Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(34)

‘Let’s wait till Jessica and Oz get back,’ Jackson said with a smile. ‘They won’t be long. And rest assured Hildy and Tildy have been busy, too.’

He gestured to the boxes. They hadn’t been there when the club had met earlier.

The ditcher sisters staggered through the door with one more box, then collapsed into flimsy stacking chairs. Hilda tipped her head back, staring at the ceiling, while Tilda massaged her neck with both hands. They looked knackered. Soon after, Jessica and Oz burst in. They were sweaty-faced and panting, as if they’d been running, but had triumphant grins on their faces.

‘All done, Doc,’ said Jessica, banging a can of spray paint down on the shelf nearest Jackson.

‘Now spill,’ said Oz. ‘You’ve got “YES” written all over that depot – Jessie got a bit carried away – and we want to know why. Did the Overbitch ask for your hand in marriage, and this is your way of showing how much you love her?’

Even Renie, who was still looking subdued, snorted at that.

‘Good guess,’ said Jackson wryly. ‘But no. And Asif, no to your theories. All of them. Especially the one about aliens. Hilda, maybe you’d like to show everyone what the two of you have been up to?’

Hilda nodded, and rose from her chair. Flipping the top off one of the boxes, she pulled out a printed sheet and held it up.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she announced, ‘I give you the Chancellor’s Proposal: the abolition of the slavedays.’

Jessica actually gasped. Even Asif stopped fidgeting.

Surely this was some kind of wind-up?

‘No one has a vote on the Proposal except the Equal parliamentarians, of course,’ said Jackson. ‘And apart from maybe a handful, they’ll all vote “no”. But I don’t think they realize what they’ve done by even having this debate. All it would take for the slavedays to end – the loss of liberty, the abuses, the drudgery, all of it – is for a few hundred Equals to open their mouths and say “yes”. One little syllable after the Third Debate, in the East Wing of Kyneston next spring, and everything’s gone.’

Jessica retied her ponytail with a brisk snap of the elastic, a gesture that reminded Luke painfully of Abi. When she spoke her tone was brisk, too.

‘Not to be a party pooper, Jack, but are you sure? How do you know this?’

The Doc paused for a moment, looking round the room. He’s wondering if he can trust us, Luke realized.

And that was when it hit him: loyalty goes both ways.

When this all began, Luke had lost sleep over whether he could trust Jackson. Whether the club wasn’t some elaborate trap. But once he’d played a few games and there’d been no visit from Kessler, no hands pulling him roughly from his bed in the middle of the night, he had forced himself to let go of a little of that fear. The Doc was for real.

But for Jackson, any one of them could betray him – at any time.

Well, not Luke. Never Luke.

‘I’m in touch with someone on the outside,’ Jackson said eventually. ‘An Equal. More than that – someone close to power.’

Renie rocked forward so fast it was a wonder she didn’t fall off the boxes. Hilda and Tilda exchanged startled glances. Jessica put the end of her hair in her mouth and chewed like a nervous girl, not a grown woman. It was Oz who spoke.

‘Crikey, Doc,’ he said. ‘Bit of a surprise you been keeping there. Care to explain?’

Jackson placed his hands palms down on the table and stared at them for a moment.

‘He sees every shadow in the House of Light,’ the Doc said, as if telling them about someone he was pointing out across a room at a party. ‘He believes in this cause – our cause.’

‘And you trust him?’ said Hilda, bluntly.

‘I do,’ said Jackson. He opened his mouth as if to say more, then decided against it.

‘Why has no one heard about this Proposal?’ Asif asked. ‘Because it’s too hot to handle? Media blackout?’

Jackson looked like a man trying to smile who had forgotten how you did it.

‘Sort of,’ he said eventually. ‘There are acts of Skill called the Silence and the Quiet. The Silence makes you forget things. At the end of the Proposal session the Chancellor laid it on all the commoners, the Observers of Parliament. The Equal parliamentarians have submitted to the Quiet. They remember everything, but the Quiet prevents them communicating what they know to anyone who’s not also an MP – even to their own families. Let’s just say that we found a way around that.’

The room fell silent.

Luke was appalled. The Equals could take your memories? ‘Silence’ you with Skill? It was unthinkable. They did it in Abi’s novels, of course – caddish heirs seducing girls then making them forget all about it with a snap of their fingers. But never in a million years had Luke imagined it was true.

How could you hope to win against people who could do that?

Except Jackson must think you could, because he leaned in towards them like a general imparting battle plans to his trusted officers.

Which, Luke realized, was exactly what the Doc was. He felt dizzy, as if he’d just downed a cocktail of one part thrill and two parts terror. Over ice.

‘I’m glad you’re shocked,’ Jackson said, looking at each of them in turn with those clear blue eyes. ‘It means you’re all thinking about the task ahead of us. Really thinking about it. Everyone in this slavetown needs to know about this Proposal. Everyone needs to understand that abolition is so close we could just reach out and take it – if we dare. This could be the best chance we get in our lifetimes of ending the slavedays.’