‘Come on, I want to show you something.’ He slips his fingers through mine, and against my better judgement, I follow him.
‘Erik, I don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘Let me guess.’ He laughs good-naturedly. ‘Enora was warning you that Maela will put your head on a spike if she catches us together?’
Something about the casual way he says this makes me feel silly for listening to her.
‘Why do you think I’m pilfering you away tonight?’ he asks earnestly.
Enora’s warning about his intentions echoes in my head. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Because Maela is too busy to notice, and by this point everyone else is too tipsy to watch you.’
‘So it’s true then?’ I ask breathlessly. ‘I’m still being watched.’
‘Of course you are,’ he says. ‘We all are, but on nights like this security is busy keeping Spinsters to their purity obligations, and I told them I would keep an eye on you.’
Another reason I shouldn’t be here with him now.
‘Where are we going anyway?’ I ask as he leads me down another empty corridor.
‘We’re here.’ He drops my hand and dramatically opens two large wooden doors directly in front of us.
The moon casts a faint silver glaze on the flowers and sparkles at us from the cobbled walkway that leads into the heart of the garden I walked through on my first day of orientation. I’ve rarely been outside since my arrival here, and then only under close supervision. Right now Erik is anything but a chaperone.
He offers his arm and sweeps me toward the centre of the garden. ‘Care to dance away from those prying eyes?’
There’s no music, but he leads me elegantly into a waltz. His blond hair glows in the dim starshine, and he looks like he belongs here in the cool night.
‘You haven’t asked me why I’m doing this yet,’ he whispers in my ear.
I have to swallow against the frantic pulse in my throat to speak. ‘Will you tell me the truth?’
‘Possibly,’ he says. ‘Although I’m not sure you are ever supposed to tell a lady the truth.’
‘You won’t know until you try,’ I argue.
‘Okay. I like smart girls,’ he tells me. ‘And a smart girl who’s also gorgeous – how can I resist?’
I rest my head on his shoulder so he won’t see how much I like this information, even if he’s probably lying.
‘So is that why you’re with Maela?’ I ask, my face still turned from his.
He snorts at this. ‘With Maela? That woman does not know when to let go.’
‘You haven’t . . .’ I’m not sure I want a straight answer even if he’ll give it.
‘She never understood how it works,’ he says. ‘She’s not as bright as you are.’
I think about Enora’s warning and try to pull away from him. ‘Erik, I’m already on Maela’s bad side. There’s no need to make it worse.’
‘You have to remember she controls me too.’ For a moment he sounds sincere but then the arrogance returns. ‘We may never get another chance.’ But underneath his sense of entitlement, there’s a subtle fear hidden in his eyes, and it looks familiar. It reminds me of the way my father looked as he dragged me to the tunnel. I cling to Erik a little tighter, remembering how easily people can slip away.
‘It doesn’t matter. We have a little fun now and Maela finds out and does something awful to one of us, or both of us, and for what?’ I force myself to pull out of Erik’s grasp and look him in the eyes. ‘There’s no future for us.’
‘Look, you can play the innocent with everyone else, but not me.’ His voice is low but earnest. ‘I know Maela is watching you. She thinks you’re dangerous, which means you are.’
‘Maela thinks she’s the centre of the world. I wouldn’t put too much stock in her opinions.’
‘She’s scared of you,’ he says.
‘Why? I’m not her problem any more.’
‘I don’t know.’ Erik sighs. Clearly he’d hoped I’d open up more. ‘It has to be something that happened at your testing. She’s been different ever since you arrived.’
‘Oh, she wasn’t a psycho before?’
Erik shakes his head and the moonlight bounces off his golden hair. ‘No, that’s nothing new. I thought I’d have to kill you when you first got here.’
I groan. This is so unfair. ‘She really hates me.’
‘No,’ he says, ‘the Guild executes any girl who runs. Standard no-tolerance policy. When she had me sedate you, I assumed—’
‘And you would have done it,’ I accuse him.
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘I wasn’t really running,’ I admit. ‘My parents were trying to hide me.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Erik says, unshaken by the confession. ‘They would kill you and your family then.’
‘Why?’ The word forms on my lips but no sound comes out.
‘A girl who tries to escape or run with her family after testing can never be loyal enough to trust. Runners rarely ever make it to the Coventry after they’re caught, but Maela lives for gossip, so I hear about it when one does. It seems to happen frequently in the Western Sector. People whose parents hide them – whose parents try to cheat the testing process – have poisoned minds.’