Four Dead Queens(27)
Varin raised his eyebrows slightly before turning to look out the window. I couldn’t tell if he was insulted by my Eonist jibe or whether he was being aloof. I’d never spent much time around those from the advanced quadrant. They mostly kept to themselves. And it was common knowledge that they considered Torians to be meddlesome, selfish and arrogant.
Varin brought a hand to his brow and began rubbing the bridge of his nose. Though I looked more ragged, it was clear the night had taken its toll on him too.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, part of me hoping he wouldn’t hear, but to alleviate myself of some guilt for what I’d done to him. But this was Mackiel’s fault, not mine. He’d chosen Varin and his comm case. Even now that I understood the importance of the chips, I still didn’t understand Mackiel’s involvement.
“What are you sorry for?” Varin asked.
I chewed on the inside of my mouth. What was it I was sorry for again? “Um. Everything?”
He sighed. “Don’t they teach you how to apologize in school?”
“Teach me to apologize?” I snorted.
“I thought all Torians go to school?”
“Of course we do.” And I was sure my Torian education was much more expansive than one in Eonia. We didn’t shy away from other cultures. “But we don’t learn to apologize. We don’t have the pleasure of being told how to behave and what to say. We have more important things to worry about, like learning to master the ropes on a boat and learn the call of the tides.”
“Pleasure?” He scoffed. “Tell me how pleasurable it is to be locked in a small dark room anytime you show emotion.”
I shuddered at the image of being locked in the dark. Perhaps there was one thing I had in common with this unfeeling robot.
“I—” But not knowing what to say, I snapped my jaw shut.
“We’re brought up to feel as little as possible,” he said, the passing gas lamps reflecting in his pale eyes. He squeezed them shut for a moment before letting loose a sigh. “It’s seen as a form of evolved thinking. It allows us to focus on society as a whole, technologies and further advancements.”
“So you do feel?”
“The longer you go without feeling, the less you feel.”
When I raised my eyebrows, he continued quickly, “There’s no crime in Eonia, no uprisings, no hate. Everyone has their role in society, and we’re paid well enough. Eonia has eradicated envy, jealousy, violence, cruelty.”
“Not all emotions are negative,” I countered. “And you require emotion to appreciate beauty.” I waited, testing him, but his expression didn’t shift.
“You can’t let in the good without the bad,” he eventually said.
Would life be better if I shut off my emotions? Would it be easier? I couldn’t imagine my life without feeling—the good and the bad. Would I have worked for Mackiel for all these years if I hadn’t felt a buzz when thieving? Would I have tried harder to appease my parents and learned how to sail? Or would it have been easier not to care about my family at all? I wouldn’t have minded giving up the ache in my heart whenever I thought about my parents, for one good night’s sleep.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t judge one another,” he said after a while. “I’ll help you, and in return, you’ll help me. Why don’t we agree that neither of us knows what it’s like to live in the other’s quadrant?”
I could agree to that.
While Varin might appear an unfeeling nitwit, there was something behind his expression and comments on beauty that made me question his claim of an emotionless life.
* * *
—
“RIGHTIO,” THE DRIVER said, thumping on the top of the carriage. “We’re here. Pay up.”
Varin flinched at the driver’s bluntness but leaned forward to part with his quartiers.
I slipped out my side of the cabin. The tightness around my chest unraveled, like a corset cut loose. I tilted my head back and took in a deep breath. I’d done it! I’d survived! A part of me wished Mackiel had been there to see me face my fear of enclosed spaces.
A very small part.
I glanced up, expecting to see ALL QUEENS MURDERED splashed across the screens that surrounded the Concord. But the Queenly Reports only displayed the previous announcements: Latest Archian produce shipment delayed due to a shipping accident outside the Torian harbor. The five thousandth name has been added to the list for HIDRA, yet the queens confirm they will not be increasing the doses beyond one per year. Ludists set to cross quadrants with a new traveling show, as approved by the queens.
The palace must be keeping the murders quiet, for fear of causing chaos.
“What are you looking at?” Varin asked.
“Nothing.” I stepped away from him and the carriage. “I’ll meet you at the stairs to the House of Concord.”
“Where are you going?”
I gestured to my clingy undergarments. “To get clothes.”
He looked around at the darkened storefronts. Closing time had come and gone. The House of Concord clock tower showed it was nearly midnight. “From where?”
“You don’t want to know, remember?” I said, grinning.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Don’t take too long.”