Rise An Eve Novel

before.
    “I’m grateful for what you did today,” I said. “But it won’t change how I feel.” His eyes filled suddenly and he turned, hoping I wouldn’t see. I grabbed his hand without thinking. I held it there for a moment, feeling the heat in his palm. Even here and by my own doing, it felt strange and forced. Our fingers didn’t naturally fold into each other’s the way Caleb’s and mine had, the ease of it making it seem that was just the way fingers were supposed to be—entangled forever with someone else’s. I let go first, our arms dropping back to our sides.
    He sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. He was more upset than I’d ever seen him. I sat down beside him, watching the side of his face, waiting until he turned to me. “Tell me this,” he said softly. “You were involved with the rebels. Is what they’re saying true?”
    I fixed my gaze on the floor. “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “How they took the labor camps, and they’re coming here. There are all sorts of rumors—that they’ll burn the City, that there’s a huge faction already inside the walls.” He let his head fall back as he spoke. “They say everyone who works for the King will be executed. No one will survive.”
    I remembered Moss’s warning of the dissidents who’d been reported and killed, some tortured inside the City prisons. I could not tell Charles anything—I wouldn’t. And yet as I sat there, listening to his uneven breaths, I wished there was some way I could warn him. I rested my hand on his back, feeling his chest expand through his shirt. “You might’ve saved my life today.”
    “And I would do it again.” He turned and went in the bathroom, the door closing tightly behind him. I sat, listening to the tap running, the drawers sliding open, then banging shut. He worked for my father, just as his father had. In Moss’s mind he was no better than the King. But right then he was just Charles, the person who stole peonies from the Palace gardens because he knew I liked to press them in books. He hated tomatoes and was tyrannical about flossing, and he sometimes held the smell of the construction sites in his hair, even after a shower.
    I pulled on my nightgown and lay under the covers. He stayed in the shower for nearly an hour. Then he finally flipped off the light and curled up on the lounge in the corner, his breath slowing in sleep. I remained awake, studying the shadows on the wall, trying to imagine what it would be like to be here, inside the City, when the rebels came. How long would it take them to reach the Palace? I imagined the terror of it, pictured Charles in the stairwell, his hands bound. What would he think, what would he say when they came for him? They’d kill him, I felt certain of it now.
    My limbs went cold. I lay there, willing myself to stay quiet, willing myself to keep the secrets I’d promised to keep. But I knew something else—perhaps just as certainly, the thought tightening my lungs.
    He didn’t deserve it.

seven
    MY FATHER WASN’T AT BREAKFAST. I WAITED, LETTING THE SECOND hand make its slow lap around the clock, once and again. Two minutes passed. He always came in at nine, not a second later. But still the empty plate sat there, the silverware untouched.
    “Just one more minute,” Aunt Rose said, nodding to his chair. Sweat ran down the side of his water glass, pooling on the table. I pushed my stiff eggs around the plate, trying to keep my eyes off Clara and Charles. I hadn’t slept the night before. Today, sitting here, I felt like I was surrounded by ghosts. The siege would happen tomorrow, Moss had said. Once support from the colonies arrived, they could take the Palace within the week. That plan—our plan—seemed so much more complicated now. No matter what my allegiances were, no matter what had been promised, how could I leave them all here?
    Clara fingered her small, straw-colored braid. “You don’t know where he is?” she asked, her eyes meeting mine. We hadn’t spoken since the reception, where she congratulated me and Charles as if she hadn’t witnessed the events of the morning. Her gaze kept catching mine, and I knew she was desperate to talk to me. I’d avoided walking by her room last night, afraid she’d hear me and ask again about the knife and the tiny bag I’d tucked away in my pocket. They were waiting on the bookshelf, ready for me to take them tonight when I left.
    Charles