Elle sat still on the bed in the jail cell, staring up at Argiala, who had leaned comfortably against the bars. “What do you want with me?” she said.
“Ellatia Samaras,” said Argiala, with a flourish of her hand.
“My name is ‘Elle.’”
“The reporter who took down the Dejanto drug ring. And Mayor Andy Russo.”
Elle bristled. “I’m a journalist.”
“Who’s written about corporate corruption, political corruption, crooked cops, graft, bribery, and extortion. And she branched out and got herself a Pulitzer Prize for her work on New York’s homeless. But she specializes in taking down bad, powerful people, and she’s very good at it, especially for someone who’s not even thirty. And now she’s mysteriously here, on my Island, sitting right in front of me.”
There was a long pause. Argiala looked down at Elle, and Elle glared up at Argiala.
“I’m not your quarry,” said Argiala darkly.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think it,” said Argiala.
“Maybe you just feel guilty,” suggested Elle.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” said Argiala. “Whatever you think you’re going to get here, you’re mistaken.”
“And what do you think I was going to get here?” said Elle.
Argiala laughed. “Oh, don’t play those psychology games with me!” she said. “You and I both know we’re above that.”
Elle grinned. “Of course we are.”
Argiala leaned against the jail cell door. “Out with it, then. Why are you here?”
“Because this place is interesting.”
“Interesting enough to bust?”
Elle shook her head and leaned forward on the bed. “As a good journalist, I don’t lie, Amanda — ”
“ — Argiala.” She frowned down at the reporter, her wavy, dark hair falling in a frame around her face. The gold circlet on her head glistened in a wink of light from somewhere.
“I don’t lie,” continued Elle. “I’m here for a simple reason: There’s an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, isolated from everywhere, cut off from everything, and it’s the only place in the world with centaurs on it. And apparently a minotaur too! This place is a best-selling book waiting to happen. Every journalist worth her salt wants to be sitting right here, right now, talking to you. I was just able to pull enough strings to pull it off.”
“A best-selling book about the evil Lord Lakapius and Lady Argiala, turning people into monsters, running their tiny island nation with an iron fist?” said Argiala darkly.
“Is that what’s going on here then?” said Elle innocently, pretending to take out a paper pad and write on it with an invisible pen.
“The truth, though you wouldn’t believe it, is that everyone is here voluntarily,” said Argiala, “yourself included. Anyone who wants to leave is welcome to.”
“And you’ll give them back their feet?” said Elle, continuing to write invisibly on the fake pad.
“Do you know what happened after you reported on the homeless in New York?” said Argiala.
“No, why don’t you tell me?”
“Nothing,” said Argiala. “You sold newspapers. You kept your cushy job. You got prizes and awards, and they went right on being homeless. You did nothing for them. But every single person here we rescued, Ellatia. So many of them were addicts, or unstable, or lost, or ruined. Those new bodies you accuse us of forcing on them made them clean. Their minds are clear. They have lives again, and a purpose beyond just getting high or drunk. We gave them a chance at life again, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to take that away from them.”
Elle eyed Argiala sharply, scribbling down to the end of the invisible page, and tucked her nonexistent pencil behind her ear. “So you’re saying you run a perfect, open society, with free and fair elections, and equal rights under the law, and anyone can leave any time they want, and communicate with anyone they want, and that the girl you just let out of this hole is actually a person, and not just a subservient four-legged uterus?”
Argiala gritted her teeth, glaring down at the blond girl. “I knew you wouldn’t understand,” she growled.