Chapter Text
“Darling,” said Davita Lindblom to her husband, setting the tea tray on the low table, “this seems an awful lot like two against one.”
Then she swooped across the room and clasped Gersha’s hand with a smile that was clearly meant to take the sting out of the preceding words. “Of course, I would never fault my husband for bringing his loveliest colleague to see me.”
“Lovely indeed,” Besha echoed sarcastically.
Ordinarily, Gersha would have blushed. But in the month that had passed since his oldest friend was exiled for Dissidence, he’d alternated between impotent rage and numb indifference. Tonight he was all about numbness, soured by a faint disgust with high Upstarts generally and with himself and their hostess in particular.
At least Tilrey was beside him—beautiful, understanding Tilrey. Of course, if Tilrey hadn’t been so obsessed with that dull but important Notification bill, and the bill hadn’t beaten the odds and passed, Gersha wouldn’t be here tonight at all. “Damage control,” Tilrey called this evening, but so far it felt more like torture.
Gersha put his hand on the small of Tilrey’s back and nudged him forward, prompting him to take charge. “We’re three against one, actually.”
Davita glanced at Tilrey as if for the first time, though his height and physique made him hard to miss. “Right, Verán’s little toy. Or wait, isn’t he your secretary now?”
Tilrey squeezed Gersha’s hand warningly.
Gersha ignored it, because now he was angry again and it felt good. “Please don’t talk about him that way. I despise it.”
“Gersha’s totally gone on the boy,” said Besha. Since they’d entered Davita’s apartment, he’d been flitting about nervously, with none of his usual cocky posturing. “Don’t get him started. He’ll sound like a Dissenter.”
Gersha took them both in—the haughty, well-bred Councillor with her head held high, and her social-climber husband eager to placate her. Yesterday, Besha had voted against his wife and the other Islanders for the first time since his election to the Council. He’d voted with Gersha for the Notification bill, and they’d won.
Now Davita wanted an explanation of her husband’s disloyalty, and it had better be good.
“If treating people like ‘toys’ is the current interpretation of Whybergism, then I am a Dissenter.” Gersha looked straight at her as he spoke, peer to peer. “There are worse things to be.”
His friend Ranek Egil used to point out that Dissent was written right into the Constitution. Whyberg believed it was a necessary ingredient of a functioning meritocracy, so why did everyone treat the word “Dissenter” like a dangerous explosive?
But now Ranek was dead, and the more Gersha learned about his friend’s precipitous arrest and exile to the Wastes, the more he worried he was the one really to blame. Ranek had done favors for Gersha, broken rules for his sake. What if those lapses had led to worse ones—or simply made enemies for Ranek? In his angry periods, Gersha had launched a little private investigation of Ranek’s Int/Sec colleagues, hoping to find evidence of a conspiracy.
Davita wasn’t fazed by his outburst. “That’s why I have such respect for you, Gersha,” she said. “You care about the spirit of Whybergism. And you’re quite right: if we don’t respect our inferiors, we’re no better than Feudals. Now, won’t you sit down so we can discuss what brings you here?”
Her voice was graceful, just like the drape of her skirt and the movements of her elegant hands. As he sank onto one of the right-angled sofas, gesturing for Tilrey to sit beside him, Gersha was all too aware that grace had an iron core.
She’s spent her whole life disregarding people she considers beneath her, Tilrey had told Gersha when they discussed Davita earlier. Don’t be intimidated. You’re her equal.
Tilrey had warned him that Davita combined all of Gersha’s own intellect, beauty, and consciousness of superiority (Tilrey’s words; Gersha had protested them) with Besha’s raw confidence and savvy. But it was one thing to know that, another to tangle with it.
Besha had voted for a bill that would reform the entire Notification system, dealing a blow to inherited privilege. Since he couldn’t tell his wife that he was in Gersha’s pocket because Gersha knew his darkest secret, he and Tilrey had schemed together to neutralize the threat.
All this scheming—where would it end? Gersha could hack an Int/Sec database, but he couldn’t bend human beings to his will—unless he was in Thurskein, where everyone rushed to do his bidding simply because of who he was.
