“Do you have any idea the heat this will generate for you and your people? How much heat it already has—”
“How is it different than anything else we’ve done for the past few years? Breaking into Bullstow? Sneaking into highborn estates? Fine, you didn’t like how we handled this job. We’ll be more careful next time. We’re in this together, both of us against the—”
“Tristan, take it down a notch. You and I aren’t locked in some war against the highborn and the government. At least I’m not. You know why I do the things I do.”
“You think it’s any different for
me? We’re on the same side, whether you admit to it or not. This is our war.”
“It’s not a war, Tristan.”
“It should be. One day soon, slavery will be abolished in—”
“Slavery isn’t going to be abolished, and you know it. Not for your kind, anyway.”
Tristan’s jaw clenched.
Lila didn’t care. “Your kind fall into slavery because they broke the law. The Slave Bill will never apply to you. Pardon me if I don’t have much sympathy for murders, thieves, and rapists. Few in the country do.”
“Few of my kind, as you so elegantly put it, are any of those things. They’re not criminals, not unless you count crossing the street in the wrong place as a crime, or looking at the militia in the wrong way, or sleeping in the park because you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Lila leaned against the wall, settling in for another of Tristan’s rants. “If you don’t have money for your fines, then you have to pay them off somehow.”
“Do children have fines to work off?”
“They do chores to pay for their room and board, their medical fees, and their schooling until they age out. What else should we do with them? Take them away from their parents? We’re not animals, Tristan. A child only stays with a slave if they don’t have another parent available. It’s the best of a bad situation.”
“They shouldn’t stay there at all.”
“Well, we disagree on that point,” she muttered. “Yes, a few slaves here and there have been unjustly sentenced, but it’s no reason to throw out a system that works. It just means you clean up the system. You don’t abandon it.”
“Of course you’d say that. It takes a lot of slaves to drill all that oil. How convenient that the council rubber-stamps it, a council you sit on.”
“Don’t be naïve, Tristan. What else are we to do with criminals? Execute them? Stick them in little cages like they do in the Holy Roman Empire, letting people rot and drain the government coffers? Slaves get experience that can help them land a better job when they complete their sentence. It’s cheaper and more efficient to let the matrons deal with them.”
“Yes, because we can’t solve any problem without the damn matrons getting involved.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. I spent the morning listening to important people ask me questions that I can’t answer, and I spent the afternoon listening to the radio speak of terrorism. Have you listened to it today? People are scared, and Bullstow thinks you’re a terrorist. With your attitude right now, I’m not so sure you aren’t.”
“And you’ve always been so afraid of important people,” Tristan said. “If what we’re doing together is just another contract, then act like it. This has been a mutually beneficial arrangement for the last couple of years. We both made out on it. Don’t go ruining it now.”
“None of this was part of the job.”
“Neither was going back to the hotel.”
Lila snorted. “Now you’re upset with me for not following the plan? That’s priceless. What if I had needed medical attention or a new palm or…something? Anything? Damn it, Tristan, were you even going to tell me where I could find you?”
“Eventually. After everything blew over. If you’d been pinched, you could have led Bullstow back to the safe house while under the influence of the serum. I had to protect my people.”
“So much for me being one of your people,” she said. “I’m Chief Shaw’s only suspect. What do you think will happen if I’m picked up for this? I can talk my way out of a lot of things, Tristan, but not a terrorism charge.” She hugged her helmet to her chest and shook her head. “You want to talk about protecting people? You protect a dozen. I protect thousands. What are they supposed to do if I’m thrown into a holding cell?”
“They’d find another chief.”
Lila’s mouth gaped.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, I think you meant it exactly like that. I want to know why. I deserve to know why. Why that building? Why last night?”