To Best the Boys(13)

With a deep breath I straighten, choke back a sob, and tap on the door.





5

Mum is sitting in bed, in the lantern-smoke-stained room, with her head resting on an elevated pillow. Even in her tired state, she looks as lovely as the northern nymphs that come out at full moon. The light from her lamp is low but still strong enough for the flickers to illuminate her soft brown curls and to smooth her sallow face as she breaks into a wide smile.

“You look beautiful.” Her voice is an ocean tide trickling over rocks. “Are you headed up to Sara’s party?”

I nod and sit on the edge of her rusty metal bed.

“Good. You’ll have a marvelous time,” she says gently.

I stay quiet so as not to say anything that will make her homesick to attend. She used to have her own marvelous times, too, when she was younger. She never says so, but I know she misses it. The parties, the dresses, the fancy lights, and the food. As a child of an Upper, Mum grew up in luxury with her sister—my aunt Sara—until Da came along. Never mind he was brilliant and clever, and his university cadaver cleanup position allowed more of an education than the actual students even got. Mum was disinherited the moment she married him. And even Aunt Sara and Uncle Nicholae forbid Da from their home, although they still send Mum and me invites.

In eighteen years of marriage, Mum has never once gone. She does, however, insist that I attend.

I inch closer and give her cold hand a squeeze. She gives a feeble squeeze back, and I refuse my heart to squeeze along with it lest it begin to feel things and then fall apart. “I just wish you were coming.”

“And let the lot of them think they’re above your da? Hardly. I made my choice, and I’d do it again today,” she says, because it’s what she always says. She smiles. “Will Kenneth’s son be there?”

“He will.” I keep my voice even and hold her hand as I casually search her wrist and neck with my gaze. Her fingers are weak in mine, and I can’t tell if the skin beneath her left ear is darker. Bruised around her lymph nodes.

“Think he’ll fill up your dance card?”

I force a grin even though the idea of such a thing with Vincent nowadays makes me feel like I can’t breathe. “I expect so.”

“His mother was an old friend.” She tries to move her fingers to pat mine. “Vincent’s a good boy. You two have always been compatible.” The look on her face says her hopes haven’t changed that I’ll nab him as a good boy for my own. Before she and Da get too much older. And before she gets too much worse.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that we’re not quite so compatible these days. Since about fourteen months ago, to be precise. And even if we were . . .

My mind flashes awkwardly to Lute. To the flush he brought to my neck earlier. The way he looked at me as I talked about dead things, and how he didn’t look at me when Mrs. Holder talked about humiliating things.

Mum lifts a brow and her eyes search mine. “Unless . . .?”

“There are many good Upper boys,” I say quickly, just to see her mind ease—even while I feel the guilt that says I’m probably giving false hope. It’s not uncommon for Upper boys to marry Lower girls. Unlike an Upper girl marrying a Lower boy, which is, to quote Mum’s father, “utter ruination.” Thus, I’ve tried to find interest in the Uppers for the financial sake of my parents, and specifically in Vincent King, whose passion for science was the same as mine until last year. Only now . . .

I lift my gaze back to Mum’s smile and swallow. Only now, I don’t know about any of that.

Because here I am. In this moment. In this reality. Where a large portion of my heart is dying right here in front of me—and some days I’m not sure there’ll be enough of me left to give away to a boy, let alone for a future. Not when my mum’s own future is uncertain.

Not when I can continue trying to do something about it.

Not when the test cure we created is actually working on Pink Lady.

I glance across the room toward the direction of the port, as if I can peer through the walls to the people there. To the hunger they feel—like the hunger I have—for the world to be different. I bite my cheek. You don’t need to worry about me finding a husband, I want to say. I promise I’ll give you something better. I’m finding you a cure instead. But I don’t say it, because I can’t promise her that any more than I can hand her the moon. So I just lean down and kiss the top of her head and try not to notice if her frothy hair seems thinner today. “Mum, I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Take your time.” She chuckles. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I close the door softly behind me, but right before it shuts, she whispers, “I love you, Rhen.”

I blink nine times and swallow back the tempest in my throat, then yank her shawl around me tighter and stride for the front door.

I love you too, Mum.

A cacophony of noise carries up from the lower streets when I step outside. People are banging on metal drums, and loud voices are hollering amid groups of footsteps running. I frown. Parties for the festival have been going on for days, but the laughter and shouts floating up almost sound angry. What did Will and Sam find out about the commotion earlier?

Forget Aunt Sara, my mind says. Go see what the problem is.