Lauren DeStefano - Perfect Ruin

I stand on the tips of my toes and bring my face close to his. “No I won’t,” I say. “Because you’re here. You wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

I kiss him. The back of his neck is warm when I touch it.

He stoops to set the debris on the floor, and then he’s touching the sides of my face, his hands as soft as air. His eyes have changed, gone hazy the way they do when our bodies are close. I like that I’m the only one that does this to him; I’m the only one who gets to see him this way. “Never,” he murmurs.

He gathers me up and I’m weightless before he sets me on the railing that overlooks the next level. He’s the only thing keeping me from falling back, out of the reach of daylight. I’m not afraid of falling. I don’t fear the sky beyond the train tracks like I did before. I can go anywhere just so long as it’s with him.

He has one arm around my back, while his other hand bunches my skirt up to my hips.

Say it, that voice is telling me again. Say that you love him. But what I say is, “I’ve never seen you like this.”

All I want to do is kiss him under these windows that are full of sky.

His mouth tastes the same as it did that afternoon when he told me he would follow me to the edge. We’re both still wearing our uniforms, which have been laundered and made to smell of soapberries, but there’s a familiarity to them.

“I don’t care if it’s in the sky or on the ground,” he says against my neck. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Even without the decision makers?” I say, drawing back.

“Especially then,” he says. “It wouldn’t have mattered whether or not we were paired up. It’s always been you, Morgan.”

I push forward so that my nose and forehead are against his, and I’m smiling so wide it hurts. “You’d choose an irrational like me?” I say. “Without being forced.”

He kisses me. “Yes.”

“A girl who’s terrible with math—”

“Yes.”

“A shameless daydreamer—”

“Yes.”

“Who’s brought you nothing but trouble?”

“Yes.” He holds my chin in his hand. “Yes. Daydream all you like.”

Over us, the sky goes dark. At first I wonder how evening could have come so quickly, but then I realize it’s the clouds that have gotten dark, not the sky. Though they don’t make a sound, it’s as though they’re growling at us.

Basil notices it too. I hop down from the railing and we both stare up at this strange new sky.

We are taught that curiosity is a thing to be feared. But our first trains came from curious minds. As did medicine, and clocks, and first kisses.

—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten

GET YOUR FINGERS OFF MY WINDOWS, kid,” the professor says. Amy doesn’t even hear him. She’s too busy gaping at the flecks of white that are whirling around us.

“What is this?” she gasps.

“I think they’re ice shavings,” I say. “Lex, you told me about this happening when clouds release water and it freezes.”

He raises his head toward the windows as though he’ll be able to look. I immediately regret what I’ve said; it’s got to be killing him that he can’t see any of what’s happening.

“It shouldn’t hurt us,” he says. “Not unless it’s coming down fast.”

“They’re like lightbugs,” Amy says. “Daphne and I used to catch them in jars.”

“Where are you going?” Basil says when I let go of his hand.

“Pen has to see this,” I say.

“Take the lantern, then,” he says.

It’s hard to believe the rest of the bird is dark while this fantastic thing is happening in the Nucleus.

When I find Pen in Amy’s bunk room, she’s speaking to Thomas in a low voice. His eyes are open, but murky. “Don’t worry,” Pen tells him, raising her voice when she hears me approach. “You’re free of that crazy princess now. We’ll kill her later, no matter if Morgan thinks she can stop us.”

“I’m on your side, you know,” I say.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for not letting me punch her.”

Thomas draws a sharp breath and then hoarsely says, “Not a good idea.”

“See?” I say. “He agrees with me.”

“No he doesn’t,” Pen says. “He’s been speaking nonsense for the last several minutes.”

“I only told you I love you,” Thomas says.

“Shush. How did you end up in the hands of that lunatic princess anyway?”

Weakly, he raises his arm, reaches into his shirt pocket, and retrieves a scrap of lace. Pen looks at her dress and realizes it’s the piece that’s missing from her collar. “She told me that she had you prisoner,” he says. “She said she would kill you if I didn’t follow her.”

“We should just leave her somewhere to fend for herself when we land,” Pen says. “I hope the people on the ground are savages with an appetite for blondes.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Did you want something?”

“Remember that frozen dust I told you about?” I say. “We’re flying in it.”

She turns her attention back to Thomas. Her fingers are trembling when she smoothes his blanket. Delirious though he may be, he notices and grabs her hand.

“Pen? Don’t you want to see it?” I say.

“No,” she says softly.

“But it’s unlike anything—”

She closes the door on me.

I know that it isn’t these icy white swirls that have Pen so scared. It’s the idea of leaving Internment and surviving it. It’s the idea that our god doesn’t care whether or not we return, and that the history book may be wrong.

Amy says the ice shavings are like lightbugs, but they remind me of the funerals I’ve attended. Of the dusted bodies released onto the wind. In the dusting process, all the bad of a person’s soul is burned away, so that only the goodness will carry on to the afterlife. It’s a cleansing.

“It’s like we’re flying through the tributary,” I say, leaning back against Basil’s chest.

“They’re flurries,” Lex says, annoyed. “Don’t turn something scientific into a cathartic experience.”

“Be nice,” Alice tells him.

I don’t offer a response. Lex is entitled to his bitterness for having to miss this sight. I wouldn’t know how anyone could describe it in a way he’d appreciate.

“I think I’ve found a landing spot,” the professor says. “Where’s Judas? Need him to help me with the wheels.” There are so many pieces to this bird, and they serve so many different purposes, that it makes my head spin. Once it’s on the ground in broad daylight, I want to inspect it. I hope they have image recorders on the ground so that I can take images.

“He’s watching the princess,” Amy says, adding a flourish to the word “princess.” “She can’t be left alone, apparently.”

“I’ll get him,” Basil says, before I can volunteer.

“I’ll go with you,” I say.

“Me too!” Amy chirps.

Judas is keeping the princess in one of the bunk rooms. We find him standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, as the princess re-braids her hair.

“We’re landing,” I tell Judas. “The professor needs you. Something about wheels?”

The princess stands, her face alight. “Landing?” she gasps. “As in, on the ground?”

“Watch her,” Judas says as he leaves the bunk room. “She’ll try to seduce you.”

“We’ll try to resist,” I say.

Princess Celeste wrings her hands. “So we’re near the ground, then?” she asks. She blinks several times when she notices Amy staring at her. “Hello,” she says. She cheerily shows a row of white teeth, and her eyes squint pleasantly when she smiles, the way she smiles in every image and at every ceremony her father hosts. She would have no way of knowing that this girl before her is the famous murdered girl’s sister. Maybe she doesn’t even know her father’s role in Daphne’s death.