God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (16 page)

I stared at her, realisation penetrating the dense fog of my brain. “You’re all Insurrectionists?”

Traitors to the Crown. The same Crown I’d sworn to protect with my life.

“You shouldn’t tell her this,” Ophelia advised our mother with a stern glance. “She’s an RG. She’s going to report us.”

That was exactly what I was duty-bound to do. Exactly what I was
going
to do. Still, it burned that she was practically a complete stranger and knew me better than I knew her.

“Xandy’s not going to turn on us,” Dede spoke up, her voice strangely strong with conviction. She had a bit of a welt where I’d slapped her. “She knows they’d execute us.”

That explained why she didn’t seem to care that I’d found her – she knew I couldn’t have her death on my conscious. I would do whatever I could to get her out of this. Her blunder, however, was in assuming I cared what happened to Juliet or Ophelia. Really, with names like those they had to know tragedy loomed for them both. I didn’t know Fee, and my mother had essentially abandoned me. What did I owe either of them?

But Dede … I would remove her by force if I thought I could keep her away, but I would never turn her in and she knew it. There was nothing I could do for her. Even if I could cover up her plotting against the Crown, she had tried to kill a peer and faked her own death. Not to mention the fact that I was beginning to believe she might actually be mad.

“Not to mention the scandal,” Ophelia remarked drily, watching me. There wasn’t any mockery in her gaze, just simple truth. Our entire family would suffer for Dede’s actions. Avery and Val … my father. It would affect and hurt them all so deeply. The tabloids would have a ball with the scandal. Dede knew that too.

I looked at my little sister and let it show in my eyes how
disappointed I was. “I wish you hadn’t made it so easy to find you,” I told her. “I’d rather have you dead than this.”

Crimson stained her smooth cheeks, but she didn’t look away. Her chin quivered ever so slightly. “And I’d rather be dead than under the thumb of a race who see themselves as superior and everyone else as servants to their whim.”

“You should know that none of us chose this life lightly, Alexandra,” my mother said, offering me a cup of the tea a human had delivered to us a few moments earlier. How very civilised. Her voice tore my attention away from Dede, which was just as well. I couldn’t stand to look at my sister any longer.

There were four ginger biscuits set around the saucer at the base of the cup. My stomach growled at the same time Ophelia’s did. I glared at her. She arched a brow in return.

“Then tell me why you did choose it,” I suggested as I dunked a biscuit in my tea. I forced myself to appear calm, almost disinterested. The more they told me, the more I had to use against them. “Make me understand why you would let your children –
child
,” I corrected with a bitter glance at Ophelia, “think you were dead.”
And while you’re at it, explain to me why you look like you could be my sister instead of my mum
.

“It chose me,” she replied cryptically, a slight smile curving her mouth. “I was sent here to be got rid of. I was a dilemma the aristocracy – one aristocrat in particular – no longer wished to be concerned with. I was lost and angry and frightened, and then a lovely man took me under his wing and showed me the truth.”

There went that eyebrow of mine again. I had no doubt the aristo she referred to was my father. She would try to make me doubt him. Took her under his wing? Was that a euphemism? “What truth would that be?”

“The truth about the aristos,” Ophelia replied, biting into a biscuit. “And what they’re doing to humans and half-bloods.”

I had to admit, they were really selling this on a sincerity level. There was something in Ophelia’s eyes that reminded me of the old-timers who’d been through the Great Insurrection. As though she had seen things I couldn’t comprehend.

“What are they doing to humans and half-bloods?” I asked.

Ophelia turned her right arm so that her palm faced up. There, along the flesh of the inside of her wrist, tattooed in rusty ink, was a series of letters and numbers: S32FHWE12.

“Subject 32, female half-were, cell E12,” came her emotionless reply. “I wasn’t even good enough for a name. And I wasn’t alone. There were at least a dozen of us. They used us, experimented on us. Told people we loved we were dead. Some eventually did die, but it wasn’t quick.”

There was no faking the flatness in her gaze. I’d seen something similar in the eyes of Insurrection survivors. “Who did that to you?”

“I don’t know. The only name I ever heard was Churchill.”

My heart gave a sharp thud against my ribs. “Church would never do that.”

“Know him well, do you?” Her mocking Scottish burr grated on my raw nerves.

“Of course I do! We all know him.” I turned to Dede. “Tell her.”

My younger sister turned away. “He treats you differently from the way he treats the rest of us, Xandy. You’re his favourite.”

“Favourite, eh?” Ophelia shook her head. “He must be saving you for something good, then.”

I blinked. “Church would never hurt me.” Church had never been anything but a friend and mentor to me – more a father than Vardan.

Dede spoke up. “How often do you get sent for blood work, Xandy?”

“Every six months.” What did that have to do with anything? And why did I all of a sudden feel as though I were the one who had done something wrong?

The three of them exchanged knowing glances. “What?” I demanded.

It was my mother who answered. “Half-bloods have an exam and blood work once a year, dear. Only the ones they’re monitoring get tested more often.”

A chill raced down my spine. She was either an extremely talented actress or there really was truth to this madness. “I don’t believe you.”

Ophelia snorted. She was slouched in her chair like she’d rather be anywhere but here. “You’re not really that naïve to think they keep you close because they like you? Christ, even among freaks you’re freaky.”

“Ophelia!” my mother cried, shooting her a furious glance.

The blue-haired witch shrugged. “It’s true. If she’s that strong on their poison, what’s she like without it? You saw her fangs.”

I resisted the urge to conceal my mouth with my hand. My fangs had retracted and were now sitting normally in my mouth. What was wrong with them? Poison? “Did you find this out from the hospital records you stole?”

