The Elite, Page 2

  CHAPTER 3

  THE WIDE DOORS OF MY balcony were open, as well as the one to the hallway, and my room was filled with the warm, sweet air blowing in from the gardens. I had hoped the soft breezes would be a consolation for the fact that I had so much work to do. Instead they distracted me, making me ache to be anywhere but stuck at my desk.

  I sighed and reclined in my seat, letting my head drape over the back of the chair. “Anne,” I called.

  “Yes, miss?” my head maid answered from the corner where she was sewing. Without looking, I knew that Mary and Lucy, my other two maids, had perked up, waiting to see if they could serve me as well.

  “I command you to figure out what this report means,” I said, pointing a lazy arm at the detailed account on military statistics that sat in front of me. It was a task that all the Elite would be tested on, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus on it.

  My three maids laughed, probably from both the ridiculousness of my demand and the fact that I’d issued one at all. I wouldn’t have called leadership one of my strong suits.

  “I’m sorry, my lady, but I think that might be overstepping my boundaries,” Anne answered. Even though my request was a joke and her answer was, too, I could hear the genuine apology in her voice for not being able to help me.

  “Fine.” I moaned, heaving myself into an upright position. “I’ll simply have to do it myself. The whole lot of you are worthless. I’m getting new maids tomorrow. This time I mean it.”

  They all chuckled again, and I focused on the numbers one more time. I was getting the impression that this was a bad report, but I couldn’t be sure. I reread paragraphs and charts, furrowing my brow and biting the back of my pen as I tried to concentrate.

  I heard Lucy laugh quietly, and I looked up to see what she was so amused by, following her eyes to the door. There, leaning against the frame, was Maxon.

  “You gave me away!” he complained to Lucy, who continued to snicker.

  I pushed back my chair in a rush and ran into his arms. “You read my mind!”

  “Did I?”

  “Please tell me we can go outside. Just for a little while?”

  He smiled. “I have twenty minutes before I have to be back.”

  I pulled him down the hall, the excited chatter of my maids fading behind us.

  There was no denying the gardens had become our place. Almost every chance we got to be alone, we came out here. It was such a stark contrast to how I used to spend my time with Aspen: holed up in the tiny tree house in my backyard, the only place we could be together safely.

  Suddenly I wondered if Aspen was around somewhere, indistinguishable from the numerous guards in the palace, watching as Maxon held my hand.

  “What are these?” Maxon asked, brushing across the tips of my fingers as we walked.

  “Calluses. They’re from pressing down on violin strings four hours a day.”

  “I’ve never noticed them before.”

  “Do they bother you?” I was the lowest caste of the six girls left, and I doubted any of them had hands like mine.

  Maxon stopped moving and lifted my fingers to his lips, kissing the tiny, worn tips.

  “On the contrary. I find them rather beautiful.” I felt myself blush. “I’ve seen the world—admittedly mostly through bulletproof glass or from the tower of some ancient castle—but I’ve seen it. And I have access to the answers of a thousand questions at my disposal. But this small hand here?” He looked deeply into my eyes. “This hand makes sounds incomparable to anything I’ve ever heard. Sometimes I think I only dreamed that I heard you play the violin, it was so beautiful. These calluses are proof that it was real.”

  At times the way he spoke to me was overwhelming, too romantic to believe. But though I cherished the words in my heart, I was never completely sure I could trust them. How did I know he wasn’t saying such sweet things to the other girls? I had to change the subject.

  “Do you really have the answers to a thousand questions?”

  “Absolutely. Ask me anything; and if I don’t know the answer, I know where we can find it.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  It was tough to come up with a question on the spot, much less one that would stump him, which was what I wanted. I took a moment to think of the things I’d been most curious about when I was growing up. How planes flew. What the United States used to be like. How the tiny music players that the upper castes had worked.

  And then it hit me.

  “What’s Halloween?” I asked.

