Lotus and Thorn (21 page)

“I DIDN’T SEE
anything strange in Jenner’s files, nothing about Red Death or the Citizens, but I’ll try again tonight. Did you find anything on your mission?” Edison’s voice was light—like this was some kind of game—and it irritated me.

We were working on the radio again, without much success. Since my visit with Nik, I wasn’t sure how to act around Edison. There’d always been question marks surrounding Edison, but before they’d been an intriguing mystery waiting to be solved. Now I realized I’d let my attraction to him blot out my uneasiness. I’d justified his secrets with my own.

But the omission of Grimm—that he and Nik had been
watching
me for most of my life— felt like a much bigger transgression. Even more than his collection of Kisaengs. Because in asking me to tell him about my sisters, about my family, Edison convinced me to hand over pieces of myself that he’d already taken.

No. I’d told myself that I didn’t
need
to trust Edison, that we were using each other for our own agendas—but that had been a fantasy of my own making. I’d trusted him, because I’d believed his original lie.
We were the same.

We might both be exceptions, but Edison had been crafted and created, while I was merely a Corruption. Edison’s differences made him a prince among his people. Mine made me an exile. It would be like saying an eagle and a moth were the same because they both had wings.

Now I glanced at Edison. He was splicing a damaged wire as he waited for me to answer to his question. If I stopped telling him things, he’d know something was wrong. And just because I couldn’t trust someone didn’t mean I couldn’t still get information from them. Wasn’t that the whole point of coming to the Dome? Of being a Kisaeng?

So, for the moment, I stopped thinking of the bigness and the noise, stopped thinking of the huge question I was after, and started shuffling through the pieces of information I already had. The Mother in the Salvage Hall. Olivia still missing. The scar on my belly. And this radio, tucked away in a locked room in the Lab. Suddenly I could see the gaps—all the pieces I was still missing—and I start digging for them.

“How come no one else is here, helping with this?” I kept my eyes fixed on the radio’s main board, inspecting each chip and card—carefully prodding a pin here or double-checking a connector there. “Is the radio a secret?”

“No. People know about it . . . they just don’t care.”

That surprised me, but then I guessed why. “No one believes I really heard a voice, do they?”

“I believe you.” Edison put down his soldering iron and met my eyes. But they didn’t have their absolute pull on me anymore. He was still handsome and dazzling. But after meeting Nik, there
was something a little too perfect about Edison—all smooth edges and confidence, until the moment when he was soulful confessions and apologies. And suddenly I wondered, what did Edison look like when there was no one else around? When he had no Kisaengs or Curadores to perform for? And I couldn’t imagine it.

“And it’s not that they don’t believe you,” he continued. “It’s that the whole thing seems unbelievable to them. Coded messages bouncing across satellites from worlds away? No. They want to stick with what they know.”

“Even if what they know is falling apart?” It was like the Indignos—they were too busy making a garden out of a desert to imagine something as revolutionary as Earth.

Then I thought about something Edison had said. “Why is the message coded anyway? I mean, you said you’ve been picking up garbled transmissions on this channel since forever . . . so if Earth was trying to contact Gabriel all these years, why code the message?”

Edison nodded, reconnecting the wiring inside the speakers. “I’ve been thinking about that too. And all I can come up with is that whoever you spoke to on the radio, whoever’s been broadcasting that message, knows something we don’t about the plague . . . about what happened here five hundred years ago. And they want to make sure their message only gets to the
right
people.”

“And who are the right people?”

Edison looked sideways at me, a hint of a smile on his face. “
Now
you’re asking the right question.”

He reached over me, attaching the speaker cable to the main board. Then he plugged in the radio and switched it on. One of
us must have done something useful, because this time the power light glowed orange, though nothing came through the speakers. He messed with the buttons, trying to get sound.

That was the trick wasn’t it? Asking the right question. But it wasn’t as simple as that. You also had to know what answer you were looking for. And answers didn’t have to be
true
to be
telling
.

