Secrets of the Starcrossed
The Once and Future Queen
Clara O’Connor

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Copyright © Clara O’Connor 2021

Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Map © Laura Hall

Clara O’Connor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008407667

Ebook Edition © January 2021 ISBN: 9780008407650

Version: 2020-12-14

Contents

Prologue

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part II

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part III

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Acknowledgments

Author Q & A

Exploring the World of The Once and Future Queen

Thank you for reading…

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About the Author

Books by Clara O’Connor

One More Chapter...

About the Publisher

I dedicate this first step to

My posse who said I should

My dear KL who helped me realise I could

My family who assumed I would.

Thank you

So much.

Prologue

I scowled as I studied my reflection. Something was off… I couldn’t quite place it, but I could see it was there. Or not there. And if I could tell, others would too. There would be consequences. I just wasn’t sure what they would be yet.

I shut my eyes, seeing again the blood soaking into the sand. The red spattered across the golden grains, the flashes of neon from the screens high above reflected on the pale arena walls. The red soaking deeper into the gold. You would think it would disappear, but it doesn’t. The dark stain just sits there as witness to the damage.

The humidity of my bathroom was at odds with my dry mouth and the wind whipping across the sands in my mind.

I should never have intervened. Until him, I had followed the Code unwaveringly every day of my life. And now our fates were aligned. If he was proved to be a Codebreaker, I too could be deemed guilty.

I lifted my promise ring to my lips, the warm, familiar weight grounding me, giving me focus. Clarity. The promise that kept me going, a family that would be truly my own. Somewhere I would belong.

If anyone ever learned of my impulsive actions, I wouldn’t just stand out anymore, I would be thrown out. Of class. Of home. Of the city.

If I was lucky, most likely…

Promise broken.

My chest felt tight.

What had I done?

Part One
The Nearest Coast of Darkness

Thither he plies

Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne

Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful deep!

— Paradise Lost, John Milton

Chapter One

Londinium, Imperial Province of Britannia

In the reign of Caesar Magnus XVII

The morning shivered awake grey and wet, putting my hair in danger of severe frizzing ahead of the Mete this evening. I had an early class so caught the gleaming monorail straight to the forum, dashing past the merchants preparing their stalls for the day without a glance to spare for their sundry wares.

As I entered Basilica Varian, my eye was caught by the graffiti on the wall. How anyone had managed to deface the facade of a building inside the forum without either the sentinels or the cameras catching them, I could not begin to imagine. Maybe the graffiti was right, that there really was “chaos in the Code”. There would have to be. I forced myself to look away – there was no point paying it any attention. The sentinels would have it removed in no time. No doubt they were already on their way.

“Good morning, Cassandra,” my locker offered loudly, the door swinging open as I approached. I really did need to change the settings on my utilities more often. Even though it was nearly the end of the course, I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I should really; it was such a bonus to even own a locker. One of the perks of having a prominent merchant as a father. Most of my classmates had to carry their belongings around while we attended classes in the basilica, but through his business connections at the forum Papa had somehow arranged it.

“Cassandra,” Ginevra greeted me, swinging off her scooter. Luckily, this part of the forum was quiet in the mornings, but if anyone saw her gliding across the mosaics, there would be Hades to pay. Not that Ginevra ever seemed to care for such rules. I, on the other hand, preferred to stay well within their boundaries at all times. My parents insisted on it, stressing that as my future would be in the public eye, my past must be beyond reproach. My own personal code to live by.

“You have any mid-terms this morning?” Ginevra asked, throwing her exquisitely embroidered jacket into my locker.

“No, just a history lecture on the Reformation of the Province for me, I think.”

Ginevra was examining her nails as I rummaged in my pocket for my mini slate. Hopefully, no tiny smudge was lurking. We had little enough time after class to run home and get ready for tonight. Having to redo nails would completely throw out all our careful planning.

“Schedule,” I said, glancing at the data the slate offered up. “Yep, just a regular class. I’ll see you for lunch after, yeah?”

But she had already gone, not waiting for an answer. One of my favourite morning tunes started to play in my ear as I swayed towards my class. I walked through the gallery, using the portico covering for as long as possible to stay out of the rain. Crossing the corner of the expansive courtyard, I took the side entrance into the central part of the basilica before turning up towards the civics centre where the citizenship classes were held.

My usual seat beside Ambrose was taken, leaving me to weave my way to an empty place. But my attention was caught by a device, a glint of impossible gold from the jacket pocket of a boy in a seat to my right. Distracted, I missed a step and stumbled forward.

I braced myself for impact, but a hand grabbed my arm and steadied me before I could fall in an inelegant heap in front of the entire class.

“Thank you,” I said, looking up at the boy who had restored my balance. My breath caught as our eyes connected, his midnight gaze burning into mine. Magnetism seemed to sizzle in the air between us, the lines of his face becoming sharper, his presence building to a crescendo in my mind like a song… until his lids lowered, cutting me off, and his gentle hands released me.

What just happened?

“Cassandra Shelton,” a voice snapped from across the room. “If you would?”

Shaken from my stupor, I took my place, my cheeks hot.

I looked again at the boy in the seat next to mine, that hint of illegal tech in his pocket no longer visible.

Devyn, that was his name. I had to dredge the word up from some shadowy recess of memory, but even holding the thought in my mind felt wearisome and wrong. It was so strange – in that moment of contact I had felt solid unyielding muscle. Yet that reality clashed with what my eyes were now telling me, that this slight boy would be knocked over by an overly aggressive wind. It was like his very appearance had shifted beneath my gaze, like a mask falling back into place.

I tried to focus on the lesson, but my concentration was shot. I felt hyperaware of the boy next to me in a way I never had before. Not with Devyn, who I must’ve shared classrooms with for almost a decade. Not with anyone. Which was odd, because what would be the point? I knew exactly where my story ended. What on earth was I doing getting distracted by old classmates and impossible devices? Ridiculous.

I shook off all thought of glimmering gold and midnight eyes, and even managed to take some notes, until our tutor encouraged us to move our desks back and make a circle with our seats.

These classes were a formality really, but every now and then you got a teacher who wanted to go the extra mile. One for whom the Code was not just a set of rules to live by but the very foundation on which the Empire existed. As a class of elites, the chance we would fail to achieve citizenship was incredibly remote. But we had to be seen to complete the same formalities as every other young adult in the city.

Devyn ended up in the seat next to me again, his chair uncomfortably close. I was so concerned with not touching him that I managed to stumble clumsily for the second time. His jacket was hanging off the back of his chair and whatever none-of-my-business thing was in the pocket scraped my leg as I rearranged my chair next to his.

I scowled, rubbing at the spot as I retook my seat, only inches between us now. Imperial tech was always superbly finished, uniform silver, smooth, and compact. Not gold like glazed amber, and certainly not sharp. It could only have come from beyond our walls. But where would he have sourced such a thing? And why? It wouldn’t even be compatible with our hardware.

I shook my head, trying to focus. The Reformation was one of my weaker subjects, but the bar was low, given the selection of mostly dusty legislative classes we were required to attend, packed with mind-numbing civic obligations and duties.

“When Aurelius XV became consul, the Britannia Province wasn’t much more than the city itself, and the citizens were deemed to be half-native,” Professor Livius droned on. “Hard to imagine now, but in a world where the Olympian myths and the Christian god of earlier generations had faded, some had even adopted the religious practices of the Celtic kingdoms, and druids could be regularly found inside the walls.”

I jotted down the years: 1521, new council begins era of reform; 1528, introduction of imperial Code of Conduct and expulsion of Britons from the city; 1540, end of the Tewdwr dynasty leading to the Two Hundred Years’ War; until the eventual Treaty of 1772 and the establishment of agreed borders between the imperial Province and the rest of the peoples of Britannia.

Devyn Agrestis.

How long had we been in the same classes? I couldn’t seem to recall. We didn’t share the same social circles and certainly not the same virtual ones. I knew nearly everyone in this particular round of citizenship classes. I should, I went to school and college with most of them. Beyond them, there was an even wider circle of people all across Londinium whose views I knew on every topic from celebrity homes to upload damage whom I might not even recognise if I met them in real life.

I realised I actually knew little to nothing about Devyn. Even though we were in the same civics class and, thinking about it, I was sure we had attended the same secondary school as well.

My eye ran from his loose, dark curls down his straight nose, over his lips, past the column of his throat, to the rise and fall of his chest. He was sort of… well, nondescript, but my eyes kept wanting to trace his features. I froze as I saw his brows pulling together over those dark eyes. He had noticed.

I cringed, quickly redirecting my focus to Lucia Lonis, who had the floor.

“It goes without question that the introduction of the imperial Code of Conduct paved the way for the Glorious Reformation. Imagine the city if it was still overrun by natives, freely walking our streets, marrying into our families… It’s bad enough that they’re allowed in for the Treaty Renewal. At least that interaction is limited, but even that could and should be reduced. Why can’t the Renewal be done outside the walls?” she implored the room, delicately shuddering, as if allowing Britons entry into the city for one week every four years was going to contaminate us in some way.

Lucia’s dramatics only called attention to the rumours that had followed the Lonis family for the last few generations that before the introduction of the Code the family had been much less worried about relations with the local inhabitants. Particularly during periods when it had been economically advantageous to do so. By all accounts, at one point the Lonis family had been more native than not, some sections of the family choosing to make their fortunes outside the walls in the wider province where intermarrying with Britons reduced some of the more threatening aspects of life in the Shadowlands. These days, nobody could question the purity of the Lonis blood and their commitment to the imperial Code, if Lucia’s performance was anything to go by: she was the very model of modern Roman elite; she could be a woman from the age of the ancients reborn. I had once yearned for the glossy black curtain that Lucia flicked behind her shoulder. My own hair was a rather gaudier colour.

Lucia’s interminable monologue was cut short by sentinels silently entering the room, their dark red cloaks almost as black as their uniforms from the rain. They slid in through the door, expressionless, still… like a breeze, almost unnoticed but cooling the temperature imperceptibly.

Time felt sluggish to me, and I noticed them a fraction of a second before anyone else in the room responded. Lucia stopped speaking. Everyone went utterly still. Why were they here? Or rather, who were they here for?

Devyn, they were here for Devyn.

Seated beside him, I swore I could feel the heavy thump of his heart, rapid and loud before it returned to slow, steady composure. Much quicker to return to normal than anyone else’s. But there remained a coiled tension that seemed to pulse off him.

That glint of gold in his pocket, I hadn’t imagined it. It wasn’t imperial technology. I was sure of it now.

And that’s when I did it. I put my hand down in the space between our chairs and reached into his pocket, my fingers closing around the strange, unfamiliar shape they found there.

“Devyn Agrestis.” The uniformed sentinel spoke softly into the unnaturally still room.

Devyn rose, his exit from the chair taking him a fraction further than necessary, so he stood between me and the sentinels, allowing me an extra moment to tuck the device into my pocket and lay my once again innocent hand back in my lap. My entire being was focused on appearing normal. Slow, heart, slow. I blinked dismissively at the sentinels’ intrusion into my day. My features composed themselves into their usual agreeable – if a little haughty – expression, not dissimilar to everyone else in the room.

Despite the unlikely chance that anyone in the room had ever so much as littered, everyone wore a studied kind of indifference at the shocking appearance of sentinels in our classroom. I looked around at my classmates, many of whom, like me, had known Devyn for years. Yet we all sat there, unflinching.

The stern-faced lead sentinel motioned Devyn forward. My stomach folded in on itself. When he reached them, they surrounded him as they left the room together.

The class immediately resumed, water closing over the submerged stone of the interruption, barely so much as a ripple left on the surface. The only sign anything untoward had occurred was the empty cooling seat beside my own.

While I remained calm on the outside, my mind was churning, sifting through recollections of the lean shadow that was Devyn Agrestis, attempting to find a pattern, a truth that made sense.

Chaos in the Code. The graffiti I had seen this morning flashed through my mind.

There were some in the city who were not fans of the Code, people who preferred to push against the limitations of the walls rather than embrace the security they gave us.

Dissidents talked a big talk, but beyond a bit of graffiti they made little impact on city life. Occasionally a hacker was arrested, someone who, in the name of chaos, breached the digital firewalls which were every bit as vital to the protection of the city as the physical walls themselves.

If Devyn had been questioned with unauthorised tech on him, he could have been accused of sympathising with such people. I wasn’t sure what he might need such a thing for but being mistaken for a dissident would have been bad, perhaps even fail him in our civics course. What was he playing at? He was an elite. He had access to all the tech he could need. Some people just had to poke at things better left alone, I thought, tidying a loose tendril of hair behind my ear.

Outrageously, what perturbed me most in the immediate aftermath, making my thoughts teem and jostle against each other, was that feeling. The scalding awareness that had exploded between us the second I touched him. What was it? Where had it come from? And more pressingly, would I experience it again?

Even though I had known Devyn for ever, I felt like I had never really seen him before today.

I hoped we never had an exam on the topics covered in the rest of the morning’s classes, as unless it was on the shape and texture of the thing in my pocket and the myriad possible explanations for it and its owner then I was doomed.

At lunch, I grabbed a juice blend from the fruit seller in the forum, momentarily pulled from thoughts of Devyn at the sight of a pineapple. I adore them, but they hadn’t been readily available in recent months, which usually meant that traffic from the tropics was being impeded. It would explain my father’s lousy mood of late. Double bonus to see it in the market today – happy father and delicious tangy beverage. I sipped my juice, wondering if they had released Devyn yet. After all, they would have no reason to detain him now that I had the device.

I took a perch on the stairs of the arch nearest the silk seller’s shop, an old favourite from when my father would bring me to the forum and I would wait quietly, mesmerised by the colours and feel of the exotic material. The spot on the second gallery also offered an excellent view of the vast marketplace below. The rain continued to pour down on the shoppers, merchants, gossips, and general loiterers milling about in the ancient venue, dodging around stalls and statues, sheltering under the grand columned entrances of the basilicas, keeping to the porticoed arcades as much as possible.

On the pedestal in the courtyard below me, a sharp-featured man was speaking against the lack of privacy in the city. It was a not uncommon complaint from those who took a stand on the forum’s stage, where citizens could voice their opinion free of repercussions. Taxes, overpopulation, warmongering, and privacy were the topics most commonly debated at length here. Occasionally, some fool would even take the stand to rail against the imperial Code that shaped our society. Those were rare though.

Honour, loyalty, justice, city, empire – these simply weren’t smart targets to take aim at, and anyone fool enough to attempt it ran the risk of the crowd in the forum dealing out their own form of justice even if the sentinels didn’t.

Today’s speaker wasn’t even particularly witty or original. If you were going to stand up in the forum to tackle a topic like privacy and the obligation of every citizen to live with complete transparency under the council’s watchful eye, then you really had to bring something new to the debate. This fool seemed to like the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

Ginevra joined me just as he was reaching his concluding arguments in a voice that suggested he, at least, was terribly impressed with himself. Raising one perfectly arched brow, Ginevra took a seat on the step beside me.