  “Halloween?” Clearly, he’d never heard of it. I wasn’t surprised. I’d only seen the word once myself in an old history book my parents had. Some parts of that book were tattered beyond recognition, with pages missing or mostly destroyed. Still, I was always fascinated by the mention of a holiday we knew nothing about.

  “Not so certain now, Your Royal Smartness?” I teased.

  He made a face at me though it was clear he was only playing at being annoyed. He checked his watch and sucked in a breath.

  “Come with me. We have to hurry,” he said, grabbing my hand and launching himself into a run.

  I stumbled a bit in my little heels, but I kept up pretty well as he led me back to the palace with a huge grin on his face. I loved when Maxon’s carefree side came through; too often he was so serious.

  “Gentlemen,” he said as we raced past the guards by the door.

  I made it halfway down the hall before my shoes got the better of me. “Maxon, stop!” I gasped. “I can’t keep up!”

  “Come on, come on, you’re going to love this,” he complained, tugging my arm as I slowed. He finally eased back to my pace but was obviously itching to move faster.

  We headed toward the north corridor, near the area where the Reports were filmed, but ducked into a stairwell before we got that far. We went up and up, and I couldn’t contain my curiosity.

  “Where are we going exactly?”

  He turned and faced me, immediately serious. “You have to swear never to reveal this little chamber. Only a few members of the family and a handful of the guards even know it exists.”

  I was beyond intrigued. “Absolutely.”

  We reached the top of the stairs, and Maxon held open the door for me. He took my hand again and pulled me down the hallway, finally stopping in front of a wall that was mostly covered by a magnificent painting. Maxon looked behind us to make sure no one was there, then reached behind the frame on the far side. I heard a faint click, and the painting swung toward us.

  I gasped. Maxon grinned.

  Behind the painting was a door that didn’t go all the way to the ground and had a small keypad on it, like the kind on a telephone. Maxon punched in a few numbers and then a tiny beep sounded. He turned the handle as he looked back to me.

  “Let me help you. It’s quite a high step.” He gave me his hand and gestured for me to walk in first.

  I was shocked.

  The windowless room was covered with shelves full of what appeared to be ancient books. Two of the shelves contained books that had curious red slashes on the bindings, and I saw a massive atlas against one wall, opened to a page that held the shape of some country I couldn’t name. In the middle was a table with a handful of books on it, looking as if they’d been handled recently and left out for quick recovery. And finally, embedded in one wall was a wide screen that looked like a TV.

  “What do the red slashes mean?” I asked in wonder.

  “Those are banned books. As far as we know, they may be the only copies that still exist in all of Illéa.”

  I turned to him, asking with my eyes what I didn’t dare say out loud.

  “Yes, you can look at them,” he said in a manner that implied I was putting him out but with an expression that said he had been hoping I’d ask.

  I lifted one of the books carefully, terrified that I might accidentally destroy a one-of-a-kind treasure. I flipped through the pages but ended up setting it back
down almost immediately. I was simply too awestruck.

  I turned around to find Maxon typing on something that looked like a flat typewriter attached to the TV screen.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A computer. Have you never seen one?” I shook my head, and Maxon didn’t seem too surprised. “Not many people have them anymore. This one is specifically for the information held in this room. If anything about your Halloween exists, this will tell us where it is.”

  I wasn’t fully sure of what he was saying, but I didn’t ask him to clarify. In a few seconds his hunt produced a three-bullet list on the screen.

  “Oh, excellent!” he exclaimed. “Wait right there.”

  I stood by the table as Maxon found the three books that would reveal what Halloween was. I hoped it wasn’t something stupid and that I hadn’t made him go through all this effort for nothing.

  The first book defined Halloween as a Celtic festival that marked the end of summer. Not wanting to slow us, I didn’t bother mentioning I had no idea what a Celtic was. It said they believed that spirits passed in and out of the world on Halloween, and people would put on masks to ward off the evil ones. Later, it evolved into a secular holiday, mainly for children. They dressed up in costumes and went around their towns singing songs and were rewarded with candy, creating the saying “trick or treat,” as they did a trick to get a treat.

