Unraveled (12 page)

I can almost feel the too-sweet sting of the icing in the back of my throat.

“Why does this cake make my heart feel like it’s going to explode?” Amie asks in a
small voice.

I can barely tear my eyes from it to look at her, but when I do the pain is written
across her face. They’ve taken the memory but not the pain.

“There was a cake the night I was retrieved,” I remind her.

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Why can’t I remember?”

“What?”

“Mom. Dad. They’re here.” She taps her forehead. “But they’re not.”

I have a choice. I can tell her the truth about Cormac and alteration. I can tell
her he has stripped her of most of her childhood and adjusted her life to leave out
the horrific events of that night. Or I can continue to lie to her.

“Because you miss them,” I tell her, and in a way it’s the truth.

“What happened to them?” This time her question is demanding. I know Cormac fed her
a story about them. Given that she’s been altered on more than one occasion, he’s
probably told her several stories about her life. But I don’t know what she remembers
or how she remembers it. I can’t anticipate how she’ll react to the information she
desperately wants.

Telling Amie the truth serves no purpose. It might turn her against Cormac, but in
the end, if I can’t find a way to save Mom, then she’ll also have to live with the
knowledge of what’s been done to our mother. Amie’s innocence has already been twisted
enough by Cormac. I must carry the burden alone. “They’re dead. They died when I tried
to escape from the retrieval squad.”

Amie takes a step back as though I’ve hit her. “They died because you ran?”

In many ways this is what happened, but the guilt pressing on my chest tells me that
even I can’t blame myself entirely. Amie remembers little about our parents, even
less than I knew that night. But I can’t bring myself to tell her they had connections
to the Agenda any more than I can tell her about Dante or that our mother is still
alive. There’s so much more to the story that it wouldn’t help if she could remember
it. It doesn’t matter, though, because Amie believes the little I’ve told her. And
she hates me for it. I can see it in her green eyes, the cool, hard emerald—she looks
exactly like our mother when she’s angry.

“How could you?” she asks.

“I didn’t want this life.” Even though I’m willing to protect her from the story of
what happened to our parents, I’m not willing to pretend a Spinster is more than a
false ideal. She needs to know there is a world so much larger than this.

“What’s wrong with this life?” a soft voice asks behind us. Startled, Amie and I turn
to find Pryana watching us.

“It’s a lie,” I tell her.

Pryana already knows this. She’s smart enough to have always known.

Before Pryana can speak again, Amie chokes back a sob and rushes toward the door.
I begin to stop her, but the weight of the truth holds me back. It’s better this way.

“Every life is a lie we tell ourselves to help us sleep,” Pryana says with a mirthless
laugh.

“I never chose this lie.”

Pryana takes a step closer to me and I can smell coconut on her skin. “I have news
for you, Adelice. Every life is a choice. We don’t get to pretend like we’re forced
into this world, this job, anymore. You chose to come back. I chose to play along.”

“You’re right,” I say, meeting her steady gaze. “We have choices—you and I and Cormac.
But there’s a good part of the population who are powerless to stand up to the Guild,
and they don’t have a choice. You know that.”

“Of course I do. I think of nothing else,” Pryana says.

My breath catches in my throat not because she’s agreeing with me, but because of
the implication of her words.

“I see you’ve been sneaking cake,” Pryana says, changing the subject.

“I was trying to cheer Amie up.”

“Why was she upset?” Pryana’s voice pitches up an octave.

“She can’t see the weave on the loom. I thought I’d help her, but I couldn’t.”

“It’s tricky,” Pryana says, her eyes glued on mine. “Alteration does funny things
to abilities. But I don’t understand why you didn’t tell her the truth about your
retrieval.”

“Why
would
I tell her the truth?” I reply as I pace the small space in front of the icebox.

“Because you hate Cormac,” Pryana says. “He’s the only one who gains anything by your
keeping it from her.”

So Pryana does know what Cormac did to my sister. “Amie gains something.”

“And what’s that?” Pryana asks.

“Innocence.”

“Her innocence was robbed from her long ago,” Pryana says, and her tone reminds me
that Cormac and the Guild have robbed it from us all.

