For Darkness Shows the Stars Part 19

Ro looked back and forth between them and frowned. She was wearing her scarf like a turban tonight, with all her bright hair tucked up underneath its twists and weaves.

Kai pushed himself to his feet. "I'll go."

"No!" Ro grabbed for his arm with her muddy hands.

He looked down at her. "I'm sorry, Ro. Elliot doesn't want me here."

Ro shook her head. "Me." She gestured to the room. Her room. Where what Elliot wanted didn't really matter. Kai sank to his knees again, though Ro didn't let go of his arm. Instead, she looked at Elliot until she, too, came inside and closed the door behind her.

Then Ro smiled and went back to her pots. She pushed one toward Elliot, and Elliot stared in awe at the striped beauty it held. Ro had certainly been busy with her experiments, unless this was some Post varietal that Kai had sneaked to her. She wouldn't put it past him.

"It's very beautiful, Ro," she said. "Is it a gift, like your scarf?"

Ro made snipping motions with her hands, and Elliot cringed.

Kai's voice came from above. "She's quite the geneticist, isn't she?"

"Shut up," Elliot grumbled. Ro threw a clod of dirt at her.

"How long have you known this was going on?" Kai asked.

Elliot said nothing. She pressed her hands into the dirt, packing the soil around the cuttings as Ro instructed.

"I can't figure out how she knew what to do," Kai said. "There must be Posts on this land experimenting behind your back."

She bit back a laugh that was more like a scream. Of course he'd think that. Of course he'd give credit to anyone else. She flew through the pots Ro handed her. Some were sickly, withering in the winter chill, or perhaps without sufficient light, or maybe because they were varietals that were never meant to survive-little flower versions of the Lost. And yet others were astounding-full and rich and beautiful, and despite the darkness of the winter, despite the gloom of Ro's cabin, they were as bright as the colors on the Posts' coats.

"Elliot?" He reached over, stilling her muddy fingers with his own, and she froze. She stared unblinking down at their hands. Once, she had taken his touch for granted. Now, it meant everything, and she wished it did not. "You know there are Posts here doing experiments? Who?"

"I want you to stay out of my barn," she mumbled without looking up.

"I know," he replied. "You were quite clear a few weeks ago."

She had also been clear that he should never speak to her again. Didn't seem to have stopped him. "You have no right to mess with my machines."

"Ah." He sat back on his heels, and his hand slipped off hers. Elliot swallowed, but whether it was in relief or disappointment, she dared not guess. "So you see a few new gears and because you know that you have no one on your estate competent enough to fix them, you a.s.sumed it must have been me."

Elliot met his eyes. "Wasn't it?"

"Answer me, first." Kai leaned in. "Who are the Posts on your estate doing agricultural experiments?"

She took a deep breath. "There are no Posts on the North estate doing experiments."

"You lie." He sounded more hurt than accusing.

She shook her head.

"You mean you don't know, and you don't have the heart to try to root them out."

"I'll thank you not to make such a.s.sumptions."

Ro looked at the array of unfinished pots she'd pushed over to Elliot and whined. Elliot started work again.

"Elliot-"

"I answered your question!" she snapped at him. "And I don't need you to answer mine. You fixed those machines. You did it to show me up. Good on you. Aren't you the expert! I am properly humbled."

"I didn't do it to show you up. I did it so the workers on the estate would have an easier time."

She snorted. "Very magnanimous." She lowered her head and mumbled beneath her breath, "And a good deal more practical than a silk scarf."

Kai chuckled. "Along with my other abominations, I have extremely keen hearing."

"And yet you're wretched at comprehension. I thought I made it clear to you that I don't want to talk to you, that I don't want to see you." She could lie well enough to convince him.

"Which is why I never let you know when I came to the barn."

"Sneaking around behind my back is not obeying the spirit of my request!"

"So I'm banished from the North estate, is that what you're saying?" Kai asked. "Never mind about the people living on your lands who want to have me here-you're the lord, so what you say goes?"

Yes! Elliot bit her tongue to keep from screaming it. He was right. If Ro wanted him here, if Gill wanted him to fix the machines, there was little Elliot could do to stop it. And it would be petty of her to try. Her argument was not theirs. Unlike Kai, she didn't require that all her friends hate him on her behalf. After all, she couldn't even muster up hatred for him herself. She pushed herself to her feet. "Ro, I'll come back another time."

Ro's face crumpled. "No . . . El . . ."

Kai was also standing. On a normal man, it might have been a scramble, but with him, it just happened. He went from sitting on the floor to blocking her path to the door in a blink. "Don't leave. You're upsetting her."

She'd upset Ro if she burst into tears, too.

"Please," said Kai. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

She gave a rueful laugh. "That's new."

