Lauren DeStefano - Perfect Ruin

“I heard you collect deer antlers,” Amy says.

“Not only the antlers,” Princess Celeste says. “The whole heads sometimes, if my father lets me. Most of the body gets sent to the food and bone factories, to make jewelry like the necklace you’re wearing there.”

Amy touches the bone-carved star hanging from her neck. I’ve never noticed it before.

“Living things make the greatest art,” the princess says.

“Dead things, you mean,” Amy says, hoisting the star up in her palm. “This is dead.”

“Once living, then,” the princess says.

From somewhere on the bird, Judas calls, “Brace yourselves!” And it’s not a moment too soon, because a jolt has us all going sideways. Basil grabs on to my waist, and I grab Amy, fearing she’ll go into another of her fits. The princess backs herself into a corner and presses her hands on either wall. I could swear she looks excited.

The turbulence persists for another minute or so, and there’s an instant of reprieve before the floor shakes beneath us, like we’ve crashed into the ground and now we’re skidding.

“Pen!” I call. “Are you guys okay?”

“Lovely!”

This is it. The moment when we reach the ground, or die trying. My nerves are jumbled and I’m starting to feel nauseous. I’ve already endured more in one day than the whole of Internment’s population would deem possible. Generations of rebels have plotted for this. Several have died in failed attempts. It’s foolish of me to think that I’d be among the ones to finally achieve it.

But fantastic things are possible. I’ve learned that.

When the bird goes still at last, Amy stumbles into the hallway, drops to her knees, and gags like she’s going to be sick.

I kneel beside her.

“My body hates this endeavor,” she says, coughing.

“At least it wasn’t another fit,” I say. “You won’t miss any of the fun.”

She smiles wearily at me.

The bird hitches, and Amy claws at the floor and closes her eyes.

I think she’s whispering to the god in the sky.

This was to be an essay on the history of my city. But how can I tell the story of a city in the clouds without questioning what’s above the clouds, and what’s beneath them? All my life I have felt caught between two worlds. Here’s what I know for sure: Internment is only a piece of what’s out there. I know all its sections by heart, and I’ve memorized the times at which the train will speed by my bedroom window. It isn’t enough. I want to know more.

—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten

PEN AND THOMAS ARE THE ONLY ONES missing from the Nucleus.

We all stand at the windows, trying to reconcile what’s before us. A ground covered with white dust. White dust that falls from the clouds. Beyond that, more water than I’ve ever seen in one place. It’s nothing like our modest lakes. The waves are like roars. The water stretches on toward the sky, making a hazy, unreachable seam.

Basil stands behind me with an arm across my collarbone, as though to protect me from danger lurking in this gray-and-white place. Pen asked if they had color on the ground, and I assured her they did, but suddenly I’m not so sure. There’s no blue even in the sky.

I wonder if we’re dead. I feel as though we have been cast beyond the reaches of the living, and we’re to remain forever here, neither alive nor dead. For all the daydreaming I’ve done about the ground, I suddenly cannot imagine that life exists beyond my floating city.

The professor shuts the engine. The metal pops and groans.

The princess is the first to speak. “This is it?”

“Of course not,” Judas says. “We’re only facing the water, that’s all.”

“See you later, then,” she says, turning for the door. “You can all stand around gaping at this monstrosity of a lake if you’d like, but I’m on a mission.”

Her footsteps clomping down the metal platform stir us all into motion. Everyone follows her for the door, except the professor, who stays behind to be sure the engine cools properly. Not that I see what it would matter; I doubt this thing has the strength or the means to return us to the sky, and even if it does, we’re all fugitives. We aren’t returning.

We parade down the hallways and the spiral staircase, through the kitchen and down the ladder that will take us to the door. Judas shoulders his way to the front. “Sorry, Princess,” he says. “Usually I’d say ‘Ladies first,’ but this could be dangerous.”

The princess folds her arms. “So chivalrous.”

I’m worried about Pen, but I know that it will do no good to call for her. She can’t be rushed. All her life she has believed in our history books, and we’ve just fallen into a world where perhaps none of what we’ve been taught will matter.

I grab Basil’s hand and peer down the ladder as Judas undoes the series of locks.

“Wait,” I say. “What if the air is different? What if it’s diseased, or those ice flurries are dangerous?”

Judas smirks at me. Then, having undone the last lock, he pushes the door open.

The cold is immediate, assaulting my skin. My hair flies away from my face. We have chilly days on Internment this time of year, but they’re nothing at all like this. Cold like this could kill a person.

Over the sound of the wind, I hear the laugh on Basil’s breath. He squeezes his arm around my shoulders. “Would you look at that,” he says.

I stare at the white ground, accumulating more whiteness from the sky, until I see a strip of red fluttering about on a post. The only thing in sight. It must be some sort of flag.

Judas sets one foot outside the bird, preparing to climb his way down the side, and a voice calls out, “Halt!”

The voice is so loud that it echoes in all the metal walls. The god of the sky, I think, my heart on my tongue. He has followed us here. He’s come to decide our fates.

Judas is too stunned to step back into the bird or to go forward.

There’s a mechanical quality to the word. Not a god. A machine that’s being shouted into. And the word is heavily affected. No one on Interment speaks quite that way.

Amy grabs Judas by the collar and tugs, which brings him to his senses, and he climbs back inside.

Vehicles appear on the horizon, smaller and more colorful versions of Internment’s emergency vehicles. A peculiar mist trails behind them. Their lights are like pairs of eyes, and the flurries glimmer in their rays.

None of us move. Uncertain.

I like to think we’re brave.

Lex starts to say something, but Alice holds his arm and tells him to be quiet. “Where’s Morgan?” he says. I find his hand, and he squeezes hard. Whatever’s to happen to us, we’ll be together. I want him to know that, but I can’t speak. How can I? What words would be enough for this?

There are more vehicles than I can count, surrounding us on all sides. And then in that affected way, a voice says, “We won’t hurt you. Exit slowly. When you get to the ground, put your hands up where we can see them.”

When we get to the ground.

A hand touches my back, and when I turn around, I see Pen and Thomas behind me, clinging to each other. I don’t know how long they’ve been here. For her, I muster the words, “It’ll be all right.”

She doesn’t seem convinced.

Judas climbs the ladder on the outside of the bird first, Amy behind him, then Alice so that she can help Lex.

The princess is left to stand in the doorway, shivering. She looks at me, and a wicked grin begins to form. “Don’t look so glum,” she says. “This is going to be an adventure.”

Her hair is full of icy wind and daylight. She is every princess, every queen, in the history book. In this instant, I don’t see a bratty princess, but rather I see greatness in her.