Chapter 68 The Gala

The invitation came on thick white card with a gold edge, and Liam held his up to the lamp in the barracks and said, "Is this real gold?" and bit it.

It wasn't. It was paint. He got some on his teeth.

The Council of New Halcyon requests the honour of the presence of Cadet L. Dask, Project AVALON, at the Founders' Gala. The Great Hall, Level 140. Dress uniform.

"The Great Hall," said Liam. "Level a hundred and forty. Do you know what's on a hundred and forty? Nothing. Nothing you're allowed to see. My dad's been in this dome fifteen years and he's never been above ninety. They have a lift just for it." He turned the card over. "What's a Founders' Gala?"

"It's a dinner," said Seraphina, from her bunk across the way in the girls' end, through the open door, without looking up. "Once a year. For the people who own the city. They eat things nobody else has seen since the war, and give each other medals, and pretend there's no ash outside the glass." She turned a page. "This year they're having us for pudding."

"For pudding?"

"For show," said Seraphina. "Forty cadets in dress uniform, lined up along the wall, so everybody who's paid for the program can look at what they bought." She still didn't look up. "Okafor says we're to stand straight, say thank you, sir and thank you, ma'am, eat what we're given, and not set anything on fire."

Liam looked at the card again.

"I'm going to set something on fire," he said gloomily. "I can feel it."

The dress uniform was black.

Not gray, like the training clothes. Black, with a high collar, and silver buttons down the front, and a thin silver line down the outside of each trouser leg. On the left breast, over the heart, a small silver badge in the shape of a seed. A long gray cylinder, like the pods in the hangar, with three tiny fins at the bottom.

AVALON, it said, under it, very small.

On the right breast, a name strip. Not a number. A name.

DASK.

I stood in front of the cracked mirror in the barracks and looked at it for a long time.

At the boy in the mirror. Tall. Too tall, still, for anything that was made for anyone else. In a black uniform with silver buttons and a seed over his heart. With a line through his left eyebrow where the tape had been. With a ring round the edge of each iris that I could see now, even in a cracked mirror, even from a meter away. Darker every week. Wider.

And over them, Father's dusk. Small round lenses in thin wire. Slightly too small for my face.

"You look like a poet," said Toby, behind me, very seriously. "Or an undertaker."

"Thanks."

"A poet undertaker," said Toby. He was in black too. It made his ears look even bigger, and his face even whiter, and he was holding his tuning fork in one hand so tightly his knuckles had gone the color of the buttons. "Lucas. There's going to be four hundred people."

"I know."

"Four hundred people who own the city."

"I know."

"I'm going to be sick," said Toby, and went to be sick, and came back, and stood beside me in the mirror, and was fine.

The lift to Level 140 was gold.

Not painted. Gold. Real, this time. I looked. The walls of it, the rails, the little frame round the buttons, all of it, thin sheets of real gold over steel. And mirrors. And a carpet so thick your feet went into it. And a man in a white coat with gold braid whose only job was to press the button.

Forty of us didn't fit. They took us up in four lots of ten. I went in the last lot, with Squad Eight and Squad Two. Liam pressed himself against the mirror and stared at the gold and said nothing for the whole hundred and forty floors, which was the longest he'd ever said nothing in his life.

Sigmund stood very straight in the corner and looked at the doors.

Risa stood beside him. In black, like the rest of us, with her hair pulled back tight and silver at her ears and the burns on both her hands hidden in white gloves.

She didn't look at me.

She was very good at not looking at me. She'd had three weeks of practice.

But in the gold lift, in the close warm air, with nine other people breathing, I could feel her not looking. Like you feel a stove when your back's to it.

The doors opened.

I'd thought the Great Hall would be big.

I hadn't thought about light.

It hit me the moment the doors opened. A wall of it. White and gold and blazing. Chandeliers, dozens of them, hanging from a ceiling so high it was lost in its own glare, each one a great falling waterfall of crystal with a hundred lamps inside it. Every crystal catching every lamp and throwing it back, and every other crystal catching that, and throwing it back again, until the whole air of the hall was full of light, bouncing, splintering, white.

The needles came in through Father's dusk like the lenses weren't there.

I stopped. In the doorway. With my eyes screwed shut and my hand over them.

"Lucas," said Toby, very quietly, beside me.

"Fine. I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Give me a second."