Reaching into my pocket and pulling out an orange I’d saved from lunch, I thought about Marisol’s lesson the first night in the Dome. And I thought about Suji’s rule and the importance of details. Then I pushed my fingernail into the peel. A scent of giddy brightness welled up out of it, the smell perfuming the air with memories of Edison’s and my picnic.

It worked. Edison’s body changed as the scent of the peeled orange hit his nose. He was still busily tweaking buttons and knobs, but his shoulders dropped. And his hands relaxed. His eyes met mine as I placed a slice into my mouth. And I knew he was thinking about that night.

“The girls took me down to the Salvage Hall today.”

“Oh? Nikola and I used to escape down there when we were kids.” Then suddenly, Edison’s face split into a grin and he actually started laughing to himself. “One day, when we were about thirteen or fourteen, one of Jenner’s assistants—a horrible, tedious man—was escorting us to the Lab for testing and stopped to flirt with his favorite Kisaeng. The moment he turned his back, we ran off. I’m sure the Kisaeng saw us, but she must have liked us more than him because she didn’t say anything.”

I could almost imagine the miniature versions of the two of them. Maybe a Nik who was not quite so sad and an Edison who wasn’t so charismatic. “And you ended up in the Salvage Hall?”

“Yep. We found an intake conduit near the Meat Brewery leading down into the tunnels. We were happily scrounging for parts when the flys spotted us. So we just picked a direction and ran. Ten minutes later, we were completely lost in a maze of passageways.”

It sounded a little like scouting in the Reclamation Fields. “Were you scared?”

Edison thought for a moment. “Mostly I remember feeling elated . . . knowing that if we couldn’t find ourselves, then probably no one else could either. That was the day we found the crate of wine. I was sick for two days.”

I let myself crack a smile. “You didn’t drink the whole crate!”

Edison smiled ruefully. “Nah . . . but a couple bottles at least. Though if I remember right, a lot of it got spilled. I don’t think we even liked the stuff, but we drank it anyway.”

“Why?”

“’Cause we weren’t supposed to, of course!” Edison’s amber eyes glowed with the memory. “It wasn’t long after, that Nikola . . .” Then Edison paused, looking a little lost. “He changed, Leica. He became a stranger. Hiding away with his experiments. Some of the things he did . . . well, they scared me.”

I wanted to ask more about Nik, but I didn’t dare. After all, to bring up Nik would be to bring up Grimm and the fact that Edison had pretended that he knew nothing about me when we first met. This was not a conversation I wanted to have right now. Not until I was sure if I could trust either brother. Just one more shadow in this dark Dome—and it wasn’t the one I was after.

What I wanted to know about was the Mothers. If I was going to ask about what had happened in the Salvage Hall, I wanted Edison relaxed. I needed to see his reaction.

Edison took another slice of orange and this time he fed it to me. But as his fingers brushed against my lips, my body betrayed me. My skin transformed into a network of nerves—all singing out at once.

Before I even knew what was happening, Edison’s lips were on mine. And I was pulled under—my mind awash with wanting.

His hands. His closeness. The taste of him filling me as I pressed my body against his.

But Edison was already pulling away, turning back to the radio—as if his world hadn’t just spun out of control. Then Edison must’ve found the right setting, because static crackled through the speakers.

“Finally!” he grinned.

But I was still locked inside that moment, trying catch up. Trying to breathe. Trying to figure out what’d just happened.

I’d thought I was so clever—playing the game, like Marisol had said. But it was obvious that I had just lost. Now I tried to get a grip on myself again. On that treacherous hunger. I concentrated on the simple—the ordinary—around me.

The shush of static on the radio.

The flicker of power lights.

The fruit cool in my hand.

I ate another slice of orange and cleared my throat. Trying to refocus on the information I’d been after. “All the stuff from the reclamation pits comes in through the Salvage Hall, right?”

“Sure.” He scanned through the channels, but there was still no signal. Then he picked up the microphone, testing it—interrupting the static as he switched it on and off. On and off.

“Is any of it of particular value?”

He glanced over at me. “You found something, didn’t you?” Then he grinned again. “I knew you would!”

“The Mothers,” I said, keeping my voice even. I didn’t want it to sound like I was blaming anyone. “One of them was looking through the scrap piles and she . . .”

