Tandem

over the cake. Whitehall grinned like a self-satisfied child as even the queen thanked him for thinking to ask the French chef for his delicious recipe and bringing it to the Castle. Only the General withheld his opinion, leaving everyone to wonder what he thought as he slowly and deliberately picked at his dessert.

Eventually, though, people got tired of praising the cake and moved on to other topics. Whitehall, desperate for the General’s attention, asked him about how his sons were doing.

Sons? I thought in surprise. It had never occurred to me that the General might have children—and, in that case, a wife, or at least an ex-wife. An ex-wife seemed like a more reasonable assumption. Either way, the thought of him breeding turned my stomach. What must it be like to have the General as a father? He didn’t seem like the type of person who would even want children, or enjoy raising them. I listened closer to their conversation, my interest piqued. To my relief, I wasn’t feeling any differently than I had before I’d eaten the cake. Maybe I’d outgrown the allergy. And not a minute too soon, it seemed.

“They’re fine,” the General said. He was speaking to Whitehall, but he was staring straight at me. “Lucas just got back from visiting his mother.”

“Is Alice still living at the Montauk house?” Whitehall asked.

The General shrugged. He seemed irritated that Whitehall was pressing him about his family life. “She likes it better by the water. Alice has never been one for cities.”

“She must miss both your boys, though,” Whitehall continued, either oblivious to the General’s displeasure, or in defiance of it. I mentally pocketed this piece of information—so the General had two sons. How interesting.

Suddenly, a shock of pain rolled across my temples.

“I’m sure she does,” the queen piped up. Her voice was far away, like the sound of ocean waves inside a seashell. “It must be so difficult, having your children gone and not knowing what could happen to them. Especially in your line of work.”

The General nodded. “I suppose she does miss them, but they visit regularly. Well, Lucas does, at any rate.”

“Just Lucas?” Whitehall asked. “Thomas doesn’t go to see her?”

A sudden crash drew all the attention in the room to me. My wineglass lay shattered on the floor in dozens of glinting pieces. The room was silent but for the sound of my labored breathing. I couldn’t get enough air. Everything seemed to be closing in on me, faces pressing into my eyeballs. Blood roared in my ears and my skin was growing hotter by the second, as if someone had doused me in kerosene and then lit a match.

“Juli!” Whitehall reached out to steady me. I was listing to one side, in great danger of toppling off my chair. Whitehall’s skin had the pallor of a bar of soap. “What’s wrong?”

I touched my neck; I could feel hives rising beneath my fingertips. My head hurt so badly, I thought it was going to explode. I rubbed my temples, hoping to coax the pain out but failing miserably.

“I think she’s having an allergic reaction. Someone call a doctor!” Whitehall shouted. He put his arm around my shoulders. I was shaking, my teeth chattering. “Close those doors! She’s cold!”

The General stared at me, unmoving, his expression blank. The only indication that he might have been upset by what was happening was a slight tightness in his jaw. He didn’t resemble Thomas at all, but the way they looked when they were trying to hide an upswell of emotion was something they shared. I hadn’t noticed before, but now it was all I could see. Thomas was the General’s son.

How could I have been so blind? It made so much sense. It explained why Thomas was in the position he was, so young and yet so uniquely placed in the agency. Nepotism had played its part well. And what about Thomas’s brother, this other boy, Lucas? Was he in the KES, too? How old was he? And what was his reward for being the General’s spawn?

But the question that kept rising to the top, the one I needed an answer to above all others, was: why did Thomas tell me his parents were dead? Clearly that was a lie, and an awful one, because it had made me believe, for a few short but important seconds, that he and I might have something in common. I was so stupid. He’d only been trying to manipulate me, the way he had from the very first moment that we came into contact, and I’d fallen for it, just like I’d fallen for it back on Earth.

Hands grasped me by the shoulders and shook me to get my attention. I opened my eyes. Thomas was crouched in front of my chair, which someone had yanked away from the table with me still on it, to give me room and make way for help. I tried to wrench away from him, but I could only manage a weak shudder.

“What happened?” he whispered.

I looked over at the dessert, which was still sitting, mostly uneaten, on the plate. “I told you I was allergic to chocolate,” I whispered back.

He nodded, his expression grave. “Don’t worry. The doctor’s on his way.”

Thomas helped lay me down on a settee in the reception area that adjoined the dining room. The other guests had been shuffled off, and only the queen, the General, and Whitehall remained behind to oversee my care. The queen sat stiff as a poker in a straight-backed chair near the settee, her mouth set in a grim line. Whitehall paced back and forth. It wasn’t until the General barked, “Sit down, Whitehall!” from his place near the door, that Whitehall finally gathered himself and flopped into a nearby armchair.

A wave of panic swept through me and I began to cry. I tried to staunch the tears with the backs of my hands, but I couldn’t. I wanted my mother so badly. The first time I had a reaction, she took me home from the doctor’s and put me to bed, then crawled in with me and curled her body around mine, holding me through the night. I missed her so much it was like a black hole had opened up inside of me, consuming everything in its path. I want to go home, I thought desperately, and the tears came faster, spilling down my cheeks. Thomas gazed at me with eyes full of concern, and I almost lost it. The only thing that stopped me was the stark reality of my circumstances and fear of the General’s wrath.

The door to the reception room slid open and a man walked in. I turned to look at him. He was short and grizzled, with a shock of thinning silver hair and a thick white mustache that curled over his lip like a fat caterpillar. He held a black doctor’s bag in his hand and wore a pair of thick gold-rimmed spectacles that made his eyes seem overlarge and surprised.

“Who are you?” the queen demanded. “Where’s Dr. Rowland?”

“Dr. Rowland is off duty tonight,” the General said, before the man could speak. “Dr. Moss is one of our KES physicians.”

“Your Majesty.” Dr. Moss bowed low before the queen, then turned his attention to me. “Your Highness, I’m sorry to see you in this distressing state. Would you mind if I gave you a cursory examination?”

I looked at Thomas, who nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“Wonderful. Excuse me, Agent, would you mind moving aside?” Thomas did as he was asked, disappearing from my field of vision.

Dr. Moss looked me over for a few minutes, then asked, “Besides the hives, do you have any other symptoms, Your Highness?”

My fingers fluttered near my temples. “A headache. And … it’s hard … to breathe.”

“A simple allergic reaction, then. What did you eat tonight?” I told him, and he nodded. “When did you first start experiencing these symptoms?”

“A couple of minutes … after … dessert,” I said, pausing a few times to catch my breath.

“I see. Well, I’m sorry to say this, Your Highness, but it seems as though it was the chocolate that did it.”

“That’s absurd!” the queen cried. “Juliana isn’t allergic to chocolate.”

“Food allergies are mysterious creatures, Your Majesty,” Dr. Moss explained. “They come and go as we age, and they can manifest quite unexpectedly.”

“I suppose we’ll have to do something about the wedding cake,” the queen muttered.

“Don’t bother,” I told her. “I just won’t eat any.”

“Luckily for Your Highness, I can administer an antihistamine that should fix you up quite quickly. Have you any objection to needles?”

I shook my head. Under the circumstances, I could hardly protest. I squeezed my eyes shut while he gave me a shot in the crook of my elbow. “What now?” I asked when it was over.

“Now,” he said. “We wait.”