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  For a second the interviewer paused, and Suyana wondered if she’d blown it. Then the woman grinned and said, “Oh God, that’s so sexy. I love a sensitive guy, I always guessed that about him,” and waxed for a while about the merits of a supportive boyfriend. When the interview came out, they’d run a sidebar of Ethan’s casual outfits and explained how each one proved his sensitive side.

  × × × × × × ×

  In the morning, after the trainer and breakfast, Oona dropped in to make sure Suyana’s eyes looked as awake as possible—eyedrops, white liner inside the lids, shimmer under the brows, and past that Suyana lost track and just held still with her eyes closed.

  “Inside date or outside?” Oona asked, Suyana’s chin in one hand and her brush pushing against Suyana’s eye socket with the other. Suyana sometimes felt guilty that she thought of Oona mostly as a blur of orange and gold from behind closed eyes.

  “Outside.”

  “Ugh, God knows why, midday light is so punishing.” Something was rubbed into her cheeks, presumably to help prevent the sun from punishing her, and Suyana shrugged carefully and said, “Ethan likes an outdoors girl.”

  “He should like what you like. You had your pick of boys when you came back from the crazy thing. He’s on the cover of three magazines this month and he’s not on any of them alone, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “I’ll make him window-shop,” Suyana said. “Buy me some sapphires.”

  Oona shook her head. “Emeralds. It’ll remind people of the rainforest.”

  “Right, of course,” said Suyana, and opened her mouth for the gloss.

  Ethan was already laughing as she opened the door, either at her face as she braced herself or because it would look good for the cameras if he was happy to see her. And he did seem happy; he always did, his white teeth and white skin and hair that curled but never too much. There were wrinkles just at the edges of his eyes that made Suyana wonder, in her stupider moments, if he really was pleased to see her, sometimes.

  He kissed her lightly hello (she could feel his teeth behind his smile), slid his hand down her arm until he could catch at her fingers in the way he only did when he was content with himself. Two cameras on the curb were already jostling for the best position.

  “Hello. You look like you’ve been out here making plans.”

  His grin got wider, and he said, “Well, have you heard about Martine?”

  5

  The New York office of Bonnaire Fine Tailoring was a townhouse in a neighborhood choked with baby carriages and tasteful wrought iron. Only a plaque outside suggested it was a place of business. (Attorneys; apparently Li Zhao had worried people might actually try to bring business to a tailor.) Daniel avoided it except when the boss called him in, because it gave him the creeps.

  “The only knock we ever got on that door was when the plants died and someone asked Bo to put in nice ones for the sake of the neighborhood,” Kate said. She was in the basement of the Paris office, and the light made her smile sepulchral. “We put up the plaque after that, but somehow the number of people was never a problem. They just thought the help was coming and going.”

  “Charming,” Daniel said, and Kate waggled her eyebrows in something that almost felt collegial, from Kate.

  Then she glanced down at something on her screen. “Okay, she’s ready,” she said, and a moment later she blinked out and Li Zhao appeared. It was three in the morning there, but her black suit was crisp, her red lipstick tattooed with her usual precision. Only pride kept him from sitting up straighter—that was why she wore all that armor, and he didn’t want to admit how effective it was at establishing a pecking order. He did as he was told these days, but he had his limits.

  “Hello, Daniel,” Li Zhao said. “You won’t be going to the UARC with the happy couple. Was there anything else?”

  He’d expected to be arguing about his request, just not instantly. “She trusts me,” he said. “In a strange place—”

  “The Amazonian Rainforest Confederation is her home.”

  Not anymore, and Li Zhao must have known it, but that wasn’t something Daniel wanted to say—not about Suyana, not now. “I don’t like how this feels,” he said instead. “It’s too fast, and Margot’s mirroring their trip, which feels like trouble. I suspect you don’t think much of the whole thing either, because there’s no other reason to keep me out of the assignment when we follow them from Paris to New York every year anyway.”

  “You’ll stick out more in Peru than in Paris.”

  “Bullshit. And I can disappear into a crowd.”

  “But not to her,” Li Zhao said. She leaned forward, and the light from her desk lamp highlighted the brackets on either side of her mouth. “I like to flatter myself that you’ll stay where I’ve told you to stay, but you should understand this anyway: you’re the last thing she’s going to need where she’s going. A home tour is hard enough without holding on to the hope that you have friends. Nicodema is covering the story, and you can follow the photos online like everyone else.”

  It’s not just some empty hope, he thought, why the hell do you think I’m begging to go with her? But neither the venom nor the earnestness in it would do him any good against Li Zhao.

  Instead he said, “So what, I stay here and wrestle Pietro for the honor of scouting C-listers while I wait?”

  “You shouldn’t sound like you’re above that,” Li Zhao said, and his stomach knotted even though it barely counted as an insult. “But no. I have another assignment for you.”

  “Oh, lovely.” If Li Zhao thought she was going to distract him just by shifting his assignment, she was free to try.

  “You’re assigned to Martine. You and Bo will be going to Norway to track their visit. He’ll keep you posted on travel plans. Be ready to move.”

  Somewhere beneath this nauseating reminder that Li Zhao knew exactly what she was doing, Daniel thought about the last time he’d looked Martine in the eye—the moment after she’d learned what he was, and slapped the panic button strapped to her wrist to call her hired gun.

  “Well, uh, as far as I know, Li Zhao, Martine wants to kill me.”

  She’d leaned back from the desk already, checking out of the conversation—she never discussed, and if you thought she was, she was just giving you your orders in a way you could take—and the last thing he heard before the line went dead was, “Good thing you’re so good at disappearing in a crowd.”

  × × × × × × ×

  Two days after the trips had been announced, Suyana went out for a night of clubbing with Martine to celebrate the venture, and they brought Grace, who Daniel figured had been asked by the UARC or Norway to keep the other two from eating each other alive.

  Not that you’d know it from the way they stood on the curb outside Martine’s apartment building in front of the photographers, waiting for a private car that was strategically five minutes late. Grace was telling a story, Suyana was smiling at appropriate moments, and Martine barked a laugh once around her fake cigarette. All three wore the black slim pants and heels that signaled wanting to be dressed up but not wanting to look as if it was an effort. Grace and Martine wore sparkling tops; Suyana wore a white silk tank, and her scar gleamed under the awning lights. Grace’s and Martine’s bodyguards stood at a respectful distance, hands identically folded, looking like accessories.

  (The first time he met with Suyana, back when her face still softened when she saw him and his hand shook as he covered his camera, just from seeing her, he’d asked how she managed to avoid getting a bodyguard. Even Magnus must have been willing to set aside funds for one after what she’d been through. She said, “It’s important that people see I’m not afraid,” in the timbre that she used in chambers, and he’d smiled to imagine her reciting it obediently to Magnus, and when the cloud had crossed her face and she’d glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming, he’d told himself it didn’t matter. That was a year ago.)

  From where Daniel stood—not quit
e directly across the street, grabbing an espresso from a window walk-up, a tablet in hand like everyone in line behind him—he could see the group of teenage girls who’d gathered just close enough to them to be making bets about which one would go over and beg for a photo.

  Before they could, Grace called over, “Hello, girls, you all right?” and lifted her palm in a wave.

  “Oh,” said the one who’d been closest to the front, “no, sorry, we’re—stop,” she hissed at a friend behind her trying to take a photo, “we just wanted to say how cool we think you are.”

  “All of us?” Martine asked, glancing once at Suyana, and it fell just short enough of offhand that Daniel raised an eyebrow. Even the teenager blinked. Suyana leaned forward an inch and glanced down the street at the car that wasn’t coming.

  It struck him that she might actually be nervous; the last time a car had been late she’d nearly died. Was it hard to stand on the curb if she felt like a target? If he asked her, would she tell him? Did she even know herself?

  “Uh. Yeah, no, I mean, all of you are so amazing! We’ve seen you in Closer, and it’s just so cool to meet you!”