“I hear your Reformation class was a little more interesting than usual,” she said.

I tilted my chin up to indicate she should fill me in on what she’d heard. Gossip-lover that she was, she didn’t have to be invited twice, proceeding to regale me with the best of the questions and speculation zinging between our classmates. What could the sentinels want with him? Was it anything to do with tonight’s Mete? If so, what could it be? Had he fallen victim to a street swindler? Had he witnessed something?

If only they knew. It never occurred to any of them, elites as they were, that one amongst them might have actually broken the Code. The Code outlined our duties as citizens, it was our moral centre, the foundation of our city and our lives within it. Why would we ever do anything to defy it?

I answered Ginevra’s questions about what had happened, honestly, with a few minor omissions. No need to mention the physical awareness I suddenly had of a boy I had barely noticed before or the small matter of the strange device I had stolen from him. As Ginevra didn’t know to ask those questions, it was unnecessary to lie, which I had never been particularly successful at. I hadn’t needed to be.

Maybe a good liar was someone who practised more often. Perhaps the more you crossed the line, the better you were at it. I wasn’t in the habit of thinking of myself as inhabiting a space anywhere near the line – until today, anyway – and I was certainly uncomfortable with my current proximity. I would be more than happy to back further away. The device in my pocket was small enough that if I really tried, I could almost forget it was there. If it were to drop out as I walked home by the river, then it would be as if the whole thing had never happened.

“I have Prof Livius next myself,” Ginevra announced, popping up. “Do you think he’ll know more or could I squeeze in a hair appointment if I leave now?”

“I think even if Prof Livius knows something he would never say anything. Especially if it’s anything juicy.”

“Right, as if Devyn Agrestis would have broken the Code.”

“You never know.” I shrugged with as much indifference as I thought she would buy.

“Maybe we’ll see him on the sands,” she said, wagging her eyebrows in a faux-ominous manner before dashing off, checking her hair out in a shop window as she made her way down the arcade.

A pang of unease washed through me. Having illegal tech could be a serious offence. Devyn undoubtedly took a risk in carrying such a thing into the heart of the city. But if the sentinels were questioning him, and he knew where it was, being caught with it in my pocket certainly wouldn’t aid my plausible deniability if Devyn gave me up.

I hurried through the forum, wondering what on earth to do with it until I passed by the Great Basilica. It was more properly known as Basilica Garai, in honour of the Governor who had rebuilt after the early Londinium settlement had been burnt down by some Briton queen. The basilica was home to a library that was the pride of the city. The lines and lines of dusty tomes hidden inside spoke of age and erudition nearly as much as the ivy that crawled up the stone walls and the impeccably preserved mosaics on the floor. Overtaken by technology, the books had little utility now and rarely left the shelves, which was perfect for my purposes.

I moved past the students and academics making use of the workstations, heading towards the deeper, dustier rows. I ran my fingers lightly along the edges of the books until I found a title that practically whimpered as it was pulled off the shelf.

Social Conventions and Concerns of the Shadower Woman in the Age of Sentenus VII, vol. 2748.1.

Hopefully the anthropology students had moved on to more significant issues by now than whatever petty concerns those who lived outside the walls had protested about nearly two centuries ago. The book had broken away from the spine, leaving just enough space for me to slip the small golden device inside. I pushed it back onto the shelf and walked back through the shelves, looking around casually before making my way swiftly home to change.

It would be safe there. I breathed a sigh of relief, my thoughts now turning to the big night ahead.

If anyone had told me yesterday that I wouldn’t even have started getting ready for my first Mete at this point in the day, I’d have thought them suffering from some kind of mind glitch. But here I was, only hours away from being there in person and from seeing Marcus in real life for the first time in years, and I hadn’t even done my hair yet.

Chapter Two

I made my way down to the lobby, my hands still smoothing my carefully selected outfit. I had spent weeks searching for precisely the right skirt to go with the aqua silk blouse I had bought almost a year earlier because it matched my eyes. My long hair was tied up in the elaborate braids that showed off its multiple hues to best effect. My mother might prefer it if I kept my hair tidied away, but I had moved on from my childhood desire to blend in and preferred to see my red-tinted hair as my signature not my stigma.

I surveyed my appearance in the mirror one last time. Satisfied, I headed for the door, smiling back at our maid Anna as she handed me my wrap on the way out. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event for most citizens. While it was not likely to be the case for me, I meant to savour every heartbeat of my first one, every scent, every sound to be imprinted on my mind for ever.

Attending the weekly Mete was a privilege afforded to few, as there was only room in the ancient amphitheatre for the greatest citizens: the council, of course, and the chosen of the city, those who had been recognised as having served the state and who were honoured by being granted a seat for the duration of their lifetime. The most prestigious families had boxes, many of which had belonged to their houses since the founding of the city. Then there were a couple of hundred seats left that were allocated either by lottery or charitable auction – or in my case because I was in the current civics class. Or rather, because I was in the civics class in the forum; other civics classes in the city weren’t afforded a similar privilege.

Too excited to wait around, I had decided to walk across the city rather than take the monorail. All the better to fully appreciate the day, or at least the evening. In light of earlier events, I felt, for the first time in my life, slightly worried about my own place in society. Up until this morning, I had been the most upstanding of citizens, could have walked with my head held high into the amphitheatre. Now I felt somehow tarnished, but I pushed the thought aside, determined not to let it ruin my evening.

The walk would take an hour or so, and I needed every minute of it to get rid of the jitters that had beset me since I arrived home. I didn’t often walk, usually taking the trains or the elevated red buses that sped around the higher levels of the city. But sometimes I was overcome by a restlessness, a sense of being caged that sent me out into the streets, walking until I was too exhausted to feel it anymore.

Constrained by the walls that protected it, Londinium could not move freely outwards, and so the city had instead built upwards, ever higher and higher into the clouds. I followed the layers of the city into the sky. The grand avenues, interlaced by the medieval lanes and alleys, wound upwards through a city of concrete and steel, marble and glass, the lower levels dotted with the temples and buildings of the ancients.

The few areas where the sun shone all the way down to ground level were exclusively reserved for the first imperial jewels: the forum, the Governor’s Palace, the amphitheatre, and the White Tower, protected over the ages by the council. The historic temples and some public parks were also conserved, but the scrapers still straddled them, casting them into shadow. Only a handful of ancient buildings were so prized that miles of unhindered sky was kept free above them. It was these precious few that held the most fascination for me.

Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the chaos of the world I lived in, lives taking place at different layers of the city. There was the bustle of the ground, the merchants and traders, each street-level front door and window plying their wares in the various sections – Rope St, Candle St, Tailor St – by the forum. There was Services St, Design St, and the like past the financial district up by the silicon roundabout. Surgeons and plastics and dermatologists inhabited the Harley St area. The city was fed via the great Tower markets – meat at Smithfields tower, fish at Billingsgate. Fruit and vegetables had moved from Covent Garden further east towards the docks as the inner West End and Drury Lane tower became a hive of theatres and entertainment centres.

As I made my way through its labyrinthine grandeur, the thought of that strange stolen device was a loaded stone in my heart. What had I been thinking? Even to touch such a thing was a sin against society. Our city might be seen by the Caesar as a remote outpost, but here we considered it a shining beacon of civilisation, one that should be nurtured and protected. Even if it wasn’t actively dangerous, illegal tech of any kind was a threat to the city I loved and the people in it. I vowed to throw it in the Tamesis as soon as I could – as I should already have done. That would be an end to it.

I had purposefully chosen to take a highwalk, the curling path taking me through the neons of Piccadilly. It skimmed across the top of the theatre district, many floors above the older theatres and opera houses at ground level and past the more avant-garde centres where the live-streamed dramas and comedies my friends and I watched were produced.

I kept my eye out for a glimpse of any actors, who could sometimes be seen exiting the stage doors. The die-hard fans always knew how long it took their favourites to end a scene, get out of costume, and hit the exit, so I slowed whenever I saw a group gathered beside a door.

But I couldn’t afford to linger, even when I noticed a particularly large crowd outside the Windup Theatre which broadcast my latest favourite period drama, set in the reign of Governor Jerolin, who had ruled during the war years before the Treaty. As I approached the Bailey Tower my heart started to beat faster. I went up a couple of levels to ensure I came out at one of the higher balconies, all the better to savour every moment of my approach.

The bustle and excitement of the crowd swept me along to the southwestern balcony above the amphitheatre. I looked up to savour the darkening sky and, wriggling through to the front of the gallery, I let my gaze drop down the vast expanse of air, taking it all in: the northern and eastern balconies, the lights of the housing behind lowering as the balcony curtains were dropped, the oohs and ahhs of the crowd making their way onto the terraces as the neon display screens perched high on the surrounding buildings came on. It really was the most spectacular sight and I had timed my arrival perfectly. I smiled my delight into the cooling evening air as my gaze dropped level after level until I could see the oval of the arena itself. The hairs on my arms raised. I could barely believe I was going to be down there.

“Cassandra.” I turned at the sound of my name, scanning the people milling about on the balcony behind me.

“Cassandra, over here.”

Redirecting my search over to the balcony on my right, I spotted Ginevra and Ambrose waving excitedly. I grinned back at them, indicating I would meet them at the nearest lift. Taking one last glance at the arena below, I started to push through the second wave of the crowd entering the balcony. Unlike some who had apparently been holding their spot for hours, these people seemed happy to arrive with only half an hour to go and jockey and jostle each other for whatever view they could manage to get from further back on the public galleries high above the arena.

I was scanned for my right of admission and, at a nod from the sentinel, skipped over to where Ginevra and Ambrose waited. Ginevra was talking nonstop as we stepped into the glass cube that swept us down to ground level, the cubes synchronised so that the entry of the arena’s audience was efficiently and gracefully controlled.

I could see that the stone walls and the original cobbles were dusted with sand as we got closer. I could scarcely believe how familiar and iconic everything was, yet also how strangely new it felt seeing it firsthand like this. I reached out and trailed my hand along the ancient honey-coloured stone walls of the entrance. What must those awaiting judgement feel now? I shivered at the thought.

What type of offences would be on show tonight? I hoped it was something good. Last Saturday’s event had been something of a damp squib, definitely the least interesting Mete from recent months. Those in my class whose surnames began M through Q had been disappointed, though they, of course, had still been all about their experience in class on Monday. The worst of the criminals judged last Saturday had been sentenced to the stocks, which those classmates had made sure to visit during the week, if only to lob a piece of bad fruit at them for not having committed something more worthy of what was likely to be the single visit of their lifetime to the amphitheatre. As we followed the signs to our allocated seating, Ambrose and Ginevra speculated animatedly on the type of Codebreaker we might see this evening.

Nearly every seat was taken when the high council entered, the twelve senators elegantly taking their seats; their immediate families were already seated further back on the balcony. I recognised the Lord Procurator who held the purse strings of the city, Senator Jerdin beside him with whom my father had occasional dealings, then Senator Dolon on the far left. I cast around for his son Marcus, gnawing my lip; I would have expected to see him in the family area behind the council. Was he not coming? It seemed unlikely – if I had a permanently available seat I would never miss one – but I couldn’t see him. I felt a pang of disappointment. I had tried not to think about it too much, but I had secretly hoped to see him in real life this evening.

I scanned the tier of boxes occupied by the great houses once more. Ah, there he was. A burnished head sat amongst a glamorous group in the Courtenay box. Of course, he would have a box, inherited from his mother’s family, along with his surname which was one of the oldest in the city, and correspondingly one of the largest boxes. Ginevra caught the direction of my gaze and coughed pointedly at catching me mooning over the city’s most eligible son, before bursting into a fit of giggles at the resulting flush of colour on my cheeks. But I could hardly be blamed for looking, as Ginevra well knew.

“All right, settle down,” I pleaded with my friend, trying to conceal my blushes from the rest of the group, whose attention was being drawn by her peals of laughter. My connection to Marcus Courtenay was not public knowledge and I frowned at my friend’s lack of discretion.

The announcement of Governor Actaeon and Praetor Calchas thankfully drowned her out, and an expectant hush came over the crowd as the pair made their way solemnly to the front of the council’s box in full ceremonial regalia.

The stern-faced governor strode to the front of the box and solemnly cast his gaze around the arena. I was torn between looking at the big screen above the highest tier of the amphitheatre to take in the high-definition close-up of the most important man in our province, and looking at the actual man standing not twenty feet to my right. I finally settled on watching the man in person as I could always re-watch the actual broadcast later. He looked smaller in real life, as he delivered the traditional welcome.

“Friends, Romans, citizens, we are gathered here once more in Londinium’s great amphitheatre that has witnessed our dedication to the imperial Code for two thousand years. We are the first and last defence of the Empire. The walls keep us safe, but our Code keeps us strong. In the Code we are one.”

And the entire arena responded together, “We are one in the Code.”

The moral and ethical Code protected us all. It was the system we all relied on as much as the programming Code given to us by tonight’s honoured citizen, the legend and genius that was Louis Vanders, who in his youth had brought new depths to the computing languages on which the technology underpinning our world ran.

I followed the direction of the Governor’s nod to locate him. He was on the far side of the arena, a woman who must be his nurse or daughter helping him rise to accept the crowd’s applause.

The crowd grew silent again as the great doors to the arena opened, and the governor took his seat.

Praetor Calchas, the highest judge in the land, and commander of the legions stationed in the province, and who was rather more approachable-looking than the governor, stepped forward.

“Bring forth the accused,” he directed at the sentinels who flanked the shadowed entrance.

Tonight’s accused, wearing standard black uniforms, shuffled into the arena. The traditional masks and hoods that covered their faces were in place, beneath which their hearing would also be blocked so they were unable to hear what happened to their fellow accused. This meant they existed in a state of stasis at the side of the arena until it was their turn to be brought forward and judged.

The silence was unnerving. I was used to hearing the swell of the signature music that accompanied the entrance of the accused into the arena. Then the stamping began, each member of the audience contributing to the pounding which reverberated through the building. I shivered in response. The accused must be able to feel it – the thud of the crowd, a vibrating baying for their blood. I marvelled at the revelation. Familiar as I was with the Metes, I had already glimpsed an authentic aspect of the event that I could barely have guessed at watching the broadcast.

What must the accused make of it? This unexpected pounding that vibrated through the very foundations of the ancient building must be disconcerting at the very least.

I wasn’t sure why I was spending so much time thinking about the accused and what they must be feeling. Usually, I was too busy making sure I had everything I needed for the Mete when I watched at home. I took my obligation to judge very seriously, often taking notes to make sure I followed the more complicated cases.

My mother’s approach was much less considered. She usually judged the person on the way they took the sands to face judgement, often before the first clip had been shown. She had a pretty shoddy record in other aspects as well: it was mandatory to vote on at least 80% of judgments but my mother, at 84%, was well below the average. Usually, it was because she was out socialising and used the time of the broadcast to whip across the city in a fraction of the time. My father and I took it much more seriously, he at 98% – exemplary – and I at 91%. This was low considering I had never missed a broadcast since I turned eighteen, but I was squeamish about voting in capital offence cases. My father even allowed me to leave the room during the executions. He had taken me aside earlier in the week to warn me my vote would likely be under more scrutiny while I was in citizenship class. I needed to redress the balance so that my lack of voting in more serious cases wasn’t so apparent. I hoped there wasn’t anything horrible here tonight. I had no desire to witness blood on the sand.

