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After we’ve cleared our plates, I say I’ to lie down, and I pull Basil toward , love?""Yes," I say, and I can’tmy sterility pill since about the tier I know my mother doesn’t want for me to repeat Alice’s e to be intimate with their betrotheds, but the idea still eainst it with a deflating sigh

Basil sits on the edge of my bed and holds his arms out to me "Come here," he says, and when I take his hands, he pulls me down to sit beside hia his red necktie "In just a few days, I feel as though everything has changed"

"I keep thinking it’ll all go back to nor I wake up and tell myself there won’t be a patrolman at the door when I leave They’ll have found the murderer The fire will turn out to have been an accident"

We sit without speaking for a while, e

"You can tell , you know," Basil says

He knows so, then He’s an excellent reader of people, and I aoodlost in s, likeverbal presentations before the class, or that I don’t like his ives ift--as much as I let on But how can I tell hi like my brother, or that I have perhaps always been like hie, A behind her so that she had no choice but to jump?

I think of the specialist’s card in my pocket

"Basil?" I say "You want me to be safe, don’t you?"

He puts his hand over ers "Of course," he says

I can’t tell hie, he would drag ’s home atop the clock tower himself He would ask to have me declared irrational, and I’d be fitted with an anklet hts and never be allowed to step outside again Just like the woman who used to live downstairs I used to pass by her door and see her so just inside her threshold after her husband left for work I’d hear the whimpers of pain when she tried to follow after hi to think of a way to ansithout lying, but then I’m saved by a knock on my door "A patrol to be a broadcast They’ve found that poor girl’s ods ible Gods," Daphne Leander, Year Ten

THE BUILDING IS SHAKING, FOR ALL THE footsteps fighting to get down the stairwells at once Our fascination is as great as our horror, as though knowing the name of the person responsible will explain what has been done As though it will bring us peace

I hold Basil’s hand, and e make it downstairs, the broadcast room contains what I’m certain is everyone in the apartment complex

Even my brother, who never co the ith Alice He’son the floor; he’s toldlike he’s falling through the sky In the firstto the permanent darkness, he used to crawl

Alice waves us over

"They found the murderer?" Basil asks

"That’s e’ve heard, too," Alice says

LexI don’t catch I touch his arm, to let hiet angry He has never had a kind thing to say about the king, or his announceet us all arrested for treason

I stand on tiptoes to reach his ear "It’ll be okay," I say

"It’s already plenty not-okay, Little Sister," he says

Alice shushes hiet it to work There are a few seconds of static, and then the king appears, wobbly and distorted on the screen

Everyone in the rooone quiet When the roar of the static reduces itself to a faint crackling, we can finally hear what the king is saying "--are appalled by our findings early this evening that after a thorough investigation, based on extensive evidence, there is reason to believe that Judas Hensley is responsible for the murder of Daphne Leander, his betrothed"

My blood runs cold Basil squeezes my hand

"No," Lex e, there’s live footage of the accused, his arms shackled behind him, his head down, and his face half-covered by blond hair as he’s lead up the steps of the courthouse by several patrolmen I’m uncertain what awaits hienerations before I was born, crireed bred ed betrothals and assigned housing would dis will never be perfect, of course With free will coment There are still disputes and accidents that are resolved in the courthouse If it’s an involved case, people are selected to serve as part of a jury

But a murderer? What sort of trial would have to take place? Where would they keep hier to Lex’s lips now, because he just said so I didn’t hear What could this possibly e switches back to the king, I see Judas Hensley in the courthouse lights I’ve seen hiether, but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken