Interlude [h.s]

forty-six

THE REVOLUTION

Elijah is playing with the food on his dish, but he can't get himself to eat.

Alouette didn't come back yesterday night, and neither did anyone else from the Revolution. The President's channels on the television are dead and news outlets are quiet. That silence is killing him, because it means something is terribly wrong.

He'd never expected the news channels would be so inactive in the wake of the attack. He'd always thought they would use it to prove to everyone how cruel the Revolution is, how unmanageable they are. Instead, they are silent. The world grew silent in the moment the President was taken away from the Palace, as if it couldn't even fathom working without his direction. To everyone it's a good thing, to Elijah it's a terrible warning. It shows how widespread the President's control was over every form of entertainment.

His father had never been able to achieve such control, but his son knows how to act behind the scenes. He knows how to pull strings while nobody is looking and he has silently built a cage around the entire country while demonising the Revolution. To Elijah, that's so much worse than ruthlessness. He can only hope Alouette was able to get rid of him.

"Elijah?" A little voice asks.

He looks up.

Amina is sitting at the table right across from him. She's already finished her dinner—hell, everyone around them already has—and she's now looking at him. He doesn't like the look in her eyes, because it's the kind that lets him know he's about to have a conversation he truly doesn't want to have with Alouette's little sister.

"Where is Al?"

There it is.

"I'm sure she'll be back soon," Elijah replies, but Amina senses the insecurity in his voice. Even though Alouette has always tried to shield her from the cruel reality of their world, it's always been impossible to do so completely. It's hard to act like nothing bad is happening when even children can see its awful effects all around them.

"You don't really know."

Elijah pauses. He could lie. He could tell her that he knows exactly where she is and that she'll be back soon, but that wouldn't be the truth. It doesn't feel right to lie to her, because she trusts him. She asked him instead of Elodie because she knows he'll say the truth. He can't betray her trust like that. "I don't," he admits, looking down. "But I hope she'll be back soon."

"Did something bad happen?"

Elodie shoots him a look. A warning look, that tells him it's time for him to lie, to go back to pretending the world is pink and every moment is framed by roses.

"I don't know."

Elodie's look turns into a glare as Amina's shoulders fall.

"I have reasons to hope nothing did, though," he continues. Not too wrong, at least. If the President had escaped and Alouette had been taken down, it would've been all over the news, which means that, regardless of the way the situation turned out, the President hasn't gone back to the Palace. That means there's hope.

"I know there aren't fairies in the city," Amina says. "There's an evil prince, and he lives in a castle, and he doesn't want to share his crown with anyone."

"He's not a prince," Elijah replies, "he's the king. He's a bad king."

"Did he steal Al?" Amina frowns. "Tell me."

"He hasn't," Elijah replies fast, and it's more a wish than anything else. A hope. Because if the evil king has captured Alouette, he doesn't know if there's a way for him to free her. He would go to the end of the world for her, but there are places he'd only be able to get in if he was dead. "I don't think so, at least."