There were soldiers everywhere, strictly enforcing this policy. No amount of wheedling or unsubtle offerings of notes would affect one’s placement among the vehicles. Elizabeth had once asked Papa how the soldiers knew where every person belonged.
“It’s because of our seal,” Papa said. “There is a very tiny mark on the carriage, one that every owner is required to have when they purchase a vehicle of any kind. The soldiers use them to rank each family accordingly.”
And the next time Elizabeth was in the stables she’d asked Phelps, the groom, to show her the mark. It was indeed very small, placed in the bottom right corner of the door, and raised like the surface of the seal that Papa used to mark wax on envelopes.
Once their carriage was parked—a few minutes’ extra distance farther than Papa’s carriage, for although Daniel was connected by marriage to an old family his own family was less prominent than Papa’s. His wedding to Margaret had raised his standing, but his own name limited how far he could rise without some significant contribution to the City.
Elizabeth did not believe Daniel ever would rise very much higher. It wasn’t that he lacked intelligence—he had plenty of it—but he did seem to lack drive. Elizabeth had often heard Margaret remark that he ought to spend less time laughing and more time working. This reprimand never seemed to affect Daniel, though—he’d only grab Margaret around the waist and spin her until she was flushed and giggling like a girl.
When Elizabeth saw them like that she understood a little better why Daniel had married Margaret in the first place, because her sister often seemed too dour for Daniel’s happy nature. Margaret kept her joy tightly wrapped and hidden like a secret present, and only Daniel knew how to find it.
Mama and Papa lingered near their carriage until the rest of the family caught up with them and then they all proceeded together in the direction of the Great Square.
In a proper city the Great Square would have been the geographical center, but the New City wasn’t like other cities that Elizabeth had read of in books. The New City had been built when the grandfathers of the City Fathers wished to escape the crime and degeneracy (this was Papa’s word; Elizabeth wasn’t entirely sure what degeneracy was but Papa’s tone indicated that it was a Bad Thing) that was spreading ever outward from the heart of the City. It had been decided that the heart of the City would be walled off and a fresh New City built around it like a ring. Only families of wealth and breeding were permitted to reside in the New City, and all the thieves and murderers were left inside “away from decent folk,” as Papa said.
Elizabeth thought that probably there were more than just thieves and murderers left in the Old City, that there were decent folk who just didn’t have enough money to make it out. This was a Very Controversial Opinion, for when she expressed it she was immediately shouted down by any grown-ups in the vicinity who assured her that “only filth lives in the Old City.”
The ring of the New City accomplished its purpose—the crime-ridden streets no longer spread outward from the center. But dark things grow even in the absence of sunlight, and the denizens of the Old City began stacking floors on top of other floors, and buildings on top of other buildings, until the whole thing looked like a tottering child’s toy ready to fall at the touch of a well-placed kick.
The rooftops of the Old City were now higher than the tallest building in the New City—the six-story Home Government building, a gleaming beacon of shining white marble that was meant to be visible from anywhere in the New City. Now, owing to the increased height of the Old City, those residents who lived directly across the ring from the Home Government building could not see the glimmering edifice—only the crooked towers and plumes of dank smoke that emitted from the Old City.
The Home Government building was set at the northern side of the Great Square. The other three sides were residence buildings for the City Fathers, twelve identical three-story brick buildings set four to each side.
The cobblestones that paved the rest of the City were not present in the Great Square. Instead, the ground was composed of large pieces of marble that matched the Home Government building. This marble was cleaned every day, three times a day, by twenty-four servants who scrubbed on their hands and knees at even the most minute scuff in the field of white. There were to be no imperfections in the Great Square.
The twelve City Fathers, descendants of those original forward-thinking men who had stopped the swelling pustule of crime (this was another phrase Elizabeth had overheard, though it wasn’t one of Papa’s—Papa didn’t state things in such a poetic manner), waited on a dais in front of the Home Government building to greet the families of the New City. Beside each Father was a servant holding a bag that contained coins for the children.
Every family lined up according to their housing parish number—there being one Father for each parish. Strictly speaking each Father was a sort of governor for his parish, although as far as Elizabeth could tell all the actual work was done by the Father’s representative in the parish.
In Elizabeth’s parish that was Beadle Kinley, a horrid old man who smelled of mothballs and always insisted that Elizabeth sit on his lap when he came to visit her papa. She’d tried very hard to avoid this task on his last visit, arguing that she was far too grown-up for lap-sitting. But the Beadle had given Papa a look with his piercing blue eyes, a look that Elizabeth could not read but that her father understood.
He’d swallowed visibly and said, with the tiniest of tremors in his voice, “Go on, Elizabeth. You’re not so grown-up yet.”
Mama had looked away as the Beadle slid his damp hand down Elizabeth’s curls and onto her back. Elizabeth had wanted to wriggle away from his foul touch, but she had learned that he seemed to enjoy this (he always chuckled wheezily in a way that passed for happiness, anyhow) and since she wanted it over with as soon as possible she sat very still and hoped he’d have his fill of her company soon.
Elizabeth shook away the memory of the Beadle as she and her family joined their line. Polly and Edith tried to jostle in front of her in order to receive their coins first, but Margaret reprimanded them sharply and they fell into line behind. Elizabeth was so preoccupied with thoughts of Alice and the mysterious voice (and the creeping memory of the Beadle that seemed to hover like an infected thing in the back of her mind) that she hardly noticed. Of course it was only right that she go first—she was the girls’ aunt, after all, and her father was more important than Daniel—but at the moment she couldn’t say that she cared.
She only wondered about Alice.
The voice said that Alice was her sister.
Mama and Papa had always said that Elizabeth’s only sister was Margaret.
And nobody ever spoke of a person called Alice.
Except on the day that the newspaper brought news of the fire in that hospital.
And today, when Elizabeth came down the stairs in her new blue dress.