Unraveled (6 page)

“You know how I treat traitors, Adelice. You’ve seen it yourself.”

“But she hasn’t experienced it herself,” Hanna points out. “You’ve spared her. If
we were all young and pretty, maybe you’d make an exception for us as well.”

“You are young and pretty, Hanna, but I can’t forgive everyone,” he says. “Adelice
will help me to heal the wounds your generation has inflicted on Arras by becoming
my wife. That was the price she was willing to pay for peace.”

“Better her than me,” Hanna says, and then she unceremoniously spits at him. It lands
at his feet.

Cormac takes a step back and regards the floor with disinterest. “If you want to know
why I chose her despite her clear lack of respect for Guild authority, then I’ll tell
you. Adelice uses her intelligence to fight, which proves to me she is capable of
reason. I’m less and less sure that’s something most of you are capable of.”

“When you say
most of us
, you mean women, right?” I say.

“Don’t bother, hon,” Hanna says. “You stopped being one of us when you partnered with
him.”

Her accusation doesn’t sting like it once might have. Hanna has chosen her path and
I’ve chosen mine. I have the benefit of experiences that she doesn’t. Hanna is young
and angry, but there’s desperation in her actions and her words. It colors her ability
to think rationally. The only way I can salvage this situation is to take the opposite
approach. Reacting got me nowhere when it came to saving the man in the street. I
can’t focus on a strategy now. I have to anticipate Cormac’s next move. It’s clear
Cormac plans to execute the Spinsters. But I’m not certain what that will do to the
Eastern Sector. The blackout will continue. Food supplies will cease to arrive. How
long before the people cross the borders? What will happen to them then? I have to
convince Cormac to keep girls on the looms.

So even as Hanna tosses her accusations at me, they bounce off, unable to penetrate
the thick skin I’ve constructed. I need to think so that I can plan. I need to bite
my tongue. I need to play dumb until I know the correct words to change Cormac’s mind.

Because I know they exist.

The other girls are watching our interaction with increasing dread. One has started
to cry. Hanna is the ringleader. Several back away from her. I watch as they abandon
Hanna, leaving her at the center of the rebellion.

“I will go back to the looms,” the crying girl shouts.

Cormac smiles at her, but then he wags a finger. “It’s too late for that. This whole
sector has been tainted by disloyalty.”

“B-b-but … but…” The girl stammers against the sobs heaving through her.

“Cormac,” I say, taking his arm gently. “You’ve made your point.”

“No, I haven’t,” he snaps at me, wrenching free.

I swallow hard and say the one thing that’s always haunted me, that I’ve never brought
up with him. “I know you are capable of mercy. You showed it to me once.”

“I needed you, Adelice. I always knew you would be a Creweler,” Cormac admits. “If
you’d been any other Spinster, you would have shared their fate.”

“What fate is that?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer me. What will he do to them?

Instead he turns to the group of officers and officials surrounding him. “Protocol
Two has been activated. Those with border privileges should evacuate now.”

“You can’t do that.” Grady’s face is ashen.

“I already did. The Guild can’t continue to pretend this issue will be resolved. You’ve
had two years to deal with this, Grady.”

“There are innocent Spinsters here,” Grady says. “Most remained in the towers. You
can’t punish them for the others’ actions.”

“I’m not,” Cormac says. “I’m punishing them for their own inaction. Five girls didn’t
black out the sky. Five girls didn’t cripple a sector. Inaction breeds rebellion.
And the Guild has been inactive for too long regarding this matter. I take responsibility
for that. It ends today.”

“So that’s it,” Grady says, no longer trying to appeal to him. The fight has gone
out of his eyes.

“Evacuate now, Grady, and try again if you can bear to show your face at the Ministry.”

“How will you show yours?” he asks Cormac.

“Proudly. Because I’ve done something important here.”

“Who has clearance to leave?” Grady asks.

“Those with border privileges. No one else.”

“But my family!” Grady protests.

“You can have another.”

“I don’t want another.”

“How sentimental of you.” Cormac laughs at his colleague, dropping his voice to whisper,
“Would you have said that about your last family or the one before?”