  The second book defined it as something similar, only it mentioned pumpkins and Christianity.

  “This will be the interesting one,” Maxon claimed, flipping through a book that was much thinner than the others and handwritten.

  “How so?” I asked, coming around to get a better look.

  “This, Lady America, is one of the volumes of Gregory Illéa’s personal diaries.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “Can I touch it?”

  “Let me find the page we’re searching for first. Look, it even has a picture!”

  And there, like an apparition, an image from an unknown past showed Gregory Illéa with a tight expression on his face, his suit crisp and his stance tall. It was bizarre how much of the king and Maxon I could see in the way he stood. Beside him, a woman was giving the camera a halfhearted smile. There was something to her face that hinted she was once very lovely, but the luster had gone out of her eyes. She seemed tired.

  Surrounding the couple were three figures. The first was a teenage girl, beautiful and vibrant, grinning widely and wearing a crown and a frilly gown. How funny! She was dressed as a princess. And then there were two boys, one slightly taller than the other and both dressed as characters I didn’t recognize. They looked like they were on the verge of mischief. Below the image was an entry, amazingly enough, in Gregory Illéa’s own hand.

  THE CHILDREN CELEBRATED HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR WITH A PARTY. I SUPPOSE IT’S ONE WAY TO FORGET WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND THEM, BUT TO ME IT FEELS FRIVOLOUS. WE’RE ONE OF THE FEW FAMILIES REMAINING WHO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO DO SOMETHING FESTIVE, BUT THIS CHILD’S PLAY SEEMS WASTEFUL.

  “Do you think that’s why we don’t celebrate anymore? Because it’s wasteful?” I asked.

  “Could be. If the date’s any indication, this was right after the American State of China started fighting back, just before the Fourth World War. At that point, most people had nothing—picture an entire nation of Sevens with a handful of Twos.”

  “Wow.” I tried to imagine the landscape of our country like that, blown apart by war, then fighting to pull itself back together. It was amazing.

  “How many of these diaries are there?” I asked.

  Maxon pointed to a shelf with a row of journals similar to the one we held. “About a dozen or so.”

  I couldn’t believe it! All this history right in one room.

  “Thank you,” I said. “This is something I would never even have dreamed of seeing. I can’t believe all this exists.”

  He was beaming. “Would you like to read the rest of it?” He motioned to the diary.

  “Yes, of course!” I practically shouted before my duties came back to me. “But I can’t stay; I have to finish studying that terrible report. And you have to get back to work.”

  “True. Well, how about this? You can take the book and keep it for a few days.”

  “Am I allowed to do that?” I asked in awe.

  “No.” He smiled.

  I hesitated, afraid of what I held. What if I lost it? What if I ruined it? Surely he had to be thinking the same thing. But I would never have an opportunity like this again. I could be careful enough for the sake of this gift.

  “Okay. Just a night or two and then I’ll give it straight back.”

  “Hide it well.”

  And I did. This was more than a book; it was Maxon’s trust. I tucked it inside my piano stool under a pile of sheet music—a place my maids never cleaned. The only hands that would touch it would be mine.

  CHAPTER 4

  “I’M HOPELESS!” MARLEE COMPLAINED.

  “No, no, you’re doing great,” I lied.

  I’d been giving Marlee piano lessons nearly every day for more than a week, and it genuinely sounded like she was getting worse. For goodness’ sake, we were still working on scales. She hit another sour note, and I couldn’t help but wince.

  “Oh, look at your face!” she exclaimed. “I’m terrible. I might as well be playing with my elbows.”

  “We should try that. Maybe your elbows are more accurate.”

  She sighed. “I give up. Sorry, America, you’ve been so patient, but I hate hearing myself play. It sounds like the piano is sick.”

