Lauren DeStefano - Perfect Ruin

“I thought you might try to kick me out, even after we took to the sky,” the princess says. Her eyes are on Pen. “I planned to use the boy as leverage, but I believe I could return the favor and kill someone you love.”

Pen bites my hand, hard, but I don’t let go.

“What is it you want from us?” Judas says.

“Shouldn’t it be obvious?” the princess says. “I want you to take me to the ground.”

“Well, good news, then, because we couldn’t let you out even if we wanted to,” Judas says. “Opening a door right now would get us all killed at this altitude.”

I pity her. She’s known for her poise, and here she is, undone. Her braided crown is frayed. Her eyes are desperate and vicious. She’s the most popular girl on Internment, but she’ll find little kindness among the lot of us. She looks at me. “Is that true?”

Is it? I have no idea. “Yes,” I say. “Of course. Everyone knows that.”

Princess Celeste has a steady hand on that knife, but the unpredictability of flight makes me nervous.

Pen stops squirming and she has her eyes on her betrothed. His chest rises and drops. His breaths disturb the lace of the princess’s collar just so.

“You,” the princess says. “Patrolman’s daughter.” She pats the small bit of space beside her on the closet floor. “Let’s have a chat, shall we?”

I let go of Pen. “Don’t be stupid,” I whisper, and kiss her cheek. She’s growling.

“Bring the lantern,” the princess says. “It gets dark in here.”

As soon as I’m beside her, she reaches forward and pulls the closet door shut.

She releases Thomas, letting him spill backward into a pile of once neatly folded clothes. I notice that she keeps hold of the knife.

“Don’t blame him for what Pen and I did,” I say. “He didn’t know anything about all of this.”

“Didn’t he?” she says. “He knew where to find you. I followed him all the way to the flower shop.”

I don’t know how Thomas knew to go to the flower shop, unless he’d somehow seen me leaving it with Judas, or had been nearby when Pen and I had been kidnapped.

“I wasn’t planning to hurt him,” she says. “I just needed some kind of backup plan in case you tried to toss me out. And he did seem to already be heading this way.”

“How did you sneak into the bird without anyone catching you?” I say.

“I had to hide in the dark for a long time. But then, before you started moving, everyone stepped out into the dirt to”—she clears her throat—“use the water room behind this thing. I presume there isn’t one on board.” She smirks, clearly impressed with herself. “Anyway, the door was left open. My brother and I have been sneaking out of the tower since we were toddlers, practically.”

“I suppose you can’t be the child of the king without being brilliant,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going. It seems to keep her from doing anything rash.

“No, my brother is stupid quite most of the time,” she says, not without fondness.

“‘Is’?” I ask. Not “was.”

She looks at the darkness beyond the lantern, crestfallen. “He’s breathing, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Will he live?” I ask.

“Never mind that,” she says, and attempts to pat down her frizzed hair. “He isn’t here, and we are, aren’t we? And I need your help. Call me daft, but I like you. You were at least honest with me about this thing existing.”

I wonder if she remembers that she kidnapped me, and that her father is the reason Lex and I no longer have our parents. They should be on this bird, not her.

I swallow my anger. For Thomas. For Pen. For sanity’s sake.

“As you can understand, I don’t feel very safe here,” the princess says. “Especially with that Hensley boy. If he’d murder his betrothed, I can imagine what he’d do to me.”

Judas did not murder Daphne. I’m so tired of hearing the accusation that I could scream. But it isn’t the worst thing for Princess Celeste to fear him.

“And you want me to protect you,” I say.

“I don’t require your protection,” she says. “I require your sensibility. When your beastly friend raised that stone to my brother, you tried to stop her. You saw that it was a bad idea. You don’t act irrationally even if you’re angry, do you?”

It was my irrational need to leave the bird that got me kidnapped in the first place, but I don’t say that. “I have been called a diplomat.”

She sighs. “Being the king’s daughter doesn’t mean much now that we’re no longer on Internment,” she says. “But I will kill this boy if anyone tries to harm me. He’ll wake up soon, but that won’t stop me. And don’t let anyone get ideas about leaving me on the ground, either. I’m to return safely to the sky, or, believe me, my father will make you wish you hadn’t returned. I’ve left him a note explaining where I’ve gone.”

She doesn’t know that this is a one-way trip. Not even the king will be able to retrieve her. It would give me too much pleasure to tell her. But this would be unwise; she’s scared, scorned, likely hasn’t slept, and she’s holding a knife. And the fact that she snuck onto this bird tells me that she must have a compelling reason. Something worth risking as much as she has, leaving her home and surrounding herself with people who might cause her harm.

“I know Pen, and she won’t care how sensible I am. Not if I’m defending a girl holding her betrothed hostage. You have to let Thomas go. If you do that, I’m confident I can keep her from strangling you.”

“And the Hensley boy?”

“I’d just avoid him if I were you,” I say. “He’s not a fan of your family’s.”

The princess stares at me for a few seconds. “And you?” she says.

“I’m not a fan of your family’s, either,” I say. “All you know about me, for sure, is that when Pen attacked your brother, I tried to stop her. It may not be a lot to go by, but there it is.”

She considers this.

Then, without saying anything, she grabs Thomas under the shoulders and hoists the dead weight of him into my lap.

It is a peace offering. She nods.

I kick at the door, and I hear the sound of listening ears backing away. “You can let us out now,” I say.

Pen dabs at Thomas’s face with a wet cloth. She presses it to either side of his neck, under his chin.

It’s just the three of us in the bunk room. The others are trying to make themselves useful in the Nucleus. Judas is keeping watch over Princess Celeste away from the others; with all the grace of her lineage, she allowed herself to be searched. She allowed me to remove my knife from her hand, and the tranquilizer darts from her belt and from the rims of her stockings, while Judas and Basil awkwardly averted their eyes.

“He seems unharmed,” I offer now by way of comfort.

Pen undoes the top buttons of his shirt, and she peels back the collar until she can see the bruise on the side of his neck. “It’s one of her stupid tranquilizers. He can probably hear everything we’re saying right now,” Pen says. “Thomas, you idiot.” She kisses his parted lips. “Why did you follow me?”

I can’t rid the smile from my face before she notices.

“What?”

“It’s just that I’ve never seen you act so fond of him before,” I say.

“Of course not,” she says. “He’s repulsive.” She brushes away some drool at the corner of his mouth with her thumb. “But he belongs to me.”

They’re still betrothed. Willingly, it would seem. Maybe the ground won’t change us at all.

I stand.

“Where are you going?” Pen says.

“To find Basil.”

I hurry down the hall, up the ladder, and nearly bump into Basil in the doorway to the Nucleus. He’s carrying the pieces that fell from the ceiling as we broke free of the city. “Careful,” he says. “You could cut yourself.”