For Darkness Shows the Stars

on.
    “I’m sure you agree. Your grandfather should have given the estate to Tatiana, namesake or no.” He shrugged. “We could fight the terms of the will, of course, at the Luddite tribunals. And we’d win, eventually. Not only was this supposed ‘addendum’ put in after the old man had his strokes, but Baroness Channel is the only living witness, and as the largest landholder on the island, she has good cause to want to see the two estates split up again. It’s very fishy.”
    He couldn’t honestly believe that was an arguable stance. There was no guarantee the estates would be kept together if Tatiana were to inherit. She might not end up with the North estate at all. Or was he imagining her marriage to Benedict as a foregone conclusion?
    “But I’m sure you don’t want to go through all that trouble. So you can just sign the estate over to your sister.”
    For years, Elliot had dreaded her father’s wrath. For years, she had acquiesced to all manner of unreasonable demands and wasteful plans. For years, if she disobeyed him, she did it in secret. She might have been a Luddite, but until today, he’d been her lord and master.
    She was done.
    “No.”
    His unpleasantly pleasant smile grew even wider. “Yes.”
    He’d bullied her this morning. He never would again . “You can’t threaten me anymore, Father. You’ve nothing to threaten me with.” The words burst forth with each new realization, impossible vistas of opportunity that spread wide as the sea. “I’ve my own lands. If you mistreat any of your Reduced or Post laborers, I’ll invite them to the Boatwright estate. Our holdings aren’t as large as yours, but we can survive. The Luddite tribunal will support me.”
    “I’ll tell them about the wheat.” There it was. Out in the open. He knew exactly what he’d plowed under last summer.
    This gave her pause but only for a moment. For Elliot had learned things since then, too. About what people thought elsewhere in the islands. About what they thought of her .
    “Tell them.” Tell a host of Luddite lords who welcomed Post clothes and Post horses and Posts themselves. “Tell them how on your farm, which you supposedly control, your daughter planted a crop of illegal wheat. Who would be in trouble for that?”
    Her hands were shaking, so she clenched them together under the desk. She could do this. She had to. “Tell them and see if they put me in prison, or if they come to me to buy my grain.”
    The smile faded, replaced by a tight-lipped line. “Do you really wish to challenge me on this, Elliot?”
    Elliot would not blink. He was just trying to scare her. But if the Boatwright estate was hers, hers to do with as she wished, then all her troubles were over. With the additional productivity of her wheat, they’d manage despite the smaller size of the Boatwright farm. She could liberate Dee from the birthing house and bring her and Jef somewhere safe. She could plant whatever she wanted. She could let Ro graft as many flowers as she chose. She could make a sea of string-boxes.
    Her lands. Hers. All she had to do was stand up to her father right now.
    “Then you leave me no choice,” the baron said. “I hereby ban you from my lands. You want the Boatwright estate? It’s all you’ll have, at least until I challenge the will and gain it back for Tatiana. And then, my dear child, you’ll have nothing.”
    “Father!” she cried. The Boatwright’s funeral was this evening. There was no way he would provoke a public family squabble before they laid her grandfather to rest. “You don’t want to do this!” But of course he did. It was how he’d responded to the threat of Benedict taking land he thought belonged to him. Why wouldn’t it be the same for Elliot?
    “I don’t want to lay eyes on you again,” he replied. “You are a grasping, ungrateful daughter. An embarrassment to this family. To all Luddites.”
    Elliot took a deep breath. He was trying to scare her. She would not give in. “You won’t get the estate back, no matter what you tell the tribunal.”
    “It’s a pity you’re so sure of yourself,” he replied. “You’re like that silly compass the Boatwright gave you—eternally heading down the wrong path.”
    A YOUNGER ELLIOT MIGHT have spent time mourning for the loss of the only home she’d ever known. A more inexperienced Elliot might have been conciliatory, squandering valuable minutes trying to get her father to see reason.
    This Elliot wasted no