Chapter Three

My father puts his head in his hands. “You do realize that this is going to tear the family apart.” It’s not a question.

I sit very still and focus on the papers strewn all over his desk in front of him. Most offices like his have big, beautiful, polished mahogany desks. His one is marble streaked with gold.

He wasn’t expecting me to answer. I already know what my actions are going to do to the family. I am fully aware of what they have already been doing for the last six years. It’s just a matter of convincing him to let me go through with it.

He flips through the papers again. Enrollment documents, identification, contracts, calendars. “I don’t understand what was so wrong with just staying at Evera. Everything was planned out for you.”

“That’s the point,” I tell him. Again. “I don’t want everything to be planned out.”

“It’s not really a matter of what you want, Ca—Kaz,” he says, rubbing underneath his eyes, “it’s about what puts you in the best place for this family. You know that.”

“I don’t have to be at Evera to still be in a good place for the family,” I protest. “Just because almost everyone went there doesn’t mean it’s the only option. I’ve told you this before. It was stifling.”

“I can’t keep defending you to them.”

I swallow. I don’t want to hear it, but he’s right. He may be my father, but there are only so many excuses he can make for me. When it’s to the family, we are head and heir. When it’s to the public, we are even more removed than that. There are only so many excuses he can make for me until it starts to look like I am unfit for what I was prepared my whole life to do, that he’s playing favourites. I lower my eyes even more, to my hands in my lap, my left hand anxiously playing with the ring on my right pinkie finger. A signet ring, like my father’s, a piece of flint elegantly set in the middle.

“Look, Kaz”—Kaz, not Cassius—”I know that even if I said no, you would still find a way to do this, so the best I can do is offer you a deal. I’ll sign these for you, but you have to do something for me in exchange.” He puts the papers back into an ordered stack, the last few lines of the first page blank and empty, waiting for a signature. What he wants from me is not going to be a fair trade, but if it’ll let me get away from there, then it’s my best option. My family was smart when they made that deal with the faculty all those years ago—no Flores student may be allowed to withdraw from Evera without the express written permission of the current head of the family. That way, we are all churned out exactly the same. Prepped, polished, and ready to ensure our bloodline’s survival.

“What do I have to do?”

He looks at me over his glasses, an eyebrow slightly raised. I don’t think he understands how badly I want this. Maybe he thought the idea of trading my freedom from the school for some kind of favour for him would make me think twice. Because if there’s anything I hate more than the school, it’s his company. One day to be mine, my company.

“We have potential investors in the Capital. I need you to find and convince them to put their money in the company.”

He waits a moment, studying me from across the desk. I don’t know how to react. There must be a catch; it’s such a simple task.

As if reading my thoughts, he leans back in his chair and starts to talk. “The people of the Capital have grown comfortable and detached from real life. They no longer know what it’s like to earn the money they live off of, or to protect the things that matter to them. They watch life pass them by and are happy about it.

“But we can use that to our advantage,” he continues. “There are plenty of Agnacians in the Capital who moved long enough ago that they don’t have a proper grasp on the state of things here. Their perception can be…” he pauses, searching for the right word. “Engineered. Make them understand the gravity of the situation at hand, serve it with enough of a generous side of nostalgia, and we have our investors. With enough support on our side, we won’t have to worry about things only getting done half-assedly.”

I narrow my eyes, trying to understand what isn’t being said. “I’m not complaining, but this seems really simple to be in exchange for me leaving the school we fought so hard to join. I have a meeting with some rich old people, convince them to sink their funds into their home country… and then what? Is that all? You could even do that yourself.”

My father bristles. “Well, firstly, they’re probably only my age.” I scoff, though jokingly. “The reason I need you for this is that this won’t just be a one-and-done meeting. I need you to actually connect with these people. I need you to make them entirely, completely trusting of you. Because if even one of them sympathizes even in the slightest with Tarnora's side of things, they will falter, they will pull out last-minute from deals, and they will betray us if something goes wrong. I need you to go to the Capital and become a part of their circles, and I need you to stay there until they take your word as gospel.”

“You’re asking me to move halfway across the continent just to secure a business deal.”

“You’re asking me to authorize you to drop out of the school that every single Flores has attended for the last five generations,” he retorts. When he sees the look on my face, he laughs airily. “I hope you weren’t expecting to use that new free time to lounge around the house and make songs. We still need you, Kaz.”

