Iron Cast(106)

“I remember,” she said quietly.

Phillip absently rotated his glass in his hands, letting the liquor swirl almost to the lip.

“Then your second year at the Academy you stopped spending any time at home.”

“That’s when I manifested and moved here,” Corinne said. “I haven’t been back to school since then.”

Phillip surveyed the club’s interior again with new dubiety. Then he took a long drink.

“I thought you’d hate me if you ever found out,” Corinne said. It cost her more than she would’ve thought to say those words, but she was glad that she had.

“I guess we don’t really know each other that well, do we?” Phillip said.

“Guess not.”

Phillip rested his arms on the bar and looked at her.

“I know you’ve been on your own for a while now,” he said. “But we can be in this together, if you want to be. You’re my sister, no matter what else you are.”

A slow smile spread across Corinne’s face. “I think maybe you just found your campaign platform,” she said.

“What?”

“Mr. Haversham wants you to run for office, doesn’t he? You leak to the press the story of me being taken to the asylum, of you coming to get me and seeing what’s really going on there. You and Mr. Haversham can clean house, and you’ll run on the platform of making Boston safe for everyone, even hemopaths.”

Phillip stared at her. “That sounds like a wonderful way to lose an election,” he said finally.

“You’ll get the hemopath vote,” she said. “And once I give a few speeches to the reporters about how scared I was when they dragged me off the street without even charging me with a crime, and how happy I was when my big brother came to my rescue, then you’ll get the vote of every half-decent family man in the city.”

Phillip set down his glass and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he weighed the possibilities.

“Everyone would know about you,” he said. “Couldn’t they arrest you again?”

“It’s only illegal to perform hemopathy, not to be one,” Corinne said. “They’d have a hard time proving anything.”

“Even so, you’d be hounded day and night by every journalist trying to earn his stripes. You’d really do that for me?”

“I’ll do anything to stop what’s happening in Haversham,” she said. She paused. “I mean, I’d do it for you too.”

Phillip cracked a smile and shook his head with what could only be termed ruefulness.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“You know how much I hate to be the voice of reason,” Corinne said, eager to prove her argument, now that she actually had one. “It’s not as if you have enough political experience to inspire confidence in the population otherwise. You were at a cushy outpost for barely a year of the war, and you don’t have a medal or a commendation to your name. Ned Turner’s already got the anti-hemopath agenda all wrapped up, so this is really your only option.”

He stared hard into his drink, then downed the rest in a gulp.

“You’re a real pain in the ass sometimes, you know?” he said, swiping his sleeve across his mouth.

“So I’ve been told.”

“This will probably end up being a terrible mistake, but I’m in.”

Phillip stuck out his hand, and she shook it. Trying to conceal her elation, she poured them each a finger of cognac and lifted her glass.

“Here’s to us and a successful partnership,” she said.

“I wasn’t aware that we were going into business together,” Phillip said wryly.

“I suspect we may have an easier time being business partners than siblings.”

He laughed at that and clinked his glass against hers. “To my little sister,” he said. “Who’s better at politics than she ever was at dinner parties.”

The mention of dinner parties jarred something in Corinne’s memory. A flash of invaluable information that might just be the final piece of the puzzle.

“And here’s some free campaign advice for you,” she said. “Ned Turner’s seat is going to be vulnerable this term.”

Phillip raised an eyebrow. “And what makes you say that?”

“Sorry, secrets of the trade.” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “You should get back to your blushing bride. I just remembered I have to ruin someone’s day, and I don’t want to be late.”

“Corinne, wait.” Phillip stood up when she rounded the bar. “When are you going to come home?”

It was a question she’d spent the past four years trying to ignore. Corinne cast a glance around the Cast Iron, which even in its stillness made her feel more alive than she ever had at the Wells estate. Johnny Dervish had taken a lot from her, but he had given her at least one thing.

“I’m always here for you,” she said. “And for Mother and Father. But I’m not coming home.”

Phillip followed her gaze around the club but didn’t seem to find what he was looking for. He shook his head.

“I suppose if the Wells family was going to have a black sheep, we could have done worse than you.”

He reached out to ruffle her hair in the way she hated, but she dodged away and led him out the front door. The sun was bright today, casting a sheen on the last vestiges of ice from the night before.