Page 103 of Xantera
My downfall, too,Lucan’s voice drifts out to me for the hundredth time, although I don’t acknowledge it.I don’t want to lose you. Ican’tlose you, little nightmare.
The first time he’d said it with conviction, actually pleading with me, but I realized somewhere after the tenth occurrence that his subconscious was bleeding through, struggling to be contained.
What Lucan doesn’t realize is that he’s already lost me. He has been losing me from the very moment he met me.
Lucan, I say softly.I need to do this.
His pain shoots like a bolt of lightning through my core. Almost like an acknowledgment that he knows, but he can still be pissed off and angry.
Alone, I add,for right now. I’ll be back when they leave, before I fall asleep. I promise.
And is this a promise you’ll keep?
Only if you’re good,I try to tease, but a lump swells in my throat anyway.
Lucan doesn’t respond, but I feel his acknowledgment, his distressed thoughts latching onto me like claws trying to keep me grounded. As I slip the necklace underneath my mattress, a howl whips through the evening air, loud and distressing. As if the Monster is in mourning.
I blink back my tears as Claudia jumps at the sound. She stares at me for a beat before rubbing her arms like the wail raised gooseflesh along her skin.
Then she nods.
The gravity of what we’re going to attempt settles over us like a heavy, uncomfortable blanket. Fidgeting, we wait until the servant door finally pops open, and Eleni emerges with my tray of food.
When she sees both of us, she stops dead in her tracks and lets out an angry sigh. She cuts me a look that sayswhat did you do now?
“Hear us out,” I blurt, standing quickly and taking the tray from her arms.
My stomach twists, too wound up to eat anyway, and I practically drop the tray onto my dresser from my fraying nerves.
Steadying my trembling hands, I twist around to face the two other women in my room, who are staring at each other with mirrored expressions of uncertainty.
“Eleni, this is Claudia.” I don’t mention the fact that we’ve just met, that I’m fully aware of how insane what I’m about to propose sounds… and that I likely won’t make it out alive to see this plan come to fruition.
Claudia smiles reassuringly at Eleni, who flicks a glare in my direction
“I know,” I start with a breath, “about the Chosen Ones turning to stone. What I don’t know is where they take them.” My voice turns desperate, a pleading tone that burns my lungs, and I clench my teeth to keep it from breaking. “We want to find it. Expose it. But to do that, we need your help.”
Eleni’s pupils dilate in shock. She looks between Claudia and me with a firm shake of her head.
“There’s cameras within the palace, aren’t there?” I continue.
That fountain I saw on the screen in the tech room, two servants walking around it. I’m sure of that now, how it looked identical to the one in Sylvia’s memory. Originally, I thought the Guardians wouldn’t want cameras in their own private hallways, but they’re recording—everything, all the time—even within these walls. Even each other.
Without waiting for Eleni to confirm it, I power on. “Claudia was a camera technician on the Repair Crew. With your help, we can show the people of Xantera what’s really happening. We can reveal the truth, Eleni, on each and every screen that the Guardians use to control us.” I grimace. “But I need you to lead Claudia through the servant passageway and show her where the tech room is. She’ll take over from there. Without more people standing up to the Guardians, without more people rebelling against this system, nothing will ever change. It’s the only way to end this.”
To her credit, Eleni doesn’t bolt right back into the servant corridor as soon as I stop to take a breath.
“I’m willing to do this,” Claudia says. “I’m willing to die if they catch me or find out it was me. I’m dead now or later.” She shrugs. “Either way.”
Eleni tilts her head, waiting for us to continue with a flaring intensity in her eyes, like she knows there’s more. Like there’s one more problem we all know needs fixed.
“And when they do find out, the people are going to need a leader,” I push on. “Someone who knows exactly what’s happening and can organize a rebellion. I think that could be my assigned partner, Malcolm.”
As a teacher, I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d better fit the role. And Malcolm has something to fight for, too: the freedom to love who you want.
“But first,” I hurry on, “I need to get a message to him, and I realized that day you dragged me into the kitchen that I can do that. It’s possible, Eleni. All these palace servants who deliver food through our door slats. I just need you to put a letter for me on his tray. He lives in Complex 189, and it just needs to be under his plate. I’ll write it and tell him everything if you can make sure it gets there.”
Her jaw ticks, and one side of her lips twitches up into a hint of a smile. But it vanishes as quickly as it appeared.