The first of the accused was walked into the centre of the arena, guided by two sentinels. His hood and mask remained firmly in place – justice had to be blind so we wouldn’t see their faces until after the vote had taken place. The mask also had a switch that was controlled remotely so they could hear the evidence against them when it was their moment on the sands.

The praetor’s voice rang around the arena as he spoke the most iconic words in our city.

“You are accused of crimes against the Code. How do you plead?”

The crowd held its breath. The man in the hood fell to his knees; he chose to deny the accusations, to throw his case open to the judgement of his fellow citizens. The amphitheatre broke into delighted applause. The entertainment was underway.

Praetor Calchas waited until the applause died down before pointing up at the screen.

“The accused has been charged with breaking the Code by failing to pay taxes owed to the city.”

The film rolled, compiled by the sentinels from the city’s pervasive cameras. In it we watched as a tall ship sailed up the Tamesis. The name was blurred out – a precaution to ensure voting was as unbiased as possible – just as the face of the accused in the footage was blurred in bright red; any bystanders in the shots were also blurred out in grey to ensure no innocent party was targeted after the Mete by members of the public. After all, they weren’t to know that they were associating with a Codebreaker. Unless they did, I admonished myself.

We watched as the ship’s cargo was offloaded onto the docks, inspected, and duly signed off by the customs officer. Fast forward to night time, and the ship’s captain – for that was who the accused seemed to be – returned and entered the warehouse where he cut into a number of the bales carrying cotton from the Americas and pulled out several small bags. As he exited the warehouse, the sentinels closed in. The camera panned in for a close-up on the bags as they were opened and nuggets of gold were produced from within.

The crowd roared and the captain pushed himself up to a standing position. The crowd roared even louder at his impudence. It was far too late to attempt to get out of a public vote. The severity of the sentence tended to be influenced by the results of the election, and the evidence here left little doubt.

Praetor Calchas raised his fist, thumb out to the side and the crowd fell silent for the sixty seconds accorded to the Public Vote. I reached into my pocket and clicked the button to indicate guilty. Around the city, I imagined the thousands of others who were doing the same as the clock counted down.

The dong signalled the end of the vote, the sentinels removed the man’s hood and mask, and he watched as the praetor took the note handed to him and his thumb pointed down.

“Captain Delmer, you have been found guilty of smuggling and in light of a 99.87% conviction rate you are sentenced to our most severe punishment for evasion of taxes. You are to serve the city for ten years, during which time you will take no profits from your work, and at the end of this period your case will be reviewed.”

The man sagged onto his knees once more. He would be utterly ruined, but the sentence was just; this was what happened to those who stole from the city.

The crowd applauded again but politely, their interest waning. There was no further fun to be had with this one then. Calchas raised his hand once more.

“In light of your freedom to exit the city, please note that should you attempt to flee your sentence, your family will be held accountable, and their blood shall stain the sand in your place. This is the sentence of the city upon you.”

The sailor on the sand nodded, accepting his fate. He walked from the sand, but as we were waiting for the next accused to be brought forward, our attention was caught by activity happening off–screen.

The sentinels were dragging a new hooded figure onto the sands. I had no memory of anything similar ever happening before, either of an accused arriving after the opening ceremony or of them being dragged in unable to walk on their own. The man was thrown into the cage where the others waited, and was left by the sentinels sitting propped up by the wall of the arena. I looked to the big screens but the cameras hadn’t shown this unusual event; only those in the actual arena would have witnessed the late entrant. The swirl of the praetor’s robes caught my eye as he turned to glare at someone behind him – a praetorian guard hurrying forward to whisper in his ear. It appeared Praetor Calchas did not approve of this event either. Was the latecomer unexpected or was he just annoyed at the untidiness of his arrival?

The next accused was marched to the centre of the sand. Praetor Calchas’s voice rang out once more.

“You are accused of crimes against the Code. How do you plead?”

This man, slighter than the last, also knelt. Another citizen wishing to put his fate in the hands of the people. The crowd roared their approval.

Calchas again pointed up at the screen.

“You have been accused of theft.”

The screens lit up with the evidentiary reel. An apprentice – the accused – toiled away at a work table cutting and sewing cloth. The finished products were cheap and of average style. Disappointing.

My attention wandered, the attraction of checking out Marcus Courtenay – golden prince of the city – too difficult to resist. He sat in the middle of his box, the charismatic centre of his group of friends, the last scion of the old blood, descendant of the rose king of York. My heart fluttered. It was hard to believe that the stranger on the other side of the arena was my soulmate.

I caught myself. I knew better. That word, the concept of someone being the predestined other half of your soul, was outdated, like religion or one of those twentieth-century cars that ran on fossil fuel or something. I’d studied enough literature to know that in earlier times it had been a matter of luck: you met and married the nearest person to your village who was also looking for someone, usually based on status or looks or, hard though it was to believe, physical strength. I’d seen this whole series of bursts on it. The idea had intrigued me though. The bursts were on a sociological matrimonial study. Each looked at a different aspect of how matches were made in real time through the eras. Even early online experiences had been hit and miss with a laughably low ratio of successful matches, but steadily online rates had improved as real-time opportunities became fewer. New technological advances had also helped, mainly the take-off of pharma combined with wearable technology that added a chemical dimension to the psychometric to allow the sequencing that ultimately perfected the matching system.

At a gasp from the crowd, I quickly refocused on the giant screens as the apprentice took a bolt of extremely expensive-looking cloth and put it inside his coat. He was then shown walking out of his master’s studio, with it still hidden inside his coat. It seemed a straightforward enough case, but the film kept rolling. We were shown the apprentice in a shabby room, crowded with people – his family, presumably. Once they were all asleep, he got up and, despite the long hours he had already worked, sat night after night, cutting and sewing the cloth by candlelight. The dress he produced was remarkable, an object of incredible beauty. The footage concluded, as it always did, with the sentinels arresting him. His mother was screaming, his brothers and sisters crying, as he was pulled unresisting from his home.

The vote began. There was no denying that the crime had been committed and by kneeling the apprentice had chosen to throw himself on the mercy of the city. In some cases, sentences were lightened if the city could see a mitigating motivation or another factor that inspired mercy. In this case, it looked as though the apprentice was hoping the end would justify the means. He shouldn’t have stolen from his master, but the dress he had produced had been a credit to the rich cloth.

Wary of my father’s warning, I hesitated over the judgement. The young man’s talent had been suppressed and I inwardly applauded his courage in doing something he knew was wrong to attain something he felt was right. I twisted the platinum ring on my left hand, closing my eyes as I pressed guilty with my right. I could only hope the wider audience had voted innocent. The clock counted down and the young man flinched as the dong signalled the end of the vote.

The man’s mask was removed, revealing a thin, pale face, his frail frame looking as if he would crumble at any moment. The praetor accepted the note and on reading it, his thumb pointed down.

“Apprentice Oban, the city has spoken and has found you guilty at a rate of 62.38%. It appears many citizens of the city wish to grant you some clemency. Having previewed the case, we had prepared for such a result. Master Simmonds, take the sands.”

The camera panned to the apprentice’s master in the box reserved for the witnesses that were on occasion called on to answer a question or report on an event not caught on camera. The fussy looking master tailor seemed startled as he took his place in the centre of the arena beside the apprentice who had stolen from him.

“Lord High Justice,” he called up to the council's box, “I don’t understand. I have done nothing. This man stole from me and I reported the crime. Why must I stand here in the place of judgement?”

Praetor Calchas did not appear pleased to be spoken to out of turn like this and stood in stony silence until the tailor stopped talking.

“It is for me to decide who stands in judgement on these sands, Master Tailor, not you. Am I understood?”

Despite it clearly being rhetorical, the man hastily nodded his agreement.

“We stand here today in judgement of a man guilty of theft. However, the city, in its wisdom, has indicated that it wishes to show leniency. We find that this man’s crime was caused by a more insidious crime – that of stifling the talent of a citizen. Master Tailor Simmonds, we find that you are a fool and as such will be attired as befits that status.”

The sentinels pulled Master Simmonds over to a small tent at the edge of the arena. The praetor turned his attention to the trembling young man who was watching in shock as his master was led away.

“Apprentice Oban, theft is not an offence to which we usually grant leniency. Yet it would be a shame to leave one of those talented hands upon the sands here today. Therefore, you will share your master’s punishment.”

At his nod, the young man was also led away by the sentinels towards the tent. Praetor Calchas turned and spoke to the governor until laughter broke out from the crowd as the pair reappeared. Master Simmonds, his dignity clearly much offended, was dressed as a clown, while his red-faced apprentice followed behind dressed in a larger version of the dress that had been his undoing. The praetor’s face lit up in amusement as they retook their position to the jeers and catcalls of the crowd.

“You have been dressed as befits your crimes, sirs.”

The oddly attired duo stood awaiting their sentence.

“For the crime of stupidity, Master Simmonds, you must bear this costume for a month as you go about your daily business in the hope that you remember not to waste opportunities that are gifted to you. Apprentice Oban, you too shall don this outfit for a month while you serve your master honestly. After this time, you will attend the College of Design to be more appropriately trained as befits your talent. You will thereafter be established with your own shop. The fees for your education and shop will be taken from your profits, after which you will donate 30% of your earnings for your lifetime to a fund to educate other deserving citizens who would not otherwise be given such an opportunity.”

He paused, allowing the audience a moment to appreciate his mercy.

“This is the sentence of the city upon you both.”

Both men nodded their acceptance, the apprentice clearly still shocked by the turn of events. He must have entered the arena today expecting to lose a hand, the customary punishment given to those found guilty of petty theft. Instead, he would be walking away to a future so much brighter than the one he’d had before committing his crime. I felt a flash of relief at his sentence too, grateful that my attempt to improve the weighting of my own voting record hadn’t harmed him in any way. He was rained with flowers as he left the arena wearing the dress that had so changed his fate. I spotted the fashion-forward Ginevra tucking his name away in anticipation of his shop opening. It shouldn’t take too long for him to discharge his debt and set up shop.

I refocused on the remaining cases. Most were minor and were sentenced to the stocks or other public humiliations. The last but one was a shocking adultery case. Crime in the city was low, but crimes against family and loyalty – the core of the Code – were beyond rare, especially given our matching system. The woman stood, head bowed, as she took her place at the centre of the arena, which meant the footage captured must be impossible to deny. Her lover had fled into the stews, but it was only a matter of time before he too was brought before the city. The woman’s mask was removed to reveal a tear-stained face. She was summarily sentenced to exile from the city, stripped bare before us all and redressed in sackcloth, her hair shorn, then marched out of the arena. She would be walked to the eastern gate at the end of the Mete and thrown out to meet whatever fate awaited her as a destitute beggar in the Shadowlands. The route to the eastern gate would take her across the city and undoubtedly would be full of people turning out to shower her with further humiliation.

The woman was barely off the sand before the crowd in the arena turned their attention with interest to the latecomer who had been dragged in. He stood now, having found his feet at some point during proceedings, alone in the cage.

He shrugged off the hands of the sentinels as they attempted to march him to the centre of the sands. Despite the mask blinding him, he strode in the direction he had been facing until at their command, he came to a stop. His hearing must have already been restored, his spine straightening further at the sound of the crowd jeering him for his attitude.

“You are accused of crimes against the Code. How do you plead?”

It was a surprise to no one when the man refused to bend the knee. The mob erupted, clamouring to see the evidence, condemning him already for the insolence he had shown to the sentinels. The praetor raised his hand to command silence. When the deafening noise subsided, he spoke directly to the audience.

“You are accused of hacking.”

I lifted a trembling hand to my lips. Hacking struck at the very heart of our security. The walls were the physical symbol of our defences against the island’s natives, but it was our technology that was the real deterrent to the armies that occupied the lands around us, keeping them from attacking. Hacking was, therefore, a capital offence. My dream evening had turned into my worst nightmare. I dug my nails into my hands to prevent my face from revealing my horror. I could abstain from the vote, and no one around me would know, but I couldn’t avoid watching the blood spill on the sand. I was in the actual live audience; I couldn’t risk the camera panning to me and be caught not showing the proper form for an execution of someone found guilty of such a heinous crime against the state.

The crowd was in a frenzy at the prospect, but I watched as the praetor spoke in an aside with Governor Actaeon, and a couple of other senators. When he returned to his position at the front of the balcony, the amphitheatre fell silent in panting anticipation.

“Sir, you have been found guilty of hacking and damaging the security of the Code – the Code of tonight’s most honoured guest.”

I could barely hear him over the sound of my pounding heart.

“As you have damaged the city, the city in its turn demands you be damaged in punishment. You are sentenced to public flogging.”

The crowd buzzed as everyone turned to their neighbour to check if they had heard correctly. This man was to get off so lightly…? What was going on? The praetor stood impassively as the crowd began to hiss in disgust and anger at being denied a capital vote as the hooded man was strung up and his back bared.

Any earlier delight at how close my seat was to the front evaporated. I felt only churning dismay as I watched the flecks of blood hit the sand. From where I sat I was looking at his front so thankfully I couldn’t see the lash gouge into his flesh, but I could see the impact of each hit, his body arching in agony at each blow. His chest was already coloured in fresh bruises. Had he fought the sentinels? Was that why he hadn’t made his entrance with the others? I strained to control my own body’s flinch each time the whip came down, twisting and turning the ring that felt so heavy on my finger. The crowd stopped jeering as it delightedly took up the count. While an execution didn’t come along all that often, floggings were pretty rare as well. Devyn’s face flashed into my mind. He had been taken this morning… but no, my imagination was running away with me. No way was this man an elite. What motive would one of my class possibly have to do something so criminal?

I struggled to keep the contents of my stomach on the inside as the count reached the high teens. Blood ran down the man’s body onto the ground beneath him, trails of it dripping off the whip as it was raised each time. I glued my eyes on a point on the distant wall behind him. I really was going to throw up if I continued to watch. At least it would appear as if I was looking in the right direction. I kept my face impassive even as Ginevra leaned in to calm my fingers worrying aggressively at my promise ring. My eyes met those of Marcus Courtenay, who finally looked my way, but I was too numb to acknowledge him, each blow causing my gaze to lose more and more focus.

Twenty.

Finally, it was over.

The man fell to the ground as he was untied. Sentinels picked him up directed by a praetorian guard, the laurel emblem on his chest silver rather than the standard red of the sentinels. Why would a praetorian be overseeing the clearing up of a punished Codebreaker? It was lowly work for the esteemed guard of the council. Praetor Calchas thanked the citizenry for their duty, and we all stood as the senators and various dignitaries made their exit.

