Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(22)
“So little?” I ask, not managing to hide how breathless it makes me.
“A little goes a long way,” he replies with another smirk. “But you can sell it for four to five times my bulk cost.”
The numbers start ticking in my head again. “Addictive?”
“As hell.”
“Hmmm.” I’m not entirely happy about that, though Reginald declares it as if it were a selling point. Still, how bad can it be? I stare at the tiny vial of powder. “It must have a name. A simpler one, I mean.”
He grins, showing teeth that are crooked and far from white. “On the street we just call it Glitter.”
I DIDN’T EXPECT him to send me home with the vial. Yes, I’d given him the price of that surprisingly small amount of Glitter, but in my mind I’d already written off the expense as bribery. Thus my standing in the palace gardens an hour later with no idea what to do with my illicit prize. I peer into the glass canister, where the tiny silver crystals catch the light of the afternoon sun. So much potential—when it was an idea it was nerve-racking. Now that it’s a physical thing, and in my possession, I’m terrified.
“Danica?”
Startled, I clench the vial so tightly I immediately fear it’ll crack—which makes me emit a tiny shriek and loosen my grasp.
“My apologies,” Lord Aaron says, giving me a chagrined bow.
“None of that,” I say, forcing the muscles in my face to slacken as I stride over to kiss him on both cheeks, keeping my fingers out of sight until I can slip the vial down the front of my bodice. One of the oldest hiding places available to a lady—still marvelously effective. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but if I tell him, it feels as though I’ve made my decision and there’ll be no going back.
“How are you?” Lord Aaron asks, his hands on my shoulders, our cheeks nearly touching. “With the move and everything, I mean. We haven’t had a chance to talk since the other night.”
My instinct is to check around us for listeners, to angle away from M.A.R.I.E.’s unblinking eyes. But then, that’s the reason I chose to walk in the orchard as soon as I returned from Paris: no such worries here. Robotic assistance remains just a few blinks away, but I feel safer outside the walls of the palace. An illusion, perhaps. I never noticed the omnipresence of surveillance before. Now that I’m hyperaware, it truly feels inescapable.
Lord Aaron offers me an arm and I grasp it genially. We walk in silence for a few minutes, our direction most definitely taking us farther from the palace. In half an hour I’ll have to return for an “emergency” appointment with His Royal Fussiness’ personal modiste, but for a few more minutes my time is my own.
Not that I mind sharing it with Lord Aaron—the only soul in Versailles who knows I’m trying to leave. Who’s helping to make it happen, even now. Some knights appear on white steeds; mine rides bejeweled heels with satin laces. The morning of Sierra’s death, I fled to Lord Aaron the instant my mother let me out of her sight, and told him everything.
Everything.
He didn’t react with disbelief or even horror—only grew silent as pensive concern lined his face. “It sounds to me like you need to get out,” he’d said in his soft, calm voice.
“What are the chances of that?” I replied—grumpily, I’m sure, as my tears had finally dried and I found things no better than before, with the added indignity of puffy eyes and stuffed sinuses.
“High, perhaps.”
That got my attention. “How?”
The conversation that followed was unexpected, to say the least. I’d heard of the Foundation for Social Reintegration, of course, since they manage to sneak protesters into the palace a few times a year—self-righteous vandals, mostly, with a vague “social justice” ax or two to grind. They’re a joke among the residents because they’re always going on about breaking our chains and escaping our captors, as though courtly life at Versailles Palace were a punishment rather than a privilege. We don’t even pay rent. No one is a captive in Sonoman-Versailles.
Or so I thought.
But sitting there that morning, listening to Lord Aaron, I realized that was exactly what I was: a prisoner, wearing chains forged not of steel, but of circumstance.
He spoke of the Foundation’s charitable arm, explained how it primarily helps ordinary Sonoma Inc. employees when they lose their jobs and discover they have nowhere to go and little money to spend, thanks to their corporate citizenship and the unfavorable exchange rate between credits and euros. Then Lord Aaron revealed that the Foundation had even agreed to help disentangle him from Sonoma with his personal wealth intact—in exchange for a generous donation, bien s?r.
“Why would you want to leave?” I asked. Lord Aaron had always seemed enamored of palace life.
He shrugged. “I feel stifled here. Have for years. I wanted to…to explore what the world has to offer. To meet someone. I adore you and Molli, but…”
“Then go on a trip. Go to America and bring back a handsome Yankee boy and dress him up in satin and lace. Why leave forever?”
“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m no longer so sure.”
“But you were.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “And the Foundation has dedicated experts working with them—they know the bureaucratic hurdles, they can handle the red tape. It was a way to completely extricate myself from Sonoman-Versailles without sacrificing my fortune. Without sacrificing the lifestyle that I, personally, would rather not do without.”