Free Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

downstairs. I used to pass by her door and see her sometimes, standing just inside her threshold after her husband left for work. I’d hear the whimpers of pain when she tried to follow after him.
    “What is it?” he asks.
    I’m trying to think of a way to answer without lying, but then I’m saved by a knock on my door. “A patrolman was just here.” My mother’s voice. “There’s going to be a broadcast. They’ve found that poor girl’s murderer.”

7
    Even gods must have their secrets.
    —“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten
    T HE BUILDING IS SHAKING, FOR ALL THE footsteps fighting to get down the stairwells at once. Our fascination is as great as our horror, as though knowing the name of the person responsible will explain what has been done. As though it will bring us peace.
    I hold Basil’s hand, and when we make it downstairs, the broadcast room contains what I’m certain is everyone in the apartment complex.
    Even my brother, who never comes down for these. I spot him standing along the wall with Alice. He’s most comfortable when he can be near a wall or sitting on the floor; he’s told me it’s the only way he can keep from feeling like he’s falling through the sky. In the first months, when he was still adjusting to the permanent darkness, he used to crawl.
    Alice waves us over.
    “They found the murderer?” Basil asks.
    “That’s what we’ve heard, too,” Alice says.
    Lex mumbles something I don’t catch. I touch his arm, to let him know where I am and to console him before he starts to get angry. He has never had a kind thing to say about the king, or his announcements. Especially since Alice’s ordeal. He could get us all arrested for treason.
    I stand on tiptoes to reach his ear. “It’ll be okay,” I say.
    “It’s already plenty not-okay, Little Sister,” he says.
    Alice shushes him. A patrolman is shaking the screen, trying to get it to work. There are a few seconds of static, and then the king appears, wobbly and distorted on the screen.
    Everyone in the room has gone quiet. When the roar of the static reduces itself to a faint crackling, we can finally hear what the king is saying. “—are appalled by our findings early this evening that after a thorough investigation, based on extensive evidence, there is reason to believe that Judas Hensley is responsible for the murder of Daphne Leander, his betrothed.”
    My blood runs cold. Basil squeezes my hand.
    “No,” Lex murmurs beside me.
    Rather than an academy image, there’s live footage of the accused, his arms shackled behind him, his head down, and his face half-covered by blond hair as he’s lead up the steps of the courthouse by several patrolmen. I’m uncertain what awaits him on the other side of those heavy wooden doors. Many generations before I was born, crimes were a routine part of Internment. Jealousy and greed bred most of them, and it was determined that arranged betrothals and assigned housing would diminish many such crimes. Things will never be perfect, of course. With free will comes inevitable error and misjudgment. There are still disputes and accidents that are resolved in the courthouse. If it’s an involved case, people are selected to serve as part of a jury.
    But a murderer? What sort of trial would have to take place? Where would they keep him in the meantime?
    Alice has her finger to Lex’s lips now, because he just said something I didn’t hear. What could this possibly mean to him? In the last moment before the image switches back to the king, I see Judas Hensley in the courthouse lights. I’ve seen him at the academy; we’ve had classes together, but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken.
    “Do you know him?” I ask Basil.
    “I’ve seen him,” he says.
    The king is still speaking, telling us there will be more updates to follow, but I’m distracted by Alice, who is pulling Lex out of the room and trying not to make a scene. I don’t understand why he’s so upset by