Lauren DeStefano - Burning Kingdoms

Thomas frowns after her.

In the car, Celeste hooks her arm around mine and lets loose a squeak of excitement.

Two schoolgirls. What an audience we are for the king of more land than any one person should control.

Jack Piper drives while Nimble points out landmarks for us. He’s in high spirits, but all I see are more possibilities for bombings. There’s been minimal talk of the banks, and no talk at all of what casualties could have occurred.

“There’s our hospital,” Nimble says. “Saint Croix.”

If the hotel is the size of a city, the hospital is the size of ten. “Morgan,” Celeste says. “Your brother is a medic, isn’t he?”

I don’t like the liberties she’s taking by discussing my family this morning.

“He was,” I say. “Before he lost his sight.”

“The one who never comes out of his room?” Nimble says. “That’s your brother? Married to the redhead?”

“Yes,” I say, and then quickly, “How long has your hospital been here?”

“Went up the year Riles was born,” Nimble says. “They seem to be expanding on it every year.”

Celeste leans in to me. “I wish for us to be friends,” she says, softly so that only I’ll hear. “I’m a great judge of people and I have a sense about you.”

I haven’t forgotten the hours I spent shackled in the clock tower while she and her brother brought me grapes like I was a pet, or a game. But it seems so far away now. It happened in a place I can’t even see when I look for it, it’s so cloudy all the time. “I think it was brave of your parents to be a part of that metal bird’s creation,” she says. “I am sorry that they aren’t here. Truly.”

“Thank you,” I say, for lack of fitting words. My head aches and my mouth feels stuffed with sheep shavings. I am thinking of Pen, inebriated and dancing in the smoke and noise, trying to forget what we’ve had to leave behind. And of the blue bird that sailed over our heads, unaware of its own brilliance, indifferent to whatever silly worries the humans may have.

“I’m sorry about your brother, too,” I tell Celeste, because it seems like the right thing to say. Even if a part of me thinks he deserved what Pen did to him.

Celeste smiles mischievously. “He’ll be so jealous when I tell him about this place. We’ve always been rather competitive.”

“Have you considered the possibility that we won’t make it back?” My question just slips out.

“Not at all.” The princess doesn’t miss a beat. “Have a little faith.”

“In what?” I say.

“Well.” She draws her eyebrows together. “In the way of things, I suppose. And in me.”

I return her smile. We are all doomed.

We drive through the streets that Pen, Birdie, and I haunted the night before. We pass women in long coats that are a trove of buttons, hats that look like shells or folded paper, all of them with flowers and big white beads that Birdie calls pearls. They, too, are a treasure of the sea.

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