I weigh my options. On one hand, I can stay at Evera for the remaining two years, just to be swept under my father’s wing as soon as I graduate so that he can assimilate me into the company. On the other hand, I can withdraw now and accept this deal of his, which is still just as tied to the company as ever, but at least I would be able to do his bidding away from the claustrophobia of home. Claustrophobia, even on acres upon acres of land. Ironic how a place as massive as ours can still feel suffocating.

“Okay,” I finally say, “I’ll do it.”

He doesn’t ask if I’m sure. He just smiles the way he always does when a deal has gone favourably. A bow of the head warm enough to express that we have come to a mutual understanding, but not humble or low enough to be submissive. A smile that only touches his mouth. Fingers that lace together comfortably, as if sealing together both sides of the agreement. “Good. I’m confident you will find purpose in upholding your side of this trade.” He leans forward to pluck his fountain pen from its stand on the desk. I know that pen well, engraved with his initials. I imagine the papers that pen has signed, official to under-the-table to helpful to destructive alike. I imagine the sighs of relief or cries of betrayal that the contents of the papers passing through his desk have evoked. With an elegant swoop, his signature is permanent on the first page. He leafs through the rest of the stack, initialling a perfect E.H.F. on each page. The last page he turns around so I can read it from across the desk. Only now does he ask, “Are you sure about this? If you change your mind, you’ll be in hotter waters than you already are.”

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat, and reach for a pen—not his fountain pen, God no. I would never. “I’ll figure it out with the family.”

He waves his hand absently. “They’ll be fine. That’s not what I’m worried about. My father will throw a tantrum for a couple days but I’ll talk him out of it. Once he hears you’ll be spending your time furthering our interests overseas he should come around to the idea, even if it’s not the way things are usually done. I’m more concerned about the rumours that will inevitably spread.” He starts to rub at his face again, this time at the spot where the white hair on his jaw turns to soft feathers. “I don’t want them doubting your ability to take my place. Their first thoughts will probably be that you chickened out, which…” he trails off. They’re not wrong.

I stare at the piece of paper. EDITH EVERA UNIVERSITY - WITHDRAWAL CONSENT FORM stares back. Signing this would make me the first Flores in five generations to voluntarily drop out of this school. Not that we’ve had others drop out involuntarily, goodness, but I have a cousin who had to leave because of chronic health issues, and an extended aunt who put her studies on what ended up being a permanent pause when she miscarried. The family understood then, they—we—knew it wasn’t their fault. Would they understand this? Me?

As far as I’m aware, I don’t think they would.

I wish I could follow in my father’s footsteps exactly the way he followed in his father’s, and he his mother’s, and so on. But everything in me wants to go against the way things are usually done. I don’t want to inherit this company and its responsibilities, at least, not the way they want me to. I don’t want to fine-tune my abilities, cutting out any part of me that isn’t useful to keeping our bloodline alive. I don’t want to marry the well-behaved son of a long-time family friend, picked out for me by my parents for his “superior genes”. I don’t want to have his children just to play such obvious favourites towards the ones born with the traits we want. It doesn’t feel right to pick and choose these kinds of things. I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that. Do the others not feel something very wrong with all of this?

My father was right when he said this decision would tear the family apart. Maybe it would be overlooked if I was one of the lesser branches. Maybe they would offer me a slight sneer but turn a blind eye because their future wouldn’t be in my hands. But I’m not one of the lesser branches. I am the branch. I am the future of the Flores family. I am choosing to reject this path that we have been on for more than a hundred years in favour of, what, the idea that I could possibly create my own life in my own way? Fat chance.

But my mind goes out to the stifling feeling of that school, how hard I had to fight to be able to ditch that god-awful skirt. To get them to call me anything but that name. The tightening feeling in my chest whenever I had to introduce myself to anyone. At least if I take over the company and become head of the family, people will have to listen to me.

I will be hated for this, I know. It’s not the way things are usually done, Cassius. I am only twenty, but deviating from my path at any age would throw our elders into a panic and give our youngsters an opening to lodge themselves into. Everybody wants to be head of the family. It’s an honour. An honour, Cassius. An honour I never asked for. An honour I don’t want. And regardless of whether I stay or not, I’m sure my father has it all planned out so that I end up exactly where he wants me to be regardless of what I choose. I will end up with my unwanted honour anyway.

I have a choice, yes, but it isn’t really mine. I’m just one piece of a much larger puzzle, one that spans generations and borders and languages. My father taught me how to charm people, how to woo them into thinking a once-outrageous idea is a possibility for change. To make people bend to my will using words alone. And in the end it doesn’t really matter what I choose, because I will always end up bending to his.

I sign the paper.