The crowd was mostly discussing the hacker’s light sentence as we made our way out of the arena. I overheard two senior men discussing the possibility that the hacker would be put to some other use by the city. My friends were less concerned at the hacker’s fate and more disappointed at not being shown the adulterer’s footage, but I could barely force myself to listen to them as my stomach was still in danger of revolting. A last glance at the arena before we exited showed the last accused, still masked, being dragged across the sand. He wasn’t moving and his head was hanging on his chest; I hoped he wasn’t conscious.

As we walked out, my thoughts turned to the crime I had witnessed – participated in – this morning. I needed to rid myself of all ties to it. While being in possession of black-market tech was a long way from hacking, I was still perilously close to a major transgression. With this fresh reminder of how the city frowned on any violation of the Code, I was stunned at my earlier actions.

What had I been thinking?

Chapter Three

“Where is it?”

“No ‘hi, hello, thanks for saving my skin’?” I asked, even as some part of me unclenched at finding myself cornered by Devyn Agrestis, dark eyes glaring down at me in an intense way that seemed at odds with my memories of his usually diffident character.

“Cassandra.” My name was half command, half frustrated exhale. “Just give it to me, and we can pretend like this never happened.”

My jaw dropped. Obviously, pretending yesterday’s blip never happened was the best way forward and certainly what I had resolved to do after my meltdown last night. But a little appreciation of the risk I had taken wouldn’t hurt either.

“Never happened? You… are you kidding me? First off, you smuggle some kind of nonregulation device into the forum of all places, then you get picked up by the sentinels, and”—my hand lifted until I was jabbing him in his surprisingly firm chest—“then you disappear for the rest of the day. I’ve been going out of my mind. There was a part of me that even thought maybe you were that hacker, last night, the one…”

My finger changed from being a taut instrument of accusation as a thought occurred to me, softening as its fellows uncurled to join it. Was it possible? I traced the outline of his chest with gentle fingertips, shaping, learning as they travelled the length of his torso around to his back where I pressed hard watching for a flinch. No reaction. I sagged in relief even as my fingers continued their path down his unmarred muscular back. He wasn’t the accused flogged last night. My breath hitched as I once again felt that odd tingle in the current that flowed between us.

I shook my head to clear it.

The sound of Ginevra calling my name made us turn – and taking this in, Devyn stepped back towards me slightly.

“Cassandra”—his tone softened to a hesitant plea—“I was hoping you might take a walk with me later, after class, perhaps?”

Before I had time to tell him in no uncertain terms what kind of walk he could take, he was gone, consumed by the tide of people who were making their way to the licensing offices.

I picked up my tablet as the last class of the day ended. What should I do, meet him? My stomach felt hollow at the thought. What did I know about Devyn, really, much less his damn illegal tech? What on earth was he doing with it and, more importantly, what did it do? The sentinels had dragged him out of class, but what had he told them? He couldn’t have said anything incriminating. They surely wouldn’t have let him out if he had. Nor would I be sitting here wondering whether or not taking a walk with a boy was going to land me in more trouble than I had ever believed possible.

I was not a rule breaker; I ticked every requirement of the Code. I was obedient, a good daughter, a moderate but diligent student. Abiding by the Code wasn’t even something I usually had to give any thought to; it was second nature. What on earth was I thinking? I wasn’t going to get involved, I should never have taken the device out of his pocket in the first place. It was none of my business. Devyn and his technology, wherever it was from, had nothing to do with me. All I needed to do was give him back whatever it was and I would be done with the whole business. In a few days, I could forget this had ever happened.

Resolved, I stood up and made my way down the hall towards the library in the Great Basilica.

Until a hand slid into mine and tugged.

And that quickly I was undone.

Up the hall and to the right lay sanity and sense: collect the tech, meet Ginevra, walk home via the river, toss it in… It would be that simple.

But somehow, I found myself traipsing after the slight figure in front of me, his movements lithe as I followed in his wake. He no longer held my hand and yet my path was unwavering, as if he had clamped a manacle around my wrist, the other end attached to his. I couldn’t have turned around and walked away if I tried.

Somehow, Code breaking felt more right and more natural than the Code compliance I was usually so good at.

I trailed behind Devyn as he wound his way through the porticoed arcade and out of the main entrance of the forum, moving west through the streets. The neon lures of the shops on the bridge were projected out before us – the latest running shoes briefly adorning his feet, a version of myself twirling in the most adorable little skirt as we passed one of my favourite clothes shops, the blue eyes of my avatar flashing as my body spun, long bright hair streaming. I brushed it away, irritably.

He led us through the financial districts, winding along the tangled walkways that curled around the grand formal architecture at this level, across the square that roofed the ancient Temple of Diana towards one of the great parks that sat at mid-level.

We turned right, continuing to walk along the open galleries until we hit the edge of the Pleasure Gardens, half a mile above river level, a wide expanse of manicured hedges, exotic trees, and lush flowers, paths curling in and around to their best advantage.

Devyn’s pace slowed, his dark head turning to acknowledge me for the first time since he touched my hand in the hallway, indicating that I should catch up to him. I paused. Was this a good idea? Would it be better to leave now?

Devyn’s head turned a little more. His eye caught mine, and his eyebrow raised ever so slightly. He knew I was nervous and yet he was daring me to do what I did not want to do. I took a step forward, and another, until I was alongside him.

He smirked, fiddling with his wristband.

“We are free to talk here.” Despite his words, his voice was still low.

“So… are you going to tell me what’s going on? What were you doing with that tech? What is it? What did you say to the sentinels? Wh—” I stopped and stared at him mutinously. “Tell me.”

“It’s sort of a long story, Cass.” His dark eyes fixed on me and I forgot to object to his irksome shortening of my name. “Why don’t we sit down?”

We sat on an old bench beside a fountain, the wood grey with age and warped at the joins. Few people came to this part of the gardens and, more pertinently, there didn’t seem to be a single camera in sight. It was rare for a place to be so unobserved, but I was grateful for it. The last thing I needed was the city’s surveillance catching me associating with someone recently questioned by the sentinels.

“I wasn’t expecting… that yesterday morning,” he began.

I snorted. “I don’t suppose you were. What were you doing bringing unauthorised tech into class?” I lowered my voice. “Into the forum?”

His lips lifted in the corner like I had said something amusing but only he was in on the joke. It was the first time I had seen the expression on his face but I was already starting to find it incredibly annoying.

“No,” he corrected, “I meant I wasn’t expecting you. Why did you help me? You didn’t have to get involved.”

Why had I helped him?

“I-I don’t know,” I stammered, thrown. “It wasn’t planned. But I couldn’t let them arrest you with the device on you, so it seemed… for the best.”

“Ah, so you thought it through then?”

I really hadn’t. My heart thumped at the recollection of that moment. I just hadn’t wanted him to get caught; it had been a reflex more than a decision. And I had ended up an accomplice to a major Code violation as a result.

Devyn reached across and patted down my pockets before he looked up and, taking in my expression of outrage, regarded me oddly. His hand lifted as if compelled and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. My breath hitched as, again, the nondescript boy I knew seemed to morph into someone I felt I was conjuring: lean, intense, strong; the cheekbones sharper, shoulders broader.

I blinked. A trick of the light? But no, I hadn’t forgotten that feeling when he caught me in class, or what I saw when I touched him in the forum. Something very odd was going on.

I jumped up; I was out of here. I stepped jerkily back out of reach, the breath in my lungs suddenly lacking in oxygen. I couldn’t get enough air.

Once again, Devyn was there, in front of me, his soft brown eyes locked with mine, an arm looping around the small of my back pulling me close as he laid his hand on my chest, the weight steadying me, connecting me to the ground, to him. I stood still, dragging in deep steady breaths in time with his.

“Okay?”

I nodded and he stepped away, backing out of my space as unobtrusively as he could. Something unreadable flickered in his eyes, an action that nagged at me like a cut on the inside of my lip, unnoticed until eating food containing salt when the pain would burst into life leaving you wondering how on earth you had forgotten it was there. Now, as the pain zinged through me, I noticed how much care he took not to touch me, doing so as little as possible. Yet he had already touched me more often in the last two days than anyone else had all week. As he backed away, I stepped towards him without conscious thought, drawn to him like metal filings to a magnet.

His knees hit the bench and he allowed his tall length to fold in on itself. I continued forward, letting my fingers run mesmerised through his dark hair and down his strong jawline.

“Who are you, Devyn Agrestis?”

“Same guy I’ve always been.” He pulled back, putting himself out of reach of my searching fingers. My eyes struggled to focus and I blinked down at the skinny, unremarkable boy looking calmly up at me from the bench.

“No, no, you aren’t,” I insisted. “I know what – okay, I don’t know what just happened – but I know that something did.”

He looked back at me impassively with polite confusion.

“I’m not crazy,” I insisted, at his raised eyebrow. “You’re doing someth—”

“Cass,” he cut across me, seeming to lose patience. “Look, I really appreciate what you did for me yesterday. Honestly, you saved my ass, but if I could just get the ah… thing back, you can go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine.”

Was he kidding?

“No. Absolutely not. You,” I said, poking him in the chest, that deceptively solid chest, “you are going to tell me what is going on here.”

He returned my gaze with that same inanely mild expression that suggested I was imagining things.

“I told you, thanks for helping out yesterday. I was holding on to it for a friend, but I really will need to get it back. To return it to him.”

I looked at him mutinously. He was actually going to keep up this act, this fraud, this fake—

Well, too late. The genie was out of the bottle, the cookie jar was open, the milk was well and truly spilt. But if he wouldn’t level with me, what was I actually accusing him of? Hey buddy, you’re actually a lot hotter than you let on. Or no, maybe the thing I should ask is why, after knowing him for years as a background figure, I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe around him? Or rather, that it was only when he was near that the air had any oxygen in it at all, oxygen that pulsed through my body, making me feel more alive than I had ever been.

He met my look with patent expectation that I would be happy to put this behind me. Let him slither back into the shadows. A contrary impulse made me smile and I let my lashes fall before stepping away from the bench.

“The tech… no problem. I was so nervous with the sentinels on the prowl that I hid it. There’s a party at my place on Friday night. Everybody’s coming. Why don’t you come over? I’ll give it to you then.”

I watched smugly as a not-so-innocuous flash of annoyance crossed his face, momentarily marring his mild-mannered facade.

“Oh, a party,” he drew out the word as if he was actually contemplating it. “Thanks, but it’s not really my thing. I can meet you by your locker tomorrow at the forum.”

I took another step away from him.

“I don’t care if it’s not really your thing. Being dragged off by the sentinels and thrown into the arena is most definitely not my thing. So you can suck it up and come over to my place with twenty or so close classmates where it’s pretty dark, where there’s loud music, and where nobody will be watching us too closely.” I paused to take a breath. “See you on Friday, yeah?”

It looked like Devyn was having a moment of difficulty holding on to his diffident manner. He took a moment before answering.

“Sure, Cass,” he eventually got out between gritted teeth. “Friday it is.”

I swung away to head out of the park.

“And stop calling me Cass.”

He answered with a not-so-meek chuckle, a dirtily amused sound that I felt in the pit of my stomach.

What was going on with me? Why hadn’t I got rid of the unauthorised tech already – much less held on to it as bait? I walked between the clearly codified lines; I followed the rules of our society as well as anyone who didn’t want to end up on the sands of the arena. A tremor ran through me at the thought of ever having to—

No, I pushed the idea away. It was unthinkable. Yet the memory of touching him clung to my fingertips, almost a physical thing.

I might not know what Devyn was up to but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Despite all the reasons to walk away, I couldn’t. I simply had to know more about him. I was used to getting what I wanted. And what I did know was how to work a party.

One way or another, I was going to figure out Devyn Agrestis’s secrets.

Chapter Four

Everything was as it always was – at least to anyone watching, nothing would appear different. But it was different, I thought, taking a sip of my drink, only half listening to Ambrose’s latest plan for retail innovation.

“I know it’s been done before, but I think my take on the kinetic approach would be sensational. A revolutionary way of merchandising…”

Ambrose’s voice faded into the general hum and beat of the music as I became increasingly focused on Devyn sloping around the edges of the party.

There was a real art to the way he seemed to be barely there. Most of my friends wanted to be noticed, talking animatedly about something clever or topical, laughing brightly in a way that drew attention to their pearly teeth or witty comments, dancing in their perfectly on-trend clothing that flattered their best features. Long legs, tiny waist, broad shoulders, lustrous hair – girls and boys alike primped and preened. Not a great deal of touching went on – no one wanted to risk that – but the general attitude was that it didn’t hurt to look and be looked at.

But not Devyn. He didn’t lurk exactly, as that would draw attention. He was part of the party: he talked to people, but no one in particular; he laughed softly with others, but was never the one to incite the hilarity. He didn’t really dance but moved with the music, as if he had moments where he failed to take notice of himself, and the rhythm happened to catch him in its current.

I was all too aware that I had been watching him all evening. I only got to throw a party once a season or so. I loved to party – or rather, I loved to dance – and my father was happier letting me throw one than he was about me going to other people’s. He almost never granted me permission to go to a club in the West End, and clubs at the outer walls were utterly out of bounds. And here I was spending so much time tracking Devyn bloody Agrestis that I was utterly wasting this one.

He’d been here for two hours, and so far he’d made no attempt to talk to me at all. He acted like he came to our parties all the time. Maybe he did. In fact, suddenly I was sure he did. Like the brush of a tune that you suddenly realise you’ve heard countless times and even seem to know a few lines of. He’d been here. Last time for sure, and maybe the one before that. Delving into half-remembered parties, the endless glimpses of Devyn rolled before my mind’s eye.

He always came to my parties. Scanning through memories of social events over the last few years it seemed like he was always there. I shook my head, trying to clear the picture; I could sense him there, in corners, on the outside of groups, I just couldn’t focus on his face… It was like a strange optical illusion that was almost impossible to penetrate. Once you knew it was there and you focused hard, you could see it for a moment before it faded away again.

“Cassandra, Ca-ssan-dra,” Ambrose was waving his hand in front of my face.

I turned to him, smiling vaguely.

“Uh, yes, sorry, what was that?” I struggled to recall what Ambrose had been talking about – something about augmented reality.

“Where did you go?”

“Nowhere, I was just worrying about the catering. I think we have plenty of everything though.” I hesitated before continuing. Somehow I didn’t like drawing attention to Devyn but I had to test my theory. “Ambrose, what do you think of Devyn Agrestis?”

Ambrose looked at me blankly for a moment.

“Devyn Agrestis,” he drew the name out slowly. “Devyn Agrestis… right, yeah, I know him. He’s in our class. Nice guy, sort of tall, no, average height, black, maybe brown hair. Yeah, yeah, nice guy.”

Wow, Ambrose would be quite the witness for the state. Talk about failing to paint a picture with words.

Unable to help myself, I felt my eyes go to Devyn once more, now standing in a group talking by the drinks table.

“Does he come out with us much?” Maybe Ambrose could pinpoint him to specific parties for me.

“Uh, yeah, he’s usually around.”

