Crewel

edge of my bed, and I make a mental note to send for fresh linens as soon as he’s left.
    ‘Can I order something for you?’ I ask.
    ‘Martini. Neat.’
    I repeat this to the companel – having no idea what a neat Martini is – and make sure the kitchen staff knows it’s for Cormac. Then I wait by the door for it to arrive. It comes with the customary speed of anything meant for an official, and I let the valet bring it to Cormac.
    Taking a seat in a chair by the hearth, I start counting each breath I take and release. I get to twenty before he speaks.
    ‘No doubt Loricel warned you about the remap,’ Cormac says, but he doesn’t wait for me to confirm this. ‘I want you to know there are other options.’
    ‘And the price?’ I ask, keeping my eyes level with his.
    ‘See that’s what I like about you – all business.’
    Something in the way he says ‘like’ sends me recoiling back into my chair, but I keep my mouth shut.
    ‘The Guild needs to know that you can be counted on to serve the people of Arras,’ he says, setting his drink on the tray. ‘Right now your loyalty is debatable.’
    ‘I haven’t done anything to make them question me,’ I say in a voice that dares him to deny it.
    ‘You ran,’ he reminds me.
    ‘My parents forced me to run, and I was scared enough to listen to them.’
    ‘So otherwise you would have come here and been a good girl?’ he asks with a smirk.
    ‘I guess we’ll never know.’ It’s true I didn’t immediately go to the door when they came, because I expected my father to. I thought they’d cry, and I’d look scared, but I was planning to leave with the retrieval squad. There was no other option in my head until I was pushed into that tunnel.
    ‘You were never meant to fall in line,’ Cormac says, standing and walking to the fireplace, which is steps from my seat. Leaning on the mantel, he hovers over me, and I shrink further into my chair.
    ‘So how do I prove myself?’ I ask. Or at least buy myself some time?
    ‘Do you know yet why a Creweler is so integral to the continuation of Arras?’ he asks.
    I’m confused by the sudden shift in conversation, but I regurgitate what I’ve learned from Enora and Loricel.
    He puts up a hand to halt my description. ‘Yes, that’s what a Creweler does, but why we need her is something else entirely.’
    ‘To protect the innocent,’ I murmur.
    ‘Yes, but such a concept is vague to someone too young to know true tragedy,’ he says.
    My parents. Enora. My sister rewoven into a stranger. How can he suggest I don’t know about tragedy?
    He watches my reaction to this proclamation, but when I don’t respond, he wets his lips with his tongue before he continues. ‘You think you know loss, but before Arras and the Guild of Twelve, wars spilled blood all over the Earth. Entire generations of young men died so that other men could gain more power.’
    I bite my tongue and stare back at him. Loricel has already told me all of this, but to my astonishment, I realise that he believes what he’s saying. As though he’s different from those evil men.
    ‘Dictators murdered women and children for having different skin colours or holding different beliefs.’ He pauses and moves a step closer to my chair. ‘Because we didn’t have the capacity to control peace.’
    Control – the word that haunts me. That’s the true difference between Earth and Arras. Men like Cormac can remove taints and troublemakers and differences much more efficiently than our ancestors on Earth.
    ‘And are your choices better than theirs?’ I ask, gripping the arms of my chair firmly.
    ‘I make choices for the good of the many,’ Cormac says, but his eyes flash and he switches tactics. ‘In Arras, we ensure food is administered and available to everyone. There’s no risk of famine. We control the weather and avoid the dangers of too little water as well as the hazards of unregulated weather conditions. In the past, humanity was at the whim of nature, but now nature serves us.’
    ‘Perhaps there was a purpose to the natural order of things,’ I say in a soft voice, but he ignores me.
    ‘Families don’t watch their loved ones decline and individuals are free from the fear of unexpected death,’ he continues. ‘We’ve cured most serious illnesses with renewal technology—’
    ‘And the ones you haven’t?’
    ‘Our citizens are relieved from their pain,’ he says without missing a beat.
    ‘You mean you kill them,’ I