“How did she…?” Vye asked, unable to bring herself to say it.
“She killed herself,” Cass said. She tossed the handle of the girl’s knife on the table. Hondo picked it up, examined it, held it up for the others to see.
“It’s a popper.”
“A what?” Vye said.
“Shatter-blade,” Aron explained. “Got a little charge in there, makes the blade explode in a million pieces and turns your insides to soup. Nasty business. Find ’em on outsiders all the time.” He added the last bit as if it was proof positive his assumptions were right. Awfully convinced.
“Who would do such a thing?” Connor said, almost to himself. He shook his head. “Who could even conceive of such a thing? He’s just a boy!” There was genuine despair in his voice. A rare display of emotion.
“Not to them,” said Vye. Her voice was quiet but certain.
“And that’s what I mean,” Aron said. “Look. In here, to us, we know who Wren is. But out there, he’s just a name. Or… or… or a king. Or a god.”
“Or a devil,” said Hondo. Cass held herself still, refused to react to the almost-familiar words. After a moment, she let her eyes slide casually across Vye to Hondo.
“That’s not what I meant,” Vye said.
“It isn’t what you said, but it’s what you meant,” Hondo replied. “And what do you expect? He brought ghouls to live among us.” Aron and Connor both reacted, and Vye actually gasped aloud. Hondo glanced at her, then turned and addressed Cass directly. “Look, don’t take it the wrong way, Cass. I’m just trying to be honest about how some folk feel.”
Cass waved her hand, casually dismissing any offense. She’d been called worse.
“There are certain segments out there,” Hondo continued, “not me mind you, you know not me, but there are segments who just want things back the way they were.”
Connor said, “Things will never be the way they were–”
“It doesn’t matter, Connor, people will always want it anyway!” Hondo said, voice rising. “I got people out there still talking about going home one day! Home, Connor! What kind of home you think is left out there for anyone to go back to?”
“People are just afraid,” Rae said. “Afraid of change, afraid of uncertainty. And when people are afraid, they drive themselves to do things. Crazy things.”
Aron said, “And that’s why I said we had to keep the gates closed!”
“Didn’t we just agree we weren’t going back there, Aron?” said Hondo.
Things were getting heated again. Cass glanced at North. He was still, expressionless, soaking it all in.
Aron replied, “But back there is the problem, Hondo. Back there is where too much changed, too fast. Look here, bringin’ Wren to the people, makin’ him governor, that was the quick fix. Underdown’s son, heir to the throne. What he would have wanted. That’s easy, people get that. But throwin’ the gates open to the outsiders? And then this business with… you know. I’m sorry, Cass, but it’s true.”
She said, “No one here needs to apologize to me for anything. I know what I am.”
“Again, Aron,” said Rae, “we all appreciate your keen sense of problems, but why don’t you try solving one for a change!”
He said, “We gotta get ’em off the streets. Bring ’em all here, or let me take ’em in at my place, I don’t care. We just need a place for ’em to stay until people get used to the idea.”
North spoke at last. “They’re free people, Aron. Free people. Like you. Like me.”
“No, North, they’re not. Doesn’t matter what we say, doesn’t matter whether you like it or I like it. They’re different.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” said a small voice from the entryway. The whole Council turned, and even Cass felt a jolt. There was Wren, standing near the door. Observing, for who knew how long. Just like his mama. Able hovered by the entrance, at once protective and unobtrusive.
Cass opened her mouth to protest but caught herself, closed it. You shouldn’t be here. You should be resting. You should be playing. You should be having a childhood. Not in front of the Council. In here she was his advisor, not his mother. A war she constantly fought.
Wren approached, and everyone stood as he climbed up in his chair at the head of the table. A formality they insisted on, though Wren had often said it seemed silly. His legs dangled freely above the floor, but his face was grave with understanding well beyond his eight years.
The Council retook their seats.
“How are you, Wren?” Rae asked.
“I’m well, Miss Rae, thank you,” Wren said. His words and tone were kind, respectful, but Cass could tell the answer had been more reflex than response. “It’s the difference that scares people so much. All the changes.”
He said it like a statement, but it was a question. Looking for confirmation.
“Change, uncertainty,” Aron said, nodding. “Like Rae says.”
“But that’s not the whole truth,” Hondo said, leaning forward. “It’s them, too. What they are. What they represent.”
Cass felt anger rising, but checked herself.
“Tell us, Hondo,” North said. He was speaking Cass’s mind, whether he knew it or not. “What do our friends represent?”
Hondo swallowed, licked his lips, glanced around the table for allies. Maybe he’d pushed it too far.
“People think they could go back,” Wren said. The Council seemed surprised to hear him answer for Hondo. “To the way they were.”
Hondo nodded. For a moment, Cass lost herself hearing her son give voice to the nightmare that haunted her daily; the terrifying thought that she might ever… relapse? Revert? Was there even a word for it?
“And some folk blame them for things that happened,” Hondo added after a moment. “I know it’s not fair. It’s not right, and it’s not fair, but that’s how it is.”
“None of this moves us any closer to resolving last night’s attack,” Cass said, reasserting control of the conversation. “Unless you’re suggesting that we’ve reached such a state in Morningside that people would send someone to kill my son?”
Hondo shrugged in a way that suggested it was the only possible explanation.
“What purpose would that possibly serve?” Rae asked.
“It’d be the first step towards getting things back to the way they were, wouldn’t it?” Hondo said. “Think about it. Wren dies by the hand of an outsider, what’s the first thing everyone’s going to want to do?”
“Send them all back outside,” Vye said.
“Whoa, slow down now, slow down,” Aron countered. “Ain’t no reason to go makin’ up conspiracies when it coulda been just like I said. Girl after revenge, on her own, cause of her own reasons.”
“It makes sense, though,” Connor said. “A terrible, terrible kind of sense.”
Rae took over. She said, “Look, in the immediate, it’s irrelevant. Whether she was crazy, or desperate, or a hired assassin, we’re not going to figure that out sitting around this table. The question we’re here to answer right now is — what do we do?”
It was quiet for a moment, as each Council member looked to the others.
“Nothing,” said Wren. Hondo suppressed a condescending smile; Connor smiled what he probably thought was an encouraging smile, but that ended up more condescending than Hondo’s.
“We can’t do nothin’ Wren,” Aron said. “Once people find out–”