“Of course!” The attendant is an old man—a citizen Outsider—with white hair that sticks to the sweat of his neck. I notice the scar where his embed was removed when he satisfied his indenture. I shouldn’t be surprised—an indenture is supposed to be only twenty-one years, so in theory, many people should satisfy them. But taskmasters are allowed to add time to indentures for so many reasons, it seems like they get longer instead of shorter. He smiles with slightly gray teeth, and I feel his pride bubble over.
Renya tugs two hairpins from her head. With one she pins a poppy into her own hair, and with the other she pins one into mine. She grins, and I scold myself for my nerves. Nothing will go wrong.
“Do you see the pendant around this old citizen’s neck?” Renya whispers into my ear as she leans close, pretending to check the pinned flower in my hair. “See the entwined circles? That’s the secret symbol of the Third Way. It’s subtle enough to escape the Authority’s notice, but another underground member would recognize it.”
“Are you sure?” I say, following her as she drifts down the aisle. The Third Way was an experimental settlement, where Enchanteds and Outsiders lived as equals. “I thought that was outlawed years ago.”
“It was outlawed,” Renya says. “But people break laws every day.”
At every stall, shouting to be heard over the music and the voices of the crowd, Renya asks where she might find a silver honeypot. Each vendor points her in a different direction, and each gives her a sample of their own wares, which she accepts cheerfully and passes off to me, so that my arms are soon awkwardly overfull. I’m in danger of dropping something by accident, or maybe even on purpose. We still haven’t found a silver honeypot when Sir Millicent presses up behind us. “They’re about to open registration for the Race of Oblivion. It’s time to head to the stage,” she shouts.
One of the guards steers us between two stalls and shines a light on a set of wooden steps. When we get to the top, I discover we’ve climbed to a platform that overlooks the central hub of the carnival on two sides. One faces the parade route, the other an ancient stone building known as the Queen’s Temple. It’s said to be the oldest temple in Lanoria, dating back to the days when the first Enchanteds arrived, pioneers from a dying homeland, searching for a new world. They found Lanoria, and claimed it. By the time the rest of their people came—refugees from that very same homeland—they were calling themselves the Enchanted, and dubbed the newcomers Outsiders.
Looking at that ancient temple, accessible only to Enchanteds, I think of the story my father told me, of how the Outsiders had no choice but to submit to the system of indenture, since the homeland they’d all come from could no longer support life, and the Enchanteds declared that resources were too scarce to share without restriction. The only scarce resource in Lanoria is power, he’d said.
“The parade will come straight down that avenue,” Renya says, pulling me from my thoughts. She points to the street that passes directly beneath us. “We’ll have the best view from up here.” Somewhere along the way, she scooped up more hairpins. One by one, she pins at least half a dozen poppies across the crown of my head.
I can’t keep my eyes from the crowd. Authority guards are holding the masses back from the parade route behind metal barriers, but people still jostle for the best view along the railing. Soon the royal family will come down from the stage to briefly greet a short line of carefully vetted Enchanteds and even a few Outsiders in a controlled demonstration of how accessible they are to their subjects. Normally I wouldn’t pay any attention at all, but today my brother and father will be in that line. Renya will meet them and shake their hands, and she will discreetly hand my father the royal order giving him access to the Citizens Hospital.
I’m panicking until I spot them in the crowd, right along the barricade where they belong. They’re both dressed up, so much I didn’t know them. My father is coughing into his elbow, but Marlon waves at me. “There they are,” I say under my breath. I know better than to make a big scene. Renya does not look down, but gently turns my head back to face her and fastens a final poppy in my hair.
Beside us, a microphone squeals to life. Prince Lars clears his throat. He is introducing the annual Race of Oblivion, but I can’t hear him. I’m too distracted by the thought of my father walking into a real hospital and receiving treatment from a real doctor. Getting treatment that he’s needed for so long—treatment that will rid him of that cough and make him strong again.
Someone in the crowd lets out a whoop, and I jump back, startled. “People are stepping up to volunteer for the race,” Renya whispers. “Their bravery—or foolishness—is being acknowledged.” I nod. Far out in the crowd a circle has been roped off, and a knobby old man in a judge’s robe stands holding an open book. As volunteers step into the circle, each adds their name to a page in the back, and I wonder how many people who’ve signed their names on the preceding pages are dead.
For the winner, the Race of Oblivion means citizenship, but there’s only one winner each year. For many of the other contestants, the race means death. It’s cruel, really. Stripped of all their personal memories, racers wake with amnesia somewhere outside the city walls, with nothing more than a short list of instructions and a map to the first clue. If I think my life as a surrogate is a life without mercy, I know it’s nothing compared to what happens in the race.
I watch a woman enter the circle and sign her name. She’s a big, sturdy woman with a pretty face. A man waits for her outside the rope, holding the hand of a toddler. When she lifts the pen after signing, the man in the robe raises a small knife to the base of her throat. With a motion so quick I barely notice it, he slices the skin over the woman’s embed and pulls it out. Blood coats his fingertips. I groan, and Renya bends toward my ear again. “It’s gory, isn’t it? And pointless. They still keep their second embed until the race starts.”
“It’s ceremonial,” whispers a voice behind me. It’s Sir Millicent. The red-lined cape of her uniform brushes my shoulder as she leans closer. “It represents the racer’s loss of identity.” My hand goes to my own embed at the base of my throat. The woman is already back beside her husband, lifting her little girl. “If she wins, her whole family receives citizenship,” Millicent adds. “She must be doing it for the child.”
I watch the volunteers file up in turn, maybe two dozen in all. There are only a few entrants left in line when a bell in the tower of the Queen’s Temple tolls eight times.
Eight o’clock. It’s finally here. Renya gives my hand a small squeeze. “And now the parade!” calls Lars over the loudspeaker. “I’d like to invite the parade master, Sir Augustine, to strike up the first band and send them on their way down the avenue. In the meantime, as we await their arrival, my family would like to take a few minutes to greet some of you.”
In the distance, maybe a few blocks away, the first notes of the frenzied melody of a jig start up, all fiddle, tin whistle, and drum. Renya turns and whispers into my ear, “This is it.”
I hand her the small purse I’ve been holding with the royal order inside, and she tucks it under her arm. I’m suddenly as unsteady as a drunk. Everything speeds up and my vision narrows, like I’m watching the proceedings through the wrong end of a telescope. Renya gives my hand another squeeze before stepping away from me and following King Marchant and Prince Lars down a set of steps to the street. The crowd waves from behind the barricades. A woman with a camera runs ahead of them, a flashbulb going off over and over like a strobe.