  “More like it’s dying, actually.”

  Marlee collapsed into laughter, and I joined her. Little did I know that when she’d asked for piano lessons, my ears would be in for such painful—but hilarious—torture.

  “Maybe you’d be better at the violin? Violins make very beautiful music,” I offered.

  “I don’t think so. With my luck, I’d destroy it.” Marlee rose and went over to my little table, where the papers we were supposed to be reading were pushed to one side and my sweet maids had left tea and cookies for us.

  “Oh, well, that’s fine. The one here belongs to the palace anyway. You could throw it at Celeste’s head if you wanted.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she said, pouring us both some tea. “I’m so going to miss you, America. I don’t know what I’ll do when we don’t get to see each other every day.”

  “Well, Maxon’s very indecisive, so you don’t have to worry about that just yet.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, turning serious. “He hasn’t come right out and said it, but I know that I’m here because the public likes me. With the majority of the girls gone, it won’t be long before their opinions change and they have a new favorite, and then he’ll let me go.”

  I was careful with my words, hoping she’d explain the reason for the distance she’d put between the two of them but not wanting her to shut down on me again. “Are you okay with that? With not getting Maxon, I mean?”

  She gave a small shrug. “He’s just not the one. I’m fine with being out of the competition, but I really don’t want to leave,” she clarified. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to end up with a man who’s in love with someone else.”

  I sat bolt upright. “Who is he—”

  The look in Marlee’s eyes was triumphant, and the smile hiding behind her cup of tea said Gotcha!

  She had.

  In a split second, I realized that the thought of Maxon being in love with someone else made me so jealous I couldn’t stand it. And the moment after that—the understanding that she meant me—was infinitely reassuring.

  I’d put up wall after wall, making jokes at Maxon’s expense and talking up the merits of the other girls; but in a single sentence, she found her way behind all that.

  “Why haven’t you ended this, America?” she asked sweetly. “You know he loves you.”

  “He never said that,” I promised, and that was true.

 
“Of course he hasn’t,” she said, as if this would be obvious. “He’s trying so hard to catch you, and every time he gets close you push him away. Why do you do that?”

  Could I tell her? Could I confess that while my feelings for Maxon went deep—deeper than I knew, apparently—there was someone else I couldn’t let go of?

  “I’m just … not sure, I guess.” I trusted Marlee; I really did. But it was safer for us both if she didn’t know.

  She nodded. It looked like she could tell there was more to it than that, but she didn’t press me. It was almost comforting, this mutual acceptance of our secrets.

  “Find a way to be sure. Soon. Just because he’s not the one for me doesn’t mean Maxon’s not a great guy. I’d hate for you to lose him because you were afraid.”

  She was right again. I was afraid. Afraid that Maxon’s feelings weren’t as genuine as they seemed, afraid of what being a princess might mean for me, afraid of losing Aspen.

  “On a lighter note,” she said, setting down her cup of tea, “all that talk about weddings yesterday made me think of something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you want to, you know, be my maid of honor? If I get married someday?”

  “Oh, Marlee, of course I would! Would you be mine?” I reached to grab her hands, and she took them happily.

  “But you have sisters; won’t they mind?”

  “They’ll understand. Please?”

  “Absolutely! I wouldn’t miss your wedding for the world.” Her tone implied that my wedding would be the event of the century.

  “Promise me that even if I get married to a nobody Eight in an alley somewhere, you’ll be there.”

  She gave me a disbelieving look, positive that no such thing could ever happen. “Even if that’s the case. I promise.”

  She didn’t ask me to make a similar vow for her, which made me wonder as I had in the past if there was another Four back home who she had her heart set on. I wouldn’t press her though. It was clear we both had secrets; but Marlee was my best friend, and I would do anything for her.

  That night I was hoping to spend some time with Maxon. Marlee had me questioning a lot of my actions. And thoughts. And feelings.