“I don’t know, Adelice,” Dante says. “I guess the question I’d be asking if I were you is, how well do you know your friend?”

I don’t know him at all. I only know what he’s told me, what Jost has told me—but still I’m certain of my answer. “He didn’t know. I trust him.”

“Even if he’s lying to you?” Dante asks, wrapping the chip up in a handkerchief and putting it in his pocket.

“He’s not lying,” I say. “He didn’t know it was there.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Dante says in a soft voice. “Your friend sees the strands.”

I knew that. I’d known that since my first training session at the Coventry, when Erik reacted to my proclamation about the fake windows. I’d even seen him grip the strands when we came through the Interface to get to Earth. It wasn’t news to me, and yet I’d never stopped to consider what it meant. “I’m sure lots of men can.”

“The strands of the Interface or the knit of Arras’s weave perhaps, but Erik is hiding something,” Dante muses out loud.

“If you were going to implant a tracking chip in someone, why would you do it?” I ask instead.

Dante hesitates and then looks me directly in the eyes. “There are two reasons I would implant someone with a chip. Because I didn’t want to lose them, or because they were dangerous.”

I don’t like either option. Mostly because even though I trust Erik, I know it’s both.

TWENTY-FOUR

DANTE LOCKS THE GREENHOUSE BEHIND US. I’M not sure why a bunch of plants and potting tools need to be secured, but I know Dante wouldn’t tell me even if I asked him. In evening’s dim light settings, the glass is black. I trail a finger along a pane, considering something Dante said earlier.

“I wonder how our family got a pass to go,” I muse.

Dante chuckles, moving toward the main house. “I should think that’s obvious given your ability.”

“You said we were made,” I remind him. “They didn’t choose the original Spinsters for their skills—they had none!”

“But they chose our families based on a list of physical and mental requirements. Decisions were based on potential,” Dante says, as I trail beside him.

“And then they made them into Spinsters,” I finish. “But wait, my mother wasn’t a Spinster. Or my sister.”

“Most genetic abilities skip around in a family,” he explains. “Not everyone gets the same eye color or body build, for instance. Remember the footage of the injections and surgeries in the film? It was genetic manipulation.”

“So the scientists gave us the gene?” I ask.

“I’d be lying if I said I understood half of it. Weaving is a cultivated recessive gene. Once it was added to a person’s genetic composition, it might reveal itself but that wasn’t certain. The first crop of Spinsters was very small and very weak. Early on, while the scientists created serums that increased ability, they depended completely on the looms.”

Dante claims ignorance, but he’s full of information.

“And those that didn’t have ability?” I ask.

“They were put into the population to breed more Spinsters.”

“And Tailors,” I add. “So now the Guild is trying to isolate those genes so that they can replicate them?” I guess.

“It will be much easier for the Guild to have total control over Spinsters. You’re right, Adelice,” he says. “I think they plan to make a dominant gene that can be spliced into hand-picked specimens. Then they can decide which girls to grant the ability.”

Girls who are easier to manipulate, I think. Girls who are obedient.

“My grandmother told me families fought the retrieval squads,” I say out loud. “All those women in the film looked eager to join.”

Dante’s mouth thins into a tight line and he tilts his head thoughtfully. “You shouldn’t believe everything you see in a film, Adelice, but I suppose you’re right. The circumstances here were terrible during the war, but I think things changed in Arras.”

“Changed how?” I ask.

“Nations merged, and laws were adjusted to meet everyone’s expectations. Conflicting national identities merged to create a cohesive whole. Those changes, coupled with resentment over having daughters whisked off in the night with little to no expectation of seeing them again. There was an adjustment period,” he tells me.

“How do you know about this?”

“Our family,” he says after a pause. “They took care to chronicle things despite the laws against it.”

“Were they members of the Kairos Agenda?” I ask. My parents had never told me these stories, even though they knew what I was—they kept this information from me.

“Not really.” Pause. I can tell he’s holding something back. “They were pacifists. My parents wanted to live comfortably and easily.”

“Until you showed your abilities?” I ask.

“It wasn’t my parents who asked me to run. They should have,” he says. Pause. “With the increasing amount of propaganda thrown at them, like the film, for instance, most Arras citizens stopped seeing the danger of the Guild’s absolute control. Bombs weren’t being dropped, so people went along with it, even as the laws got stranger and more restrictive. The Guild required everyone to marry and have children, who could then be tested for the gene. It’s how Arras wound up with marriage laws and skills testing.”