I stood in the doorway of the Great Hall of New Halcyon with my eyes shut, and breathed, and let the needles slide back, slowly, into their holes. Then I opened my eyes again. Just a little. Just enough to see through my lashes, through the smoked glass, through the glare.

And I looked down instead of up.

Down was better. The floor was dark. Polished black stone, like a lake at night, with the light lying on top of it in long gold streaks. I could look at that. I could walk on that. Down, and not up.

I walked into the Great Hall looking at the floor.

It was enormous.

That was the first thing, when I could see it. It took up the whole of Level 140, from one side of the tower to the other. The far wall was all glass, floor to ceiling, and through it, very close, you could see the gold glass of the dome itself, curving up and over, and beyond it, black, the night.

And people. Four hundred of them. More.

In clothes I'd only ever seen in pictures in Father's old books. Long dresses, in colors that didn't exist outside the dome. Deep red, and green, and silver, and a blue so pale it was nearly white. Men in black coats with tails. Jewels at throats and on fingers and in hair, that I could see into without trying, all the way down, every one of them perfect and cold and very, very old. Medals, rows of them, on officers' chests. Glasses of something gold and fizzing.

And all of them, as we came in, turning to look.

Forty cadets in black. In a line. Led by Okafor, in her own dress uniform, which was black too, with more silver on it than I'd ever seen, and a row of small faded ribbons over the heart.

The room went quiet.

Not all at once. In a ripple. From the doors outward. Conversations stopping. Glasses pausing halfway to mouths. Heads turning. Four hundred faces, under the blazing chandeliers, looking at us.

Looking at me.

I didn't mean to look back.

I want to say that. I didn't go into anybody. I didn't look inside. I was keeping my eyes on the floor, mostly, because of the light.

But Risa had taught me something. Loose. Easy. A field at dusk. Not into anybody. Just across them. The way you'd notice the wind moving over wheat.

And you can't unlearn a thing like that.

So as we walked down the length of the Great Hall, in a line, forty cadets in black, under the white fire of the chandeliers, I felt them. Not their thoughts. I can't do thoughts. Their hearts. All of them. Four hundred hearts, going at their four hundred speeds, like a room full of small drums.

And as I passed, every one of them went up.

Not much. A few beats. A woman in green, by the window, her hand going to her throat. A man in a black coat with a medal on his chest, stepping back half a pace without knowing he'd done it. A waiter with a silver tray of glasses, and the glasses chattering very faintly against each other, the way teeth chatter in the cold. An old man in a wheeled chair, who'd been laughing, and stopped.

Up. Up. Up. All along the hall. Like the wind going over the wheat, the wrong way.

I walked past four hundred people who owned the city, and every single one of them was afraid of me.

"Don't look," said a voice, very low, as I passed.

Risa.

She was in the line in front of me, three places ahead, behind Sigmund, walking very straight with her white-gloved hands at her sides. She didn't turn her head. She didn't slow down. Her lips barely moved.

"I can feel them," she said. To the air. To nobody. "Every heart in this room goes up when you walk past. All of them. It's like walking through a field of rabbits." A pause. "Don't look at it. You'll want to make it stop. You can't. Just walk."

She didn't say anything else. She walked on.

I didn't look.

I walked.

But under my black collar with its silver seed, my own heart was going like one of theirs.

They lined us up along the glass wall, at the far end, under the dome. Forty of us, in a long black row, with the night behind us and the chandeliers in front.

Like Seraphina said. For pudding.

People came to look. That's the only word for it. They came in twos and threes, with their gold fizzing glasses, and walked slowly along the row, and looked. At our badges. At our faces. At our hands. They said things to each other in low voices, and laughed, and looked again. Some of them asked questions. What can you do? Show me. Liam made a small flame dance on his fingertip for a woman in red, who clapped, and then took a step back, and then clapped again. Toby went so white when a man asked him to sing that Okafor appeared out of nowhere and said Cadet Marsh is on rest orders, sir, and the man went away.

Nobody asked me to show them anything.

They came along the row, and got to me, and stopped. And looked. At the dusk. At the eyebrow. At the name on my chest. DASK.

And then they moved on. A little faster than they'd come.

I stood very straight with my hands behind my back and looked at the floor.

The Chancellor came at nine o'clock.

I knew she was coming before I saw her. The room told me. A ripple, from the far doors. Not the fear-ripple. A different one. People moving. Turning. Making a path. Glasses being put down. The music, which had been something soft and slow on strings in a corner, stopping, and starting again, louder.