“I’ll go fetch some salmon and rusks, shall I?” Besha said, escaping into the kitchen.
“Yes, love.” Davita turned to Gersha. “It’s such a pleasure to see you outside the Sector.”
Was her warmth genuine? Tilrey would know, but he was sitting there not helping. “Likewise,” Gersha said, struggling to come up with small talk. “One of these days I must meet the children. How many are there now?”
“Valgunde, Blas, and little Virs.” Davita passed him her handheld, a smile of maternal pride highlighting her cheekbones. “They’re absolute monsters of ego, which means they take after Besha, I suppose.”
“I heard that!” Besha called, while Gersha studied the image. The three children were posed stiffly with their parents, the whole family dressed in cleanest, purest white. Besha looked miserable, and the older boy’s scowl mirrored his. The toddler looked a hot second away from screaming his lungs raw.
So that was high-Upstart family life. Gersha returned the handheld. “Lovely. The eldest boy favors you.”
“Doesn’t he? But Gunde’s very like you, darling,” Davita said to Besha, who’d returned with a platter of cold smoked salmon, rusks, pickled radish, and real cheese spread. “She talks a blue streak and won’t listen to reason.”
As she spoke, she patted the couch beside her, and Besha slid into place. His hunched shoulders made it clear he hadn’t missed the subtext. Back in the days when Gersha considered Besha his rival, he might have enjoyed the man’s discomfiture; now he felt a little sick.
So much ego. So much rank pulling. Was that what had brought Ranek down?
“Blas just took his A3s at school,” Davita went on. “He didn’t do as well as we hoped, did he, Besha?”
Besha stared into space. “He’s not even six. He’s got time.”
“He needs work on numerical retention and abstract reasoning.” Davita swiveled to address Gersha. “Of course, not all of us can excel at such things.” Her gaze moved to her husband, who narrowed his eyes. “And not all of us have to. But after the vote yesterday, one can’t help but be concerned, as a parent. One can’t help but wonder if a misguided attempt at fairness will increase the pressure on our children to excel early and at every turn. After all, one can’t risk the possibility that—”
Besha interrupted her with a loud groan. “Don’t be melodramatic, sweetheart. Nobody’s going to Lower your precious son and put a Drudge kid in his place.”
Davita’s brows shot up. “What a suggestion! My son would never be in danger.”
“Then why can’t you let this go? Yes, I voted for it. It’s a nothing bill.”
“Analyzing legislation isn’t your forte, Besha. This ‘nothing bill’ will increase the rate of children who end up separated from their parents by rank.” Davita turned to Gersha, her face as grave as if they were back in the Council chamber. “You don’t deny that?”
Tilrey knew the text of the Notification bill far better than Gersha did, but Gersha could always dredge up a few Whyberg quotes. “Actually, I think the bill simply encourages the system to work the way the Founder wanted. Rule by the fittest with rotation at the top. Inherited power is the sworn enemy of meritocracy and the bosom friend of mediocrity.”
Two ruddy spots appeared on Davita’s cheeks. She was a fierce debater on the Council floor.
“Indeed,” she said, her dark eyes taking on a predatory intensity. “Well said. But what about Rule by the masses was the fatal mistake of the Tangle, because the masses lacked foresight? Or Power should belong only to those who have the intellect to use it?”
“No one’s suggesting dismantling the Levels!” Gersha reached into his memory again, grateful that his uncle used to grill him on the founding texts. “Success should never be based on whom one knows. A family line is only as strong as its weakest member. Wouldn’t you prefer that your son succeed on his own merits, with no help from his family name?” He gestured at Besha. “The way his father did?”
This was a mistake. Besha’s glower deepened by several degrees as his wife turned her full attention on him. “My love,” she said, “why don’t you tell your high-minded friend what your success is actually based on?”
Besha muttered, “Leave me out of this.”
“He brought you into it.” Her gaze returned to Gersha, coldly triumphant. “You were at school with Besha, so you know he was always ranked near the bottom of his class. Why do you think he’s risen so far?”
She might as well have said, I made him, and I can unmake him. Besha’s fists were clenched, his cheeks bright with humiliation. Gersha shot a glance at Tilrey, seeking guidance, but Tilrey stared into space.
