His shoulders relaxed, and his eyes went a little sad.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Kit said. She squeezed Cass’s arm as she passed by, and disappeared down the hall.
After she left, Cass and Aron just stood staring at one another for a time, neither sure of what to say or where to start. Finally, Aron just shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Lady. I know it don’t make any difference now, but I am sorry.” He held out his hand, offering her a seat in the chair tucked in the corner of the room. Cass nodded and moved towards it, but she stopped when she saw what was lying on the workbench. It was a rifle. Long-barreled, old but well-cared for; well-worn, well-used. A deadly thing.
Aron followed her gaze, and then looked back up at her.
“It’s OK, she’s safe,” he said, and picked up a piece that looked like the trigger mechanism from his workbench. “Puttin’ her back together. After a long time away.”
Cass went to the chair and sat, and Aron returned to his perch on the stool.
“If it hadn’t been for Mister Sun,” Cass said, “you would have been first on my list to find and string up.”
Aron nodded.
“But he seems to think there’s been a change of heart. And from what I see here, I have to admit I could be persuaded to believe it.”
“I wish you would,” he said. “But I won’t blame you if you don’t.”
“How did we get here, Aron?”
He shook his head and looked down at his hands with a sigh.
“It’s what happens when people lose their way,” Aron said. “Me, I lost sight of what I came to do. Forgot I was there for the people, not for the Council. Let others convince me that what was good for the Council was good for the city.” He looked up at her then. “We see where that got us. I ain’t tryin’ to make excuses. I’m my own man, I made my own decisions. And I’d undo a bunch if I could. But I think maybe that knock on the head put some things right.”
Hearing him confirm what she’d suspected didn’t immediately upset Cass as much as she’d thought it would. There was anger, of course, but there was a strange sort of relief, too, in knowing that her instincts had been right, that she hadn’t just imagined it all. Still, she hadn’t asked the big question yet.
“Did you try to have my son killed?”
Aron clenched his jaw and squinted, grimacing at the question. But after a moment he answered, “She was never supposed to get that close.”
Cass felt a knot of rage tighten in her chest, but she swallowed her wrath. For now.
“You gotta believe that,” Aron said, holding his hands up. “I would never have gone along with it if I thought for a second he was gonna be in any danger. It was never supposed to go that far. But that girl… that girl was better than any of us ever expected.”
Cass wondered. Aron seemed sincere, genuinely pained by the close call. He’d always loved Wren, in his own gruff way. But Connor. Connor had been in charge of the guard.
She thought back to that night, how long it’d taken the guard to show up, after she and Able had already cornered the girl.
“Was it Connor who assured you that Wren would be safe?”
“Of course,” Aron said. “He was gonna put some of his men in the right spot, make a couple of heroes in the process…” He trailed off, and his eyes widened, only now making the connection. He shook his head again and cursed quietly. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but I shoulda seen that. Even then we were at odds. I was just too blind. It was only supposed to scare you. Get you over on our side.”
“Your side? Your side of what?”
“Forcin’ ’em out. There was just too many people for the city. That’s why Underdown had such strict laws, so little tolerance. Always an excuse to push someone out if ever there was threat of trouble.”
“So all this time,” Cass said, “you’ve been working to undermine Wren as governor, so you could enact your own policies. Why the game then, Aron? Why proclaim him governor, if you were all against him from the start?”
“It’s all games, Cass. Always has been. Once Underdown was gone, somethin’ had to be done quick. The people out there, most part they don’t care who’s in charge, as long as someone is. There was a good story there, made it easy for them to believe that nothin’ was really gonna change, and that’s what they wanted. Underdown’s son. Looks just like him. Sure he’s young, but he’s got the Council.
“I think it started right, or close to it. When we started, we all just wanted to keep it all together. But after the big attack, and Wren makin’ that announcement that we were bringin’ everybody in… it didn’t take long for us to start wantin’ other things. Different things.”