Silence, then. Westminster Bridge was the trump card. What rebuttal could they offer?
‘So you mean to talk us into our deaths,’ Victoire said finally.
‘I don’t,’ said Letty. ‘I mean to save you.’
She blinked, and suddenly tears traced two thin, clear lines down her face. This was not an act; they knew Letty could not act. She was heartbroken, truly heartbroken. She loved them; Robin did not doubt it; at least she really believed that she loved them. She wanted them safe and sound, only her version of a successful resolution was to put them behind bars.
‘I didn’t want any of this,’ she said. ‘I just want things to go back to the way they were. We had a future together, all of us.’
Robin bit back a laugh. ‘What did you imagine?’ he asked quietly. ‘That we would keep eating lemon biscuits together while this country declared war on our motherlands?’
‘They’re not your motherlands,’ said Letty. ‘They don’t have to be.’
‘They do have to be,’ said Victoire. ‘Because we’ll never be British. How can you still not understand? That identity is foreclosed to us. We are foreign because this nation has marked us so, and as long as we’re punished daily for our ties to our homelands, we might as well defend them. No, Letty, we can’t maintain this fantasy. The only one who can do that is you.’
Letty’s face tightened.
The truce was over; the walls were up; they had reminded her why she’d abandoned them, which was that she could never really, properly, be one of them. And Letty, if she could not belong to a place, would rather tear the whole thing down.
‘You realize that if I walk out of here with a no, they’ll come in prepared to kill all of you.’
‘But they can’t do that.’ Victoire glanced at Robin as if for confirmation. ‘The whole point of this strike was that they need us; they can’t risk us.’
‘Please understand.’ Letty’s voice hardened. ‘You gave them a headache. Well done you. But you are, in the end, expendable. All of you. Losing you would be a minor setback, but the imperial project involves more than a few scholars. And it will span more than a few decades. This nation is trying to achieve what no other civilization has done throughout history, and if mowing you down means a temporary delay, then they’ll do it. They’ll train new translators.’
‘They won’t,’ said Robin. ‘No one will work for them after this.’
Letty scoffed. ‘Of course they will. We knew very well what they were up to, didn’t we? They told us on the very first day. And we still loved it here. They’ll always be able to find new translators. They’ll relearn what they lost. And they’ll just keep going, because no one else will be there to stop them.’ She seized Robin’s hand. The gesture was so sudden, so shocking that he didn’t have time to pull away. Her skin was icy cold, her grip so strong he was afraid she might snap his fingers off. ‘You can’t change things if you’re dead, Birdie.’
Violently, he shook her off. ‘Don’t call me Birdie.’
She pretended not to hear this. ‘Don’t lose sight of your end goal. If you want to fix the Empire, your best course is to work within it.’
‘Like you do?’ asked Robin. ‘Like Sterling Jones did?’
‘At least we’re not wanted by the police. At least we have the freedom to act.’
‘Do you think the state’s ever going to change, Letty? I mean, have you ever thought about what happens if you win?’
She shrugged. ‘We will win a quick, bodiless war. And after that, all the silver in the world.’
‘And then what? Your machines get faster. Wages fall. Inequality increases. Poverty increases. Everything Anthony predicted will happen. The revels will be unsustainable. What then?’
‘I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’ Letty’s lip curled. ‘As it were.’
‘You won’t,’ said Robin. ‘There’s no solution. You’re on a train that you can’t jump off, don’t you see? This can’t end well for anyone. Liberation for us means liberation for you as well.’
‘Or,’ said Letty, ‘it’ll just keep going faster and faster, and we’ll let it, because if the train’s speeding past everyone else, we may as well be riding it.’
There was no arguing with that. But, if they were being honest with themselves, there had never been any arguing with Letty.
‘This isn’t worth it,’ Letty continued. ‘All those bodies in the streets – and for what? To make a point? Ideological righteousness is well and fine, but by God, Robin, you’re letting people die for a cause you must know is bound to fail. And you will fail,’ she continued, relentlessly. ‘You don’t have the numbers. You don’t have the public support, you don’t have the votes, and you don’t have the momentum. You don’t understand how determined the Empire is to reclaim its silver. You think you’re prepared to make sacrifices? They will do anything it takes to smoke you out. You should know that they don’t plan on losing all of you. They just need to kill some of you. They’ll take the rest prisoner, and then they’ll break your strike.
‘Tell me – if you’d just seen your friends die, if you had a gun pointed at your head, wouldn’t you go back to work? They’ve already arrested Chakravarti, you know. They’ll torture him until he cooperates. Go on, tell me – when push comes to shove, how many people in this tower are going to stick to their principles?’
‘We’re not all as spineless as you,’ said Victoire. ‘They’re here, aren’t they? They’re with us.’
‘I ask again. How long do you think that’ll last? They haven’t yet lost one of their own. How do you think they’ll feel when the first body of your revolution hits the floor? When there’s a gun to their temple?’
Victoire pointed to the door. ‘Get out.’
‘I’m trying to save you,’ Letty insisted. ‘I’m your last shot at salvation. Surrender now, come out peacefully, and cooperate with restoration. You won’t be in prison for long. They need you, you said it yourself – you’ll be back at Babel in no time, doing the work you always dreamed of. It’s the best offer you’ll get. That’s all I came here to say. Take it, or you’ll die.’
Then we’ll die, Robin almost said, but stopped himself. He couldn’t sentence everyone upstairs to death. She knew that.
She had them beat. There was no arguing their way out of this. She had them utterly cornered; there was nothing she hadn’t foreseen, no more tricks to pull out of their sleeves.
Westminster Bridge had fallen. What more could they threaten?
He hated what came out of his lips next. It felt like surrender, like bowing. ‘We can’t decide for them all.’
‘Then call a meeting.’ Letty’s lip curled. ‘Poll the room, get a consensus with whatever little form of democracy you’ve got running here.’ She placed the white flag down on a table. ‘But have an answer for us by dawn.’
She turned to go.
Robin rushed forward. ‘Letty, wait.’
She paused, one hand on the door.
‘Why Ramy?’ he asked.
She froze. She looked like a statue; under the moonlight, her cheeks shone a pale, marble white. This was how he should always have seen her, he thought. Cold. Bloodless. Devoid of anything that made her a living, breathing, loving, hurting human being.
‘You aimed,’ he said. ‘You pulled the trigger. And you’re a terribly good shot, Letty. Why him? What did Ramy ever do to you?’
He knew what. They both knew; there was no question. But Robin wanted to give it a name, wanted to make sure Letty knew what he knew, wanted to pull the memory fresh between them, sharp and vicious, because he could see the pain it brought to Letty’s eyes and because she deserved it.