The club struck once more.
“The oracle has kept silent,” Lila said at last. “Your people too. From what I can tell, no one knows.”
“Lila—”
She stood up, but he lunged, caught her hand, and tugged her back to the bed.
Lila tensed, wanting to bolt.
“Do you really you think your mother might kick you out of your family?”
“She caught me hacking a government database, Tristan. I’m surprised she gave me time to fix it. If she can’t use my vacation to explain away my absence, she’ll be forced to do damage control, separating the cancer from the rest of the family. She can’t have a member of her militia, much less its chief, hacking into government databases, and she can’t allow Bullstow to hang me for treason while I’m part of the family. People will talk.”
Lila shivered. Perhaps the thought of exile triggered it. She wouldn’t just lose her home and her job. She’d lose everyone she loved, everyone she cared about, every friend and relation.
She’d be dead to them all.
A third of all highborn exiles killed themselves within five years. The rest survived as workborn or lowborn, usually moving far away to escape the shadow of their family’s tower.
And Wolf Tower stood so very tall.
“You only hacked into the BIRD because your father asked you to. Even Chief Shaw gave his permission. Surely that—”
“Would put both their heads in the hangman’s noose. At best, it would ruin my father’s political career, and Bullstow would cast Shaw from the militia. They won’t save me from my mother’s wrath, Tristan. It would give her too much ammo. Besides, she’d likely exile me anyway.”
“Why?”
“It would affect our family’s stock price too much if I was dragged before the press. The only way that doesn’t happen is if the chairwoman of Wolf Industries has already restored her family’s honor by culling the problem before the story goes public. It sends a message that the Randolphs don’t tolerate that nonsense among its own members, that they police themselves.”
“I can’t believe she’d exile her own daughter just to make a little extra money.”
“It’s not just a little extra money, and it’s not even the highborn who would be most affected. We have thousands upon thousands of workborn who hold contracts with us. Would you rather see our workforce slashed and jobless just because I made a mistake? Do you know how many people that would affect?”
“She’s your mother, Lila.”
“She’s a matron first. Those are the sorts of de
cisions you have to make when you take the job. Now you know why I didn’t want it.”
Tristan sat up behind her put his chin on her shoulder, pulling her body to his. “You should reconsider my suggestion. We’ll go to Bullstow tonight and break in. This time for real, not as a favor to Shaw and not to test their defenses. We’ll see what else Reaper and his little friend did in BullNet. You’ll have all the data you need to figure it out. They can’t have just laid traps in the BIRD.”
Lila thumbed her palm. Every day, Tristan and his half-brother Dixon suggested breaking into BullNet. Every day, Lila said no. She didn’t want to risk waking the blackmailer without good reason.
“No,” she said again.
Tristan tightened his arms. “If she kicks you out, you’ll always have a place here. No matter what. You don’t have to share my bed, though I wouldn’t complain if you did. I’d even put a few pegs on the wall for your Colt and boot knife.”
Tristan had said as much before. With the exception of one dinner party she’d attended at the Masson winery and a visit to Randolph General to have her stitches removed, she’d spent most of the last two weeks in Tristan’s apartment, too busy studying the data from the BIRD to do much else. She’d also dug through a few wiped computers and star drives from Reaper’s apartment, as well as a few devices he’d left behind at the shop.
But no matter how hard she’d looked, she hadn’t found any leads.
While she worked, Tristan pulled her away for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. At night, he pulled her away for eight hours of sleep and a prelude to dreams.
And nightmares.
Lila squeezed her eyes shut.
“Did you call the oracle back?” Tristan asked.