"It is." The words brought her up short, and he pressed his advantage. "You know what is happening in this cottage, don't you? On this estate? Why keep it a secret from me?"

She stiffened. "I can't believe you're asking that question after your behavior to me since you returned. I do not trust you, as you have told me time and again that you do not trust me."

"I trust you now. I'm trusting you with my life. With the lives of everyone I love."

"Oh, please!" Elliot exclaimed, fighting to keep her voice steady. Everyone he loves . . . Everyone was the Fleet. No one else. No one here, and yet he wanted to know all her most dangerous secrets. Her family took advantage of her. She was unlikely to give Malakai Wentforth the same leverage. "You say that as if you willingly took me into your confidence, and now I owe you the same exchange. We both know that's not the case."

Ro now stood between them, wringing her hands.

When Kai spoke again, his voice was kind. It had to be for Ro's benefit. "What would I have to gain by ruining whatever they are doing here?"

"Supremacy over the North estate when you become a Grove?" Elliot suggested.

His eyes narrowed. "I have no wish to-to live on the Grove estate." He sighed in exasperation. "And I certainly have no wish to triumph at the expense of the Posts I grew up with."

Not like he wished to triumph over her. She stood there, almost shaking her head in pity at what had become of them. Once she'd thought there were no two people in the world who had more to talk about. They could say anything to each other-they had-and their affection had only grown stronger. But it had all come to nothing.

If only she could speak to him as she once had. If only he had been willing to be honest with her from the start. It didn't need to be the same between them for it to be worthwhile. For it to be something.

Elliot took a deep, shuddering breath. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, all she saw was Kai. "There are no Posts on the North estate doing experiments," she repeated.

And this time, he understood.

Thirty-one.

JUST THEN, ELLIOT HEARD the sound of sun-cart wheels on the gravel outside. With one last, incredulous look at her, Kai left the cottage. Elliot followed him, remaining behind the door. "What is it?" she heard Kai ask in a low voice.

"Olivia." It was Donovan's voice. "She's awake."

"Just now? This is wonderful news!" Kai sounded ecstatic. Elliot wanted to be just as happy for the poor girl, but a small part of her wondered if Kai would sound as excited if the news was about her.

"That's Elliot in there with Ro?"

"Who else?"

Elliot's eyes widened for a moment. How? Had he heard her breathing? Were the enhancements that good?

She opened the door and Ro crowded behind her. "h.e.l.lo, Donovan."

The Post waved. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Horatio thought Wentforth would want to know right away."

"Of course he did," said Kai with a brusque nod. He looked back at Elliot. She thought she saw something familiar in his expression. He appeared as torn as she felt.

Then he got in the cart with Donovan and departed, leaving Ro to her muddy pots and Elliot to her even muddier thoughts. He'd admitted he'd been trying to hurt her since he'd arrived, and as good as admitted he didn't want to anymore. And the repairs he'd done to the equipment-he'd claimed they were for the workers on the estate, but it had been Elliot who'd been parading around these last few days feeling like she'd finally fixed the machines all by herself.

Why was Kai being nice to her? Why now?

FOR WEEKS ELLIOT DIDN'T see him. She was baffled. He must have understood her, but then he'd just walked away. Was Olivia keeping him so very busy? Did he just not care? That night, at Ro's, she'd almost thought he'd wanted to stay. She almost wondered if they'd all been wrong about him loving Olivia. But he must, if he didn't care enough to return and listen to the rest of her secret.

Though it wasn't as if Elliot didn't have plenty to occupy her time, despite the frigid winter weather. Day by day, her grandfather drifted a little further away, the tether holding him to this life grown thin and brittle with age. Day by day, Dee lay in the birthing house, getting fatter and more frustrated with her sedentary state. Elliot visited as often as possible, bringing Jef and news of the estate's preparations for the horse race and house party, which were planned to coincide with the first thaw.

"I think I'm glad I'm not working," Dee said, stretching a bit in her bed. "Bet Mags and Gill are being run ragged, though. A horse race in the depths of winter! What will your father think of next?"

"The problem is that he built a racecourse out here in the wilds of the north," Elliot replied. "Winter is the only time he'd be able to get people to visit for a house party, since the weather's so much warmer here than in the south, and during the growing season, most of the Luddites are busy with their farms."

"Your father knows something of that, then?" Dee asked.

Elliot dared to laugh, but immediately sobered. Nearby, the Reduced woman with the infant Dee suspected of being a Post slumbered peacefully in her cot. "I'm doing my best to curb his more lavish ideas, but party planning is Tatiana's area of interest, not mine." Across the room, another Reduced woman was crying into her pillow while the Post nurse, Bev, rocked her whining baby. Elliot cringed. "Can nothing be done for her?" she asked Dee softly.

