Forged Absolution (Fates of the Bound Book 4) Read online

  But none of them paused in their taco eating this morning. They didn’t lift their cameras, not even the scattered few who might have recognized her without her silver carpet makeup.

  No one had suspected that she’d arrive in a workborn truck.

  Brakes squeaking at the gate, Dixon handed the militiaman his fake ID and preemptively opened his mouth to show he couldn’t answer the man’s questions.

  The blackcoat barely glanced at Dixon’s tongue and notepad. Instead, his gaze instantly shifted to Lila.

  “Name and purpose?” he asked, squinting at her coat.

  “My name is Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph.” She handed him her ID. “I’m to appear in court today.”

  Recognition dawned on his face. She’d seen him working the gate a few times, but without her militia uniform and roadster, he hadn’t recognized her.

  “Of course, chief…madam,” he replied, keeping his voice low. The man had no idea what title to apply to her. Perhaps Chief Sutton had not yet officially taken over as the Randolph chief, or perhaps Lila’s mother played a new game.

  The man typed her information into his palm, then returned her ID. “If you’re innocent of the charges, I wish you well. If you really did what they say, I hope you hang for it.”

  “Aren’t you cheerful?”

  “I’d be more cheerful if I didn’t have to listen to those protestors caterwauling at the gate at all hours of the day and night. If the press hadn’t caught wind of this business, we could have spaced out your trials. We could have taken care of this matter privately among the families. Same result, very different reaction. Instead, we get this.”

  Dixon snatched his ID from the guard’s hand and rolled up the window.

  “Do you ever get pissed off about that?” Lila asked as he pulled into the compound, driving through the marble buildings, dodging the Bullstow men who had risen early, either for a jog or to start their day. The runners donned track pants; the men on errands or walks wore trousers and sweaters. A worrying amount still wore their usual attire, though—confining breeches, suit coats, and impeccably tied cravats, all colored and trimmed for the cities they’d served in during their last legislative session, a session that had ended the month before.

  Lila had a sinking feeling that she knew why they’d dressed so formally for the day.

  “How often do people not bother to talk to you? As though reading a few scribbles on a notepad is too much effort. You have very nice penmanship when you’re not excited or pissed or sleepy. Or drunk.”

  Dixon pulled into a parking spot outside the senate building and dug out his pencil. There are perks. I’m not expected to make small talk, and it weeds out the assholes.

  He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Lucky you.” She hopped out of the truck, her eyes straying to Bullstow’s great ballroom, the place she’d met La Roux only a month before. Dancing couples in breeches and intricate dresses had been carved into the marble, twirling as though they all pranced to the same music. She’d left in a happy mood the night of the Closing Ball, certain that La Roux was the Baron. She’d intended to hack into his palm that evening, to gather more information for her case against him, to pull the curtain back and expose him for what he was.

  That hadn’t backfired completely.

  The pair entered the senate building, shuffling toward the east wing, which belonged to the New Bristol High House. A particularly large number of senators loitered in the hallways. A month ago, they might have gathered to talk Lila into a season or at least a date. Now they stared, just as curious as the protesters outside the walls.

  And twice as angry.

  She’d been right to guess why she’d seen so many dressed in their usual garb. Gossipers, spies, and the curious, all looking for a show. She ignored them until she came to one figure waiting for her in the rotunda, the smooth marble floor surrounded by paintings of Saxon governors, the delicate dome rising above them like the tip of an ornate scepter. Long blonde hair fell around the man’s face in waves, and he wore the Burgundy coat and black breeches of the New Bristol senate.

  “Senator Dubois.” Lila’s boots echoed upon the marble.

  He did not bow. “I never thought I’d see the day that you’d end up on trial. Did you really do what they claim in the papers?”

  “I’m not going to answer that, Louis. I suspect my lawyer would—”

  “Screw your lawyer. First Jewel and now you?”

  The venom in his tone answered the question she hadn’t wanted to ask.

  “Good. You haven’t gone back to her.”

  “No, I haven’t. Fuck you, madam. Fuck you and your whole rotten family.” Spinning on his heel, he darted off into the crowd. The nearest gasped that a senator had lost his temper.

  Dixon gave Dubois the finger.

  Lila grasped his hand and pushed it down. “Not in the capitol,” she whispered, “and pull up your scarf before someone gets curious.”

  He did as she bid, cupping the back of her neck as they walked, giving it a light squeeze while they slipped through the crowd. The mob finally petered out before a door, all too well mannered to approach. Or perhaps the militia stationed outside it kept everyone away. Their ankle-length blackcoats, black uniforms, and tranq guns called for respect and a wide berth.

  Lila stopped before a blackcoat. “This guest attends with my permission.”

  The man patted them both down, his hands squeezing her arms and legs as though she might have brought a tranq gun. She’d left it in the truck, along with her boot knife. She hoped Dixon had done the same.

  “You’re clear, madam.” His tone curled unpleasantly on the last word.

