Thrice Uncharmed (Wynne d’Arzon) (6 page)

She was
afraid
of him.

But despite all her logic, intentions, convictions, and emotions that meant she saw Hector as a rival and only tentatively as an
ally
, she
felt
right for him.

Just as her mother had said she was.

He'd known she was curious about Instructor Smith, before she'd ever said anything or looked it up. He'd
known
, and he'd told her exactly what she'd needed to be able to find out.

He'd been
trying
to tell her. The 'slip-ups', the answers to questions she'd thought but not asked, the fit of temper that she somehow now thought every bit as well-considered as everything else he'd said to her.

The seizure, the freeze-ups, the
non sequiturs
…

Psychic. He was
psychic
. And when he'd started saying something that someone else had thought too much, they'd triggered a seizure without touching him. Could've been tech or some kind of telepathy, but she found herself suspecting the latter, like that presumably forgotten 'appointment' had been preceded by his freeze-up in class. Getting a telepathic message, maybe?

She still didn't
like
him, but…

Wynne found herself wondering: How long until her mother made her feel
that
, too?

Uncharmed

Debut dawned like every day had since the night Wynne had become explicably, irrevocably terrified of everyone past Tetrad. In her head, not her tablet — never her tablet — she'd confirmed that many colonists died after age thirty-two, with some genders being more likely to survive in various families than others, so she figured she didn't have to watch what she thought around most people younger than that.

But older? She minded her thoughts more than she even did around Hector.

It wasn't that she didn't trust him. She did, since they
were
allies, and they hung out a lot, because that was the main way she could think of that would keep her mother from forcing her to like him more than she did.

It was that Hector would alert her when she was doing a good job hiding her thoughts. Wynne had cultivated a love of the atomic elements, and she frequently kept a recitation of atomic abbreviations, numbers, and weights going in her head. Her dreams tended to include weird renditions of the periodic table, but Hector had said it worked.

Well, inasmuch as he
could
tell her things directly. It was always possible for her to misunderstand him, but he was skilled at framing his comments so they both answered her thoughts and didn't sound as if he was doing that, to anyone who didn't know what she was thinking. It did end up awkward, though, because she didn't want to give the spy cams anything to notice, and she didn't want him to end up with another seizure, on her account.

So mainly she got up, did her homework in the hours before breakfast — turned out, she
was
very much a morning person; even her math grades improved, though Hector still stayed
just
ahead of her — ate, went to school, loitered in a habitat or snack shop, went home. Sometimes went to a fantasy movie.

The morning of debut, though, was different. All the debutantes had finished their testing the day before, and that morning they were for preparing for the debut so they presumably wouldn't fret over the grades that they'd receive the following day, grades that would determine which families and tiers they qualified for, grades that they'd only have half a day to consider before they had to choose which family they'd spend the rest of their lives serving.

Wynne hugged herself as Bridge screeched and giggled while Auntie Sea pulled the curlers out of her hair. Auntie Sea had offered to do the same to Wynne's hair, but she'd politely refused; her hair was already wavy. No need to curl it more.

She was a bit curious about her dress, though. Her mother had ordered it two years before, and she still hated it. She'd even found one with a color and style she liked more than the ruffly, off-the-shoulder one her mother had essentially picked for her, but she'd decided against trying to change her mother's mind.

Her mother likely would've just made Wynne
want
to wear the original dress anyway.

The curiosity came from an… experiment she'd attempted. It was possible that Hector was perceptive rather than telepathic, with Wynne's assumptions just being her reading into things. She and Hector had somehow ended up chatting about the debut — he'd brought it up, she remembered now, saying his father wanted him to take her — and she'd said her mother had already ordered the dress.

He'd patiently paged through thousands of photos of dresses, so she could point it out to him. If she'd read his pause right, he'd been as appalled as she was. She did
not
like showing that much skin, not after her mother had made her want to wear the black minidress that had somehow ended up her play costume, two years earlier, though Wynne had distinctly recalled ordering something with more fabric. She'd focused on a dress and color she wished her mother would've let her order: a burgundy one that would cover her from neck to toe, leaving the arms bare. Didn't say anything; just thought about it. She never looked it up, either, so there were no records on any tablet she used.

Her mother pulled out the package with Bridge and Wynne's dresses, opened it, and yelped, dropping it. "What is this? It isn't— Sea! Why'd you change my daughter's order on me? This is terrible."

"I didn't," Auntie Sea insisted. She picked up Bridge's dress to help her daughter put it on. "It'll look good on her, though."

Her mother scowled at the dress and gave Wynne a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Suddenly feeling that yes, it
was
terrible, Wynne stared at the deep red fabric. If not for her mother’s manipulation of her emotions, she thought she would feel awed.
Relieved.

While her mother was distracted, she considered that thought. Hector being a telepath meant that Wynne wasn't a delusional patsy.

It also meant her near-constant fear over the past two years was justified.

Wynne was okay with being justifiably terrified. She wasn't sure what she would've done if she'd discovered she was paranoid.

Her mother gave her a sharp look, and Wynne's periodic table defenses came up.

"You know this dress," her mother accused.

She nodded before she could stop herself, but that was okay. Her mother would've found it suspicious if Wynne had resisted the emotional manipulation. "Hector liked it," she lied — too easily, after the past two years of frequent practice. "He was showing me what he would wear today and happened to pause on that one."

"Oh," her mother said, evidently nonplussed, before she frowned another time at the dress. "You should've told me he changed the order."

"I didn't know," Wynne answered. Being able to tell her mother the
truth
felt odd, after the past two years.

And that was a frightening realization in itself.

