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  Chapter 2

  Jane

  Jane hoped there was still strawberry and avocado salad.

  Her mother insisted on arriving to all social events three hours late. She claimed it showed that they were busy and important people but just once Jane wanted to arrive when the buffet table hadn’t already been decimated. People from the Enclave were meant to pick at their food in public; enough to show that there was always plenty to be had, but not enough to imply they might actually be hungry. Hunger was gauche. But strawberries were rare, and in Jane’s opinion worth any amount of disdain.

  But despite the dainty nibbling, the strawberries were always gone by the time Jane arrived.

  When the herald announced them, Jane’s mother strode forward as though the party was in her honour. “The Highgate family. Amaryllis with daughters Ivy, Jane and Portia.” Ivy was dutiful, and Portia was eager. Jane was just hungry. Her presence wasn`t required anyway; she wasn`t quite exceptional enough. It didn’t bother her, she usually preferred invisibility. It was the only way to enjoy what remained of the mint ices, since it looked as though the very elegant Enclave society folk had already licked the strawberry plate clean.

  “I knew I’d find you here,” Kiri said. She wore a delicate beaded gown with a matching bandeau in her short hair. Her black eyes were lined in thick silver, the only hint of Kiri’s real personality.

  “Why are you so floofy?” Jane asked her friend, reaching for a spoon painted with tiny violets. “And pink. You look like cake.”

  “I’d punch you for that if it wasn’t true.” She plucked at the diaphanous petals of her dress, glowing against her dark skin. “New designer. Mother has decided to be his patron.”

  The dress was the exact colour of strawberry ice cream. “It’s making me hungry.”

  Kiri grinned. “If you bite me, I’ll bite you back.”

  “I’m aware,” Jane retorted. “I still have the scar on my thumb.”

  “I was six years old,” Kiri scoffed.

  “You were fourteen.”

  “Well, whatever.” She claimed a glass of champagne off a waiter’s tray.

  The lights flickered, but since outages were as common as rats in the Core, the dancing continued. When there was a faint and familiar pop and the lights went out entirely, the well-trained staff were already lighting the candles and switching on the solar lanterns. “Here comes Micah,” Jane murmured.

  “He’ll want to dance,” Kiri sighed and drained her glass.

  Micah was tall and lean, with coppery skin and enviable cheekbones. He was polite and patient, two qualities Kiri had never possessed. She might have liked him if she hadn’t been ordered to marry him. And it didn’t matter that Micah was in love with a young man who’d just been enlisted into the Protectorate. His lover was from the City, and that just wasn’t good enough. The Directorate mattered, and family. In that order.

  The truth was, Kiri was lucky; there were as many unkind options as kind ones. The only reason Jane wasn’t betrothed yet was because her mother was determined that only the best and most powerful sons would do for her daughters. She’d managed to find a food engineer’s son for Ivy and Jane was next. Portia was still at school, but only so long as it served her mother’s purposes. Kiri joined the dance and Jane went back to ferreting out rose-petal creams and candied violets.

  A familiar burn at the top of her spine made her drop a violet into the tureen of parsley soup. Spatters of green stained her dress. She smiled weakly at the gentleman beside her, forcing her feet to obey her, to bring her into the safety of the hallway. She pressed her temples hard, as if it would alleviate the pressure. It never did. Numen moved through her when she used it to read the omens, but during moments like this it felt trapped, burning painfully. Her head throbbed.

  Stay calm.

  She’d been trying to find the reason behind her headaches for weeks now. She couldn’t ask the professors at the Collegium; someone might accuse her of numen poisoning. She’d be locked away, or carted to the laboratories. And worse, yet, they might be right.

  A pink moon. Red dust on a rooftop. Blue eyes between green leaves.

  She dug her fingers into the dirt of the potted plants flanking the staircase, pushing the excess numen into the earth, willing the magic to pour out. Instead, roots of fire crawled up into her brain. She had to remind herself that the pain would pass. There was no pink moon.