And down the path came a woman in white.

She wasn't tall. She wasn't young. Sixty, maybe, with short gray hair cut very close to her head and a face like a kind schoolteacher's. Soft, and lined, and smiling. She wore a plain white dress with long sleeves, and no jewels at all, except a single small silver seed on a chain round her neck. The same as the one on our chests.

Behind her, a step back, Crane. In his gray suit, with his cane. Smiling too.

And behind Crane, the General. And a man with a narrow face and very neat hair who I'd only ever seen in the observation room, behind glass, walking out.

Senator Friese.

"Chancellor Renata Voss," said Okafor, at the end of our row, very clearly. "Cadets. Attention."

Forty heels came together at once. Crack.

The Chancellor laughed. A soft, warm sound. "Oh, at ease, please," she said. "At ease. It's a party." She looked down the long black row of us, under the glass, with the night behind. Her eyes were very bright. "Look at you. Look at you all."

She came down the row the way the others had. Slowly. One at a time.

But she didn't look at us the way the others had. She stopped at every single cadet. Every one. She shook every hand. She asked every name, and listened to it, and said it back. She asked where they were from, and listened to that too. She asked Liam what his callsign was, and he said Hearth, and she said what a lovely word, I haven't heard anyone say it in years, and Liam went red to the roots of his hair.

She asked Toby if he was nervous, and he said yes, ma'am, and she said good, so am I, and he looked at her as if she'd handed him something.

She asked Seraphina where her family were from, and Seraphina said Hearth Block, thirty-one, with her chin very high, daring her, and the Chancellor looked at her for a long moment and said I know it. I signed the order that put you there. And then, quietly: I'm sorry it wasn't higher. And Seraphina's chin came down. Just a little.

And then she got to me.

She stopped.

She didn't step back. That was the first thing. Every other adult in the Great Hall had stepped back, half a pace, a quarter, without knowing it. She didn't. She stood in front of me, very close, small and gray-haired and smiling, and tilted her head right back to look up at my face.

At the dusk.

"May I?" she said.

I didn't know what she meant. Then she reached up, very slowly, with one small hand, and touched the edge of Father's spectacles. Not to take them off. Just to touch the wire.

"Eye strain," I said. "By order. Sergeant Okafor's."

"Of course," said the Chancellor. She took her hand away. She was still smiling. But she'd seen. I knew she'd seen. The ring. Through the smoked glass. At that distance. "Lucas Dask."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Trevor's son."

"Yes, ma'am."

She held out her hand.

I looked at it. Small. Old. Soft. With a thin white scar across the back of it, very old, like a line drawn with a needle.

I took it.

And her heart—

I didn't look. I didn't. I'd promised myself, on the long walk down the hall. But I was holding her hand, and Risa had taught me, and it was right there, a hand's breadth away, the small strong drum in the middle of her.

It didn't go up.

It was the only one in the whole Great Hall that didn't.

"The hope of humanity," said Chancellor Renata Voss, very quietly, holding my hand. "That's what they call you. Upstairs. In the rooms where they decide things." She smiled up at me. "Did you know that?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, now you do." She squeezed my hand. Gently. "It's a terrible thing to call a boy. I'm sorry. I'll try to make them stop." A pause. "But it's not untrue."

She let go.

I stood there.

She was already turning to the cadet beside me. Then she stopped. And turned back. And looked up at me again, with her head on one side.

"Your callsign," she said. "I read it in the report. Scarecrow."

"Yes, ma'am."

"My niece had a callsign too," said the Chancellor. Very lightly. As if it were nothing. "She went with the first wave. Before you. Wren."

The Great Hall went very quiet round me.

Not really. The music was still going. The people were still talking, and laughing, and fizzing. But round me, in a little circle, it went quiet. I didn't hear anything else.

MARA VOSS. WREN. 11/34.

Behind my locker. Scratched into the rock. Back for the wheat.

"She calls in," I said, before I could stop myself. "Every cycle. Early. Her numbers are the best of all nine."

The Chancellor went very still.

And her heart, the only one in the room that hadn't gone up when she looked at me, went up.

Not with fear.

I don't know what it was. I'd never felt a heart do that before. It went up, and up, and then it did something strange, a sort of catch, a stumble, like a foot missing a stair.

Behind her, a step back, Crane had stopped smiling.

"Yes," said Chancellor Renata Voss, after a moment. Very softly. "So I'm told."

