For Darkness Shows the Stars

know.
    Your friend,
    Kai
        
     
    Dear Elliot,
    Fine. Be that way. I never want to see you again. Though you are really missing out.
    Not your friend, either,
    Kai
    PS: If you think the Luddites eating the Reduced is bad, you should hear what Benedict did.

Nineteen
     
    “COME IN.” HER FATHER was standing by his desk. There was a fire in the grate, and every lantern was lit. Elliot squinted in the sudden brightness, so different from the cool forest night.
    “Ah, Elliot, you’re early. Good.” He lifted his hand as if in presentation. “My younger daughter. You may remember her.”
    A man stood up from the chair near the fire. He was dressed in a plum-colored velvet coat that wouldn’t be out of place on any member of the Fleet. “I remember her, but I never would have recognized her. You’ve turned into a beautiful young woman, cousin.”
    “Benedict?” Elliot asked in bafflement, too shocked by his presence to even offer a lame note of gratitude in response to his flattery. She hadn’t seen him in more than eight years. He’d been younger than she was now when her father had banished him from the estate. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she was able to make out his features. The sharp, high cheekbones, the incongruous dark eyes in his pale face that still held the unmistakable stamp of North blood. His hair, once a sandy-brown mop of curls, was now cut close to his head, revealing an angular skull and a sculpted neck. He was beautiful, she realized. Far more than she, with her face still flushed from her fight with Kai, with her hair all mussed from her wild ride through the forest. Far more than any of the Norths. Perhaps, with his fine clothes and keen expression, more beautiful even than Ro.
    But what had she expected? A monster, just because what he’d done was monstrous?
    Elliot looked at her father to gauge his mood. Why had the prodigal nephew returned? How did her father feel about it?
    “We were surprised that you weren’t here to greet us, daughter,” Baron North said. “Tatiana explained that you’d gone to our tenants’ little picnic.”
    “I thought it was proper to have one member of the family there,” Elliot responded carefully. Was it possible he hadn’t called her here to berate her about the concert? “And it saved Tatiana from going—”
    Baron North snorted. “What did I tell you, Benedict? She is obsessed with anything having to do with these CORs.”
    Benedict smiled. “A rare quality, sir. It’s little wonder you find it so shocking.”
    Elliot shot him a look, but if her father understood the alternate take on Benedict’s words, he took no notice of it.
    “I’m glad you agree with me, young man. I feared that living so long amongst them might have given you strange ideas—”
    “There are many good people among the Posts, Uncle,” said Benedict, “but the best are those who remember what they owe to us. I suspect, from what you’ve told me, that these Innovations are exactly the type I mean.”
    “Is that so, Elliot?” her father asked. “Have they been showing us all the proper respect since their arrival?”
    “What did Tatiana say?” Elliot asked, still careful.
    Her father smiled at her as if to offer indulgence, but she knew better. “I am interested to hear your take.”
    Elliot hesitated. If Tatiana had shared the truth, she had nothing to fear. The Innovations themselves had been nothing but proper, even if Andromeda and Kai had taken pleasure in pushing Tatiana’s buttons—and her own. Indeed, the only thing Tatiana could possibly have complained about was Kai’s ongoing flirtation with Olivia Grove, and if anything, her father would probably gloat to hear about a Grove acting in a way he’d consider inappropriate. Though he’d buried his grudge against the family after Horatio’s father died and Horatio took over the farm, Baron North was not above making digs at the Grove’s supposed inferiority.
    But the question remained: Had Tatiana shared those stories, or was her father merely looking for a way to trip her up? Could he not find a way to blame her for a concert on his tenants’ lands, and so sought to introduce his punishment for another cause?
    “They have been very respectful, Father,” Elliot replied at last, “which is why I thought it would be proper of me to accept their invitation this evening. I’m sure it was an honor for them to have a North attend their party.”
    “More than just a North attended,