****

Hector picked her up himself, of course, since he was a higher tier than she was. In another hour, after the tier two people had time to pick up
their
dates, tier three Bridge would go pick up her date, the tier five Josiah Cleanuman, who had suddenly started pursuing Wynne's cousin right after he'd professed interest in
her
.

Not that Wynne minded. It wasn't as if she were free to be courted by him anyway.

Hector's cream-colored suit suited him, including the archaic bow tie that matched her dress, and he scanned her once — only once, to her relief — before meeting her gaze and giving a little, rueful smile. "Nice," he said quietly.

She dropped her guard just long enough to think
Thank you
before saying, "Likewise."

He looked away, adjusting his glasses with one hand and offering the other to escort her. She accepted.

Due to the tiers determining pickup time, the two of them would be first to the debut party, about half an hour before the tier two debutantes arrived with their dates. Hector's grandfather had used that half hour to impregnate his tier five date, and neither the woman nor the child survived to birth. Wynne wasn't sure if the deaths had been due to assassination or gene incompatibility, and she wasn't so tasteless as to ask the grandson.

Wynne rubbed her bare arms. "Thank you for the dress."

He inclined his head as if to say
You're welcome
.

"I know it's not your favorite color—" She stopped at the wry look he gave her. "I guess… I assumed. My mother made me pick something blue, and you often wear…" She swallowed, remembering that
she
behaved as a good little colonist and didn't make obvious that she would be leaving as soon as she could, so surely
his
common behavior meant little. What
was
his favorite color?

"Burgundy," he said quietly.

It was the kind of tacky thing a guy might say to tell a girl that he loved her dress oh-so-much, because if he loved the color she was wearing,
of course
he loved her appearance.

But his tie was burgundy.

He'd also been the one to order Wynne's dress.

"What would happen if a Primuman didn't pass examinations?" she asked idly, the kind of question that someone like her might be expected to ask someone like him.

Hector let out a low hiss of breath. Long enough silence followed for her to feel cold and for dread to coil in her torso.

When he spoke, his tone was low, nearly inaudible. "We…" He wouldn't look at her, turning away even when she tried to see his face.

She glimpsed enough, though. He was taut, with a furrowed brow. He didn't want to lie, but he couldn't say the truth, either.

She turned her attention to their walk towards the school's play annex, which had been converted into a ballroom for the debut. Not that Wynne knew anyone who could dance. She'd seen video of it, though. "Mom wants me to join my paterline."

She caught his glance her way, which was rueful. She looked away.

"Do
you
want to?" he asked.

Wynne hugged herself, though the bodice of her gown kept her warm enough that her bare arms weren't too chilled. "Of course."

He gave her a longer, measuring look, eyes dancing as if reading a page.

She sighed and stopped mentally reciting atomic weights long enough to openly think,
Not as if I have a choice
, then switched to the electron shells of each element, for variety's sake.

Hector coughed and hid his mouth with his hand. He coughed again and turned his attention on the annex ahead of them. He glanced toward the side entrance, pulling a step away from her before he stopped at her side, giving her a pointed look.

Not pointed. Expectant.

He
expected
her to follow his hints.

Without answering, she headed for the side door, letting him enter the front entrance alone. She wasn't sure why he wanted her to do that, but she was sure it was for her own good.

She just hoped his help wouldn't cost him much.

****

Wynne had farther to walk to her door, so she didn't bother holding back when she reached it. She did slip in quietly, though, and closed it carefully behind her. She doubted the action kept anyone from noticing her entrance, but what could it hurt?

"I don't have a girl," Hector's mild voice echoed down the hallway, evidently answering someone's question. "My
friend
is grabbing a snack before the festivities."

She recognized the hint, and she pulled out a meal bar to have the day's meal number three. Actually, he was right. She probably did need it.

"Your girl friend, you mean," an adult male insisted, in the smug tone that some used to talk down to others.

She kept quiet as she approached the makeshift kitchen annexed to the main room, munching on a snack bar that tasted odd. She frowned at the label, wondering what 'cinnamon' was and how she'd ended up with it.

"My friend who happens to be a girl," Hector corrected.

Wynne thought the exasperation tingeing his voice was a
Nice touch
.

He coughed. "Pardon. Frog in my throat."

She suspected she might've been the only one who understood that turn of phrase, but nobody asked for clarification.

"We hit Dyad
yesterday
," Hector continued. "Having a 'girl' so soon would be rather tasteless of me."

Wynne caught just what he meant from how his voice curled around the word
girl
, and her face warmed. And she smiled, a little, at the oblique put-down to whoever was harassing him. Hector Primuman the Fourth wasn't his grandfather, and he wasn't shy about it.

She finished her snack, tossed the wrapper, and exited the kitchen—

And the smile dropped from her face.

Because the man standing with Hector and so casually suggesting she and Hector were lovers was the governor himself: Hector Primuman the Third.

She'd never met the governor directly, just seen him a time or two at get-togethers her Imaguman father had taken her to when young — which was against protocol, now that she thought of it, but it had never occurred to her to notice before now.

It was all too obvious that the governor knew exactly who she was. A slow smile came over his face, and he gestured to the drinks table with the hand bearing a cup of something brown. "Miss Layuman, so nice of you to join us. Help yourself to a drink. The Servumen will be here soon."

Wynne flinched. Layumen were tier three, so she'd not grown up with Servumen taking care of her, but her tier two father had frequently had one or two, whom he used as go-fers. Servumen weren't even a tier — they were the nobodies of the colony, the idiots so dumb that they couldn't even be tier five… and the foreigners who wanted to join the colony or work in it for a while. Despite the lack of a tier, the Servumen actually had the fewest restrictions. They could get off-world far more easily than anyone else who had paperwork and job responsibilities that made it difficult to leave.