Page 18 of Arch Conspirator
I could become something greater than my body simply by allowing myself to use it.
I felt time slow after that. I filled the bathtub and it took an age to undress, the fabric chafing my skin as I peeled it away. I sat in the lukewarm water for too long, as the sun slanted over the ivy outside. I put on a black dress, my funeral clothes. When the lock turned, I was ready.
Flanked by two of Polyneikes’ least favorite guards, I walked to Kreon’s study. I passed Ismene on the way, taking her morning tea with Eurydice, and didn’t spare her a glance. In truth I wasn’t sure I could bear to see her expression, whether full of apology that I would not accept or, worse, empty of it.
Kreon’s study was on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard. The door was closed. One of the guards knocked for me, and I stared at the wood as I waited for it to open, polished as a mirror. I had been here only once before, when he had summonedme to inform me of my engagement. It was the only place in the city that was not dusty.
Kreon’s assistant, the worm Flavian, opened the door for me and gave me an imperious look. In truth, I wasn’t sure Flavian had any other kind of look. I moved past him and into the room. The tile floor had been freshly swept; it didn’t have the gritty feeling of the stone in the hallway. Two bookshelves framed Kreon’s wide desk, made of the same polished wood as the door. He sat with his body angled toward the window and didn’t stir. It was as if I hadn’t entered.
The worst part about him was seeing my father in him. I wished that I couldn’t. They didn’t share genes, but he had Oedipus’s gestures, surprisingly delicate for a man so prone to brutality. Sometimes he even sounded like my father—the intonation on certain words, the soft way he said goodbye to Eurydice.
But there was an artifice in him that was never in my father. He knew I was standing there. That he chose not to acknowledge me right away was a power play.
Sitting in one of the two chairs opposite him was a guard, wearing his uniform. He looked like every other guard I had ever seen, tall and broad and masculine, his eyes finding me with a level of focus that made me feel shifty and strange. After a moment I recognized him as the guard who had arrested me.
I sat in the chair beside him and waited.
“I wish to hear your account first,” Kreon said, and he nodded to the guard beside me.
“Uh…” The guard looked from Kreon to me. “After the explosion, everyone vacated the square—I was running there like everybody else, you know, to help with whatever was going on—I wasn’t even on duty last night, I was just, you know, trying to do what needed to be done—”
“Get to the point, soldier,” Kreon said.
“Well, as I was running past the square I noticed there wereno guards, and then I saw something moving, and at first I thought, you know, the body maybe wasn’t asbodylikeas everybody thought, somehow—but then I saw the girl.”
“The girl.”
“Her.” The guard nodded at me.
“You saw her,” Kreon said, “doingwhat?”
“Well, she was sort of leaning over him—the body, that is, so I guess I mean she was leaning overit—and she was holding something.”
“Something.”
“An Extractor—one of the older ones, big and clunky, long needle at one end—”
“You’re certain of this?”
“Well…” The guard shifted a little. “I mean, you can ask her.”
“I intend to,” Kreon said. “First, however, I would like to know exactly what you saw, in the dead of night, from across a street.”
“Well I saw something silvery—the moon was bright—and I ran toward her, and when I was closer, you know, I saw exactly what it was, and I remembered the rules about that body and so I grabbed her.”
“All right,” Kreon said. “You are dismissed.”
“I wasn’t even on duty,” the guard said.
“So you’ve said.”
“Okay. I just—I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I wasn’t about tonotdo anything, on account of—”
“You’redismissed,soldier.”
The guard gulped a little, wiped his palms on his trousers, and stood. He gave me an apologetic look, and then walked out of Kreon’s study. Kreon stared at me, one eyebrow raised a little, like he was waiting for me to speak. I met his eyes and waited.
“Niece,” he said. “I didn’t know you knew about explosives.”