“But when specifically?” I pushed.

Ambrose looked baffled. “Like, all the time. He was at… I’m sure I was talking to him the other week at Alianna’s thing. We spoke about…” Ambrose trailed off. “Yeah, we had a good talk, caught up about things.”

Ambrose, one of the top-scoring boys in our college class, had the pedant’s preference for specificity on all occasions. While he was clearly sure that Devyn was someone we socialised with, that he was unable to supply the litany of times or dates such a question would usually have generated was notable. Vague generalities were the best he could come up with. How curious.

I added it to the growing mental file labelled Devyn Agrestis. Right alongside my realisation that him not looking my way all night was far too deliberate for real indifference. People at parties scanned the room, as interested in the opportunities they were missing as the one they were in the middle of.

Devyn, however, was making an art of flitting his eyes across the room like everyone else, while studiously ignoring whatever part of the room I happened to be in. So, while it looked like he hadn’t yet spotted me, I was willing to place a substantial wager on the likelihood that he could describe in minute detail exactly what I was wearing from my heeled sandals to my intricately painted nails. Not to mention every interaction I’d had all evening. Fine. Then let him get an eyeful of this.

I strode across the room to where Felix Thomas and his cronies were standing. Felix had always liked me. I usually wouldn’t play up to that – my father had strong views on any kind of flirtation. He was pretty orthodox in that respect; even though some kids my age experimented lightly, my father saw it as disrespectful to one’s true match. I had never felt like crossing that boundary before but I was willing to bet Devyn wouldn’t be happy either. Not for the same reasons as my father, though.

Brushing my hair behind my shoulder to better display my neck in the off-the-shoulder top I was wearing, I sidled up to Felix and greeted him by lightly laying my hand on his bicep, and letting it trail gently just a few millimetres – nothing too strong.

Felix turned, his eyes lighting when he realised who it was that had so blatantly invaded his space.

“Cassandra.” He smiled his pearly cute-boy smile. “Great party.”

“Thanks, I was hoping…” and before I could even finish one sentence, Devyn was at my shoulder. Well, that had been even quicker than expected.

“Cassandra, can I have a quick word?” he cut across me. Without waiting for my answer, he had cupped my elbow and was leading me down the hallway to the quieter reception room.

“What are you doing?” I asked, oh so softly.

“What you wanted me to do,” he returned.

I shook my head, giving him my best confused look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“No?” One eyebrow lifted. “I think you know exactly what I mean. Papa’s little princess doesn’t normally play with the boys.”

He’d noticed I didn’t really flirt with guys. How much more did he know about me? It was my turn to find out something about him.

“Are you sure about that?” Pulling my jangling nerves together, I reached out, repeating the move I had just practised on Felix. Devyn steeled himself as my hand came into contact with his bicep, tightening under my touch, the whipcord strength undeniable.

There was a truth touch provided that sight alone contradicted. I was increasingly sure of it: his body, the body I was so startling aware of, did not belong. There was something about him I couldn’t quite figure out. How was he doing this? Some kind of new augmenting tech? He looked directly down at me, amused but alert.

“So confident, little girl. What are you going to do now?”

I pulled back my wandering thoughts. I wasn’t going to back down, that was for sure. I moved squarely in front of him, lifting my chin in defiance. I lowered my lashes, letting my fingers drift up to his shoulder, swaying closer to him, taking my other hand and repeating the manoeuvre until both hands were on his shoulders, settling there. Our bodies now so close there was barely enough room for the breeze gently lifting the curtains to make its way between us. I tilted one hip and then the other.

I hummed the tune that was blaring through the walls from the living room where the party continued, unaware of the lines being crossed only a room away. His body was unmoving, refusing to take up the rhythm with mine but the awareness crackled between us. Devyn might be holding still, but he was far from indifferent; his entire body fairly screamed in its tension.

I risked a tentative glance upwards. Not a good move. Devyn’s eyes glittered darkly, the appearance of mildness thoroughly dropped once more.

“Cassandra,” he grated, “you play at games you don’t understand. You’ve been a good girl all your life. Why change now?”

He warned me off, but he didn’t move back and his hands didn’t push me away. I met the darkly glittering eyes of this boy I barely knew and certainly didn’t understand. The soft, slight version sharpened to reveal the truth of him. Why would anyone use cutting-edge tech to appear more ordinary?

A part of me wanted to back away. I felt intimidated, threatened by this version of him. The tremble of a doe on seeing a suspected predator step out of the shadows ran through me. I embraced it, the electricity of my blood swirling through me, making me feel utterly alive. As if up until this moment I’d been sleepwalking, his touch pulling me out of a drugged sleep. Dry-mouthed, I wet my lips with a flick of my tongue, spotting his eyes track the tiny movement.

“Maybe I’ve never had anybody tempt me before. Why take a nibble of something you’re not hungry for?” The huskily spoken words accurately summed up my previous indifference to the flirting that would so horrify my father. It was more than I had planned to share though.

“And you’re hungry for me.” Devyn’s voice was low and deep as the darkness of the room seemed to enclose us in a bubble. A world of two.

Was that a statement or a question? I wasn’t sure, and what did it matter? I moved closer until our bodies were fitting lightly together. Every atom that existed between us seemed charged. Was this what I had been missing out on by staying true to a boy I had met only once on my twelfth birthday? I glanced at my promise ring in an attempt to conjure up the most important reason not to move closer to the pulsing magnetic body so close to my own. Why would I not touch, embrace, feel…? The growl in his chest reverberated through my veins. I wanted to—

“Cassandra.” Unnoticed, the door had opened and my mother was standing in the open doorway, her scolding glare melting the warmth that encircled me. I swayed as the coldness of my mother’s gaze seemed to physically stab me.

Devyn moved as if to stand in front of me but then his head went down and he sloped – and by sloped, I mean he practically oozed around the tall, elegant brunette in the doorway – from the scene of the crime. Nice.

“What was going on in here?” my mother’s question lashed across the room.

“Nothing, he’s just a classmate,” I offered, deliberately not naming Devyn. “He wanted a word about a girl he’s friends with. Her birthday is coming up and he was wondering if it would be appropriate to get her a gift.”

And just like that, I told the first outright lie of my life. I had spent most of my childhood drifting happily along in between the twin lines of expectation and appropriate conduct. In the last week, I had taken some significant excursions. I felt like I was going to be sick, my stomach churning with nerves. There was no way my mother was going to believe me. But given the slightly risqué behaviour I was describing versus the absolutely scandalous behaviour she had not quite witnessed, Camilla could only judge based on my past self rather than the new version of me that was emerging and had yet to be formally introduced.

She nodded, adding curtly that I was neglecting the rest of my guests, before sharply closing the door behind her. I staggered over to the open window and took a deep breath of air. I was trembling – from my mother walking in on us and from the heart-stopping almost-something with Devyn.

I realised that I had lied not to protect myself from my mother’s condemnation, my father’s disappointment, or even the possibility that my future partner would feel in some way betrayed, but for Devyn’s protection. I had broken a code of honesty I had lived by my entire life so that he would not be noticed – because my parents would have ensured he got noticed. By the authorities, by the college board, by my classmates’ parents, even potential employers, as we were now only a couple of months from graduation. Flirting with non-partners wasn’t off-limits officially, but if my mother had walked in only seconds later, things might have progressed beyond a light touch on the arm. Not that it was actually against the code to get physical with someone other than your intended before marriage, but it was incredibly rare once matched. After all, why waste calories on some passing fancy when the most delectable custom-made dessert was waiting for you?

I looked out over the city, the dark void of the river visible between the illuminated tower blocks, and I allowed my heightened emotions to float out on the tide.

Devyn Agrestis was not good for me. I liked my life. I was looking forward to graduation, and most especially upgrading from promise ring to promise kept.

That was what was important.

The last seven days were the anomaly, as was the odd boy who had stepped from the shadowy wings of my life into centre stage. I needed to regain control and push the mystery of Devyn and his device out of my life for good, before it did any permanent damage.

Chapter Five

When I walked into the breakfast room the next morning, the atmosphere had the coiled tension of a trap waiting to spring. My darling mother had wasted no time. I shouldn’t have been surprised. With my father, I often forgot that I was adopted. With my mother, I never forgot. But as I hadn’t officially done anything wrong, I took my seat with a chirpy “good morning” to the room.

I glanced at Anna, the maid standing so quietly in the corner she was practically merging with the wall. Anna shook her head slightly. From her this was a big red flag crying out go back, go back. The maid rarely stuck her neck out. Camilla Shelton missed nothing so for her to dare this much meant I was in big trouble. Graham Shelton looked up grimly at my entrance, placing his cup gently back on the table.

“Cassandra.” He paused, his eyes serious. “I hear you took some time out from the party last night.”

“Pa—” He cut off my interruption with a wave of his hand.

“No, dearest. I was shocked to hear that you were in a room with a boy on your own. This is not how you have been raised.”

My head went back. On the scale of… oh, spilling some tea on the tablecloth to, let’s say, having illegal tech hidden away in the forum, talking to a boy seemed reasonably innocent. My parents rarely had to chastise me and now I was to be taken to task for behaviour that would barely raise an eyebrow in any of my friends’ homes.

“Papa,” I sputtered, unsure how to find the right level of indignation and casualness. “Nothing happened. Nothing.” I glared at my mother. “I don’t know what you were told, but I was gone for five minutes.” Flashback of trailing my fingers along Devyn’s bicep. “We were talking, that’s it.” The sway of my hips towards his, the warmth as the energy bounced in the tiny space left between our two bodies. “I don’t know what the fuss is about.”

What was the fuss about? Why had I behaved like that? I stared down at my untouched breakfast, resolving once more to give Devyn back his tech and get on with my life. It was the right thing to do. I lived a charmed life, and unlike many of my friends was very aware of that fact. It was likely to do with being adopted, knowing that, but for the grace of my parents, my life could have been different. Who knew what life I might have led had my real parents been alive, but sometimes I found myself looking at and wondering about people who lived lives so different from my own. Slipping through the city on the train, I watch busy people hustling about the city. People unable to afford the monorail to take them to menial unrewarding jobs that I was barely aware existed. Or worse, the mudlarks who flooded the shores of the river at low tide, desperately looking for something that would get themselves and their families through another day.

I knew I should stay away from Devyn. Whatever he was involved with… well, it could even be dangerous. Chaos in the Code. There were those who wanted to interrupt the order that governed our world, I knew. But for what purpose? Order and the Code were what kept our city safe. Did people want our lives to be like those who lived beyond the walls? Uncivilised? Primitive? I couldn’t imagine why.

I snapped my attention to my mother to find myself subject to her trademark coolly assessing look.

“Cassandra, you may tell your father what you wish, but you were standing very close to that young man. I don’t need to remind you that as our daughter, we expect you to be the best you can be. Your father is a prominent merchant in the city, and given the status of your promised partner, we cannot afford to have you behaving improperly with some nobody.”

“I wasn’t,” I protested again. “Since when is it improper to just stand close to someone?”

My mother held my gaze before turning away to my father with a sniff. My father turned back to me, and his gaze softened as he smiled affectionately.

“Darling, I’m sure nothing was going on.”

I’d never before given him a reason to think anything different. I shifted guiltily in my seat.

“Sometimes it’s about appearances, and you are only a year away from handfasting. The year between graduation and handfasting is there for you to enjoy yourself and try different things before you settle down. I know some of your friends may even experiment a little, but I’d hate to see you do something you’ll regret later when you are with your true partner.”

He put his hand over my mother’s, ever the peacemaker in the family, soothing her with his touch as he delivered an admonishment that would be far too light in her eyes.

I smiled gratefully, aware that timing was on my side here. Thank goodness for ships coming in: I had been right, the pineapple in the market was a sign that whatever had been disrupting the flow of goods into the city was now over and trade was good again. And so, therefore, was my father’s mood. “Of course, Papa, I’ll be more careful in future.”

In that moment I truly meant it. I had no idea how I had managed to stray so far from my normal life. What was it about Devyn Agrestis? Whenever he was close, I felt like I was magnetised. I was playing with fire and was in grave danger of third-degree burns, the type that give lasting scars. If they didn’t actually kill you. I was in possession of unauthorised tech that I was withholding from a potential criminal because I was flirting with him. Flirting with someone who wasn’t my intended partner.

I knew what happened to people who infringed on the Code. The entire city got a weekly reminder, yet here I was dancing all over it and lying to my parents to boot. I needed to give Devyn Agrestis back his damn tech as soon as possible – and hopefully return to blissful unawareness of his existence immediately after.

Back at the forum on Monday, I realised my intentions were never going to stay the course. My eyes, of their own volition, were scanning the faces going by, seeking back and forth until they found their target.

He was loitering, almost invisibly, just down the passage from my locker. Even though I was looking for him, my eyes had slid past and had to track back when my brain insisted something wasn’t quite right. He never seemed to take up too much space, blending into the background, staggeringly unremarkable.

His eyes flicked to me but didn’t linger. Taking his cue, I continued to my locker and, after grabbing what I needed, started to move down the hallway. My breath quickened as I walked past the spot where Devyn leaned against the wall.

As I made my way to class, he didn’t catch up with me, but I knew he was behind me, his presence – even seven or eight feet behind – a tangible thing. I paused outside the door to check my tablet. Was I even going to the right class?

He passed me with no acknowledgement but a feather-light touch on my hand… that I might easily have missed had it not blazed up through me. I lifted my hand to find a small slip of paper in my palm.

PARK 5pm

I blinked at the words, and they were gone. Looking up, I realised so was he. Our misadventure at the party meant I had failed to do the promised handover. So now I had to cross the city with the damn device burning a hole in my pocket for a second time. It had been bad enough bringing it to the party, my recent visit to the arena and the flinching body of that hacker adding weight to every step I took. Carrying it back to the forum and hiding it again after also receiving admonishment from my parents had almost broken me. Each step had felt like it was one closer to a dreaded fate in the arena.

My renewed promise to myself that I was backing out of whatever it was I had embroiled myself in had raised my fear levels to the extent that I didn’t think I could ever touch the thing again without having heart palpitations. I leaned back against the wall outside my class for a moment, my mind swirling. Could I risk going back to the library so soon? Would this attract attention? Unease fizzed through me. Gathering myself, I crushed the paper as I dismissed all thoughts of Devyn. Focus. Just get through the day. Figure it out later.

“Did you bring it?” Devyn’s cool voice from behind the bench we had shared the previous week startled me, even though I had been waiting for it.

“No,” I returned, more sharply than I had intended, startled at his sudden appearance. “You think I walk around with it in my pocket all the time, on the off chance the opportunity to give it to you finally arrives? Are you crazy? “

A glint lit his dark eyes.

“I don’t know. You’ve had plenty of chances. I’m starting to think Papa’s little princess doesn’t want to give it back.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “What does that even mean? Of course I want rid of it.”

“Do you?” he smiled. “You could have given it back to me straight away. Your life would have gone on with only that tiny mark to blemish your perfect record in your perfect life. But you didn’t. You held on to it. You’re interested in what lies behind the curtains.”