Words rose to Gersha’s lips before he could think them through. “Besha has a genius for politics. That’s something our tests don’t measure.”
Was he really praising Besha, of all people? Apparently so, and now he had to explain: “Besha has what Whyberg called ‘social intelligence.’ He observes people, figures out what makes them tick, and gets them on his side. Or drives them crazy,” he added, with a sharp glance at Besha. “I hated him for a while.”
Besha bobbed his head, starting to regain his equilibrium. “I wanted you to hate me, I guess. Or something. I was an absolute prick to you.”
“And now what?” Davita glanced from one of them to the other, eyes narrowing. “Apparently your feelings toward each other have changed.”
Besha coughed. Gersha felt his face heat up.
“Besha seems quite taken with you, Gersha—with both of you.” Her gaze alighted briefly on Tilrey. “I don’t mind—it’s sweet, really. I’ve never seen him quite so enthusiastic about anything before.” She patted her husband’s knee. “And you’re quite right about his brilliant political instincts. I think he could be General Magistrate one day. But suddenly he’s voting against his own convictions, and you appear to be responsible.”
Besha twitched, but didn’t push her away. “Your convictions, Davita.”
“I thought we agreed that I steer the ship of state, and you crew it.”
“Would you stop fucking patronizing me?” Besha detached her hand and rose, practically vibrating. “Both of you! I know I’m not any kind of genius. I know people, that’s all. But I have a brain of my own, and Gersha didn’t make me do anything.”
“Oh? And how does this bill serve your interests, then, love?”
Besha crossed his arms. “I think it’s only fair to bring a little more neutrality into the Notification process.”
His wife sighed as if at a misbehaving child. “Tell me, Besha, how did you get the Diplomat Notification that enabled you to stand for Council election? Wouldn’t your test scores normally have consigned you to one of those low-admin Discourse positions?”
Besha paced to the window and back, each step tight with rage. “Okay, so I needed patronage. Maybe you did, too, in ways that weren’t so obvious. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to suck people off to succeed if the system wasn’t skewed to favor people like you in the first place.”
Davita shot Gersha a glance. “He gets like this sometimes. It’ll pass.”
“Oh, fucking please.” Besha actually stamped his foot. “Look, for the past twelve years I’ve been following your orders and Verán’s orders like a good little political wind-up monkey, and I have limits, okay? You’re so pig-headed and ignorant sometimes with your high-Upstart bullshit. I do have a mind of my own.”
Was this temper tantrum part of the plan, or an improvisation? Gersha glanced at Tilrey again, hoping for a clue, and saw only the horrible blankness he remembered from his lover’s days as a kettle boy.
“My love,” Davita said with an eye-roll, “you do indeed. You’ve expressed your feelings and made sure we all heard you. But I fear your temper’s generating more heat than light. Now, would you mind clearing up?”
Besha stood stock-still. Gersha tensed for an explosion.
But Besha’s shoulders went slack. “Fine,” he said, and grabbed the platter. “I suppose you’ll want fresh tea as well?”
“That would be lovely,” said Davita, in a tone so sweet it sent shivers down Gersha’s spine. He longed to ask Tilrey what now, but Tilrey was still impersonating a couch cushion.
With Besha back in the kitchen, Gersha braced himself for Davita’s wrath. But she only smiled and said, “I’m wondering if Besha’s told you how we met.”
Gersha shook his head, feeling a little dazzled by the pleasant glint of her dark eyes, the complicit arch of her brows. Tilrey was right—she was formidable.
“Besha was managing an ordnance depot out in a dreadful corner of the Wastes, and I was inspecting it for the Defense Committee. At first glance, everything seemed in order, but something about his glib manner made me dig deeper.” She glanced toward the kitchen, but didn’t modulate her voice. “It turned out Besha was running quite the little trading post. He’d send stun guns and body armor to the foreperson of the sap shop in Karkei in exchange for sap vials, which he then peddled to a cargo crew in exchange for fresh fruit from Harbour, and gifted to an Admin he was trying to butter up in hopes of getting a posting in the Sector.”