She didn’t try to deny it. “Interesting fact,
sister
, there wasn’t anything in your file but your birth certificate and a record of immunisations. Almost every other file was full of boring tests and routine work-ups. Even Dede’s had a little information, but yours was as barren as an empty tea tin. Strange, what?”

Strange didn’t even begin to describe it. I shook my head. “That can’t be right.” I’d gone to hospital a couple of times, once because of a knife stuck in my leg and another time to facilitate the healing of some particularly nasty burns after a huey sprayed petrol on a group of aristos about to enter a royal event and tossed
in a match. Those things should be in my file. Results from all of my blood work should be in that file, along with dates of all my vitamin shots.

Ophelia laughed humourlessly. “No, it’s not right at all, but it’s true. So what’s so special about you that your medical records aren’t kept where they’re supposed to be?”

“Maybe because I’m Royal Guard—”

She cut me off. “There were records for three RGs in the lot I took. Yours was the only one so obviously empty. Makes me think that somewhere there’s a big fat file on you locked up real tight.” Her tone was just a little too mocking for my liking. She smirked at me as though I was unnatural – a deviant whom she was delighted to catch doing something pervy.

“I should have let those betties have you,” I said softly, looking her dead in the eye. It was an awful thing to say, but by God at that moment I meant it. My reward for being such a rotten bitch was the bitter satisfaction of watching her smirk disappear.

“That’s enough.” My mother was obviously a woman accustomed to being heeded. “The two of you are sisters, not enemies.”

Ophelia and I glared at each other. Odd that I had liked her so much in the park that night yet despised her so much now. I’m not quite sure how she’d become the focus of my hatred, but she had.

Oh hell, who was I fooling? I despised the witch because she’d obviously enjoyed a longer and closer relationship with our mother than I had. She knew Dede in a manner I certainly did not.

“Churchill accused me of being mentally unstable,” Dede said suddenly, her tone flat. “He told me to be quiet and accept my fate, that everything would seem better after some rest.”

“How is that wrong?” I asked.

My sister didn’t even blink. “Because someone sent an assassin
after me the night I was to be transferred here. Why do you think we faked my death?”

“But …” I simply could not reconcile my Church with this monster they described. “He’s always been so good to me.”

“You’re useful,” Dede countered. “They keep a watchful eye on you, monitor your vitals. Face it, Xandy, they’ve quarantined your records; they want you for something.”

Ophelia shifted in her chair, the leather of her corset creaking. “Maybe they’ve experimented on her already. That would explain the missing records and her freakdom.”

“No.” My mother’s blonde brows drew together. She looked like an angel sitting primly on a throne. “They’re waiting.”

“That’s it,” I announced, lurching to my feet. “I’ve heard enough. You lot are fucking mental.”

Ophelia’s chair fell over when she leapt out of it. “You stupid cow! You refuse to see the truth when it’s right in front of your bloody eyes!” She snapped her fingers in my face. “Wake. The. Fuck. Up.”

Slowly I turned my gaze to hers. It was hot in here and I was covered from head to toe in merciless black, still wearing my funeral garb. I felt a trace of sweat around my hairline. I was hungry for something more substantial than fucking biscuits, but I didn’t know what it was. I hadn’t taken my supplements in hours and I felt itchy.

“You’re telling me to believe that people I’ve known and trusted are villains, that everything I hold dear is a lie, and you expect me to believe it simply because we share blood and you say so? Piss off.”

We stood toe to toe, practically nose to nose. I imagined we looked rather like bookends, staring each other down as we were.

“She’s right,” my mother declared. She was on her feet now as well. Ophelia and I turned our heads towards her at the same time, but it was me she watched. There was something a little bit scary
about my mother, and I didn’t think it was because she was supposed to be full-on hatters. “Alexandra deserves something more than our
word
. Dede dearest, why don’t you take your sister to the east wing and show her round?”

This was not open to negotiation and Dede knew it as well as I did. My mother wanted the two of us out of the way so that she and Fee could discuss us. Discuss
me
. That was fine. Maybe they’d decide to kill me to keep their dirty secrets. I wished them luck trying.

Dede beckoned, trusting and unsuspicious. “C’mon, Xandy.”

I followed her from the room. The moment the door closed behind us, I grabbed her arm and propelled her down the corridor. Not a guard in sight. “We don’t have much time. We’ve got to leave here now.” I couldn’t explain it, but the need to get her out of there – to get me out of there – was a pressing weight against my chest.

She dug in her heels – literally – bringing me up short. “I’m not leaving.”

I laughed. “Oh yes you are.” I’d put her on a passenger ship bound for America and go on pretending she was dead. And I would go on pretending my mother was dead too, because that was what she might as well be – what I wished she was, rather than a traitor.

“No.” She yanked her arm free. “I’m not. This is where I want to be, Xandy. Take me away and I’ll find my way back.”

For someone like me, who needed to be in control and on top of a situation, this was vexation at its finest. When had she grown a spine and become so stubborn? She hadn’t challenged me on anything since … since before she lost the baby.

This was how she used to be, and it broke my heart. I hadn’t been able to fix her, but apparently becoming a traitor had.

“You can leave.” She pointed way down the corridor to the
foyer I’d walked through with Val the other day. “Go back and pretend none of this ever happened.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” I told her honestly.

Her pointy little chin lifted. “Are you going to turn us in?”

“I haven’t quite decided.” I shrugged. If I were smart I’d get the hell out of there. I’d haul my arse back to my comfortable home and genuinely mourn the loss of my sister, because once I left here she would be lost to me for ever. I would never see her again as family, but I might some day as an enemy.

Could I kill her if necessary? No, not a rutting chance.

“Show me the east wing,” I said, reluctant to lose her just yet, and curious as to what my mother wanted me to see. “Make me understand why this is so important to you.”
Give me something I can use as an excuse not to turn you over to Scotland Yard
.