“Hello, Oskar,” Lila called out.
The boy inclined his head. “Hello, madam.” He shuffled into the restroom before she could say more, face blank, eyes fixed on the sloshing water, careful not to make a mess.
“He’s growing up fast, isn’t he?” she asked Alex, remembering Peter Kruger well enough to recognize his son after so many years.
It was in the eyes. Exhausted. Hopeless. Dead.
“I bet my mother still makes Peter scrub the sewers. Oscar’s twin sister is probably in the scullery as we speak, washing the dishes or the oven or even the walls. When I first found out I was going up for auction, I worried that I would end up like them. I still do. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that I have it so well. Sometimes I feel like I have to do something to ensure that I’m not scrubbing sewers for the rest of my—”
A door burst open in the back of the waiting room, and Patrick returned. “The chairwoman will see you now,” he said, bowing. “I’ll wait for you out here.”
He smiled kindly and sat on one of the cream-colored chairs, pulling out his palm. Lila wondered if it was for work or play. Probably some sort of game, knowing Patrick. What sort of work could he possibly have to do in such a place?
Alex followed Lila into the chairwoman’s office, awash in gold. The woman sat upon a golden couch in a little nook to the left of her desk, a painting of a golden serpent with bared fangs on the wall behind her desk chair. The matron’s silvercoat had been impeccably tailored, and the embroidered coat of arms matched the golden dress underneath. A framed Van Gogh loomed over them, with Japanese characters painted along the edges of the piece.
The chairwoman motioned to two plush chairs across from her couch, both upholstered in the same golden hue. “Speak quickly, girls. My lunch is waiting.”
/> Alex gaped at her mother. Time had worked quickly, or perhaps it was all the medication. She had lost weight and height in the last year, and her arms and legs had dwindled in size. Her eyes bulged in their sockets, and her gray hair flowed freely past her shoulders, frizzing in the damp, foggy afternoon. It gave her a squirrel-like, neurotic appearance.
For the first time, Lila understood how Simon might have mistaken his mother for being ill. Lila had seen the chairwoman during the last season, but only in the soft light of the ballroom and only under several layers of makeup. It had been enough to hide her stress and wrinkles, but the harsh light of the office only made them worse.
The chairwoman’s eyes hardened at Alex’s presence. “You fought so hard to be free of me even after I warned you to be careful of what you wish for. What do you think of your new life now?”
Alex stared at the floor. “Hello, Mother.”
“Don’t call me that, slave. How dare you come into my home now after you’ve been cast out of it. Just look at what you’ve done to us.”
The words slapped at Alex, clearly hitting their mark with more force than a fist.
“I don’t believe Alex had much to do with this,” Lila said. “Besides, we didn’t come to visit. Simon’s worried. He said you’ve been ill. He made me promise to bring Alex to visit you. I would have brought him along if I thought the Massons could spare him.”
“You saw him?” The chairwoman crossed her legs and sat up straighter on the couch.
“Yes, I did.”
“What could you possibly have to talk about with a boy ten years your junior?”
“This and that.” Lila loosely held the audio bug she had palmed while in the waiting room. “Are you going to ask us to sit?”
The chairwoman waved at the padded chairs across from her, fixing her eyes on Alex with a disgruntled sneer. “Not you, slave. These chairs are new.”
Lila sat down while the chairwoman’s attention was on her daughter. Under the pretense of adjusting her short sword, she brushed the bug under her seat. Her finger lingered and pushed, sticking it into place firmly.
“So? How is he?” the chairwoman prompted. “I suspect he’s gotten taller.”
“You haven’t visited him?”
“Of course I haven’t. The boy turned into a delinquent. Selling black market drugs on my own property, after all my care and attention? It’s reprehensible,” she said. “Besides, it takes two hours to get out to Massonville and back again. I refuse to give the boy that much of my time.”
“Simon didn’t sell any drugs,” Alex protested. “You know that he wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Lila said. “People will do a lot of things for money, won’t they, chairwoman?”
Alex shook her head. “Not Simon.”
“What exactly are you implying, Chief Randolph?” The chairwoman intertwined her fingers in her lap. Her thumbs tapped back and forth.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying that I can understand why the kid might have done it. He’s always been a well-behaved, studious boy, but even well-behaved, studious boys have desires. Anyone can see that your family is struggling, so I can understand why he might have been tempted to sell a few trance tabs here and there, just to make some extra—”