Gersha was shocked despite himself: bartering weapons to Laborers—even stun guns—was basically the same as arming bullies or Dissidents. He already knew that Besha had committed treason for Councillor Linnett, but he'd imagined that as an isolated offense, not part of a pattern. He opened his mouth, then closed it as Tilrey’s fingers grazed the back of his hand. Stay focused.
“I see. And why are you telling me this now?”
A tiny raise of those terrifying brows. “I’ve always been impressed by your moral integrity, Gersha, even when we disagree. I just want to make sure you know whom you’re in bed with. That is the right phrase?”
Gersha’s face flamed as the things he and Besha had done in bed flashed before his eyes, colored by this new knowledge—weapons dealer, sap smuggler. He wanted to slap himself for finding the man’s squirming and moaning and shameless eagerness even momentarily attractive.
Then again, if his oldest friend really was a Dissident, his taste in people wasn’t his strong suit. Everything he’d been raised to believe was coming apart, leaving him adrift in the wreckage.
As he sank under the weight of that realization, a large, familiar hand gripped his and held tight.
Tilrey had come to life. He said, “You don’t seem to mind having Fir Linbeck in your bed, Fir’n.”
Gersha drew in his breath. Davita looked as surprised as if the end-table had spoken to her. Besha, returning with the tea, took in the situation and smirked in a way that, for once, Gersha didn’t find insufferable. “The boy has a point, love.”
Davita was examining Tilrey with new interest. “Gersha, did you tell him to say that?”
Besha sat down beside Tilrey, loose-limbed as a petulant teenager. “You can’t believe he thought of it himself? It was right there.”
Davita ignored her husband. “You’re not going to reprove him?”
“I—” Gersha was still clinging to Tilrey’s hand like a drowning man. “Perhaps he spoke a bit out of turn, but I don’t insist on as much formality as you—”
“Such fucking bullshit,” Besha said. “I’m so fucking over it.”
He snaked an arm around Tilrey’s waist, pulled him in—Tilrey kept hold of Gersha’s hand—and attacked Tilrey’s mouth voraciously with his own.
At first, Tilrey just yielded. Then he moved hungrily into the kiss, his thumb and forefinger stroking Besha’s jawline. Besha’s fingers tangled in the dark-blond hair, his other hand on Tilrey’s thigh. Gersha heard Davita draw in her breath—with disgust or something else, he wasn’t sure.
Besha disengaged himself and addressed his wife a little breathlessly: “Do you know what I did just before coming here? I sucked his cock. Yes.” He patted Tilrey’s knee. “His. In Gersha’s office, with Gersha sitting right there. And I did a fucking great job of it, just like I learned to do from the high Upstarts I had to oblige to get where I am.”
Gersha’s face burned; he couldn’t look at Davita, because the part about his office was true. “I’m so sorry this has . . . perhaps we should—”
She interrupted him, her tone surprisingly mild: “And that’s high on the list of things I never needed to hear, Besha. What on earth’s gotten into you today? You can fuck whomever you like, any way you like. I don’t own you. All I ask is that you don’t actively make my life difficult.”
“And all I ask is that you treat me like the father of your children and not your lackey.”
“I would, if you acted like it.”
Besha pressed against Tilrey’s side as if he needed to be propped up. “I’ve played the part, okay? I’ve acted like a high-named asshole, but at the end of the day, if I can’t do anything you and Verán don’t tell me to do, I’m basically just your fuck-piece.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being melodramatic, love,” said Davita with brutal dryness. Gersha cleared his throat, hoping again to beg out of witnessing the marital spat, but no one noticed him.
“And you don’t see things,” Besha complained, nuzzling Tilrey’s shoulder. “Rishka’s probably as clever as I am. He’s got that social intelligence thing. I didn’t see it for a while, either. People like you and Verán make him bow and scrape and play-act, the same way you make me, and it’s bullshit, and I’ve had fucking enough of it, okay?” He buried his face against Tilrey’s sleeve. “Enough.”
“Besha, did you fall into a vial of sap?” Davita asked. “Or is this what an early midlife crisis looks like?”
Her husband didn’t answer, only clung tighter to Tilrey, who wound an arm around the Councillor’s shoulder and rested his chin on his head. Gersha opened his mouth and closed it.