  Lila and Dixon slipped inside the room. The disciplinary committee had been holding the trials in a smaller courtroom, likely to limit the number of spectators. Six benches with hard wooden backs sat in two columns, facing a long table with nine leather chairs. Between the table and the spectators sat a desk and two seats. A man occupied one, wearing a scowl of self-importance as well as the golden breeches and white coat of a Bullstow public defender. He pursed his lips as Lila entered, and did not get up to greet her.

  Lila barely knew anyone else in the room. Just a few blackcoats she’d worked with in the government militia and Chief Sutton, still dressed as a commander in the front row. Her gray hair had been pulled into an elegant bun, and she had dressed in her formal officer’s jacket, a flash of blood red beneath her blackcoat. She followed Lila’s steps, her expression blank.

  If they’d been alone, Sutton likely would have begun with a tongue lashing. Or perhaps Lila’s mentor wouldn’t have said anything at all. She looked away as their gazes crossed, as though she didn’t want to be there.

  Lila’s mother hadn’t shown—not that she’d expected it. Her father hadn’t come, either. Chief Shaw had. He sat in the back, a telltale piece of lint on his collar. An audio bug, if she had to guess.

  Her father listened in, then. Her mother too, judging from the little bump on Chief Sutton’s sleeve. Her matron had likely ordered her to attend.

  That meant Lila’s mother and father weren’t on speaking terms; otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed two bugs for the same room.

  Lila wondered how many more had been slipped inside.

  Dixon headed to the back of the room and sat on a bench a few seats away from Chief Shaw. He studied each spectator as Lila sat beside her lawyer. The man had tucked his long white hair into a smooth ponytail at the nape of his neck.

  “I’m Arron Marquez, a friend of your father’s,” he whispered. “Before you ask, no, I wasn’t able to get you a deal. No one accused has gotten one so far. I strongly recommend that you affirm the original plea of not guilty. I entered it on your father’s request. Take your chances with a trial this morning and the evidence against you. I’ll try to have the evidence thrown out
as prejudiced, try to force them to start their investigation from scratch, but no one has had any success with that approach so far.”

  He leaned in closer, his expression matching Chief Sutton’s. “The good news is that the evidence against you appears to be somewhat circumstantial. My technical consultants have assured me that the press received no hard evidence tying you to anything but a fake ID under the name of”—he peeked at his notes—“Prolix. Of course, no one can reproduce that evidence. It’s as if the ID just vanished. The rumor is that Bullstow can’t find it in their logs, and certainly not on the night this anonymous source claims you were inside BullNet.”

  Lila breathed a sigh of relief. La Roux hadn’t known everything she’d done when he set up the dead man’s switch, thank the gods. He’d never hacked into Shaw’s private records either, for Shaw kept the proof of her and her father’s investigations off BullNet, hopefully far away from prying eyes.

  Luckily, cleaning up her ID had served her well.

  “The other piece of good luck is that you’re an heir, at least unofficially. It also helps that the press has turned you into a somewhat sympathetic figure of late.”

  He tossed his notes back on the desk. “The bad news is that Bullstow discovered a few anomalies in the BIRD database while searching for this Prolix account. Those anomalies, whatever they are, do lend some credence to the stories in the press. I have a few arguments against them, prepared by my technical consults, but the evidence for and against you is weak. To make matters worse, Bullstow issued a court order for your matron’s security tapes. They show you leaving the Randolph estate a few hours before the break-in last month. The committee’s verdict could go either way at this point. They might try to delay the trial, hoping they’ll have time to turn up more evidence of your actions inside BullNet, but what’s more likely is that they’ll force you to submit to the truth serum to clear up this entire mess, citing national security concerns. If that happens, there might not be anything I can do to stop it. Their rationale is shaky and would never fly normally, but what with so many other accused…”

  He didn’t even have to finish.

  Bullstow had resolved to clean up New Bristol. The senators before her would play on the strength of their performance, ambitiously campaigning for inclusion in the state senate next session. After all, these trials were being followed by the protestors outside, by the other senators, and perhaps by the country. If the committee could bend and stretch a rule to get a verdict, it would do so.

  Lila worried the hem of her sweater. If the committee demanded she submit to the truth serum, she might keep talking after they asked their questions. She’d tell them everything she’d ever done in BullNet and implicate those who had hired her. Her father and Chief Shaw would sit in her place an hour later, and they’d be scheduled to hang. Tristan and Dixon would soon follow if they didn’t leave New Bristol, for she’d volunteer the things she had done on their behalf. The oracle might be called as well—not that the senate would have any authority over her.

  “What if I change my plea to guilty?”

  The lawyer’s face fell as the last senator trundled in. “Don’t even joke about that. They won’t give you any special consideration just because you admit to your wrongdoing. The trial will just go faster. You’ll be sentenced to hang and left to rot in a holding cell until your execution date. They’re executing everyone at the same time, if you can believe it. For the effect.”

