Page 13 of Arch Conspirator
“That’s one of Mom’s,” she said. Sharp-eyed as ever. She brushed it with her fingertips, reverent. “Where did you get it?”
“Polyneikes gave it to me yesterday,” I said. “‘Just in case,’ he said.”
She tugged her hand back like the Extractor had bitten her.
“Youknew?”
“I didn’t know anything,” I said. “He wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Oh, sure. Our brother was worried he might die,” she said. “But why tell me? It’s not like he’s my brother, too, right?”
“I’m—”
“You’re not sorry,” she snapped. “The two of you have always been like this. As if swimming around in the same womb with him gave you a greater capacity to love him.”
I didn’t argue with her; there was no point. But the mystics believed that sharing a body with someone created a sacred connection, the bond of mother and child, the bond of husband and wife. Was it so difficult to believe, then, that sharing a body with my brother had forged a similar connection? As children, when he fell down, I cried. When he was ill, I vomited. What was I to do now that he was dead?
She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.
“It doesn’t matter, now,” she said. “None of it. Kreon’s decree—”
“FuckKreon’s decree,” I said.
“You can’t possibly think…” She scowled at me. “You’re going to do it anyway?”
“We don’t exclude people from the Archive,” I said. “We don’t exclude murderers, or thieves, or rioters. We don’t deny anyone their chance at immortality.”
“They don’t believe we havesouls,Antigone.”
“I don’t care. I do.”
“You don’t even believe in immortality.”
“He did.”
“You obviously haven’t been down to the street,” she said. “Because if you had, you’d know there’s nothing but space and guards around his body. There’s no way you can even get near it.”
“Not alone,” I said. “But if I have help…”
“Help,” she repeated. “From me?”
“Well I’m not going to ask Parth, known rabble-rouser,” I said. “We’re women. No one will think of us as a threat. No one will think of us at all.”
“Until they watch us walk across the square to his body and arrest us!”
“We’ll make a plan.”
“A plan to become invisible?”
“Is it not worth the risk to you?” I said. “Not worth theattempt?”
“He killed our brother,” she said.
“Heisour brother,” I said. “And he was the better man.”
“You insult the one in an attempt to salvage the other?”
“Yes!” I said. “I’ll do whatever I have to, to salvage him!”
