Lemaire traced a knot on the table. “I made a mistake with you, Lila. I freely admit that now. You were my first child, and I was just so excited by you, so fascinated, so in love with the idea of being the best sort of father I could be. I’d seen Senator Blanc’s daughters make a mess of their family’s finances for their own gains, and I overdid it. You were older and more responsible at ten than most senators, and I kept pushing you anyway.”
He shook his head. “I did this to you, made you incapable of prioritizing yourself. You would have made a great senator, perhaps a far better prime minister than me, had you been born a man.”
Lila spun her sapphire ring. “I hacked Liberté.”
Lemaire’s jaw dropped. It was one of the few times she’d ever seen him surprised.
“I did it for the case. Don’t panic. Well, except for the first time, when I was a kid and I wanted to see if I could. My point is only that I would have made a lousy senator, just like I’ve made a lousy chief. We’re not meant to prod and poke, and damn the means so long as the end result is useful. Alex and my mother were both right. I bend the rules when I feel the cause is just, or perhaps I just feel like I’m above them.”
“You’re thinking of Senator Dubois.”
Lila didn’t answer.
“If you had been born in the poorer classes, if you’d always owned your mark, what would you have done with yourself?”
“Private militia,” she said immediately.
Lemaire leaned over the table, his brows raised and waiting.
Lila let out her breath. “I would have ended up like Max or Trudy Poole. There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
“You wouldn’t have ended up like them. Ms. Poole hacked and spied for money, and her son does the same thing for the same reasons, but I think that’s the most honest thing I’ve ever heard you say. I could make use of you, Lila. I need someone who understands both worlds, the games that the highborn play with one another, as well as the world of those who would steal from the masses. I need someone who can stay neutral in it all, someone I can trust, especially next year, when I ascend to the council. If you were from the poorer classes, I would have made you an offer long before now. I would have asked you to become a paid consultant. It’s not unheard of for a woman to be absorbed into government if she has the skills we need. We could use you, Lila. Think about it.”
Under the table, Lila rubbed her belly.
“We would have to talk about what happened with the oracles, though. You can’t go off and make decisions on your own.”
“Father…”
“Have you talked with the oracle yet?”
Lila shook her head. In point of fact, she had received a call from the oracle that very morning. She’d said that Lila was in danger. She’d seen it in a vision. She’d even promised to send a contingent of purplecoats to the south gate to escort Lila to safety.
The oracle didn’t seem keen to tell Lila where that safety might be found.
“I’ve dealt with the assassin,” she’d told the oracle, not in the mood for more bodyguards, and disconnected before the woman could say another word.
“Talk to the oracle soon, please. She won’t stop calling, and I’m legally obligated to answer.” His palm vibrated, and he checked the screen.
“Is that her?”
“No,” he said, sucking in a breath.
Lila had never seen her father so startled. “Who, then?”
“Get your bag and get out of the hotel now.”
“What? Why?”
He slid his palm across the table.
Lila saw a familiar article. This time, it wasn’t in her inbox. It wasn’t in her mother’s, either. It had been posted on the front page of the New Bristol Times’s website.
Tomorrow it would hit the papers, knocking aside any mention of the Holguíns and Oskar Kruger. The protestors would make brand-new signs with brand-new slogans, all about her.
“Mother did this?”
Maybe it was a joke.