The Post shrugged. "It pa.s.ses eventually. It's worse in the winter-when it's even darker in here than usual, when no one can bring flowers-well, except Ro, of course."

"I hate this place."

"It's not that bad, honestly."

"Don't bother, Dee. I don't like seeing Reduced women here. There's no way I'll accept it when it comes to someone capable of taking care of herself."

Dee chuckled. "You sound like Thom. He-" She stopped herself.

Elliot sighed. Her troubles with Kai seemed foolish in the face of Dee's situation. "Dee, I'm not sure what you think you're protecting me from at this point. Obviously I know you're in contact with him. I see the evidence here before me."

Dee smiled. "Oh, Elliot, if it was up to me, I would. But Thom-he doesn't know you like I do. He doesn't know how things are now. He only remembers the bad time, and he's very . . . wary." She shrugged. "Besides, what would you do with the knowledge if you had it?"

"Get him to come back here and steal you away? I've had no luck convincing you to leave yet."

"And could anyone convince you to?"

"I don't have a child to think of, Dee. You do. You'll soon have two." She remembered what Kai had said to her in the barn, and took a deep breath. "Do you really want them to grow up on this estate?"

Dee threw her hands in the air. "There are a hundred children on this estate who need mothers. Grown children who don't have anyone to look after them. Little children with hungry bellies who need to know that food is going to come, winter after winter." She cast a glance at Elliot. "Rich children who think they are going it alone."

"I'm not a child," said Elliot. "And if you think I am and stay, you're as bad as Thom thinking I am and leaving. Neither of you can trust me to handle things on my own."

"If trusting you requires abandoning you," Dee said harshly, "then I'm happy to say that no, I don't."

And when Elliot wasn't sitting at bedsides where she could do nothing to help the occupants, she worked. She rearranged the dairy, utilizing the freshly fixed machines to make the laborers' jobs easier. She finished the maintenance on the remaining machines, surveyed the fields, and planned for the spring thaw and planting season. And, night after night, she debated with herself over whether she'd try again with her illegal wheat. They were not in as desperate straits as they'd been the previous year. They could live without her heresy. And yet, it would be a safety measure-a stopgap. Plant this wheat, and they'd have food enough for the year without having to buy from more productive neighbors. Plant it, and they might even have enough to sell.

Plant it, and admit once and for all that she held no respect for the sacrifices of her Luddite ancestors. Things had progressed far beyond a field of wheat meant to keep her people from starving. Now she was keeping deadly secrets. Now she was unable to stop herself from thinking about a boy who-even now-could be one of the Lost. Every night, she visited the barn and her gaze went, unbidden, to the knothole where they'd left their letters. She sat in the locked room, pretending to work but really reading over and over the words he'd once sent her on paper gliders.

In every letter, in every line, she saw him. He hadn't changed-he'd only grown into the man he'd been meant to be. An explorer willing to cross the sea. A mechanic who would someday build himself the best s.h.i.+p on the islands. A rebel who'd always been willing to question the wisdom of the protocols. As different as he looked, Kai was still the same person. It was Elliot who'd grown unrecognizable.

The old poems said that lovers were made for each other. But that wasn't true for Kai and Elliot. They hadn't been made for each other at all-quite the opposite. But they'd grown together, the two of them, until they were like two trees from a single trunk, stronger together than either could have been alone.

And ever since he'd left, she'd been feeling his loss. He'd thrived without her, but Elliot-she'd just withered.

No wonder he preferred the company of Olivia, who'd never let him down. Maybe he even thought she was lying about her experiments-actually, he must. He thought she was a Luddite to the core. He'd never expect that she'd engineer a strain of wheat.

One evening, the Innovations came to dinner on an invitation from her father that Elliot thought was several months late. Nevertheless, she was glad to see them after so many weeks spent solely in the company of her family. From the beginning of the evening, the talk centered on a single topic-the horse race-and Elliot realized why her father had finally deigned to play host to the Posts. If he wanted to get the best performance possible out of his Innovation horses, he must ask the Innovations.

Admiral Innovation was more than happy to oblige Baron North, and they spent the evening chattering away about how to get the most out of the horses, and who should be the North that rode in the race. The baron had been quite the rider in his day, Tatiana was younger and skilled in the saddle herself, and Benedict possessed a great desire to celebrate his homecoming by representing the family on the course.

"Symbolically taking the reins," he said. Baron North laughed. Tatiana t.i.ttered. Elliot sipped her tea.

"You have no desire to throw your hat in the ring, I take it, Elliot?" Felicia asked.

"Not a bit," said Elliot. "One ride on an Innovation horse is more than enough for me."

"I think I remember that ride more fondly than you do," she said.