  She hadn’t really thought too much about numen poisoning before the headaches; there were too many other things to worry about: if the Ferals were going to attack, if the Elysians were going to rebel, what her Mother was planning, why someone else was being carted away by the Protectorate in the middle of the night.

  But lately, with some kind of numen burning in the back of her brain, it mattered.

  She was finally able to push away from the plant, wiping blood from her nose. She had to get back to the ballroom before anyone noticed she was gone. And by anyone, she meant her mother.

  When the alarm pierced through the piano and cello, Jane thought, for a long frozen moment, that they had come for her. That someone had noticed her, despite the fact that no one ever noticed her. Someone had called the soldiers to take her away. There was no trial for numen-poisoning, no hasty explanations, only testing.

  By the time the soldiers arrived, Jane was already pressing her forehead to the cold marble stones, exposing the back of her neck and the eye tattooed there. Anyone with a talent for manipulating numen was tattooed: an eye for the Oracles, a bee for the Bee Whisperers, a seed growing a spiral for the Seedsingers who worked plant-numen, and lightning for the Weather Witches. Jane was studying to be an Oracle, to divine the future of rain, droughts, and crops through divination. She learned tarot cards and runes, how to read clouds and the movement of insects, and the songs to sing to the full moon for planting, and the dark skies for reaping.

  The crystal chandeliers rattled as Protectorate soldiers marched through the ballroom. Jane’s heart raced in her chest. She still had nightmares of their old next door neighbour’s daughter being shot in the front yard. Jane never did find out what her crime was, but the adults spoke in whispers for days. Her palms dampened with sweat when a boot clomped passed her head.

  Up until she was thirteen years old, Jane had lived in a tiny house under the parapet that circled the Enclave. She made herself remember every room, every detail of the faded wallpaper, the stones in the garden, the sound of rain on the roof. Sometimes it was enough to stave off the panic. She’d loved that house. But while it was vastly better than living inside the City, it was nowhere near as prestigious as the neighbourhoods closer to the Temple. When a great aunt nobody knew about died and left her mother a house, as well as a recommendation for a job in the Directorate offices, everything changed.

  “You are to proceed in a calm and orderly fashion back to the bridge. Your cooperation is appreciated.”

  Clearly, the ball was over. There was no reason offered, but that wasn’t surprising. The Directorate didn’t owe anyone explanations, even at an Enclave event. But at least they weren’t here for her. Relief was so intense it made Jane nauseous.

  They were escorted to the stone stairs leading to the train. Gunfire was a faint drumbeat in the distance. Unconcerned, women gathered up their hems as the rain misted around them. The enclosed bridge curved over the City, safely connecting the Enclave to the castle. The glass was bulletproof and shatterproof but the drop to the streets below high enough to kill on impact. The train was sleek and black, with upholstered benches and solar lanterns made from colourful glass swinging from the ceiling. The car was crowded, smelling of perfume and cologne. Jane wished she could hold her breath for the twenty minutes it took to get home.

  The scents of stables, rain, and mint was a relief; a combination unique to the Enclave. No one else could afford to grow enough mint in back gardens to scent the air. It chased away the last of the anxiety nibbling at the back of her neck.

  The fam
ily rickshaws waited for them, all swirls of frosted glass and gilt paint like a row of cupcakes. The solar lamps swung from the posts as the runners shifted. Jane’s mother looked past her with a sharp nod. Someone grabbed Jane’s arm. “Come with me, Miss Highgate.”

  The torchlight glinted off the metal leaves of a soldier’s mask. “Where are you taking me?” Jane asked, her throat dry and papery. Some Oracle she was. She wasn’t supposed to be taken by surprise, not like this. The tea leaves from her morning cup should have warned her with images of horses, or swans for deceit, arrows, something.

  “Don’t embarrass me, Jane,” her mother snapped. “Drive on.”

  The rickshaws pulled away, leaving Jane behind.

  Directorate before family.