“Cara…”
“I was too surprised to fight back, and then she left after I screamed, and you came. It all happened so fast. Your father was so intent on hunting down the Rootless, and the bag was right there and I knew my mother would…”
“But they could have hurt Ewan,” I pointed out.
“I was hoping they wouldn’t. There are so many other Rootless…”
“So it was okay if lots of innocent people got hurt as long as it was not the one you cared about?”
Her voice was fierce. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know what to do or what to say, and no matter what I did, my mother would be able stop it.” She drew a shuddering breath.
I put my hand on hers.
She brushed a lock of hair away from her face, the tear tracks still glistening on her cheeks. “Ewan was furious that I lied, that I protected my mother. He wanted the whole world to know how corrupt and violent the gentry could be. He wanted to go to the constables or to your father. He knew that he would most likely be arrested, but he accepted that, too. In fact, he told me he would rather be arrested and killed than watch his people suffer.”
“So why didn’t he step forward?”
“Jack,” she whispered. “He forbade Ewan to speak. He said that the more the Rootless suffered at the hands of the gentry, the more it primed them for their great revolution. He said that it was a pain akin to a birthing pain and that the pain was necessary for a new world.”
I saw with some surprise that my hand had tightened around Cara’s; my fingers were white and bloodless.
An echoing clunking and shuffling announced Jack coming down the hallway, and Cara and I both started, dropping each other’s hands. I swallowed back this new uneasiness and met his gaze with what I hoped was a composedly polite expression.
He smiled at Cara and me. “Hello, ladies,” he said. “I see we are all relieved that yesterday’s unpleasantness is over?”
“Yes,” Cara said.
“My son seems especially happy,” Jack mused. “I wonder why. Hmm.”
“Jack?” I asked. “I was wondering if I could speak to you?”
“Of course,” he rumbled.
I stood up and took his arm. “Miss Westoff,” he said with a tilt of his head. She inclined her head in response. He steered me back south, the direction of the foyer.
“What would you like to talk about?”
“You.”
We walked slowly to accommodate his limp.
“If I am not mistaken, you want to ask why I went to the trouble of running away and spending years among the Rootless planning a revolt with foreign help, only to come back to the very place I left.”
Or why you let your people suffer to encourage their hatred of the gentry. Or why you let my father be maimed in the name of vengeance.
“You are very astute,” I remarked instead.
“I have been accused of worse.”
We passed the bust of Jacob Landry. Jack paused to examine him. “Madeline, may I ask what your first reaction was upon reading those journals?”
I thought for a moment. “Shock, I guess. Horror. Fear.”
“Fear? That’s interesting. Jacob Landry is dead. Why should you fear him?”
“I do not know.” I thought back to two nights ago, trapped in my debut dress, trapped in my house, trapped in my father’s will. “Except it seems sometimes like he is not really dead. Like his wishes still live on through my father and everyone who listens to my father.”
“And in you?”
In me? I wanted to object, but when I considered it, I’d spent my life doing nothing to help the Rootless, and even after seeing the sorting yards and meeting and befriending them, I’d still taken the first chance at a Landry life when my father offered it. That fear then—could it be the fear of becoming like my father? Like Jacob?
“You see,” Jack said, turning away from the statue, “I had been meeting with the Rootless for a few years before I read those journals. Something tugged at me watching them. I knew something was wrong. My father crushed them tighter and tighter in his fist, killing more and more, and it never seemed to satisfy him. It was never enough to make him feel safe, and the funny thing was that I never felt safe either.
“No matter how many women I bedded or how much wine I drank, I felt as if this life were tenuous. Precious. It all hung on a delicate thread, and sometimes, I found myself secretly grateful for my father’s tenacious hatred. I was like you, Madeline, and David, too. I wanted my comfortable life and a comfortable conscience. I could decide on neither.”
We were in the ballroom now, the wall of windows and glass doors giving a breathtaking vista of the snowbound world.
“And then you read Jacob’s journals,” I guessed.
“Quite right. And I felt everything that you felt. Especially the fear.” He flicked a switch on the wall, and the solar heaters began melting the snow on the patio. “Especially the fear.”
“You see, I could feel everything that Jacob felt. Disgust for the helpless. Lust for power. For money.”
“But he was inhuman,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. “You are completely different—” But then I stopped myself. I didn’t know if Jack was completely different. Not anymore.
“Don’t make a caricature of him,” Jack said. “Jacob was passionate about many things. His family. Science. When you read the journals looking for the man and not the legend, you will see it. He doubted himself, and he doubted his inventions. He could have made any number of choices, even after the Last War. What makes him cruel is that he continued to choose abuse and power, despite his doubts. Even when he could have turned back.”
“You were not going to make the same mistake.”
Jack nodded. “Quite right. I felt acutely aware of his blood in my veins, of his genes shaping my mind and my emotions. I was made of the same stuff and surrounded by the same temptations, so how could I hope to choose differently? If I were in charge of Landry Park and the leader of the Uprisen, I feared I would never leave Jacob’s legacy behind. So I removed myself from the estate, and chose a new name, and in doing so, committed myself to the maintenance of my conscience. I have never regretted it.”
“So why now?”
“An excellent question.” Small lakes formed in the snow, forcing tiny rivers of icy water down the steps. “I had felt for years that we needed a true uprising. With the help of the Empire and with much careful planning, I felt we could succeed and hopefully with minimal loss of Rootless life. After all, what army would dare fight the Empire for long? With them as allies, we could finally shake off the yoke of the gentry. But your father forced my hand. He had Charlie, and I damn well was not going to wait for a foreign army to stop him. My first instinct was to have my people attack, to pretend submission and then swarm the terrace at the last instant. It would, of course, have little likelihood of working, and would probably result in many deaths, and war for the whole country, if the Empire belatedly came to our aid.
“But then David messaged me on the tablet I had been given by the Empire. He was coming to help. We might have a chance to stop the execution and overwhelm your father. But how to stop him from striking back at us? From hunting Charlie again? And punishing you and David? And then it occurred to me that I did have the legal power to stop him, still, after all these years, thanks to the gentry’s foolish obsession with birth order.”
Chunks of snow were sliding off the patio now, carried by the water underneath like icebergs, revealing the platinum symbol below.
“Do I possess the self-control I feared I lacked as a younger man? That remains to be seen, but now I have children who are Rootless, and one may hope that one’s children’s well-being is a sufficient incentive.”