She looked at me for a long moment longer.

Then she moved on. To the next cadet. And shook his hand, and asked his name, and listened to it, and said it back.

I didn't see Crane's face after that. I didn't look.

I didn't need to. I could feel him, three meters away, behind the Chancellor's shoulder, looking at me. The way he'd looked at me in the white room on Level 2. Measuring. How far. How fast. How much.

Whether the box still works.

I stood very straight, with my hands behind my back, and looked at the floor, and felt him look.

And then he moved on with her, down the row, and was gone.

"Breathe," said Liam, beside me, out of the side of his mouth. "Lucas. You've stopped breathing. Toby says you've stopped breathing."

I breathed.

"What did you say to her?" hissed Liam. "Her face went—and Crane's face went—what did you say?"

"Later."

"Lucas—"

"Later, Liam."

He opened his mouth to argue.

And then he shut it again. And stared. Past me. Down the hall. Toward the far doors, where the Chancellor had come in, where there was another ripple now. A smaller one. People turning. Making a path again.

"Oh," said Liam. Very quietly. "Oh, no."

I looked.

The General was standing just inside the doors.

In his dress uniform, black and silver, with three rows of medals and his silver hair cut close. Very straight. Not looking at anyone.

And beside him, on his arm, was Luna Windsor.

Not in black.

In blue.

A long dress, the blue of the sky through the little clear window in the dome. Not pale. Not dark. Just blue, the way the sky must have been, before. It went all the way to the floor. It had no sleeves. Her arms were bare and very white, and her silver hair wasn't tied back for once, or tucked behind her ear. It was down. All of it. Down her back, straight and shining, catching the chandeliers.

Someone had put something in it. Small. Silver. A clip, shaped like a snowflake.

She was standing perfectly still on her father's arm, with her face perfectly still, and her chin up, looking at nothing. The way she'd looked in the briefing room, the day she asked projections of what. The way she'd looked on the gallery, in the rain, before she told me she was frightened.

The General had put her in blue.

The General had taken her out of black, out of the line of cadets along the wall, out of her squad, and put her on his arm in a blue dress in front of four hundred people who owned the city, so that they would see. My daughter. Squad leader. First down. A Windsor at the front, as it should be.

And she was letting him.

And she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I don't know how long I stood there.

I know that Liam said something to me, and I didn't hear it. I know that Toby said something to me, and I didn't hear that either. I know that a man in a black coat came along the row and stopped in front of me and said Cadet Dask, a great honor, and held out his hand, and stood there with it out, and I didn't take it, because I didn't see it, and he went away again, a little faster than he'd come.

I know that the General walked Luna down the length of the Great Hall, slowly, through the people, past the chandeliers, nodding to officers, nodding to Council members, and that every head in the room turned to watch them go by.

And I know that when they got to the end of our row, under the glass, with the night behind, Luna looked at me.

Just once.

Just for a second. Over her father's shoulder. Through the smoked lenses of my father's spectacles, through the white glare of the chandeliers, across three meters of black stone floor.

And I forgot how to talk.

I mean that. I opened my mouth, because I thought I should say something, and nothing came out. Not hello. Not you look. Not Luna. Not anything. My mouth was open and the inside of my head was completely, perfectly empty, like the Town after it turned to sand. Like the moon before I gave it water.

Luna looked at me with my mouth open.

And something happened at the very corner of her still, white face. Very small. So small I don't think anyone else in the Great Hall saw it. Not the General. Not the four hundred people. Not even Liam.

But I saw it.

It was the same thing that had happened on the gallery, at the window, the night of the moon.

Then her father turned, and took her on, toward the high table under the biggest chandelier, and she went with him, very straight, in blue, with her hair down her back.

And I stood there.

"Mate," said Liam, beside me. Very softly. With enormous, delighted, terrible pity. "Oh, mate."

I closed my mouth.

"You forgot to talk," said Liam.

"I know."

"You completely forgot to talk. You just went—" He made a face. A sort of stunned fish. "You went like that. In front of the General."

"I know, Liam."

Liam looked at me for a long moment. Then down the hall, at the blue dress, going away between the chandeliers.

"I'm going to have to tell Sera," he said, almost sadly. "You know that. It's the rule."

"I know."

On my other side, Toby put his tuning fork in his pocket, and patted me on the arm, twice, very gently, the way you'd pat a horse that had had a shock.

He didn't say anything at all.

He didn't need to.