“The Mothers were down in the Salvage Hall?” His tone was relaxed, but his shoulders tensed again. “I heard about the incident . . . but
nothing
about the Mothers.”

“I think I was the only one who noticed her. She seemed to have some sort of device in her hand and . . .” Then I hesitated, not sure how to phrase my question without making it an accusation. “Could they be responsible for the other things going wrong?”

Edison didn’t say anything. The lights of the radio outlined the stark angles of his face—all deep purples and yellows—making it unreadable.

After a moment, he answered. And there was a blade of anger running though his words. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

He turned back to the radio, killing the power. I’d missed something—something left unsaid—but it was clear the discussion was over. And as I watched him pry a tiny circuit board out of the microphone, I had a very disconcerting thought.

Edison claimed that he hadn’t worked on the radio while I’d been in quarantine because he’d needed my help. But if Edison helped build Grimm—inventing new technology and figuring out how to embed it in a living organism—then surely he could fix a radio.

So then, why didn’t he? And Edison’s earlier comment echoed back to me.
Now you’re asking the right question.

• • •

So the next morning, I woke early. I carefully picked out a purple dress, spiked my hair, shimmered my hands, and made my own way through the streets of the Dome. The magflys were running, but I walked.

After Edison’s reaction to my question yesterday, I wanted to get a closer look at the Mothers’ compound. I heard children’s voices, but couldn’t see them over the stone wall. I strolled around the whole perimeter, but didn’t glimpse anything beyond a gravel path on the other side of a tall gate—the words
Education Complex
spelled out in wrought iron in an arch above it.

When I got to the Sanctum, Riya was waiting for me. As soon as she saw me enter the courtyard, she stood up with that flutter of hers. Oksun came to stand beside her and there was a group of fifteen Kisaengs at their backs. Several of them had hacked off their hair since yesterday’s trip to the Salvage Hall so their uneven manes barely covered their ears. Evidently, I was quite the trendsetter.

And I remembered Olivia’s hair had been painfully short too. Had she cut hers that first night, like Riya?

“I’ve been teaching the others . . .” And Riya made the arm-twisting maneuver, letting that movement finish her sentence. “But they have a few questions.”

I spotted June by the creek, pretending she wasn’t watching us. She was plucking little white flowers out of the grass and dropping them into the current, one by one. They made a little parade of blossoms, meandering along, until they dropped over a tiny waterfall and were swallowed down the drain.

Marisol must have been watching too because there she was, crossing the bridge to join us. And I could sense the storm coming.

Riya must’ve felt it too, because she spoke fast. “Can you show us the move again?”

Marisol casually swept in between us—a trick she was good at. “Don’t be ridiculous. Leica has better things to do with her time.”

“That’s right.” Oksun stepped up, provoking Marisol. Either she was hoping to protect Riya or she was a glutton for punishment. “Keep pretending you’re still ruling this place . . . like you have
any
say in what’s going on.”

“Leica, you don’t have to listen to this drudge. The only way she gets a man into her bed is if she bores him to sleep. Come on, sisters.” Marisol flicked her head at her fellow Kisaengs who’d followed her over the bridge and offered me her arm. I didn’t move and Marisol made the mistake of grabbing me anyway and pulling me along with her.

That was the moment—the one I’d hoped I could avoid, but knew I couldn’t.

Technically, as Edison’s favorite I was now the de facto leader of the Kisaengs, but I hadn’t really been acting like it. Up until then, I’d been trying to figure out whether Marisol was less dangerous as an ally or an enemy. But when Marisol grabbed me, I had my answer.

One of the most important things my dad had taught me was what kind of damage to inflict in any confrontation. If someone was truly dangerous, you went for lasting pain—a reminder of what you could do. Bruised ribs that hurt every time you took a breath. A dislocated shoulder.

But most of the time, you wanted to go for drama rather than injury. A bloody nose. A kick to the crotch. Shaking up your opponent was more important that hurting them. Whatever I did to Marisol didn’t have to be painful, but it did have to be public. I had to make it clear that she no longer called the shots.