If whatever those two were doing was part of their plan, they hadn’t let him in on it, and it seemed more likely to amuse or disgust Davita than to reconcile her. Could he salvage anything from this mess?
He rose, really determined this time. “I’m sorry this discussion became so . . . acrimonious, Davita. When I asked for Besha’s vote, it wasn’t my intention to come between you.”
She waved a hand—every movement still graceful, despite the coldness of her eyes. “I see that now. Besha seems to fancy himself a Dissenter this month. Clearly he and I have matters to discuss in private.”
“Not a Dissenter,” Besha mumbled into Tilrey’s shoulder. “Just sick of bowing and scraping for permission to exist.”
“You sound like a teenager, love, raging against the system. It’s embarrassing.”
“We should be going, then.” Gersha looked meaningfully at Tilrey, who straightened and tugged himself out of Besha’s clutches.
Besha grunted in protest, but didn’t try to hold him. It was Davita who said, as Tilrey stood up, “No. He stays.”
Gersha thought he’d misheard, but a glance at her told him otherwise.
“Besha—” She gestured to her husband to rise, and he obeyed as if his limbs were on strings. “Now,” she went on, shooing Gersha toward his colleague, “the two of you leave. The boy stays with me.”
“But . . . why?” This wasn’t what they’d planned, surely?
But Tilrey sat back down, too quickly, and maybe this was exactly what they’d planned. “Why?” Gersha asked again, not sure whom he was addressing.
Davita’s social smile had an edge that made his stomach flip. “I do know what you’re doing, Gersha,” she said. “You gave the boy to Piter Ekorin in exchange for his vote—oh yes, I got Ekorin to come clean. And now you’re pulling the same maneuver on my Besha, who appears to have formed an emotional as well as physical attachment to you both. You’re exploiting his insecurities.”
With a glare at her husband—returned in kind—she went on: “You’re trying to splinter the Party for your own ideological reasons, and you want my support, my complicity.”
Gersha couldn’t breathe, nerves balling themselves in his chest. “I know you would never support—”
Davita cut through the faltering words. “You may not know me as well as you think. But if I’m going to play along, or perhaps even help you, shouldn’t I be paid off, too?”
As Gersha searched for a response, confused by her rapid changes of direction, Davita turned to Tilrey and just looked. He looked straight back for a few seconds before lowering his eyes.
“I gather there’s something special about this one,” Davita said, still staring at him. “He seems to have a knack for making normally sensible Councillors act stupid. Because Verán harbors old-fashioned notions about gender, I never had a chance to experience him. May I now?” She cocked her head. “Or is he only equipped to service men?”
Gersha tasted bitterness. Part of him wanted to snap back, “He’s only equipped to service me,” but one glance at Tilrey’s carefully submissive demeanor told him this wasn’t the time to be possessive.
“He’s free to sleep with anyone he likes.” He tried not to let the bitterness infect his tone, because clearly this was what Tilrey wanted, what Tilrey had planned. Yet the absolute last thing he wanted was to leave Tilrey alone with this raptor who was sizing him up like a small creature she was eager to reduce to a heap of bones.
Tilrey would probably say, I’ve handled far worse. That didn’t soothe the unease in Gersha’s stomach.
He needed Tilrey to pull him from the wreckage again, to hold his hand and swear to him that what had happened to Ranek Egil wasn’t his fault. He needed Tilrey to explain why allying themselves with someone like Besha didn’t make the two of them every bit as mercenary as he was.
Besha, Davita—he didn’t trust either of them, or himself. He only trusted Tilrey, who wasn’t even looking at him.
Davita smiled—a beautiful, frank smile. “How lovely and liberal of you to put it that way, Gersha. Quite consistent with your efforts to eradicate the scourge of inherited privilege. I always did think Verán was a little ridiculous with his high-handedness. Well then,” she asked Tilrey, “would you like to oblige me tonight?”
Tilrey bowed his head. “It would be an honor, Fir’n.”
“Till morning, then.” She waved. “I promise to send him back without a scratch.”
Besha made a disgusted sound. “And that’s high on the list of things I never needed to hear.”