Diana Peterfreund - Across a Star-Swept Sea

A false identity. No wonder she’d thought that she and the Wild Poppy were such similar souls. But what if she’d been wrong there, too? What if the Albian spy, the beautiful Persis Blake, had deceived her just as the revolution had?

For if the Poppy truly valued their alliance, wouldn’t she have promised Remy that, no matter what, Justen would be safe from her wrath? After all, Remy had done her a great favor in helping the Fords escape. She’d even hurt poor Vania’s military career in doing so. Not that Remy regretted helping the Fords. The Fords’ hatred of the revolution was not mired in aristo bigotry. They had many reg allies. They just hated the path the revolution had chosen to pursue, one in which people were suffering. Remy was too much of a Helo to do anything other than agree. If the choice was between Vania’s quick promotion up the ranks and people being tortured because they just wanted to be left in peace, Remy knew which side she came down on.

And the same held true for Justen. He was her only family. She would not let him be hurt, no matter what the Wild Poppy thought he deserved for his involvement in the drug. How was Justen supposed to have known how Uncle Damos might use it? But what if Persis was avoiding Remy now because her plans for Justen would destroy their alliance? After all, if Remy were the Poppy and she were about to hurt one of her spies’ brothers, she wouldn’t let the spy in question know.

On the desk, her oblet pinged, and she saw Justen’s face glow in the area above her desk. At last! Remy rushed over to view the message, only to find there wasn’t one at all. Instead, it was a notification that he’d accessed the keypad at the royal lab. Remy had activated the notification at the same time she’d arranged a military position for herself on the Lacan estate. At the time, she’d thought it vital to know exactly when Justen might sneak back into the lab to sabotage more pills. At the time, she thought she needed to save Justen from himself. Now, she figured she needed to save him from the Poppy.

Was he back in Galatea?

Remy sprang into action. She grabbed her military jacket and rushed from her room. The labs were only a few blocks from the palace. If she could catch him there, she could finally talk face-to-face, without fear of their messages being intercepted by the revolution. She could finally tell him what she’d discovered, what she’d been doing, and what kind of danger she believed him to be in. Together, they’d find a place to hide where they could be safe from both the revolution and the treacherous Wild Poppy.

No one stopped Remy at the gates of the palace. No one bothered her as she moved through the streets of the city. Was it her famous name? Her military jacket? There was a single guard minding the entrance to the royal lab, but she did little more than nod in Remy’s direction as she approached.

“I’m Remy Helo,” she said. “Did my brother come this way?”

“Thought your brother was whooping it up with some swanky aristo in Albion,” the guard replied, rolling her eyes. “Kinda disgraceful, huh?”

Remy narrowed her eyes. “Thanks for your help,” she said in a tone that was anything but grateful. The guard merely shrugged and buzzed her in.

Most of the corridors were dark, and a scary possibility came to Remy’s mind. If the guard hadn’t seen her brother, who was it in the lab? Maybe it wasn’t Justen here at all. The Poppy had a lot of resources at her disposal: gengineering, nanotechnology. Maybe she’d found a way to steal Justen’s lab access? Maybe . . .

Get ahold of yourself, Remy. Maybe Justen is helping the Poppy. After all, last time you talked to him, he was a traitor to the revolution, just like you.

But the deadly look on Persis Blake’s face when she’d asked Remy about the pinks . . . Remy started running. She rushed down corridor after corridor, searching for any trace of human presence. At last she found lights on, far in a back storage room filled with old oblets and records of immunizations from the time of the Helo Cure.

But that wasn’t all she found. In the middle of the floor, lying in a heap and twitching, lay a figure. She hurried over and knelt at the person’s side, turning him over to see what was wrong. Steely hair, a lined face, and a pained expression met her eyes, and Remy gasped. This was impossible.

“Papa?” she whispered.

“Tero . . .” the man who looked like her father wheezed, “promised.”

The voice was gravelly but familiar. Remy leaned in and her eyes widened as she took in all the details of the man’s face. “ Justen ?”

He made no response, unless eyes rolling back in his head counted. He was wearing an unfamiliar set of clothes, but at least they looked Galatean. In his hands, Justen held a tin of lavender pills.

“Justen,” she said, “what happened to you?”

“Persis . . .” he struggled to say, and then his whole body went slack.

Terrified, Remy pressed her ear to his chest. His heart was still beating, and now at least, it looked like he was breathing steadily.

Persis . Remy clenched her jaw. Persis had done this to her brother. She’d . . . given him something to hurt him, to avenge those who’d received the Reduction drug. Whatever these pills were must be meant to counteract the effects, but he hadn’t gotten to them in time. She grabbed the tin and opened it, crushing one of the pills inside and dusting his tongue with the pulverized powder.

Nothing happened. Maybe they weren’t meant to work immediately. Remy bit her lip. She refused to cry. She was to blame for this. She never should have run off that night he’d confessed his sabotage to her. If she’d stayed and they’d figured this out together, maybe they wouldn’t be in this trouble. Maybe they would have found a way to apologize to Uncle Damos. To reconcile, to stay safe.

She never should have trusted an Albian aristo. She never should have let the Wild Poppy have free access to her brother. She’d made the wrong choice.

She had to find Vania.

BEHIND HER EYELIDS, THE light was cool and gray, but Persis’s body was on fire. Pain coursed through every nerve and fiber of her being, hot and achy and electric. She dared not move, not that she could move much. Even through the agony, she could feel the bite of nanoropes on her wrists, elbows, and ankles. She lay on her side on soft, springy ground, with her hands bound at her back and the dampness of dawn soaking through her clothes.

“Awake?” came Vania’s voice from above. “I know how you feel. I’m too excited to sleep myself.”

Persis opened her eyes—painfully—to see the captain standing above her. She was lying on the lawn near what appeared to be military barracks. A few lights shone in the windows, but most were black. Palm trees waved softly around the perimeter and she could hear the sound of distant waves. The sky was still dark, but far away in the east, there was a hint of violet tingeing the horizon.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what to do,” Vania said now, crouching beside Persis’s head. Her tone was conversational. She gestured off to Persis’s left, and as Persis craned her head—painfully—she could see a fuzzy outlined lump of cloth. Was it Andrine?

Vania’s words confirmed it. “I think I’m going to Reduce your friend first, so you can see what happens to her before it’s your turn, but there’s no point in that until she wakes up, right?”

“Certainly,” Persis muttered.

“Of course, she’s been asleep so long . . .” Vania sucked air through her teeth. “Maybe if her head wound’s bad enough, we won’t have to use the drug to Reduce her at all, right?”

“One can hope,” Persis ground out. Whatever she could do to delay Vania and her gleeful revenge would be best for Andrine’s brain—and her own.