The Last Page by Anthony Huso Read Free Book Online Page B

end.
    Sena watches Megan dig inside a gloomy paisley corduroy bag for her hand mirror. “The only femininity I have left is melting.” She powders her cheeks and pulls her cowl forward. “Let’s get out of the rain.”
    “My things . . .”
    “Pshh—” Megan’s finger taps her temple. “Anything you need should already be up here. We don’t have time to dawdle.”
    Sena subdues her glare. “Yes, Mother.”
    “Don’t be crabby with me. It’s bad enough you wasted eight years of your own life in this trash heap of positivist thinkers. You won’t be wasting what little time I have left. We’ll get you all new things in Skellum. Come along.”
    Sena is whisked away clutching only her gown and her diploma. She goes back to the familiar shadowed buildings that released her nine years ago as an adolescent spy, to the socket vaults of old parliament made strange by Shrdnae Witchocracy.
    As Megan’s she-sn, 4 Sena retains access to Deep Cloister and the archives. But the privilege costs her. She must work for the Sisterhood.
    Summer begins with warm arguments between Sena and Megan. As usual, Sena gets her way. She is assigned to Sandren and leaves parliament behind, supported by authentic government papers identifying her with a list of verfiable lies. In an attaché, she carries an array of pad-paradschas rationed from the Sisterhood’s vaults. When she reaches the city state, she liquidates them at the most affluent jewelry shop she can find. It is enough to live well for a year and it gets her a footing in localcircles without turning her into a celebrity. She begins donating to Emolus, the most popular church in town, and thereby makes Bishop Wilhelm’s acquaintance. He is a man on everyone’s guest list and seizes each opportunity to take her to parties where he introduces her to Sandren’s powerful elite.
    At Megan’s request, Sena sleeps with three of them, diplomats out of Iycestoke and Pandragor. It is easy work. They are reasonably attractive, clean shaven and rich enough to make it seem more like a first date than what it really is.
    The information she collects goes to a half-sister named Clea who runs a potion shop near Litten Street.
    It is tiring. Compartmentalizing Clea from Tynan, Tynan from Wilhelm from the diplomats she has fucked. There is an embarrassing moment at a fund-raiser when Tynan’s father sees her. She knows instantly that despite her best efforts, rumors have reached him. Sandren’s influential circles are small and Tynan’s father is in all of them. He crosses the room calmly and whispers three sentences into her ear. “You look lovely tonight. Amazing what jewelry can do. Stay away from my son.”
    Tynan never mentions the incident. He remains loyal, funding her cottage off the books
.
    A graduation present.
    As the cottage begins to form, blueprints to foundation to framework, Sena realizes it is more than a building. Not only is it a delightful way to exact her pound of flesh from Tynan’s father, but it is also her first real stab at independence—sort of. It is definitely her first act of outright defiance against the Sisterhood.
    She is supposed to stay in Sandren, seduce men and gather information. That’s what the Sisterhood is paying her for. But she builds her cottage in the countryside, well away from the city state.
    A gleaming padparadscha comes in a nondescript envelope every month to her box on Goorin Street. The stipend allows for plenty of luxuries when combined with Tynan’s allowance. She meets him on weekends, risking death out of spite.
    For those that marry in the name of the Witchocracy, Sena suspects the lines sometimes blur, but for field agents such as her, pårn 5 —
the duty—
is rigorously enforced.
    When Tynan and she stay at Sandren’s posh hotels she tries to revel in it, but anger leaves her empty. For a while, at college, sex had very nearly slipped from being a political tool to a pastime. Now, with Megan’s influence enveloping