The Veil (29 page)

“Sorry. I think I get what you’re trying to say though—Arthur has to put Guinevere on trial because if he doesn’t follow the laws he set in place, he can’t expect others to do so.”

“Exactly. Just like the Council has to put me on trial to prove they don’t pick and choose who their laws apply to. Like Arthur, they don’t actually want to find me guilty. They don’t actually want to have to kill me, but they have to do it all the same.”

“I’m glad you’re coming around to the idea that the Council is on your side,” Luc said. “But there is one, glaring problem with your analogy.”

“Oh?”

“If the Council is Arthur in your analogy, then you would be Guinevere, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well—and don’t hit me when I say this—but Guinevere actually
did
commit a crime. I’ve always thought it was a bit over the top to call it treason, just because the person she cheated on happened to be the king, but at the very least, she did commit adultery. You, on the other hand, have done nothing wrong.”

I thought about this for a moment. Finally, I said, “So?”

“So,” he propped himself up on one elbow, “I don’t think you can compare yourself to someone who escaped being punished for a crime that she actually did commit. You’ve done nothing, so punishing you in any way at all would be entirely unjust. The Council knows that—and that is exactly why they’re not going to vote to execute you tomorrow.”

Much later, after Luc had fallen asleep and I lay in the dark with his arms around me, I thought about the end of the story, the part where Lancelot rescues Guinevere before she can be put to death, just as Arthur knew he would. Arthur had known all along he could count on Lancelot to burst in at the last second and keep Guinevere from any real harm—that was the whole reason he’d allowed her trial to go forward in the first place.

Luc probably wouldn’t like it—considering he’d been calling him names earlier—but he was most definitely Lancelot, at least as far as my analogy was concerned.

And, if my analogy held up, tomorrow the Council was going to find me guilty. Not because they hated me or because they actually wanted me to die, but because, like Arthur, they were counting on my Lancelot to rescue me.

I was counting on him too.

——

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I distracted myself from what was going on that day by stressing out over what to wear.

Luc and his dad were both in dark suits with smart ties and crisp, white shirts. Gran wore a long, flowered dress. I didn’t own a suit, and I hadn’t brought any dresses with me. I dumped the contents of my suitcase on my bed and scowled at every article of clothing in turn until I finally picked out a pair of tailored black pants and a white button-down collared shirt. I looked business like enough, I thought, at least for the human world. Mr. Stratton had said they wanted to highlight the Annorasi parts of me, but I had no idea what Annorasi girls wore. The only Annorasi I knew—Luc, his dad, Gran, and Principal Chatsworth—always wore perfectly normal human clothes. So that was going to have to do for today.

I picked up my phone without knowing who I intended to call. Nate? Olivia? I couldn’t tell either of them what was really going on today, and I couldn’t explain my absence at school yesterday and today without making up a story. I didn’t want my last conversation with either of them to be a lie, so I put the phone back down without calling anybody.

I pulled my horseshoe necklace over the collar of my shirt and held the charm in my hand for a moment, promising myself if it was lucky for me today, I would never take it off. I was probably being silly, but somehow, striking that bargain with myself was what gave me the courage to walk downstairs.

Gran, Mr. Stratton, Luc, and I all piled into Mr. Stratton’s black Range Rover. Luc held my hand, but none of us said a word as Mr. Stratton drove away from the Marina. It occurred to me I had no idea where we were meeting the Council, but instead of asking where we were going, I merely stared out of the window.

We hit some morning traffic. Mr. Stratton was forced to inch along with the rest of cars on the road. We turned toward the heart of the city, but I was too engrossed in my own thoughts to watch any of the scenery pass by. My usual nervousness about heights did not even kick in when California Street curved steeply upward, taking us up to the very top of Nob Hill. It wasn’t until the car came to a sudden halt in front of a large building made of white stone that I finally snapped out of my haze and paid attention to where we were.

I turned to Luc in confusion. “The Council is meeting us at the Fairmont Hotel?” I asked, doubtfully.

