For Darkness Shows the Stars

wrong person. I’ve never gotten money for anything in all of my life. I don’t know much how it works. But isn’t that exactly what the point of money is? It’s much better than accepting money for something you don’t want to do.”
    “I mean—if it’s something that someone shouldn’t have to pay you for. Something they’d think less of you for if they paid you for it.”
    Now the Post’s eyes went wide. “What kind of thing are we talking about, Elliot North?”
    Elliot shook her head. “Nothing like that.” On a purely practical basis, if Kai was willing to give her money for silence, then she should take it. She could be calm and rational about that now, despite her response in the barn. The estate could certainly benefit from such an arrangement. But she didn’t know if she could bring herself to broach the topic with him. She didn’t know how she’d ever speak to him again after the things she’d said to him in the barn.
    Time for a change in subject. “Things have been going well in the dairy. You know that old churner I haven’t been able to get working for six months? Turns out there was just a screw loose.”
    “Really!” Dee said. “I thought you’d been over every piece of that machine half a dozen times.”
    “I know.” Elliot shrugged. “Guess I was just distracted with my work on the wheat before. Thank goodness for winter boredom.”
    “I’m sure the dairymaids thank you. Things have got to be much easier with the mechanical churner running again.”
    “They are, but we’re still shorthanded. We didn’t have enough Posts on duty even before you came here.”
    “Give it ten years.” Dee nodded her head in the direction of a nearby cot, where a Reduced woman dozed with a big-eyed newborn in her arms. “That one’s a Post, you know.”
    Elliot examined the baby. “You can’t tell already.” Common opinion held that Post children started showing their colors around six months.
    “Oh yes I can,” Dee insisted. “I raised my own, didn’t I? Jef was just like her at that age. Watch her looking around. She’s already figuring out the world. She already wants to see what else is out there.”
    What else was out there? The infant, if a Post, was still bonded to the North estate. And if she remained here, one day she’d be back inside these four walls, confined, just like Dee. The alternative was to take the path Kai had chosen.
    And all the dangers that came with it. Posts like Dee thought the Reduction was ending, that soon every new baby would be a Post. But what if Kai and his friends had started the nightmare all over again?
    ELLIOT WAS JUST FINISHING her duties in the barn several days later when Benedict found her.
    “Hello,” he called over the top of one of the dairy stalls. Elliot was inspecting the cows while Ro and two other Reduced girls cleaned out the rest of the stalls. “I’ve come to see if you’ve heard anything more about that poor Grove girl.”
    Elliot brushed hay off her tan skirt. “I haven’t had a chance to.” It wasn’t a lie. With Dee moved into the birthing house, Elliot had her hands full with extra duties. But even if she’d been as free as Tatiana, nothing would induce her to return to the Boatwright house.
    Benedict was dressed in the same Post-style plum jacket he’d worn when he arrived. Apparently the Norths were missing out on a major fashion trend. Elliot had spent the morning listening to her sister hounding the baron for a new riding habit made with Post fabrics. A few months ago, Tatiana would have sneered at the thought.
    “Are you planning to visit her? I’d love to come with you.”
    “I wasn’t, no.” If she never saw Kai again, it would be too soon.
    “Would you?” Benedict’s tone was insistent. “I barely got a look at the Boatwright estate the day we arrived, but I’ve been all over the North estate with your sister.”
    Elliot was taken aback by his words. The Boatwright estate was not Benedict’s, nor would it ever be. It belonged to Elliot’s grandfather. “Is there a special reason you wish to see it?”
    “I’m curious about their project, of course!” Benedict exclaimed. “It’s all anyone will speak of in Channel City. I want to see what they’re up to, but I haven’t been introduced to anyone over there. I feel awkward going by myself.”
    She glanced up at him. He felt awkward? The heir presumptive of the entire North estate, the man who’d seen as much of the world as the