our legs bumped. I was aware of our knees sorting out their borders, my hand still on his thigh, my hair puddled in my lap. My hair was sectioned and smooth from its tenure in braids, and lay in shining pieces, like cords from an unplaited rope. Elián took a cord in each hand and wrapped it round and round, until his wrists and hands and arms were bound by my hair—until we were tangled so close together that I could feel his breath on my lips.

“You're so strong,” he said.

And he kissed me.

My hand flew up, and I swear for a moment I meant to push him away. Instead, I put my fingers along the ridge of his jaw. Our noses bumped. His knee pushed inside my thigh and my legs fell open. The tug of my hair on my scalp as he reeled me in was incredible—it felt like heat building, it felt like a thousand urgent prickles. He kissed me and I kissed him and there was not enough air. There was not enough time. Weeks. Days. He was desperate, and I was desperate, and we were out of time.

His tongue, his knee pushing deeper. I gasped something—maybe it was
wait
—but also I bit his lip. We were going to die together, and it felt like here and now.

“Time to—”

It was Da-Xia's voice. I pushed away from Elián, flushed, gasping.

Xie was standing two tiers above us. She was more than a silhouette. It was obvious that she could see.

“Time to go,” she said, and her voice cracked. “There are proctors out tonight.” She took a step back as if to fade into the darkness.

“Wait, Xie—” I staggered up. My mind felt like an empty cage. Everything had flown out of it. My hair was mad and the ties of my shirt were looser than they should have been.

“Goodness,” Da-Xia said, watching me fumble to arrange my shirt. I think she was trying for light, but she seemed stunned. “My Princess of the Icy Places—there's hope for you yet.”

Elián, curse him, laughed. “Get her away from those protocol officers and there's no stopping her.”

“Shut up,” I said. I was glad of the dark. I was blushing as only a redhead could.

Elián shut up. “I didn't mean—”

“Come,” said Xie, before Elián could specify which part he hadn't meant. “We're pushing our luck.”

“Greta,” said Elián.

“Let's go,” I said, and pulled away from him. Xie led us back to the Precepture, where Atta—silent again—was sitting by the wall. Together the four of us went through the cellars, the kitchens. We came out of the refectory and into the hallway—

And there was the Abbot, standing quietly. Two proctors flanked him.

“Greta,” he said, as if I were alone. “Couldn't sleep?”

I
asked you to come to me, Greta, if you couldn't sleep,” the Abbot chided. The Abbot had showed me the grey room to scare me into giving up my power. And that hadn't worked. So, next— I should have realized there would be a
next
.

The proctors came in like sheepdogs and cut me out from the herd, away from the others. I went, stiffening my back as if swan wings were attached to my shoulder blades. “I know, good Father,” I allowed. But I did not apologize. And I did not explain.

“I asked her to come with me, Father Abbot,” said Da-Xia. “Please. It's my fault.”

The Abbot's mouth icon turned up at the corners, as if she'd told him a joke. “I know exactly what you said, Xie.” His use of the diminutive made me cold. “And perhaps we might discuss it later? I think our dear Greta is distressed. Her heart rate is quite high.”

They can read our minds,
Atta had said.

Why would they need to, when they could read our lips, and our hearts?

Never lie to an AI,
said Talis.

The proctors were herding me toward the miseri. Behind me Elián's voice cracked, “Abbot—”

The Abbot swiveled his head around like an owl. “Good night, Ms. Li. Mr. Palnik, Mr. Paşa. Do get some rest.”

I heard Xie whispering something to Elián, urgent—shutting him up, probably. And then the door of the miseri closed and there was nothing but soft light and silence.

Dreamlock. Therapists invented it, though torturers made it famous. Magnetic fields induce and guide dreams; drugs circumvent the reflex that wakes the body when dreams become traumatic.

It was once thought that if you died in your dreams you died in life. Thanks to dreamlock, we know this is not true. Most people can die at least six times before something in them gives way.

They use dreamlock; they use drugs.

I had only half believed it.

I don't know how long.

The first dream took—was perhaps designed to take—my sense of time.

It was one of those endless things, where one is lost in a grey place. There is a cold, distant murmuring, that Halifax sound. The ceiling is not glass; it is low. The darkness grows total. I put out my hand—a stone wall. I walk along it, dragging my hand. There are turns and openings—one, two, many. . . . It's a maze. No. It's a catacomb, a maze of graves. I touch something dead and slickly wrapped in taffeta. A body. A body in my dress.

It's my body.

I jerk and wake up and I am that body. I am that body, and I am lying on a high narrow table. Cold metal. Leather straps hold me down. Someone is looking down at me—the Swan Rider girl with her sickening gentleness and bright blue eyes. There's a cage around my head—something dark and metal swings over me, and—

I wake up, or I don't, and I am sitting in the nighttime garden. I am wearing my taffeta. I can hear its rustle, the night insects, the river. I can hear Elián breathing. His hands are tangled in my hair. He kisses me but he is kissing a dead thing: my lips are nerveless. My skin is a peeled potato. My teeth—my teeth move. I bite him and my hair pulls him in and in and in. I bite him and feel the hot rush of blood.

I wake up, or I—

“Greta. Greta. Wake up.”

I felt a hand take mine. I knew it by its shape. Da-Xia.

My eyelashes were tangled in honey, as if bees had been building nests in me. Barely, I saw Xie lift my hand and cradle it against her throat. “Greta. I'm so sorry.”

“Xie?” My tongue was dry and stiff.

“You slept through breakfast—I stole you some juice.”

I squinted. The light was too bright; the paper cranes seemed to spin, impossibly fast. The Panopticon loomed as if it were right in the middle of our small room, as if its stalk had taken root there. Its bulbous eye was inches from me.

“Greta?”

“Juice,” I felt myself say. “Juice would be good.”

Xie wrapped an arm around me and sat me up. She held the cup for me. My lips were numb against the cold clay. The juice tasted of cobwebs and blood. I swallowed it anyway, and stood up. I did not wish to be in my bed.

Da-Xia lifted her hands like a priest and cradled my face between them. I could feel my skin pulse against her palms—too fast. Slower. Slower. As Elián had leaned into me, under the pumpkins, I leaned into Xie. She was so small, and yet she seemed larger than I was. I tipped my forehead down until it rested against hers.

“Hold on to me,” she said. I felt her breath on my throat. “Come back.”

Slowly, slowly, holding on to her, I came back.

And I stayed back until the evening, when the proctor came to fetch me again.

Dreamlock: I am sitting for my portrait.

I sit long and still.

An artist is painting me. My skin is canvas. The strokes follow my clavicle inward from the point of my shoulder, down my sternum, across my breasts. I feel the push of the small brush as the artist splays its bristles and flicks the red curve of a rose petal across the cream of my skin. I feel the prick of each painted thorn.

The artist is kneeling. I cannot see his face. Curls of his dark hair brush under my chin. His breath is warm against my heart. He paints around my ribs. I feel the paint on me, slowly stiffening. It pulls tighter, tighter.

“Why are you sitting?” whispers the artist. I can feel his breath against the skin of my stomach, the whisper of his brush, painting downward. “Why are you just sitting there?”

It is because it never occurred to me to move—no. It is because I cannot move. The paint is like a corset, and then it is worse. It is a constriction and my ribs cannot move. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. I panic. I cannot even move my eyes. I am only a painting. And yet I need to breathe. And I cannot breathe.

The artist—and it is Elián, of course, Elián—the artist tilts up his head and smiles at me as he watches me die.

He is growing antlers, like a stag.

The last thing I feel is his hands on me, the roar of my skin—

I wake, or I don't.