One of the women finally dares to speak. “Minister Patton.”

“Can we get some emergency lights on in here?” Cormac asks.

There’s a buzz of orders throughout the room and a few minutes later a dim light flicks on overhead.

I wonder why they need to have a holding cell under the Ministry offices, anyway.

I don’t have to think long about that question.

“Ladies.” Cormac’s politician smile is plastered on his face. “The whole of the Eastern Sector is in terror—”

“Sir,” the woman dares to address him.

“What’s your name?” he asks her.

“Hanna,” she says. She’s a few years older than me, with an upturned nose set over a wide mouth, and her brown eyes sparkle with rebellion.

“Hanna, don’t speak until I tell you to.” The smile slips from his face, showing them the Cormac I know and loathe. His fingers massage his temples. I guess I’m not the only one giving him a headache. “As I was saying, your actions—or rather inaction—have crippled this entire sector. I would love to hear your reason for abandoning your duties. You’ve left the entire sector in fear.”

Hanna doesn’t look abashed at Cormac’s admonishment. She looks angry. She obviously hates him as much as I do. It occurs to me that in another scenario she and I might be friends. Except that I’m standing on the other side of the cell’s bars, and I’m sure she hates me as much as him at the moment.

“We want basic rights,” Hanna says. But the anger makes her voice tremble, weakening her strong words.

“Basic rights,” Cormac parrots. “You have clothing, food, shelter, safety. The last time I checked, those were basic rights.”

“We want the rights you afford other citizens. We want to be able to marry and to have our own homes,” Hanna says.

“Those are privileges,” he corrects her.

“And we don’t deserve privileges?” Hanna bursts out. She grabs the bars and presses her face into the space between them. “We work around the clock to ensure this world functions, and you lock us in a tower.”

I knew I liked her.

“And you live in beautiful homes, wear designer clothing, eat delicacies,” Cormac starts.

“Not all of us are eager to be paraded around like peacocks.” She looks at me.

That’s not fair. I’m dressed in tactical gear, for Arras’s sake.

“And your plan to get these things that you deserve is to ignore your duties and terrify citizens?” Cormac asks.

“We want you to listen to us.”

“I am listening, and I hear what you’re saying,” Cormac says. “What you need to realize is that I don’t care. Your claims don’t absolve you of your crime.”

Cormac has already labeled them as criminals. This can’t end well.

“I’m sure the Spinsters are eager to remedy the situation,” Grady says, rubbing his hands together.

“It doesn’t matter.” Cormac turns away and speaks quietly to Hannox, who nods gravely at commands I can’t hear.

While Cormac talks to him, I wander over to the bars. Most of the girls look away from me, but Hanna faces me without blinking.

“Come to stare at us so that you can feel superior?” she asks.

I run my fingers over the cool steel between us. “I’ve spent time imprisoned by Cormac.”

“And now you’re by his side. Clearly, you’re back in his good graces. Who did you betray for that privilege?” Hanna is clearly unimpressed with me.

“I understand being angry. I’m angry, too,” I whisper to her.

“Oh, please,” she says with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “What could you possibly have endured?”

“Death, destruction, the loss of the people I love most,” I say, and I refuse to blink. Hanna thinks she has me pegged, but she has no idea how I wound up here.

Or how far I’m willing to go.

“So you gave in to save a boy,” she says in a mocking voice.

I don’t tell her about my sister or the mother they’ve turned into a monster or the friend who escaped only by losing her own blood in a bathtub. Hanna needs to be angry. It fuels her so that she won’t feel the fear in her belly. I know that fear. It never goes away. You can only ignore it or hide it under the fury.

But I have different reasons to play along right now. Ones she can’t understand. Hanna only sees me on the other side of the bars and that makes me her enemy.

Still, a girl might go crazy locked away in a tower day after day. Hanna and her conspirators’ perception of Arras has warped. It’s easy to believe you understand the function of your world when it’s at your fingertips every morning, afternoon, and evening. When the loom presents a piece of your world, it’s easy to believe you see the whole picture. I held thunder in my palms and wove rivers into being. But I didn’t understand what I was facing until I stood under the Interface and contemplated the reality of both worlds. Then I saw Arras for what it was: a parasite sucking away at the Earth.

“There’s more at stake here than you or me,” I say to her quietly. “It’s the awful truth. You think you can run from it, but there’s nowhere to go.”

“I don’t want to run from it,” Hanna says, her eyes fierce. “I want to change it.”

“You can’t do that from a prison cell,” I remind her.