I looked away. Was that it? Was it something more than Devyn himself that intrigued me? Was I interested in understanding the device as well as the boy, why he had it, and what he intended to do with it? Why he was risking his life for it? I was. Or at least I was also curious about that, I admitted to myself. I had originally held on to the irregular tech because in some way it was the concrete evidence I needed that Devyn Agrestis was more than he appeared to be. As long as I had it I could be sure Devyn wouldn’t disappear again. He would have to show his true colours. The insignificant boy who lived in the shadows of my life would be forced to step into the light every time we discussed the device. The more it happened, the harder it would be for him to hide from me. I reminded myself that I was handing the gold tech back. I just needed to make sure that he was permanently in the open first.

“Maybe,” I admitted. “What is it? What’s it for?”

Devyn laughed. “You don’t really want to know. Once that genie is out, you won’t ever be able to put him back in the bottle.”

I frowned. He might be right.

“I do want to know.”

He looked at me speculatively. “I don’t think so. I’ve been watching you a long time, Cassandra Shelton. You’re a pretty girl with a pretty life, which you dance through matching your steps to whatever tune the piper is playing. You go to school, you do well – but not too well. Your life is neatly mapped out: you’re comfortable, and your match is from one of the oldest families in the city. Why would you rock the boat now?”

His dark, intelligent eyes mocked me, his lips twisted in a curl that dared me to deny the insignificance of my compliant existence. My fists curled at my sides. He was right, I couldn’t deny his words. He had me pegged; from his spot in the shadows he had seen everything. But that didn’t stop it from stinging.

“You’ve been watching me?” I repeated testily. “Why? How bloody creepy, who are you to judge me about anything? Why don’t you go away and live your own life?”

His eyes had narrowed at my accusations, but he laughed, a harsh grating sound, before he responded.

“That’s my plan. Or at least it was until a shallow little rich girl decided she wanted to play at things she doesn’t understand.” His face darkened, slivers of raw emotion leaking through his usually implacable facade. “Live my own life? Nothing would please me more. It’s past time. But I need the device you stole to do that. I’ve wasted years on you, hoping you were someone else. But you’re not. She’s gone. You’re nothing more than the pretty, superficial girl you appear to be. Nothing more.”

He looked desolate as he trailed off, beyond grief, beyond pain. Unable to help myself, I stepped towards him, reaching up and placing my hand gently on his face. His body curved around mine as if we were two halves finally made whole and his heartbeat, thundering with the pain that thudded through him, slowed in response to my own gentle beat. It was the most utterly connected moment I had ever felt in my life.

“Damn it.” He pushed back from me, glaring at me in angry consternation at how much he had revealed, before the blank expression slammed back into place.

“Who? Who did you think I was?” Thrown back to reality, I scrambled to gain a foothold in what he had told me before it too was pulled from under me once more.

His eyes were cold as he contemplated his response.

“That’s not really any of your business now, is it? Princess.”

Fine. I tried another tack.

“Where will you go? Why do you need the tech to get there?”

“Again, nothing for you to concern yourself with.” Even with our short acquaintance – on my side at least – I had come to recognise the particularly implacable look that settled over his saturnine features.

“Fine. Keep your secrets.” I was almost shaking. For someone who supposedly danced unthinking through life, I was wrongfooted now and felt dangerously off balance.

For which I thoroughly blamed the mercurial aggravating cretin in front of me.

The dark shadow of a sentinel on foot was veering across the path towards us, unlikely to be anything to do with us, but conveniently timed for me because I was done with this conversation. I whirled away.

“But two can play at that game,” I threw back over my shoulder. I’d show him. I wasn’t just an insipid girl living her safe little life. I could be more, do more.

I could.

Chapter Six

There was no sign of Devyn at the forum the next day or the one after that. He had tried three times to get the tech from me now. Had he given up?

Maybe he was already gone. I didn’t care. Or rather, I was an addict insisting to myself I didn’t need a fix but I did. Badly. It was like nagging tooth pain – Devyn in the background of my life was a presence of which I had been ignorant until the cavity of his absence became a fact which was impossible to ignore. I turned our last conversation over and over in my mind. What did it mean? Who had he thought I might be?

He had waited years for what? Some sign, some evidence… why? Round and round it went in my brain. He had been watching me for years – this fact alone should have thrown me way more than it did. What was special about me? But then… apparently nothing. He had concluded I was nothing more than the spoiled daughter of an elite merchant. But he had hoped I was someone else; his disappointment that I wasn’t had been a tangible thing.

That connection, his pain… I had never felt that before. It had wholly blindsided me. He was looking for someone. I had never really known who I was – that’s all it was. I had been promised that soon I would have all the connection I would ever need in my partner, not some freak moment with someone I barely knew.

On Saturday, I pulled myself together to go shopping with Ginevra to buy my graduation dress. My mother had made clear that I needed something spectacular, a stipulation that would previously have lit up my world with its underlying licence to consider money no object in satisfying this single criterion.

I had hoped that having Ginevra along would help me focus on my task, but I found her light-hearted chatter impossible to hold on to, so made do with offering up what so far had clearly managed to be the appropriate noises as she had yet to complain at my inattention.

“Maybe if you left your hair down, this one would do?” Ginevra mused as we watched my avatar twirl in front of us in the latest unsatisfactory outfit. Barely had she spoken and the elaborate updo dissolved and my long multi-hued tresses flowed down across my shoulders covering the awkward way the straps lay on my pale bare shoulders.

I stilled. My hair colour was unusual – the gold, red, and caramel strands shouted my adopted status to anyone paying attention. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t public knowledge either. In fact, my mother went to some lengths to ensure it was not questioned, even going so far as to dye her own hair a lighter brown to discourage any potential raised eyebrows. I had never given it much thought before, but was this something I shared with the girl Devyn sought?

Who was she and why was he looking for her? I eyed the avatar speculatively. Was she everything I wasn’t? Was she worthy of the years he had spent looking for her?

Not a foolish girl who would never be anything more than an ornament on the arm of a more important male. Not just a pretty bauble to be displayed to best effect before being put back in its box.

“Ginevra, what was the name of that apprentice at the Mete?” I asked.

“What apprentice?” Ginevra was confused at my apparently random question. “We don’t know any apprentices.”

She stopped, her eyes lighting in sudden understanding. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” I returned, shaking off the despondency towards which my thoughts had been dragging me. Getting the disgraced apprentice to make my dress would be a stroke of genius. It would indeed be spectacular, as directed, while also annoying my mother because of its less than salubrious origin. It didn’t hurt that it also soothed my conscience, which had niggled at me ever since I had voted him guilty for my own selfish reasons.

We quickly looked up the address of Apprentice Oban, finding it amongst the reams of attention he had received in the feeds following the Mete. His home was buried in the stews, making Ginevra a little less supportive of my plan.

We wound our way out of the shopping district and through the West End. Our destination lay eastwards beyond the plazas and concrete and glass buildings of the financial district. It was a part of the city I didn’t really spend a great deal of time in. The weekend atmosphere was eerie, all those buildings filled with thousands and thousands of empty rooms now that everyone had gone home for a day of rest.

Ginevra and I grew quiet as we continued past streets that were becoming less and less familiar. We were scanned and waved through the old wall at Aldgate. My father would not approve of my being in the outer eastern part of the city. We were quite a distance from the outer walls, but still… I was a little nervous about my plan by this stage but refused to turn around. I was not just a pretty girl in a pretty life. Not two streets from the gate, Ginevra baulked and turned back, unhappy that I couldn’t be talked out of my course of action.

As I wound my way through the warren of narrower, older streets, I looked around, fascinated. It was so different to the western neighbourhood where I lived with its wide spaces between the buildings and unhurried green walkways. The homes here pressed tightly together, a legacy from the era when the Empire had been at its weakest. Londinium had struggled to cope with the numbers cowering inside the walls back when the border had stretched all the way to the gates of the city itself. Before we had the engineering skills to go higher, the poor had squeezed into every space offered between the original inner-city wall and the newer reinforced ones. Nothing but those great outer walls, built deep and high, separated us from the hordes of Britons who waited outside ready to burn us to the ground.

The stews held people of every shape and size, all exotic to my eyes. Grubby little hands grabbed at my skirts as we whisked by.

“Please, donna, spare a copper.”

I snatched my skirts closer, looking nervously around. Even if I had physical currency to give them, begging was strictly forbidden. These children were risking the stocks by approaching me.

I shook my head at the children and they melted away into the warren of streets. I paused every now and then to discreetly peek at my device to check I was still going the right way.

Eventually, a beep outside a peeling doorway indicated I had arrived. I knocked and, finally, an elderly man opened the door. Taking in the quality of my clothes, he winked at me and pointed to a door at the top of the stairs. Apparently I wasn’t the first elite to deign to cross this threshold since Apprentice Oban’s skills had come to light, too impatient to wait until he opened a shop in the inner districts.

I hesitated outside the door. This was a crazy idea. My mother would kill me and Devyn wouldn’t even know, much less care, that I had got a tailor from the stews to make my dress. Make my dress. Ha, even my small act of defiance and social conscience was related to the role he had identified as mine: pretty little rich girl.

My shoulders slumped. I felt as if I had lost a battle I didn’t even know had been engaged. I had stepped outside the safe borders of my world momentarily and, having skirted the edge for a while, I was now ready to scuttle back to the safety of my pampered life.

Only Devyn remained as a lure on the border, nagging at me to take another step, even though he had advised me to stay in my sheltered world. The other world, the one he inhabited, was no place for me. He had no place for me. I felt hollow at the thought. He was an insufferable enigma; the mask he put on made my fingers curl into claws in my desire to rip it off and reveal someone else. The man I had glimpsed. Dark curls, sharply defined features, intensity and determination blazing out of him. How did he hide that side of himself, and why? Would I ever know?

He had said he would be moving on, and so must I. Only, what direction to take? My mind went in circles as I stood there in the dimly lit, dirty hallway. Home to my parents and friends, pretty dresses, and inane parties? Or should I push at the boundaries of my world to know something more? Something that tingled at the fringes of my sensibilities.

“Hello.” The door had opened and I looked down to discover a dishevelled girl surveying me through dark, tangled hair. A shimmer of something ran through me, a shiver of something… like a hand held out over a threshold, drawing me in. I couldn’t resist taking another tiny step. Just a little more, maybe.

“Hello,” I responded, smiling slightly so she would know I meant no harm.

She eyed me warily, her survey comprehensive. No chance of this one being cowed by anything, I realised. Her gaze was bold and aware beyond her years, her head tilting to the side as if something about me had struck her as different. On closer examination, she was older than she looked, the tired slump of her shoulders making her appear young while a cough wracked her small frame.

“You looking for Oban?” she asked once the fit had subsided.

I nodded. She led me into the small, sparsely furnished apartment, vaguely recognisable from its moment of fame at the arena.

There was an older lady sewing in the light of the window who barely glanced up from her activity. A few more children huddled in another corner of the room.

The slight young man from the Mete was bent over some material, standing when his sister called out to him, alerting him to my presence.

“Donna,” he addressed me formally as the street urchins had done.

“I was hoping you might make me a dress,” I announced haltingly.

He smiled shyly, nodding, his survey of me less bold than his sister’s but no less comprehensive for all that.

“I have no funds for the material, but if you buy it, I can do the rest,” he offered.

“Deal,” I said quickly. Standing here in this room with his family I felt deeply uncomfortable, my guilt at voting against him at the Mete gnawing at me, an unsettling anxiety crawling over my skin at the squalor of the room. I glanced over at the woman in the corner who sat sullenly watching – their mother, I supposed. As I submitted to Oban’s measuring in the second room, the girl who had greeted me at the door left after confirmation that Oban would be able to manage both attending to me and the care of the two small ones on the floor, but not before her grey eyes settled on me once more. It wasn’t a warning exactly but there was something about her that told me that should I do anything in her absence to hurt her family it would not be the last I saw of her. She was a slip of a thing yet I believed that silent promise.

“Have you had much business since the Mete?” I queried lightly as Oban continued to take my measurements, jotting down quick notes in a little book on the table.

He inclined his head in what I took for a soft yes. I made a few more attempts to start a conversation with him but they elicited little more in the way of response. Not a talker then.

A hacking cough in the other room indicated that his sister had returned, though I had not heard the door closing.

“Is she okay?” I asked softly to the kneeling Oban as he measured the inside of my leg.

He looked up, his eyes flashing with concern, before he again gave a small nod. I frowned at the conflicting signals.

“Has she been ill for long?” I tried again.

Another nod.

“Marina’s not contagious,” he said finally after another pause, clearly taking my question as worry for my own health.

I tsked in frustration. He looked up at me, startled.

“I wasn’t asking for myself,” I admonished. “I can bring medicine.”

His face lost the inexpressive look that those in service so often used to hide all feelings and, more importantly, opinions from their customers.

He looked concerned again and then shook his head. “No cure.”

“What do you mean, no cure?” I asked, baffled. Our society had little illness – most having been defeated by science and technology generations ago – and what remained was quickly remedied.

He shook his head and refused to answer any more questions, hustling me out of the house with a slip of paper containing the instructions regarding what material he wanted me to buy.

I made my way back to Aldgate deeply distracted by Oban’s behaviour. Why would he not want his sister to get help? It was ridiculous. Was it the cost?

The thought of the dark-haired girl’s illness niggled at me. When I returned two days later with the cloth, I made sure I had some medicine anyway, purchased from one of the few pharmacies in the city.

Oban was pleased with the cloth, as was I – the rich material glimmered as it caught the light that came through the grimy window, my signature colour turquoise shot through with indigo. He practically hummed with excitement as he felt it, showing me a couple of sketches he had done already that made my own eyes gleam in anticipation. We grinned at each other, appreciating the mutual pleasure caused by his vision.

His sister was bustling about in the main living area and when she popped her head in to ask Oban a question, I pulled the bottle out of my bag.

Marina stilled, the colour draining from her already pale face. There was an odd feeling in the room, almost a physical charge that raised the hair on my body. I rubbed at my arms to dispel the fanciful notion. I pulled my eyes from the girl to her brother to find he looked equally as upset.

“What did you do?” Oban whispered from bloodless lips.

“I–I…” I stammered, confused by the atmosphere that had descended so suddenly on the room, their reaction to the bottle of cough medicine as though I had taken out a bottle of poison. “I thought it might help.”

Oban looked behind him at the top corner of the room where the ubiquitous state camera resided. They were supposed to be in every home but became increasingly rare in the higher echelons of society. He followed the trajectory of the camera and realised that the bottle was currently blocked by his own frame. He shot me a quelling look as he covered the bottle with the cloth and turned again to his notebook without looking at his sister who remained frozen in the doorway.

“Perhaps, donna, you would like something a little higher around the neckline in the fashion of the orient?” he asked, indicating his book. Rather than an adjustment to the sketch he had been happily showing me moments before, there was a hastily scribbled message.

PLEASE. NO HELP. NO ILLNESS. THEY TAKE HER.

