Jonas wanted me dead so badly that he’d been willing to let his Oaths kill him in the process.

I remember that there’s soap here, and some towels. Shampoo and conditioner Alice packed just for my hair. When I flip the lights on again, I see that behind a small door in the bathroom, there’s a shelf with fresh underwear and a bra, clean jeans, a T-shirt, plus a zip-up sweatshirt in my size. Alice, again.

Bless her.

I have to lean against the tile walls to shower, and go slowly so as to not lose my balance. Arthur’s strength is probably back now that the serum has worn off, but I am bone tired. Even as I lather up, take down my cornrows, and get clean for what feels like the first time in days, my skin buzzes with anxiety. I press my hands against the white subway tiles while my brain sprints from one worry to the next, unstoppable.

The Regents can’t kill me, and they can’t remove the power from my body. Just like Nick’s father, they’ll comb through my family tree looking for back-up Scions. My mother had no siblings, and neither did my grandmother.

Knowing what I know now, I understand why. One child, a daughter who would live only to see you die young, is more than enough. I don’t know what happened before my grandmother, but if, for argument’s sake, this one-daughter rule went all the way back to Vera… they’d have to find Vera’s nearest blood relative’s descendants. A sibling, a cousin. Some plantations kept records, I think… but how well? Was Vera born on Samuel Davis’s plantation, or had she been sold to him from another?

Ironic that the Order, with the blood of chattel slavery on the hands of their founding fathers, with their Wall of Ages and thick tomes of family records, has to face the all-too-common challenge of researching Black American family ancestry. Maybe they actually have the resources to track down my ancestors, but then again… maybe not. Enslavers never expected the descendants of the enslaved to be free enough to look back in time.

I desperately want to know more about my own family, of course. Maybe even warn them. But any knowledge I gain could put my own distant relatives in danger if I’m forced to reveal it. Not knowing enough about my own past was dangerous before. Now, knowing too much could be worse.

I let the water sluice down my bruised back and decide I don’t know which I prefer anymore: knowledge or ignorance.

29

EVENTUALLY, I EMERGE from the bathroom. As I pad over to the door, my damp curls drip water in cold rivulets down my back beneath the T-shirt, chilling my skin. I find a fresh hair tie in Alice’s duffel and pull my curls up before I go find food.