But judging from their confused faces, Hanna and the other girls hear the question,
too. I shake my head at them, a message that this is not going to end in their favor.
The Spinsters thought they were making a stand. They suffered under the delusion of
their own power. It’s a trap laid early in the Coventry. Make a girl feel pretty and
important and she’ll start to believe it. Distract her while you lead her into a tower
and strip away her rights. And never show her what you’ve hidden.

The Guild miscalculated in thinking this would be enough to keep the female population
happy, though. They hadn’t conceived of our evolution. But despite their mistakes,
they’d kept their most important truths secret.

While I was on Earth I discovered how far they had gone to protect their power. I’m
the only Spinster who knows the true depth of their power—and their history.

“You have no idea who you are dealing with,” I say to Hanna sadly, “or what he’s capable
of.”

Cormac flashes us a wicked smile. “They’ll know soon enough.”

SIX

S
PECIAL TEAMS FLOOD THE CELLS
. A
GUARD
jostles me out, pushing me against Cormac as a scream calls my attention back to
the prisoners. Officers drag the Spinsters from their prison, herding them into a
group. Hanna’s eyes meet mine before security forces surround the girls. From the
mass of black uniforms a collection of arms reach out, grasping toward freedom, but
I’m pulled down the corridor of the tower and away from the swarm of girls.

Hanna’s final accusatory look burns in my mind. She sees me as the problem—another
girl not only controlled by the Guild but willing to do as they wish. I want to believe
I’m dangerous—that my power should be feared—but who do I scare? The more I think
about it, the clearer the answer becomes.

Myself.

Despite my best efforts, I’m no closer to solving this situation without violence,
and as I watch the chaos, knowing that there’s not much time left for the Spinsters
here, my composed veneer cracks, fear and guilt seeping through it.

Cormac is only a few feet away. Whatever he is planning, I can still stop it. If I
invoke our agreement, I can remind him that a compromise will be a better course of
action. It’s the best I can do, even as a tiny voice in the back of my mind reminds
me this won’t be enough.

“What are you doing?” I ask. He doesn’t bother to look at me. He’s too consumed with
his business.

“We have no choice but to institute Protocol Two,” he says. “Containment of the Spinsters
is necessary, and this coventry and sector have been compromised.”

“Can you transfer them out to other coventries? Separate the ones who didn’t rebel?”
It’s less a question than a wish.

“I’m not interested in keeping a bunch of traitors.” Cormac stops, but he searches
the room around us. To him our conversation is merely another annoying side effect
of the situation.

Grady stands to the side of the action. He doesn’t try to stop the guards dragging
the Spinsters away; he looks frozen.

“You have to stop this,” I yell at him. “You know what he’s going to do, don’t you?
Stop him!”

The troops march the girls past us and out the door of the Ministry. I have no idea
where they are taking them, but it can’t be good.

“Cormac.” Grady finally speaks up. “Execute them if you must, but consider the people.
They don’t deserve to be punished for the actions of a few Spinsters. Without the
Spinsters—”

Bile rises in my throat. He’s willing to sacrifice those girls to save the population.
Cormac rounds on him. His face is pale and there’s a slight tremor when he raises
his finger to point at Grady. “And let the taint in this sector spread through the
rest of Arras? If we don’t contain the rabid propaganda here and now, it will be Protocol
Three next.”

“It will never come to that,” Grady says, but he slumps against a wall as if the weight
of this possibility is too much to bear. “You’ve never been able to make hard decisions,
Grady. I’ve made this one for you. You’re absolved for now.” Cormac waves a hand at
him, shooing him in the direction of the exit. “Leave Allia before it’s too late.
I’ve ordered emergency rebounds into the adjoining three sectors and the termination
of every Spinster in the sector.”

Grady’s face is slack, guilt hanging from it like oil pooling in a rag. Cormac may
believe it’s easy to walk away, but I feel the heaviness in the air. No one can justify
what’s happening here today. No one will be pardoned.