  Lila shifted in her seat while the row of senators glared down upon her, five burgundy jackets and pairs of breeches, the New Bristol city medallion on silver chains at their necks. Four other senators had joined them from Low House, their lowborn coats and breeches all cut in different colors. If not for the previous trials, she wouldn’t know much about them. The disciplinary committee had just been elected before the closing ceremony.

  Usually Bullstow postponed all trials until after the season ended.

  Senator Masson, the committee’s chair, banged his gavel upon the sounding block and snatched up a paper outlining the charges against her. He read out each accusation in a smooth, rich baritone, his dark hair brushed perfectly, his face shaved close to his face, his jacket a tad too roomy at the shoulders. He must have been too busy to visit the gym lately.

  They had all been too busy, judging by their clothes.

  True to the lawyer’s suspicions, Senator Masson did not have much to read out that wasn’t circumstantial, and Lila heard nothing that hadn’t come from La Roux’s file. She’d been charged with one count of misusing a government database and one count of misusing a computer, even though they didn’t specify which computer she’d used to steal the data. They’d added one count of theft of proprietary information and another for breaking and entering, though they didn’t explain how she’d slipped inside Bullstow.

  Masson finally stopped at the last charge and peered over the top of his paper. “Not only has the entire BIRD database been copied, but the code for the application was copied as well. All of it. That’s not only theft, madam. That’s treason.”

  Lila ensured her face was blank, a skill she’d learned after dealing with her mother. She ran a few scenarios in her mind, calculating she had only one chance to dodge the noose and keep her father and Chief Shaw from the gallows. Perhaps the oracle and her people, too.

  Senator Masson turned back to his report. “Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph, given the evidence against you, Bullstow hereby charges you with treason, in addition to the other charges I have read out. Do you understand what that charge means and what that sentence holds?”

  Mr. Marquez nudged Lila’s shoulder.

  Her chair creaked as she stood up. “Yes, I do.”

  “How do you plead?”

  “To accessing the BIRD? Guilty,” she replied.

  Chapter 4

  The spectators buzzed behind her while Senator Masson checked that he’d turned on the recorder. “Can you repeat that, madam?” he asked, his perfect elocution dropping away.

  “You heard me. I accessed the BIRD, I fully admit it, but I’m not guilty of hacking or treason. Those are the only charges that really matter. The rest are details.”

  Her lawyer chucked his pen onto the desk. His face turned several shades of pink.

  “Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph pleads guilty to the charges read against her, save treason. So noted.” He scrawled a few words on his report and added his signature, quite a bit larger than might have been necessary.

  “I didn’t say I was guilty of everything, just accessing the BIRD.”

  Senator Masson paused for effect—the effect being that Lila wanted to smack him in the head. “I must confess, Ms. Randolph, this committee has already reviewed the evidence against you and the briefs filed by your lawyer. You father assured us that you would show, but we did not believe him. You’d quite disappeared from New Bristol in the last month. As such, we were prepared to make a decision on your case immediately.”

  “Then it’s rather too bad I showed up to spoil such brevity. I suppose you’d planned to spend a free morning in the gym. Perhaps a sauna? All five of you from High House crammed naked into one little room?”

  Masson rubbed his chin. “In light of your surprising attendance, we are prepared to withhold our judgment and reconsider your case. You are free to offer an explanation of the evidence against you, specifically the not-guilty plea for treason.”

  “You and I both know that for a treason charge to hold, you must show that I either profited from whatever information I allegedly took or that I delivered it to a third party. You can’t prove either, since I did nothing of the sort.”

  The committee members eyed one another. A few senators whispered to their neighbors.

  Senator Masson banged his gavel. “We thought you might suggest that, but given the severity of this case, lack of evidence will not deter us. You have until five o’cl
ock this evening to surrender yourself into the custody of the Bullstow militia. There’s enough evidence against you to warrant the use of the truth serum…unless you’d like to change your plea.”

  “No. I told you. I accessed the BIRD. I freely admit it.”

  Her lawyer sank a few centimeters lower in his seat.

  Chief Sutton shot one last fleeting glance at her, then turned her head away. Here was disappointment. Here was anger. Here was betrayal. Unmasked and unfiltered, a crushing look on a normally elegant face.

  “Could you tell the committee why you hacked into a government database?” asked Senator Hardwicke, a copy of Senator Masson but with blonde hair.

  “I came to visit someone that night, and I woke up an abandoned computer while I waited. The BIRD was open. I needed some leads for a few cold cases on my family’s compound. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. It might have been misguided and impulsive, it might have been overzealous, but I have never made a credit off the information I found there, nor have I ever, at any point in time, given data to any member of the Randolph family. Certainly not so anyone could profit. I may have slightly falsified a report or two by not revealing every source for my evidence, but treason? Hacking? How do you get such a preposterous notion?”

  “We didn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t. Someone has misused the truth.”

  “Then you were here that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who did you come to meet?”

  Lila did not answer. She had no intention of implicating her little brother. Though only an intern at present, he longed to be a senator. The last thing she wanted was for his career to begin with a lie.