Mr. Stratton turned around to look at me from the driver’s seat. “Why is that so strange?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I assumed the meeting would be in the Annorasi world.”

Mr. Stratton considered this as he pulled into the front entrance, beneath an awning capped by dozens of flags. “That would not have been possible for me,” he said. “Unless the Council made some kind of exception . . .”

I bit my lip. Had Mr. Stratton been hoping this meeting would give him an opportunity to go back to the Annorasi world, after eleven years of being an Outcast?

“Anyway, Damon Mallory insisted on meeting in the human world,” he said finally; then, as a uniformed valet approached the
driver-side door, he added hurriedly, “It’s just another part of his plan to highlight your human side.”

As Mr. Stratton rushed us through the elegant white and gold lobby, I recalled I had once written a report on the Fairmont Hotel (back in fifth grade, when we were required to research a San Francisco landmark). Snippets of my report came back to me now:

The Fairmont Hotel . . . built in 1902, then rebuilt after the 1906 Earthquake . . . where every president since William Taft has stayed at least once . . . where the U.N. charter was drafted . . . where Tony Bennett first “left his heart” . . . San Francisco’s first glass elevator . . .

Oh dear.

The last fact on the list nearly made my heart stop, especially when Mr. Stratton began heading straight for the bay of elevators in the back of the lobby.

The closest elevator door opened with a pleasant
ding
, which seemed disgustingly out of place to me, given that it was signaling the arrival of the thing that was to carry me to my potential doom. I was able to relax again—somewhat—only after I remembered the famous glass elevator had been out of service for several years. The walls of
this
elevator were most definitely not see-through.

Even so, my stomach gave a warning flip-flop as we started upward. I closed my eyes and willed it to be calm. Even without my heights-induced queasiness, I was already pretty sick. My heart was going a mile a minute, and my arms and legs felt weird; my extremities hummed with anticipation and dread. I didn’t need a nervous stomach on top of all of that. Not today.

I actually did a fairly good job of forgetting about the heights thing—until we arrived at the top floor.

The elevator door opened (
ding!
) into an ordinary-looking hallway. As we exited the elevator car, Luc nudged my shoulder,
turning me slightly so I faced the right side of the hallway, rather than the left.

When I glanced over to my left, curious about why he had done that, I saw the reason right away; there was a giant plate-glass window there.

I looked away immediately, but not before I got a stomach-lurching eyeful of the panoramic view. I took a deep breath and tried to refocus all of my attention on the vertically lined wallpaper on the wall to my right.

Mr. Stratton gave me a strange look before walking away from the elevator.

Careful not to look back in the direction of the window, I followed him toward a set of large double doors at the end of the hallway. My heart began to pound again, even harder than it had before. I knew without having to be told that this was it; the Council was on the other side of those doors.

I shivered.

Luc noticed and squeezed my hand. “Remember what I told you last night,” he said quietly.

As we walked in step behind his father, I puzzled over what he meant. What exactly was I supposed to remember? That only a few people in the room we were about to enter wanted to kill me? That the Council probably wouldn’t sentence me to death because I wasn’t as guilty as Guinevere?

My thoughts didn’t make much sense, and I struggled to calm myself. Even though Mr. Stratton had cautioned me not to say a single word unless directly spoken to by the Council—and they weren’t really supposed to speak to me—I wanted to be sure I had all my wits about me.

When we reached the doors, I barely had time to notice the words
Crown Room
inscribed on them in gold cursive before they opened. A man in a gray suit came out and blocked our way inside.

“This is Addison Prescott,” Mr. Stratton said formally. “Answering a summons to appear before the Council.” He handed the summons to the gray-suited man, who studied it, looked down at me suspiciously, and turned his eyes on each of my three companions in turn.

“And the rest of you?” the man asked.

“I am Renard Stratton, Ms. Prescott’s legal representative,” Mr. Stratton replied, not bothering to introduce the others.

The man nodded and handed the summons back. “You can come in with her,” he told Mr. Stratton. He flicked a hand toward Gran and Luc. “They’ll have to wait outside.”