I was deeply confused but, responding to the desperate pleading contorting the two faces turned to me, I nodded. What was going on?

Troubled, I took my leave with smiling promises to return a week later for a fitting, my skin still tingling from the strange atmosphere that hadn’t quite dissipated from their home.

They were hiding Marina’s illness, but why? Because they would take her… but who were they?

The pharmacist had been slightly off when I bought the medicine, I now recalled, asking me who it was for and why I needed it. I had been vaguely annoyed at her questioning, having been already irritated at Devyn’s elusiveness. I had assumed he would be back, cap in hand, to get his sodding tech but I had assumed wrong. I caught glimpses of him now and then but always at a distance, slipping away like a snake in the grass when I attempted to cross paths with him. It was infuriating.

“Aarghh.” I released my frustration audibly, earning a startled look from the man in front of me in the queue to get back through Aldgate. I smiled guilelessly up at him. A Shadower from the look of his dirt-stained clothes, come to the city to sell whatever it was he grew in the lands beyond the outer wall. He looked prosperous, as he would have to be to have a permit to pass through the inner walls. Taking in my fine dress, he dropped his eyes and quickly turned away.

My mind churned over the conversation I had shared with the pharmacist. I had been haughtily brief in my answers but she had been noticeably insistent. Why had she wanted to know what I was purchasing medicine for? It hadn’t been just the idle curiosity of one bored for lack of customers. She had been actively trying to discover where the medicine was bound.

I had, out of sheer ignorance, been vague about the symptoms, for I had seen little more than the cough, but the keen-eyed pharmacist had asked some questions that had been unnervingly accurate. Flushed cheeks, slightly jerky movements? I had agreed under her soft interrogation, my memory of Marina remarkably clear for someone I had only met for a few moments.

As I walked up to the platform to take a transport across the city, I also recalled my father asking after my health that evening at dinner. He too had been oddly persistent, checking I was taking my vertigo meds, but I had laughed it off, teasing him for his excessive care of me. Had he known about the cough bottle? Had he thought it was for me? I couldn’t imagine why as I was clearly quite well.

I felt unsettled as I took my seat to head west and home. Had my action been watched and observed? Was that why my father was asking about my health for no apparent reason? Why had Oban and Marina been hiding her illness? Who was it they were so scared of?

I stared out of the window, my mind racing. Usually the journey across the city was one of my greatest pleasures, whizzing through the teeming galleried warren of Londinium, millions of citizens busily going about their day, toiling at the lower levels, ascending into homes in the great scrapers. So many lives full of unknown joys and unknown dramas. Now all I could think of was one single citizen whose life I might have unwittingly made harder.

I had been trying to help. Had I blindly done the opposite? I cursed my ignorance, reproach washing through me. Had my blithe dance through life meant that I had hurt someone else? Devyn was right, I was a fool. Stupid, stupid, I berated myself.

Devyn.

Perhaps I could repair the damage I had done. Cover the tracks I had left to their door. If anyone could help it would be him. I still had his device, but I couldn’t afford to wait until he broke and approached me. I would have to swallow my pride and ask him for help.

At the forum over the next few days, I kept my eyes peeled but went from distant sightings to none at all. Didn’t he plan to complete civics? Without a pass, it was not possible to graduate and become a full citizen. Or to travel around the Empire, as I assumed was his plan.

I was due back at Oban’s for a fitting the day after. I really needed to catch Devyn before that. To understand what I had done and how to fix it.

Oban and Marina had been terrified. Whatever line I had inadvertently crossed, it was bad. The thought of something happening to the dark-haired urchin was more than I could bear. Devyn had to be around somewhere but how to flush him out? Would the ploy I had used with Felix work a second time, I wondered? It would be infinitely more damaging to be seen flirting with a boy in the forum than it had been in the privacy of my own home at a party. My reputation would definitely suffer this time. Besides which there was no guarantee that Devyn was watching anymore – he had said as much himself – now that I definitely wasn’t the girl he was looking for. I felt strangely bereft at the thought. I shook my head.

In my first class, I asked Ambrose and Ginevra if they had seen him that morning. Ambrose thought he had but the closer I questioned him, the less sure he became. Maybe it hadn’t been Devyn, maybe it had been someone else.

The more people I asked, the stronger this pattern appeared. Some people couldn’t recall seeing him in weeks, others had spoken to him that morning, but the topic escaped them, and then they became less sure they had seen him at all. How did he do that? Under any kind of focus, Devyn became even more mysterious as he deflected such scrutiny.

As I circled the forum at lunch hunting my elusive prey, I spotted that there were some mangos and bananas to be had. Pleased, I broke off my search to acquire a drink.

I thanked the vendor as he handed me the fresh smoothie, tapping my wrist in payment and bringing the straw to my lips with a sigh of pleasure. I loved the tang and exoticness of these fruits that travelled so far to wind up in the Londinium markets; they were expensive but oh so worth it.

“What do you want?”

I jumped at the dark low growl behind me. I turned straight into the solid chest of Devyn Agrestis. I looked up at him as he glowered down from his superior height.

“I need to talk to you,” I said softly back, my lips barely moving, not even removing the straw in the hopes it would obscure my words to anyone who might be watching.

Devyn reached behind me and picked up a mango, turning it in his long fingers, a slight thinning of the lips the only indication he had heard me.

“You have something for me?” he asked lightly with a meaningful emphasis on something.

“No.” I shook my head, before realising he meant the device. My body relaxed slightly; I had something to trade with. He would have to help me. “That is, I mean, yes. Sure, if you help me.”

Still not looking at me, he raised a brow in query.

“I’ve done something stupid,” I confessed under my breath. “That is, I think I have. I bought some cough medicine for someone.”

I broke off as the graceful fingers dropped the mango on the floor, and the vendor exclaimed loudly in wrath at the sight of his delicious and costly wares being so poorly treated.

Devyn apologised profusely before backing away, completely ignoring me. Stunned, I turned back to the vendor who had started to complain loudly about clumsy young men. I shrugged – nothing to do with me – and the vendor turned to his waiting customers, a trapped audience more sympathetic to his plight. Turning, I scowled in annoyance.

Damn it, he was gone.

I hadn’t taken two steps before I felt a light touch on my fingers.

“We can’t talk here,” he said. “Come with me.”

“Where to?” I protested, until he took my hand and, as easily as that, I found myself going with him. Because I wanted his help or because I liked the sensation of his skin touching mine, I did not know.

Any and all attempts to talk as we hurried across the city were silenced immediately by a harsh glare. I trailed behind, no idea where we were going, our direction too directly east to be headed to our usual park, and fumed silently.

I said nothing as we passed through the Bishopsgate – the northeast part of the city had more Christian churches than the Olympian temples nearer the river. I had never been in the area before and grew increasingly nervous as we walked further and further away from the inner wall, the area feeling distinctly seedier than the district Oban lived in. This was the deepest darkest stews, less the busy bustle of those who were poor but struggling to keep themselves above water, more the sinister sluggishness of those who were likelier to pull you down with them than look for a hand up. There were fewer people on the streets which made it seem even odder that nobody approached us to beg, even though with our fine clothes we stood out. A lot. Devyn held my hand firmly as we swept along, his step confident and powerful, his features stronger and more defined. And yet people here barely looked our way.

Finally, Devyn stopped and, pulling a piece of metal from his pocket, he inserted it into a hole in the door and we slipped inside and up the creaky beaten-down stairs until he stopped once more and repeated the exercise.

As we walked through the second door, he released my hand and my sense of security melted away, leaving me bereft and deep inside an area where I would never have agreed to go in the full presence of my wits. I was nervous enough about Oban’s home, only two streets away from the old wall; the outer wall was way beyond my comfort zone.

“Caesar wept.” I looked wildly around the room. “Where in Hades are we? I can’t believe you. My father will kill me if he finds out I’m here.”

I really was in trouble. My parents were reasonably lenient but the northeastern section of the outer wall was most certainly out of bounds. How had he managed to do that? I had just walked across the city, directly into the worst reaches of the stews, because some boy had held my hand.

“Your father would be a little upset at a lot of your recent activities, princess,” Devyn said with a smirk. And then in a testing tone, he added, “Was it me who led you here? Or was it you?”

“What… what does that mean?” I lingered near the door as he strode into the small, dimly lit room.

“Tea? Water?” he offered.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t want a cup of your cursed tea.”

“Please sit down, Cass,” he said, waving at the shabby couch in what I supposed was a kitchen area. It looked like it would most definitely leave a stain on my skirt.

“Uh, no thanks. I’m fine standing.”

Devyn took a step towards me, lifting my hand and drawing me into the room, manoeuvring me until I stood in front of the grubby seat, at which point he pushed lightly on my shoulder and I found myself yet again in a place I hadn’t agreed to be. I looked up at him, smug and so different from the mild Devyn everyone else still saw. He was intelligent and strong, far from the effete elite he affected to be most of the time. I saw through it. I saw him.

A fury I was utterly unfamiliar with overtook me. I was practically shaking with rage as I stood and crossed the room to him.

“Enough.” My voice was sufficiently raised that there was every chance they could hear me back at the forum. “What are you doing to me? Why am I here? Who in Hades are you, Devyn? This is… this isn’t just about that device, you… you’re doing things that aren’t possible. Don’t you dare tell me that I’m imagining it. I know what I’ve seen. You are a lie, a complete and utter fraud. I don’t know how you do it or why but that piece of tech is the least of it.”

I had his tall, lean body backed against the wall but quick as a flash he grabbed me, reversing our positions, so I was the one with my back to the wall, him looming over me.

“Quiet,” he hissed. “Lower your voice.”

I glared mutinously up at him, my mouth opening to begin round two.

“No, Cass. Stop.”

He was now uncomfortably close, my attempts to push away from the wall into the confining space between us bringing our bodies into intimate contact, a fact I was fairly sure he hadn’t missed.

The tension dropped from me as he gently brushed aside the hair that had tumbled across my face and tucked it behind my ear.

“Can you keep your voice down?” he asked gently.

I nodded, and he stepped away with a heavy exhale, running his fingers through his thick hair. A flash of uncertainty briefly crossed his face.

“You can’t shout like that. You’ll draw attention to the flat and after I’ve explained, you’ll understand why that is something we can do without. I’m guessing you’ve already done more than enough.”

He gestured for me to sit again, refraining from manoeuvring me, somehow knowing that repeating his little trick was unlikely to end in the outcome he desired this second time.

“Talk,” he ordered, taking a seat at a shabby table opposite me.

I glanced nervously up at the corners of the room, my awareness of the pervasiveness of the city’s observation more acute now that I had something to hide.

“You can talk freely here,” he advised. “Without raising your voice would be preferable, though.”

I hesitated. Was involving him wise? Or was it the next step in my journey to finding myself in the arena again, only this time on the sands awaiting judgement? I felt suddenly that my life had shifted so far off the rails that my course to those pale ancient sands was the only certainty left. My breath felt shallow. I shook my head as Devyn tensed to stand, to come over to me. No, his touch would not help me think.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

He barked with laughter at my challenge.

“You wish me to prove my credentials as a dissident? Or are you asking if I’m a full-on Codebreaker?” he asked, a twitch of a smile tugging at his lips.

I nodded.

“What is it you’d like me to tell you?”

“How about starting with the device,” I suggested. The tech I understood, the tech was real. Whatever else Devyn was, I was less sure I was ready to face.

“Right, the device.” He was clearly happy to begin there too. “I shouldn’t have brought it into class that day, but the basilicas have terminals that are accessible by students. I was debating what to do next. I needed some information to check what options I have now. I was careless. I’d grown complacent and I took a risk I shouldn’t have. I don’t know how they found out I had it but I’m glad they weren’t the only ones who did.”

At this last, he met my eyes in acknowledgement of my intervention.

“What do you mean options?”

His eyes met mine, assessing.

“The device allows me to introduce some chaos to the Code, creating a blind spot long enough for someone to get through the city’s firewalls. A key, of sorts. The tech simulates an attack like the ones dissidents use to hack in. While the imperial defences are busy investigating the string of chaos, it allows me to slip through some of the less secure sections.”

He was a hacker. What he was describing was a capital offence.

“Why would you need to do that?”

“It can be used to access information about citizens on their databases, or”—his eyes met mine, a provocative light glimmering in his otherwise expressionless face—“to create a gap in the Empire’s security long enough to get someone out of the city.”

“Get someone out?” I repeated. “Of the city?”

My mind whirled with the implications. He wasn’t just some trouble-making boy in possession of black-market technology. Or even a hacker accessing classified files in his search for this lost girl. He was helping people get out of the city without the Empire’s authorisation.

Devyn wasn’t mysterious, he was dangerous. I’d be lucky to end up on the sands of the arena. At least there I could say I hadn’t known what I was getting myself into.

I retreated to the corner of the couch, frantically assessing my escape options. Had he locked the door when we came in?

“Calm down, Cass,” Devyn urged gently, reaching a placating hand towards me.

I scrabbled further back. “Don’t touch me.”

He stepped away, his hands spread wide, dark eyes meeting mine.

“Stop freaking out. You’re not in any danger, I promise.” He paused, correcting himself. “At least, not from me.”

“From who then?”

He gnawed at his lip. “The council, the sentinels, the praetor.”

I huffed a shaky breath. “Yeah, I am now. Because of you, you and your chaos key and whatever it is you’re up to. If I’m in trouble, it’s all your fault.”

“You wanted to know.” He shrugged. “Now why don’t you tell me what it is that you’ve done?”

I shook my head. I needed a minute to think. “Who are you smuggling out of the city?” I demanded. “What have they done?”

“Done? And what did you mean, who am I? Ah, you think I’m helping Codebreakers escape the Empire.” He shook his head ruefully. “That was more Linus’s thing. That’s not what I need the hardware back for.”

A darkness passed behind his eyes. A vulnerable flicker.

“The person I sought is not here. It’s time to leave to continue my search. That’s hard to explain to sentinels.”

He was leaving the city then. Leaving Londinium. Richmond, just west of the city, was the furthest I had ever been from home. He was pretty determined to find this person, whoever they were.

“Who is she?” I chanced. He had given years of his life already and now was planning to search the far corners of the Empire. My curiosity gnawed at me.

“Nobody you need concern yourself with. Now, tell me what is it you’ve done.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t be put off so easily.

“No,” I stated obstinately. “Not unless you tell me why you’ve been watching me all these years. I don’t feel safe. You’ve made me feel unsafe.”

Liar, my inner voice mocked. Even as he made my world tilt on its axis, his presence in it felt like the one thing I did believe I could hold on to. Those dark eyes considered me impassively, searching for the truth in what I was saying. Fearing that what I was saying held truth. I might not be the girl he was looking for, but it made him uncomfortable to think that I considered him some kind of a stalker. I could practically feel the distaste vibrating off him. I had him.

“Are you sure you want the truth?” he asked again, echoing his previous warning. Once truths were known, there would be no putting them back in a bottle.

I wasn’t sure but nodded anyway.