  “That’s very kind,” said Grace, and shifted her clutch under one arm with the ease of an old pro as she beckoned over the national photographers. “You girls want a photo?”

  The farthest girl squealed, and as the leader of the group turned around to shoot her a murderous glare and hissed, “Oh my God, Claire,” Suyana and Grace smiled fleetingly back and forth. Suyana’s smile died when it reached Martine. Grace’s turned into something older and long-suffering, and Martine raised an eyebrow and exhaled through tight lips.

  Two weeks in Norway following Martine around, trying not to be seen or get shot. He should tell Suyana, after she was back. Someone should get a laugh out of what he was about to go through.

  She’d need one. The Americans had been slow—Ethan might be happy to crawl up her nose for the cameras no matter who was taking pictures, but this UARC press setup was the first sign the American office actually saw her as an asset. He didn’t like it. The long wait for a gesture of goodwill might have made Chordata nervous, and while Suyana might be able to talk them out of killing someone (him, killing him, he should be grateful for the favor), he worried what they’d do if they thought this was their only shot to make headlines with Suyana.

  Suyana was between two of the teen girls at the far edge of the picture. Grace was in the center, and Martine had halfheartedly dropped her cigarette from her mouth just in time to give the photographers (holding the girls’ cameras) the world’s sweetest smile. Grace was smiling in earnest—it was her idea, of course she was, easy to be polite about your own ideas—and Suyana was smiling well enough to fool anyone who wasn’t Daniel. But Martine wasn’t fooling anyone, it just was—for ten seconds, those girls were the best thing that had ever happened to Martine.

  When the girls were gone, Martine shot Grace a look. “For the love of God, what’s next? Picking up trash for charity? Planting trees for Coalition Day?”

  “Antismoking campaign, maybe,” Suyana said as the car pulled up. “Terrible habit. Looks so desperate.”

  Suyana sank out of sight in the car, and just before Grace got in, she shot a warning look inside at Suyana, and a satisfied one over her shoulder at Martine, who got in without any sign she’d heard.

  The last thing Daniel saw as the car pulled away was a cloud of water-vapor smoke that brushed against the back window and blotted everything out.

  6

  Just before the private plane landed, Ethan’s stylists (Brad for hair, Chris for makeup, Andrea for clothes) pulled him aside to put finishing touches on his outfit.

  “If you weren’t so oily, we wouldn’t have to do this,” said Chris with rapidly thinning patience as they moved him into the bedroom, and Ethan made such an abashed face at Suyana that she couldn’t help but smile.

  “Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, and he stuck his tongue out just before the door closed.

  At the front of the plane, the two American handlers assigned to the tour—Stevens and Howard—were reviewing the itinerary with Magnus.

  “Can we cut short the photo op outside town on Tuesday?” asked Howard, already scratching a line through something.

  “The photo op with her mother?” Magnus let the derision sit for a second. “Howard, if you’d like to make it look like Ethan doesn’t care to meet Suyana’s mother during her triumphant homecoming, be our guest, but Suyana will be using the full time allotted, so Ethan will be traveling to the next location by himself.”

  It was the hardest line Magnus had ever taken with the Americans. Suyana put one hand on the armrest as if expecting turbulence.

  Howard sighed. “Jesus, Magnus, just a suggestion.”

  “And it was as sterling as all your others,” Magnus assured him. “Now, Stevens, you mentioned press issues regarding the actual site tour?”

  “Yes—as this is a US-Norway project, I’m afraid your photographers are being requested to stay off site.”

  “Of course,” said Magnus, back to form. If he glanced up at Suyana before he went back to the schedule, that was to be expected; if he was looking at her like he hoped she’d heard him, that was a problem she could avoid for a little while longer.

  “Oona,” Suyana said absently, but Oona was twisting her curly red hair into a messy bun, that thousand-yard stare already going.

  “Oh, if he’s not shiny, you won’t be shiny, and you don’t need three people to get rid of it either.”

