“Heaps,” Sarah said.
“Where did he go to school?”
“I think Devan Hall, but don’t quote me on that.”
A prestigious school where most of the rich parents of Oath sent their spoiled brats. A direct contrast to Iris’s humble Windy Grove. She had almost winced at this revelation, but pressed on with “Is he courting anyone?”
“Not that I know of,” Sarah had answered with a shrug. “But he doesn’t share much about his life with us. In fact, I don’t really know that much about him, other than he doesn’t like anyone touching the things on his desk.”
Partly satiated with her newfound knowledge, Iris had decided the best course of action was to ignore her competition. She could pretend he didn’t exist most of the time. But she soon discovered that would be increasingly difficult as they had to race each other to the bulletin board for weekly assignments.
She had triumphantly snagged the first one.
Roman had then obtained the second, but only because she had let him.
It had given her the chance to read a published article of his. Iris had sat hunched at her desk, reading what Roman had written about a retired baseball player—a sport Iris had never cared about but suddenly found herself ensorcelled by, all due to the poignant and witty tone of Roman’s writing. She was transfixed by his every word, feeling the stitches of the baseball in her hand, the warm summer night, the thrill of the crowd in the stadium—
“See something you like?”
Roman’s haughty voice broke the spell. Iris had startled, crumpling the paper in her hands. But he knew exactly what she had been reading, and he was smug about it.
“Not at all,” she had said. And because she was desperate for something to distract her from her mortification, she noticed his name, printed in small black type beneath the column headline.
ROMAN C. KITT
“What does the C stand for?” she asked, glancing up at him.
He had only lifted his cup of tea and taken a sip, refusing to reply. But he held her gaze over the chipped edge of the porcelain.
“Roman Cheeky Kitt?” Iris had guessed. “Or maybe Roman Churlish Kitt?”
His amusement dimmed. He didn’t like to be made fun of, and Iris’s grin broadened as she leaned back in her chair.
“Or perhaps it’s Roman Cantankerous Kitt?”
He had turned and left without another word, but his jaw had been clenched.
Once he was gone, she had finished reading his article in peace. It made her heart ache—his writing was extraordinary—and she had dreamt about him that night. The next morning, she had promptly torn the paper to shreds and vowed to never read another one of his pieces again. If she did, she was bound to lose the position to him.
But she was reconsidering now as her tea went cold. If he wrote an article about missing soldiers, she might be inclined to read it.
Iris yanked a fresh sheet of paper from the stack on her desk, feeding it into her typewriter. But her fingers hovered over the keys as she listened to Roman pack his messenger bag. She listened to him leave the office, no doubt to gather information for his article, his footsteps muffled amongst the clack of typebars and the murmur of voices and the swirl of cigarette smoke.
She clenched her teeth together as she began to type out the first obituary.
* * *
By the time Iris was almost done for the day, she felt heavy from the obituaries. She always wondered what had caused the deaths, and although that information was never included, she imagined people would be more inclined to read the eulogies if it was.
She gnawed on a hangnail, tasting a faint trace of metal from the typewriter keys. If she wasn’t working on an assignment, she was elbow deep in either classifieds or obituaries. The past three months at the Gazette had seen her cycle through all three, each drawing different words and emotions from her in turn.
“In my office, Winnow,” said a familiar voice. Zeb Autry, her boss, was walking by, and he tapped the edge of her cubicle with his golden ringed fingers. “Now.”
Iris abandoned the obituary and followed him into a glass-walled chamber. It always smelled oppressive here, like oiled leather and tobacco and the strong sting of aftershave. When he sat at his desk, she settled in the wingback chair across from him, resisting the urge to crack her knuckles.
Zeb stared at her for a long, hard minute. He was a middle-aged man with thinning blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a cleft in his chin. Sometimes she thought he could read minds, and it made her uneasy.
“You were late this morning,” he stated.
“Yes, sir. I apologize. I overslept and missed the tram.”
By the way his frown deepened … she wondered if he could sense lies too.
“Kitt got the final assignment, but only because you were late, Winnow. I posted it on the board at eight o’clock sharp, like all the others,” Zeb drawled. “You’ve been late to work two times this week alone. And Kitt has yet to be tardy.”
“I understand, Mr. Autry. It won’t happen again, though.”
Her boss was quiet for a beat. “Over the past few months, I’ve published eleven articles of Kitt’s. I’ve published ten of yours, Winnow.”
Iris braced herself. Was it truly going to come down to the numbers? That Roman had written slightly more than her?
“Do you know that I was going to simply give the position to Kitt after he got his feet wet here?” Zeb continued. “That is, until your essay won the Gazette-in-Winter Competition. Out of the hundreds of essays I sifted through, yours caught my eye. And I thought, Here is a girl who has raw talent, and it would be a shame if I let that slip away.”
Iris knew what came next. She had been working at the diner, washing dishes with muted, broken dreams. She hadn’t once thought the essay she submitted to the Gazette’s annual competition would amount to anything, until she returned home to find a letter from Zeb with her name on it. It was an offer to work at the paper, with the tantalizing promise of columnist if she continued to prove herself exceptional.
It had completely changed Iris’s life.
Zeb lit a cigarette. “I’ve noticed that your writing hasn’t been as sharp lately. It’s been quite messy, in fact. Is there something happening at home, Winnow?”
“No, sir,” she answered, too swiftly.
He regarded her, one eye smaller than the other. “How old are you again?”
“Eighteen.”
“You dropped out of school this past winter, didn’t you?”
She hated thinking about her broken promise to Forest. But she nodded, sensing that Zeb was digging. He wanted to know more about her personal life, which made her tense.
“You have any siblings?”
“An older brother, sir.”
“And where is he, now? What does he do for a living?” Zeb pressed on.
Iris glanced away, studying the black and white checkered floor. “He was a horologist’s apprentice. But he’s at war now. Fighting.”
“For Enva, I presume?”
She nodded again.
“Is that why you dropped out of Windy Grove?” Zeb asked. “Because your brother left?”
Iris didn’t reply.
“That’s a pity.” He sighed, releasing a puff of smoke, although Iris knew Zeb’s opinion on the war, and it never failed to irk her. “What about your parents?”