“She doesn’t know that, though,” I say in a quiet voice. “I can’t quite explain it.
If I tell her why she can’t remember and about what happened to our parents, she has
to live with that.”

“We all have to live with that,” Pryana reminds me.

“Yeah, we do, but she’s my kid sister. Someday she’ll know. I won’t be able to keep
it from her forever. But right now she feels safe. She doesn’t have nightmares. She
doesn’t blame herself.”

“And you would rather she blame you?”

I take a deep breath, willing myself to broach a sensitive subject. “Wouldn’t you
do that for your sister?”

“I don’t know,” Pryana admits. Her voice shakes. “The Guild took her from me before
I had the chance.”

“You could have told Amie the truth. Why didn’t you?”

Pryana hesitates as she twists her fingers together. “I’m not sure. It’s not my place.”

“Why are you being kind to Amie?”

“I don’t have a sister to be nice to anymore,” she says, opening the old wound we
share. I’d lost my innocence about the nature of our world long before the day Maela
ripped Pryana’s sister and her classmates from their Cypress academy.

“Blame Maela,” I say.

“I do blame Maela,” she says, practically spitting the words at me. “Did it seem like
we were best friends back there?”

I give her a grudging no. It sounds like whatever passed between them in my absence
was as bad as what I’d endured under Maela. It also feels like Pryana still resents
me.

“It’s Cormac,” Pryana says at last. “Maela hates anyone who catches Cormac’s attention.”

“And you were engaged to him,” I say.

“Briefly.” She shrugs. “I’m not exactly sorry to be rid of him. It was only a way
out of here.”

“You didn’t want to be Creweler?” I ask, not hiding my surprise.

“I thought I did, but…” Pryana trails off. Her dark eyes meet mine. She doesn’t need
to finish the thought. We both know the burdens of being Creweler.

“All of this over a scumbag like Cormac Patton,” I say.

“I was surprised you didn’t know.”

“I hadn’t seen Maela for a long time. I thought she was mad about Erik.”

“Don’t get me wrong. She still hates you more than me, and Erik has a lot to do with
that,” Pryana says.

“How would she know about what happened between Erik and me?”

“She saw you kissing him in the garden,” Pryana reminds me.

“I didn’t mean that. Lots has happened since that night…” My thoughts trail away to
memories of dancing in a moonlit courtyard and stolen kisses on the rocky shores of
Alcatraz. I’m lost thinking of him, and I don’t realize I’ve said too much.

Pryana takes a step back and studies me, then laughs. “You’re in love with him.”

“I…” But I don’t know what to say, because if I lie, she’ll know. I try to fight off
the blush stealing over my face.

“The rumor was that you ran away for Jost.” Pryana looks impressed.

“It’s complicated.”

“It usually is when you’re in illicit relationships,” Pryana says, but she’s smiling
all the way up to her eyes. “You do have good taste. His hair—he hasn’t cut it?”

I allow myself a small grin and shake my head. Even though the thought of them both,
Erik and Jost, of not knowing what’s happening to them, whether they’re safe—it’s
almost too much to bear.

“I’m not being nice to Amie for revenge,” Pryana says, circling back to the question
that sparked the conversation. “I like Amie. She reminds me of my sister.”

“Pryana.” I pause, unsure how to say this now. It’s much too late for an apology.
“I’ve made a lot of excuses for what happened that day, but I’m genuinely sorry about
your sister.”

“Me too, and … it’s not your fault.”

This morning I would never have thought she’d admit this to me.

“There are things that no one in Arras knows about,” I say, feeling compelled to share
something with her now. “Horrible things. If Amie knew—”

“Knew what?” Pryana presses me.

“Our mother isn’t dead,” I tell her. It’s a relief to confess this to someone. No
one on Earth really understood how difficult it was to find out what my mother had
become. Even Dante forced himself to believe my mother was worth saving when he let
her go, believing that a part of her was still in there. I wasn’t so sure. “She’s
a—”

“Remnant?” Pryana guesses, and my mouth falls open. “I told you things have changed
around here.”

“You’ve always had the good gossip, but how in Arras do you know about Remnants?”