“What will happen to them if you order this? Who will work the looms? What will happen
to all those innocent people if the Coventry sits empty?” I ask Cormac as Grady ambles
out of the room. Grady made it sound as if everyone would be punished for the blackout.

“There’s no
if
. It’s done. You don’t need to worry about it.” He’s too busy sending messages on
his digifile to even look at me.

“Is that how this is going to work? I ask a question and you pat me on the head and
send me back to the kitchen?” I plant my hands on my hips, hoping to appear defiant.

“I’ll probably swat you on the ass, actually,” Cormac says, grabbing my arm to pull
me in closer, “especially if you take that tone with me in public.”

“If you think I’m going to be an obedient little wife—”

“That’s exactly what you’re going to be,” Cormac roars. His hand flies up in the air,
but I don’t shrink away from it. Our eyes meet and there’s a fire burning behind his
usually cold eyes. He doesn’t strike me though, he merely waves toward a group of
guards. They part to reveal Hannox, who pauses to nod at Cormac.

“You two should get married,” I tell Cormac as Hannox heads in our direction. “You
clearly have a very special relationship.”

“You and I will after two hundred years, too.”

“Oh,
promise
?” I ask, no longer trying to bite back the heedless spite that comes naturally to
me. Even though I know it’s reckless, I can’t stop myself now. Cautious words and
gentle reason have gotten me nowhere with Cormac. It’s as though he can’t even hear
me.

“There’s something you should understand now, Adelice,” he whispers in my ear. The
urgency of his words and the heat of his breath raise goose bumps down the back of
my neck. “I am the one with power in Arras.”

“I have talents of my own,” I say.

“And they are mine now,” he replies. Hannox appears beside us and Cormac points to
me. “Get her to the transport. We’re leaving for the Northern Ministry shortly.”

“I’ll have her transported back to the Western Coventry, and—” Hannox begins.

“No.” Cormac stops him. “She stays with me.”

Hannox lowers his voice. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Do not second-guess me, Hannox,” Cormac snarls.

Hannox’s jaw tightens and he glances briefly at me before snapping off a salute. “Yes,
sir.”

“Take her to the transport.” Cormac shoves me toward Hannox and I stumble into his
arms.

I’ve overheard enough exchanges between the two men to know things are tense between
them because of me. The funny thing is that in some ways Hannox is a lot like me.
We’re both at the mercy of Cormac, a man who thinks a relationship consists of ordering
the other person around. It’s also clear that I’m not going to get any answers from
Cormac about what’s happening here.

As soon as Hannox leads me away, I ask him what’s going on. Maybe Hannox can see that
we aren’t so different, too.

“If Cormac wouldn’t tell you, why would I?” he asks.

“Cormac won’t tell me because he thinks my ignorance gives him the upper hand.”

“And you don’t think it does?”

“I can’t possibly stop him,” I explain as he marches me out the exit of the Eastern
Ministry.

“For the first time, I agree with you. Remember this: Cormac’s fuse is considerably
shorter these days,” Hannox warns me. He gestures for me to lead the way, ending the
discussion.

Outside the building, two shallow pools run the length of the path leading to the
entrance. On each corner of the pools fantastical creatures with long hose-like extremities
extending past marble spikes spray water. It ripples together, immediately becoming
part of the pool. The fountains are like the coventries: both provide material directly
to the source, parts flowing into one whole.

“Elephants,” Hannox says beside me.

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“The animals are elephants,” he tells me. “We brought some of every animal from Earth
here initially. The elephants were my favorite.”

“What happened to them?” I ask.

“Some animals died, others evolved with the changing conditions, and others were deemed
unnecessary.”

“And these?” I ask.

“No one saw a use for elephants. If an animal served no useful function, it was removed
to allow Arras to prosper more efficiently.”

“And elephants have no purpose?”

“I guess not.” Sadness colors his words. Hannox doesn’t speak again until he hands
me off to the security guard waiting by the fleet of armored transports near the Ministry.
Hannox didn’t strike me as the friendly type when I first met him and I’m not sure
why he would volunteer such a peculiar detail now. But sentimentality does strange
things to people, I suppose.