Lady
, she thought, alarmed,
if he loses control, I will, too, and we'll both be sitting here crying like babies.
But Cristof took a deep breath, slamming his glass down on the table with a bang.
'My brother thought Caster was attacked because of the program he'd written?' he demanded.
'He suggested it, but I don't see why the Torn Cards would care about a program to predict happy marriages. The whole thing's silly, don't you think?'
'It's exactly the kind of program my brother would write. Alister wants everything to be just right, and he'll do whatever—' Cristof stopped and looked away. After a moment he continued, his voice rough. 'Alister was an idealist. For him, things either worked perfectly or they didn't work at all.'
'I thought you were the idealist.'
'No.' He looked back at her. 'I know the world isn't perfect, and I don't think it can be. I just try to locate the worst problems and fix them. Alister would rather scrap the whole program and write a new one from scratch.'
'Did someone break his heart once? Is that why he wrote the program?'
Cristof studied her a moment, then dropped his gaze to his ale. 'Alister would never risk a broken heart. He preferred perfect flirtations to imperfect love. He wrote that program for our parents.'
'But they—' she stopped. Cristof shrugged, his narrow shoulders slicing the air.
'We could talk to his programming team,' he said, changing the subject. 'Maybe one of them leaked information to the Torn Cards. I agree with you that it seems like a stretch. But they're probably the only suspects who are still available. Alister always stays up late at the University when he's working on a program.'
A beat of silence followed his words. Taya looked down at her hands, and Cristof pushed his ale away.
'It's better than sitting here,' he said abruptly, standing. 'You don't have to come, if you don't want to.'
'I'll come.' She stood. People cleared a path for her as she led the way out, her wings scraping the ceiling again.
Night had fallen. Taya fastened the neck of her flight suit, grateful for its padded lining. Cristof buttoned up his coat and pulled up its collar. The winds had died down, but the night air had a bite.
We'll get snow in a few more weeks
, Taya guessed, looking up at the stars.
'You shouldn't walk around with your armature undone,' Cristof said, breaking the moment of silence. 'It isn't safe.'
'I thought we might go someplace where I'd want to take it off.' She looked down at the unfastened straps. 'I guess not.' She tugged them free and began running them through the buckles on her suit.
For another minute they stood in silence as she worked. Then Cristof shifted, his shoe scraping on the cobbled street.
'I apologize for shaking you,' he said, his manner stiff.
'It's all right. You were mad. So was I.'
'Even so.' He turned, his sharp profile gleaming in the gaslight. 'I never thought I'd raise a hand to a woman. I lost control.'
'You were under a lot of stress.' She tugged a shoulder buckle tight, feeling a twinge of guilt. 'I'm sorry I hit you, too. I mean, I wouldn't have been sorry if you'd been the one who'd set the bomb, but since you're not….'
He nodded once, falling silent again. Taya had the distinct feeling that he wasn't satisfied, but she didn't know what else to say. Instead, she finished fastening the armature. Cristof began walking, and she fell into step beside him.
People bustled through the streets of Secundus on their way home from work, their coats wrapped around them and their bundles under their arms. Gaslights and lit storefronts kept the streets bright. The lights of Primus rose overhead until they melded with the stars, and the lights of Tertius swept out below, vanishing in the furnace-red glow of the smelting factory chimneys.
Taya glanced at Cristof. He looked unhappy, huddled in his greatcoat as they walked.
'What will the lictors do if they find out you're investigating your brother's death?' she asked, to distract him.
Cristof shrugged again.
'Threaten me. Throw me in prison for a few days. Fire me, if they get really upset.'
'You don't sound too worried about it.'
'I don't need the job. I have plenty of money from my inheritance, and the repair business is good.'
'Why didn't you give up your inheritance when you turned your back on your caste?'
'It's my money,' Cristof snapped. 'My parents died long before I decided I'd had enough of Primus.'
His constant defensiveness irritated her.
'So all you really did was take off your mask and change your clothes,' she observed. 'You still have your money and your title, and you're still part of the government.'
'So?'
'So, it wasn't exactly a heroic rebellion.'
Cristof's laugh was short and bitter.
'You've got me confused with somebody else, Taya. I'm not a hero or a rebel.'
'Then why are you doing this to yourself?' She gestured to his short hair and mercantile clothing.
'Alister never understood, either.'
Taya took a deep breath, reminding herself that Cristof was under pressure, too. Diplomacy. She moderated her tone.
'Then maybe you need to explain it better.'
They walked another block before he started to speak, pausing often, as if to choose his words with care.
'There are lower-castes who think exalteds aren't human. They think we're hiding some kind of grotesque deformity behind our masks and our robes, or that we're really spirits or demons. But the only thing exalteds are hiding is that they are human.'
They turned down the broad, tree-lined street that led to the University's towering iron gates. Dry red and gold leaves rustled and blew around them, casting ghostly shadows in the light of the street lamps.
'The Lady permits us an eternity of rebirth to refine our base souls, and being born as exalteds is supposed to prove that we're close to the final forging. But the reality is that exalteds are as imperfect as anyone else and just as liable to shatter under pressure.
'My father beat my mother to death and killed himself. The caste covered it up. It wouldn't be in our best interest to admit that exalteds can go mad, you see. The lower castes might lose faith in our ability to rule the city.' Cristof's voice dripped venom. 'So we lie to them.'
'Nobody would want to talk about something that terrible,' Taya murmured. 'It wouldn't matter what caste it had happened in.'
'If you never talk about a problem, how can you prevent it?' Cristof stopped at the University gates and pointed to the motto inscribed in iron over the arch.
Knowledge is Power
'Exalteds worship knowledge. We feed every scrap of data we can collect into the Great Engine — unless it's about ourselves. We don't want to know the truth about ourselves. My father's friends should have realized something was wrong. They should have stopped him long before he killed my mother. But everybody turned a blind eye to what was happening. They didn't want to see his wife's bruises or listen to his sons, who were asking them to do something, because if they did, they'd have to admit their caste wasn't perfect.'