I nearly choked on my next breath; Luc wasn’t going to be with me?

“I’m her
Guardian
,” Luc informed the man stiffly. “Law Twenty-Nine states—”

The man—he must have been a guard or something—waved Luc silent and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Guardians are allowed.” He shifted over to Gran. “And you ma’am?”

“I’m family,” Gran said.

That wasn’t
technically
true, and either the guard didn’t buy it or family members weren’t allowed in anyway, because he shook his head. “You’ll have to remain outside.”

I frowned as I looked around the empty hallway; there wasn’t even a chair for Gran to sit on. How long would she have to wait?

Gran scowled at the guard, then grabbed me and drew me in for the tightest, longest hug she had ever given me. “Be proud of who you are,” she said in my ear. “You’re worth a hundred of anyone in that room, Addy. Don’t let them make you feel any less than that.”

I hugged her back. Frankly, I was a bit more concerned the Council was going to order me killed than hurt my feelings or humble me, but I was touched by the obvious emotion behind her words.

The guard held one of the doors open. Mr. Stratton walked briskly inside.

Luc took my hand again and kissed me quickly on the lips. The guard flinched, and for the first time I realized he probably knew exactly who I was and what I was doing there that morning.

“Ready?” Luc asked.

I nodded, and we walked inside, leaving Gran standing alone beside the guard on the other side of the large double doors.

——

I had to blink several times to adjust my eyes to the low light inside the Crown Room. There were several light fixtures in the room, including an impressive chandelier dangling from the ceiling, but none of the lights were turned on. The wall sconce just inside the entrance seemed to be missing its lightbulb, and it suddenly dawned on me that every bulb in the room had probably been removed. In place of the electric lights, a dozen oil lamps had been set up strategically around the space; the head-size lamps gave off enough light to prevent the room from being called “dark” but not enough to keep it from being gloomy.

The hotel staff must have thought we were having a very strange sort of convention in here.

The room itself was large and slightly round in shape. There were heavy curtains covering the walls, contributing to the gloom and covering what I had a very bad feeling could only be floor-to-ceiling windows that probably afforded the same view as the window outside of the elevator. For once, I felt profoundly grateful for the Annorasi obsession with secrecy.

Against the back wall, there was a raised platform that held seven tall chairs; a stern-faced Annorasi in an elaborate red robe occupied each chair.

The Council.

Over breakfast that morning, Mr. Stratton had given me some idea of what to expect, so I knew the three women and four men
sitting on the platform were the seven representatives the Annorasi High Council had sent to sit in judgment of me. For the purposes of today, they were to be referred to as “Inquisitors,” as they would conduct the inquiry and vote on the matter of my execution. The Inquisitor seated at the very center of the seven was the high councilor himself—the head of the entire Council.

There were two long tables set up about ten paces in front of the platform and several feet below it so the Inquisitors could look down on them. Mr. Stratton walked purposefully to the table on the left and stood behind the seat on the aisle. Luc and I had to squeeze past him to take the two seats beside him.

Two men stood behind the other table, the one to the right of the platform. My accusers: I recognized Damon Mallory’s neatly trimmed beard and the gawky form of Oran Tighe without having to look at them very hard. Behind me, in the back of the room, were a half-dozen men wearing gray suits, just like the man who had admitted us into the room. These must be the Council’s guards.

Every other person in the room was standing, so Luc, Mr. Stratton, and I did not sit down when we reached our places, but remained vertical in the small space between our chairs and the table. The red-robed Inquisitors, whose heads had all moved in unison to follow our entrance into the room, continued to stare down at us until, as if in response to some invisible signal, they all took their seats at once.

Luc and Mr. Stratton stayed on their feet, so I did as well. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Damon Mallory and Oran Tighe still stood as well.

The Inquisitors spent several minutes shuffling through piles of paper on the table in front of them. In the midst of passing what looked to be a manila folder to the man on his left, the high councilor peered down at us.