Pryana raises an eyebrow and then gestures that we should leave. As she turns to go,
she flips her silky curls over her left shoulder to reveal the nape of her neck and
the faint hourglass mark printed there. “Does this answer your question?”

I lunge for her, grabbing hold of her arm and whispering furiously, “You’re Agenda?”

Pryana’s pace remains steady and controlled, not wavering in the slightest at my accusation.
“Shhh!
Things have changed
.”

We continue toward the tower and as the shock wears off, a smile sweeps over my face.
“I have questions for you,” I tell her. “There’s a lot I need to know.”

“Not right now,” she says, parting ways with me at the elevator.

“When?” I clutch her arm, but the elevator doors begin to slide shut and I jump away
as she mouths one word.

Soon.

TWELVE

W
HEN
P
RYANA APPEARS IN MY DOORWAY THE
following day, I remember what Albert told me—that people would follow me as the
Whorl. This is my chance to see if that’s true.

Pryana slides a thin bracelet over my wrist and yanks me into the hallway. “It’s a
mask,” she explains. “It disrupts surveillance. Temporarily.”

“For how long?” I ask.

“Thirty minutes. Where do you want to go?”

“The clinics,” I say without hesitation. “And Cormac’s suite.”

“I can’t guarantee we’ll have time for both.”

“The clinics then.” I hate having to choose, but getting information on previous alterations,
especially on what’s been done with my mother’s soul, has to come first. If things
go wrong with Cormac, I might not get another chance to find it.

We move through the main tower and into the rest of the compound, passing the locked
studios I saw last night. No one walks the halls. The Spinsters are on the looms.
“They’ve fitted these walls with an artificial program.”

“I know,” I say. “There are no windows here at all.”

“Not just that,” Pryana says a trifle wistfully. “It’s one big camera now. Rule number
one about life at the Coventry: watch your step. Because they certainly are.”

My eyes flick to the walls, half expecting to see eyes peeking through the plaster
at me.

“But they can’t see us because of this?” I ask her, holding up my bracelet.

“Nope. Present from the Agenda,” she says, flashing me a grin.

“How did you get them?” I try to keep suspicion from seeping into my tone.

“Rule number two: the Agenda is everywhere.”

How? It didn’t make sense. No one else had rebelled when I escaped. Then I think of
the hidden information on Enora’s digifile. Erik helped her with it.

The seeds of rebellion were planted when we escaped, and they grew while we were gone.
I realize that for the first time the accelerated timeline of Arras is working in
the Agenda’s favor.

“What are we looking for?” Pryana asks me as we wait quietly by the doors that lead
into the medical wing of the compound. Before I can answer she raises a finger to
her lips. Two nurses exit, chatting, and Pryana catches the door with the toe of her
shoe, swinging it back open for me.

“I want to know what they’ve done to Amie,” I lie, not ready to share all my plans
with her. My alliance with Pryana is still too fragile for that.

“You already know that,” Pryana says, glancing over at me. “They altered her memory,
wiped it out of her.”

“But I want to know exactly what they did … in case there are side effects,” I say,
hoping to sound more convincing.

“And that’s all?” Pryana prompts. She’s not buying it.

“I want to try to reverse what they’ve done to her.”

Pryana’s eyes widen. “And how will you do that?”

“I know some talented Tailors.” I don’t mention my own ability. The less Pryana knows
about my plans, the safer we’ll be if she’s caught.

“We should look at the files first,” Pryana says. “I know where they are.”

As soon as we enter I remember everything, right down to the antiseptic scent that
burns my nostrils. We pass the cold steel examination table, but when I look above
it, I can’t see the helmet of gears and tubes that mapped my brain for the Guild.
How necessary are measurements and maps to alter someone?

Pryana has already hacked the main companel by the time I peel my attention from the
ghostly room.

“Amie Lewys.” Pryana moves over so that I can look through the files.

I skim the reports, looking for anything that will indicate how much damage they’ve
done to Amie, until my gaze catches on the words
experiment terminated
. A long sigh escapes my mouth. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath.

“They’re not trying to alter Amie anymore.” I motion to the companel screen.