He studied me for a moment, before lifting a shoulder as he conceded to my pressure.

“You fit certain criteria, Cassandra. Very rare criteria. To be truthful, the kind of criteria that put you in danger. No,” he corrected himself, “you’ve always been in danger, I’m just letting you know.”

I raised my brow. “What’s that supposed to mean? I am not and have never been in any kind of trouble. My father is an important merchant with friends on the council, for the gods’ sake.”

“Yes,” he said cryptically.

I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone I found more frustrating. Ever.

“What?” I pushed, not sure what he was implying. “You clearly have something you want to tell me. Out with it.”

“Your father is not your real father.”

“That’s the big reveal? I’ve always known I was adopted.”

“And that you’re not city born?” Devyn fired back.

The wind tore out of my sails. The world actually spun, or maybe it was the room. I sat forward to let the blood flow back into my head, shrugging off Devyn’s hand as it came down on my shoulder.

Not city born. Not city born. Not…

I was what? A Shadower? I sat up squaring my shoulders.

“There is no way I’m not a citizen.” Citizens of the Empire were privileged. They lived inside the walls, lived by the Code. Shadowers were almost native. They lived in the Province, were tolerated by those inside the walls to farm the lands this side of the Celtic border, but they weren’t citizens. They were in between. Belonging to neither.

“My father is an important merchant,” I stated, in a last futile attempt to find safe ground. “This doesn’t make any sense. My birth parents died in an accident. In the city. I’ve seen the news feeds. There is no way I’m not a citizen… look at me.” I indicated my perfect hair, impeccable style, and state-of-the-art accessories.

Devyn gave me a somewhat exasperated look, followed by a top-to-toe inspection.

“Any stone can be polished and made to look like something it’s not.”

“Like a diamond,” I shot back, “a dull, cloudy lump of carbon infinitely improved upon when cut, shone, and polished.”

“Indeed,” he said drily, “but just because someone has put a shine on it, a stone it remains nonetheless.”

“I don’t care about diamonds,” I said, annoyed to have been so easily countered. “Why do you say I’m not a citizen? How do you know that?”

“I know lots of things,” he replied equably.

Could he not just give me a straight answer?

Did I want a straight answer?

Devyn was clearly involved in crimes more serious than I could have imagined. Meanwhile, my life was just fine. I didn’t need to get myself mixed up with whatever misguided nonsense this was. I could just hand back the device, do whatever was needed to conceal my mistake with the medicine and Marina, and get on with my life. I could graduate, find a nice place to live, marry the man I was matched to, have babies as the Code decreed. A family that was truly my own. This, whatever it was, was likely to mess with that.

I took in my surroundings again.

“Where are we?” Anything rather than continue the conversation in the direction it had taken. A next step that led to a road I hadn’t ever seen coming. “Do you live here?”

“Hardly,” Devyn scoffed. “How would I be able to go to a nice western college if this was my home address?”

“I don’t know. You’re a hacker, and there’s something else, something more.”

I paused, my mind working overtime. How was he doing this? He had been taken from class. How had he managed to convince the sentinels of his innocence when he was so clearly guilty of many, many crimes against the city? What was he up to?

“I don’t know who you are, not really, and now you’re telling me I’m not even a citizen.” I stopped, unable to go on, this was too much. I wasn’t political. I had no idea what motivated someone to hack the city’s firewalls, much less what dissidents railed against. As for his statement that I was not a full citizen, I couldn’t begin to put together the ramifications of what that meant. My mind reeled at the idea.

I ran a hand over my hair, my auburn hair, bright as autumn leaves, seeing the flicker of distaste in my mother’s eyes when she looked at it. But it wasn’t proof enough.

And what was the destroyer-of-the-world-as-I-knew-it doing now, having just delivered a truth of which I would happily have lived my life in ignorance? He was leaning back in his armchair, as relaxed as you please, that irritating penetrating gaze watching me absorb his bombshell.

“Why would you poke holes in the Code that protects the city? Why would anyone want to sneak out? How do you change your appearance, make people barely see you? Seriously, if the sentinels realise you can…”

I waved my hand in the air. I wasn’t sure how he managed to be so unremarkable but I was reasonably sure it wasn’t something most upstanding citizens were capable of. It must be some kind of chemical that worked on pheromones or new augmenting tech.

“Can you please, please stop messing around and give one of my questions a straight answer? Any one of them will do,” I pleaded.

“This room belongs to my friend Linus.”

I screeched.

“No, no.” He laughed softly. “Let me finish. Linus needed to leave the city. He was sick. I helped him get out discreetly. Once he’s better he wants to come back. I’m just keeping the lights on in his absence, so the authorities don’t realise he’s gone.”

“Why didn’t he just get healed here, with proper medicine?” I latched on immediately. Did this Linus have the same illness as Marina?

Devyn’s lips thinned.

“Because medicine and shiny hospitals aren’t as easily accessed when you live at the bottom of the pile. Also, some illnesses do better by not having the attention of the authorities on them.”

“What kind of illness?” I pursued. What was it about the illness Marina had that so scared her and her brother of attracting the eyes of the authorities?

Devyn eyed me speculatively. “Are you unwell, Cass?”

The light in his eyes was almost eager as he leaned towards me.

“No, I’m fine.”

He looked strangely disappointed at this and leaned back again. “But somebody is ill. Cough, fever, fatigue, shakes, getting worse all the time?”

“Yes, well, just the cough that I’m sure of, perhaps a touch of fever, and her movements seem a little jerky. I bought some medicine but they refused to take it. I don’t understand why.”

Devyn glanced sharply at me. “Where did you get the medicine – a pharmacy, a doctor? Did you give them the name of the sick friend? Who exactly is sick? Where are they now?”

His questions came thick and fast, hardly drawing breath between them. I stumbled over the answers.

“I got the medicine in the West End. I didn’t tell them who it was for.” I paused, recollecting my father’s questions the day after. Had he known I’d bought it? Suddenly I was sure he had. “My father knew. He was asking me the next day if I felt well. He was really persistent.”

“I’ll bet he was.” Devyn was unsurprised.

“But it wasn’t for me or one of my friends. It was for the sister of someone I know. Someone this side of the old walls,” I continued.

A dark eyebrow raised at that. “Who do you know in the stews, princess?”

I really hated it when he called me that. What was worse was I could almost predict his smug smile when I told him who I knew.

“Apprentice Oban.”

His look was blank; he didn’t recognise the name. How was that possible?

“The tailor,” I clarified, “from the Mete. The one with the dress.”

Still nothing.

“You did watch and vote Friday before last, didn’t you?” It was unthinkable that he wouldn’t have. Devyn took care not to draw attention to himself and not voting was a significant thing to forget to do.

Devyn’s face showed a slight hint of bewilderment before he shrugged it off.

“A tailor, you say? This is who is sick?”

“No, it’s his sister. She looks like she’s been sick for a while. But when I brought them the medicine, they were horrified.” I looked over at him then. “Why wouldn’t they want the medicine? Why were they afraid of anyone knowing she is sick?”

“I’d guess her problem isn’t what she’s done but what she is,” Devyn said, back to his cryptic self.

I exhaled my frustration. “What does that mean?”

“It means you should stay away from her. There is nothing you can do to help her.”

“I don’t understand.” I stood, walking over to him, the better to see his face in the growing dark of the evening. His face was its usual mask, but those dark eyes occasionally offered a glimpse into the true Devyn. This close, I was aware once again of how deceptive his appearance was. He gave the impression of a long, slight body, an aura of a quiet, diffident soul. Up close, this was a sham. His body was wide at the shoulder, long and lean as he sat in the chair with his back to the wall. The force of his personality crackled in the near dark, as if now that I couldn’t see him so well, my eyes could no longer deceive me as to the reality of him.

I felt compelled to break down his façade completely. I reached out a hand to touch him, my fingers drawn to the strong column of his throat where it met his collarbone. He stood abruptly, causing me to stumble backward. He caught me before I fell, releasing me and hastily putting more space between us before going to stand in what light still came in through the window. The small of my back was electrified by his fleeting touch.

“She’s most likely a latent,” he said, distracting me from my purpose. “Those who are getting ill have some of the old blood in their veins. It doesn’t have to be a lot but it makes them susceptible to this infection.”

“But why would that make Marina afraid to get help?” Old blood… did he mean Briton? It wasn’t unknown for citizens to have some Briton ancestry, a legacy from the era before the Code was introduced. Even more so here in the stews, where Shadowers mingled more freely with the population, accidents happened.

He took a breath, seeming to consider his words carefully before continuing.

“Because a few of them also have… abilities. Or rather the potential to. Latents, particularly those manifesting any abilities, have been known to disappear after they seek medical attention.”

Even now he was being cagey with information. But I understood what he wasn’t saying.

“Magic? In the city?”

He inclined his head, a silent confirmation.

I drew a steadying breath. Abilities. Old blood. People who could wield magic, here behind the walls. This was the reason it was against the Code to intermarry with Britons. Why Shadowers couldn’t become full citizens. This taint in the blood. Magic was absolutely forbidden within the walls. It was the only way to keep our city safe.

If what Devyn said was true and I wasn’t city born then… no, he’d lied, it wasn’t possible… mixed blood. I had been adopted by a prominent elite family, I couldn’t be tainted with Wilder blood. Without thinking, I used the slightly derogatory reference to the native peoples of this land. Nobody referred to the indigenous as barbarian anymore, but they weren’t exactly civilised either.

“You think that’s why they’re hiding her illness. Because she has…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“It sounds likely.”

“What happens to them? The ones who disappear?” I asked focusing on the impact rather than the cause. It didn’t bear thinking about, if she really did have what he suggested. The sooner she was beyond the reach of the authorities, the better.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe they die like everyone else.”

“You don’t know for sure? Haven’t you searched online? You must have some idea.”

“No, I’ve tried to find out, of course, but there’s no reference to them anywhere.”

“Your friend, he decided not to stay to find out?”

“No, Linus decided to disappear himself for a little while, lie low, try to find out what he could beyond the walls,” he said slowly. “He’ll be back.”

I slowly and shudderingly released the breath I was holding. This was real.

I had drawn attention to Marina; it was my fault.

I wouldn’t stand by and do nothing. “Can you get her out?”

“What?” His features were in almost complete darkness. He was no more than a silhouette in the evening dusk.

“You helped get your friend out. Is there someone outside the walls who is helping him? Someone Marina could go to?”

He looked at me measuringly.

“Perhaps,” he said softly. “But I will need my tech back.”

“Deal,” I said with alacrity.

He laughed. “It’s not quite as simple as that. I’ll need help. Are you sure you want to be more involved than you are already, princess?”

I was going to punch him the next time he called me that. I saw again the fear in Marina’s eyes, the worry in Oban’s.

“What happens if she doesn’t get help?” I asked.

“She’ll die.”

“She can’t go to the hospital because the sentinels will take her?” I guessed.

“They don’t take everyone, but if she’s as afraid as you say then she may suspect she is likely to be one of the unfortunate ones.”

“I’ll help.”

“Good girl.” He smiled a broad open grin I hadn’t seen before. “Give me her details and I’ll go and talk to her and see if she and her brother want our help. Then I’ll see what I can do.”

“What we can do,” I corrected. I had got involved and I would see this through.

Again his dark eyes measured me.

“We’ll see. I’ll let you know if they agree to accept my… our help. Which means we’ll need to talk freely again, about things we don’t want anyone to hear. We’re okay here – the house is a clean zone. It’s been made safe.”

“People can’t hear us?”

“Not exactly, otherwise you screaming your head off wouldn’t have been a problem,” he explained. “It’s more that what you say can’t be picked up. Hang on a sec.”

He got up, crossing to what passed for a kitchen, and pulled out a drawer. Setting it gently on the floor, he reached back in to the hole and pulled out a small package before returning.

“Stand up for a minute, Cass. You need to wear this at all times.” He stepped behind me and placed a rose-gold chain with a plain disk hanging off it around my neck, his fingers brushing against the sensitive skin at the nape as I held my hair up out of his way. I could feel him standing there, his breath warm on my exposed neck, his touch lingering perhaps a moment longer than was necessary once he had fixed the clasp.

He returned into my line of sight and leaned against the wall.

“It’s important you remember to use it when we are together. We can’t let them notice any big change in your behaviour. Take the pendant between your forefinger and thumb before you say anything controversial, particularly if you’re going to use keywords that they monitor for dissidents.”

“Are you telling me that what we say is being monitored, that somebody is listening to us all the time?” I knew the council could watch citizens and that there were cameras everywhere, but I thought the surveillance of the level seen in the Mete’s evidentiary real was only for those who broke the Code.

“This can’t be news to you. The system tracks what you say to make your life as a citizen and, more importantly, as a consumer better, more efficient. When you walk into a shop, keywords are picked up, so that when you’re looking for that perfect pair of boots with the cute little strap”—he mimicked a teenage girl’s voice—“the shop assistant approaches you with a pair of boots in one of your favourite brands in your size. You know this, Cassandra.”

“Sure,” I replied. “They use that technology to optimise our time when shopping. Personalisation is much more efficient.”

Devyn snorted. “Don’t be so naïve. You think it stops there? You are monitored all the time. When you’re online with your friends, at classes, walking through the shops with Ginevra, they are always listening. They don’t record everything but every time you mention a brand name, ping, I want, ping, I need, ping, I must get, ping. We aren’t free citizens, we’re monitored consumers. Wake up.” His eyes were alive with contempt.

“What’s so wrong with that? I like that I don’t have to waste time shopping. My clothes arrive with the right accessories and my outfits are adorable,” I preened, unable to help myself.

“What’s wrong with that?” Devyn took a step towards me. His intensity compelled me to listen to him. “Nothing, as long as you continue to be a good little girl, keep up with the latest styles, listen to the latest packaged pop star, watch the trending bursts. What do you think happens when you don’t comply? When you’re caught saying something against the Code? When you’re caught breaking the Code?”

I saw again the blood speckled across the sand.

“All it takes is for them to catch you saying one thing that’s outside the lines of what the Code allows for them to focus in on you and start monitoring you and every little thing you do.”

I put my hand to the delicate chain, worrying the pendant up and down it. This was my only protection against the city’s surveillance. An alarming thought occurred to me.

“What about the last times we met? We spoke about the tech. What if they’ve already heard us?” I asked.

“They haven’t heard anything,” he said, turning his wrist to show me that his wristband contained a similar disc embedded in the leather.

“Why are we here then? We could have talked at the park.” He had relied on the protection offered by the disc before so what was different this time?

“I wanted to see how badly you wanted this favour.”

Just when I thought he wasn’t that bad, he had traipsed us all the way to the outer walls to test me. Right. Well, I had passed, I guessed.

I had come to him to figure out how to cover up my mistake so I could smooth over a wrinkle in my usually seamless life. Not only was it now well and truly rumpled, but if I was to believe what Devyn was telling me, it wasn’t even my life. Not really. My life belonged to an elite citizen, not a –

I shuddered. One problem at a time.

“Okay, tell me what to do.”

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