  The plane was landing by the time Oona was done with powder and lip gloss and shimmer under the brows (“Always shimmer,” Suyana murmured, as she dipped her finger in the pot and brushed it across her scar). Oona banged her way into the bedroom in back to sort through the designer loans for a jacket that Suyana could carry over one shoulder for five minutes of photos.

  Magnus took a seat next to Suyana. “The cameras are already waiting on the tarmac,” he said, and Suyana couldn’t tell if it was meant to be reassuring.

  “I appreciate you preserving my time with my mother,” she answered instead. Her lips were glossy, and her hair had just been combed so it looked windswept, and Ethan wasn’t here; there would never be a better moment for him to take pleasure in her being grateful.

  He looked at her too long before he dropped his eyes to his tablet. “Well, I’m certainly pleased you’ll get to see her, but largely that was to handle Howard.”

  “I know. But still.”

  “Behold,” called Ethan as he opened the door, “the matte-est man in town!”

  Magnus nearly rolled his eyes before he could stop himself. Suyana ignored it and looked at Ethan over her shoulder. “Is that the jacket you’re wearing?”

  “Yeah.” Ethan smoothed the front of the oxblood leather. “It’s kind of cool, right? I get so sick of blazers. It’s nice that we can just be casual on this trip. Be ourselves.”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  Ethan sat on her other side; Magnus had vanished, but she supposed his disapproval must have lingered. “I’m really looking forward to just playing it by ear a little on this trip,” he said. “That pizza date was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the country with you,” she said, curling up in the seat to face him and trying to tamp down the embers of dread in her stomach. “There’s so much I don’t even remember. I’ve barely been home. It will be amazing to see the country together.”

  “Sure! Totally! But I’m just saying, I think we’re overscheduled on some really dumb stuff. Like, the government people I get, we have to meet them, but this research site tour is booked for four hours, and I will honestly be asleep by then.”

  She pointed a finger at him. “You better not fall asleep when you meet my mom,” she said, as teasing as she could, some character in a movie who had a mother she saw all the time, who understood how her mother might bore the new boyfriend, and he laughed and close
d his hand around her fingers. He kissed the heel of her hand; she flushed, felt ill.

  “Sweetheart, your mom is going to love me,” he promised, and she was still smiling at him, just the way she’d been taught, when the plane landed.

  He stood up as soon as they slowed, smoothing his jacket. She slid on her heels and tried to breathe.

  He couldn’t cancel the site visit—why else was she here, allowed to go home for the first time since Hakan? Why else was this outpost getting built except under the auspices of their relationship? Why had she made sure that Ethan led the whole affair of coming here, except as a cover, so no one could make a connection between these two visits any deeper than proximity?

  The airplane door was open, and Ethan was being ushered out the door by his team, and she was following by rote, but her throat was so tight that as she passed Magnus—lurking at the back of the crowd as if he was above it all—she stepped close, reached out, gripped his hand.

  He was so startled he gripped it back, and she looked at him and remembered the way he’d leaned against Hakan’s desk and looked her over like she was somebody’s runner-up, remembered the press of her arm against his throat a year ago, when she’d thought for half a breath about what it would be like to kill him. He’d promised her his loyalty. She’d worked hard to accept it without needing it; he was a railing she didn’t dare lean on. But before she was past him, she whispered, “Don’t let him leave me behind.”

  Magnus’s eyebrows tilted up just at the inner corners. “I won’t,” he said, low, and so earnest it was good to hear it, and she wondered if she must have meant it, a little, that it was such a comfort to have his answer.

  She dropped his hand and took the steps down to the tarmac to meet Ethan, settled into the arm that was already reaching out to pull her closer, and smiled and smiled and smiled.

  × × × × × × ×

  The tour:

  Two days in São Paolo, two days in Rio de Janeiro. “Should have been three, but didn’t seem like the best press,” Magnus said the first time he showed her the calendar. Suyana didn’t blame them; she was Peruvian, and the UARC could only ever have one Face—the Central Committee’s sidelong punishment for allying without IA approval.