Page 9 of The Flame

My gaze narrowed in disbelief. “He’s just okay with everything that’s happened?”

Mom’s smile wavered. “You know your father.”

I did, and I knew he rarely held back his opinions. “What did he say?”

“He’s concerned about you, naturally, but I assured him that you’re perfectly well,” she said, and promptly shifted the conversation. “You and Roman should come for dinner tonight. What do you say?”

I doubted Roman would be willing to sit around a table with me for a family dinner right now.

“Maybe another night. Roman’s got a lot going on today.” I nudged a look at the bandstand. “What’s that about?”

“We’re making ourselves available to the public,” Mom said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty right now, and people have questions. We’re reassuring everyone that nothing is changing.”

“But isn’t that the point of everything?” I frowned at her. “Change?”

“The Sisterhood has great reforms in store for Capra, but all in due time.” She rubbed my arm. “We don’t want to alarm people.”

“And change frightens people.”

“People are afraid of change,” she said, nodding. “So long as it’s good change, though, there’s nothing to fear, and nothing to dislike.”

“You sound so calm about everything. Relaxed. As if everything is just going to work out.”

She continued rubbing my arm, soothing me. “I’m not deluded, darling, but I do have faith in mankind. The top one percent is usually the problem, and they’ve been ousted from power. The other ninety-nine percent? We’ve got this.”

Except we now had a new one percent. There’d always be a one percent ruling over the other ninety-nine percent. The trick was to get that one percent right. Personally, I didn’t think Geneva belonged up there.

She was off the screen now, replaced by the edited clips of my interview that had played on a loop last night. And apparently was still playing.

“It’s all lies,” I declared to the whole of Capra. “Our eggs don’t start off rotten. We are healthy for the first couple of years, until we reach the age of fourteen, maybe a few months more. That’s where Capra gets its supply of eggs from, harvested from young girls in The Smoke. It could be harvested from us. Itshouldbeharvested fromus. There’s no reason we couldn’t have children of our flesh and blood.”

“I should get back to the information kiosk,” my mom said.

My gaze shot to her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Geneva blasted me and that…” my arm flung out, pointing to the screen “…interview all over Capra last night while I was at the Foundation Ball, trapped amongst all the council members and dozens of guards. If her plans didn’t work out, I’d be in rehab now. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Oh, darling.” Her face crumpled and she placed a hand on my arm again, squeezing gently. “I assumed you were part of the plan and knew everything. And when I learned you’d been taken by surprise, well, it was mostly over, and you were fine.”

“So her antics, putting me in that kind of danger without my consent, doesn’t make you the least bit angry?”

“I wasn’t thrilled,” she finally admitted. “But Geneva would have had a rescue operation in place, if necessary.”

I studied my mom’s face. She genuinely believed that. Her faith in Geneva and the Sisterhood was not shaken.

Maybe it was just me. For everyone else, even for my mother, it was a case of‘All’s well that ends well.’

But for me, it hadn’t all ended well. Roman could have lost his life last night, protecting me. As it was, he hadn’t emerged unscathed. Daniel was locked up with the rest of the heirs, some of them still children, and Geneva had no intention of ever releasing them—not fully whole, anyway. She’d made that clear to me.The council must be stamped out in all its iterations.

I smiled weakly and said goodbye to my mother without further argument. I’d never been able to get her to question the Sisterhood’s more shady methods of operandi, and I guess that hadn’t changed.

Berkley House was across the road from the Guard Station where Daniel was being held. I was itching to cross the street, to check up on him, but I didn’t want to stir up more trouble for him. The heirs were all locked up in the same cell, and some of them resented his connection to me. Especially the Otter heir. I’d stopped an all-out brawl last night by promising to get them all out of there, but until I delivered, I couldn’t risk my presence triggering another incident.

I tried the door to Berkley House before knocking.

It opened and I stepped inside.

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