Across a Star-Swept Sea

Thirty-two

IN A BEAUTIFUL ROOM in the royal palace in Galatea, Remy Helo sat alone, searching the news from Albion for any information about the Wild Poppy—about Persis Blake. The gossip was extremely light. There’d been a single item a few days ago about her hair, and nothing whatsoever about Justen—not since the night before Persis’s trip to the prison.

Not since before Remy had confirmed for the spy that Justen was responsible for creating the Reduction drug.

And she hadn’t heard from the Wild Poppy since then either. The mission had gone well—Vania had certainly gotten in a lot of trouble for it—but Remy was surprised that the Albians had never contacted her again. Things had been quiet in Halahou for two days, but she expected at least some recognition of the work she’d done for the Albians. Weren’t they concerned that her part in the operation remained secret? Weren’t they worried that she was staying safe and not ratting them out to her uncle?

Of course, she was a traitor now, so she had as much to lose by telling the Aldreds the truth. And maybe, given Justen’s behavior, the Wild Poppy and her League wanted nothing more to do with Remy Helo.

Ironic. She’d gotten herself into this mess by trying to keep Justen safe from the revolutionaries. Now she was worried he wouldn’t be safe from those trying to fight the revolution.

Maybe she should have told the Poppy why she’d gone to the Lacan estate in the first place. Maybe she should have explained how Justen had been sabotaging the pinks, and how she’d tried to step in before anyone noticed and traced the problems back to him.

Then again, that might just give the Poppy more nanothread to hang both the Helos with. She’d wanted to message Justen and warn him, but couldn’t figure out any way to do so without incriminating herself, should anyone else read it. And given her uncle’s suspicions—and worse, Vania’s suspicions ever since she’d gone to Albion the day the prison had been breached—Remy was certain messages to and from Justen Helo were being monitored.

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t heard from him. Remy refused to think of other reasons. Still, it was odd that the gossip waves, which had previously been so full of items about Persis and Justen, were suddenly silent on the subject. Tonight, Remy had grown frantic as rumors had leaked out about a giant party to be held at Princess Isla’s royal palace. Justen would have to be at that, right? But so far, nothing had come through. Stupid Uncle Damos and his stupid news delay. She’d even tried hacking the system, to no avail. How ironic that she could borrow her uncle’s oblet to give herself a secret soldier identity, but she couldn’t find some simple gossip. Uncle Damos should really get his priorities straight.

And Justen had better be safe and sound and at that Albian princess’s swanky luau, or the Wild Poppy was in serious trouble.

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.

“The problem,” Vania went on, standing up and brushing her hands free of imaginary dust, “is that I’m getting really impatient. I’m torn. On the one hand, how great would it be to Reduce you in Halahou prison for all the people of Galatea to see? On the other hand, the longer I delay, the more chance there is that your little princess is going to swoop in here and rescue you.” She nudged Persis with her foot, but it felt more like a barrage of razors against her skin. “Am I right again?”

“You’re very smart,” Persis said through gritted teeth.

“Coming from a mastermind like the Wild Poppy, that’s quite a compliment.” She leaned over and looked at Persis. “I just . . . I’m having a really difficult time believing this is all real, you know? I thought I had you pegged. Such a great cover, Lady Blake. I have to give you that. I’m so impressed.”

Persis remained silent.

“What, no thank you? Don’t aristos learn any manners where you’re from?” Vania nudged her again. Persis bit back a scream.

“Where I’m from,” Persis managed to get out in a relatively calm voice, “we’re taught it’s bad manners to kick people when they’re down.”

“Ah.” Vania resumed pacing for a moment, then hopped back to Persis’s side. “I really am impressed by all you accomplished. Honestly. And even younger than me. I’d love to pick your brain—I mean, while you still have one.”

The sound of lifter fans shifting gravel interrupted Vania’s victory speech. “Reinforcements, perhaps?” she asked no one in particular. Persis could see nothing from her position, but it sounded like some sort of skimmer had pulled up to the barracks. With any luck, it would be someone telling Vania that Albian nationals were off limits for Reduction, even if they were in the League of the Wild Poppy. With a huge amount of luck, it would be the Albian military itself, granted the full weight of Isla’s blessing.

Vania went off to investigate and Persis tried to ignore the pain in her body and take in her surroundings. The outpost appeared to be located on the shore, and from the sound of the waves, they were near some sort of bluff, which probably meant they were still on Galatea’s northern shore, possibly still close to Fisherman’s Rest, where she and Andrine had been captured. Good. Should Isla wish to attack, she had easy access from the sea.

Persis sincerely hoped Isla wished to attack.

Though every movement was utter agony, she pushed herself into a kneeling position and inched over to Andrine. The cut on her friend’s head was bloody but not deep. And there was little bruising or swelling to indicate that she suffered a serious concussion. Perhaps their bloated disguises, faded now from what Persis could see of Andrine’s face and figure, had actually helped protect them when the skimmer had crashed. Perhaps Vania had been lying, and Andrine wasn’t actually injured that badly. Maybe she had been drugged unconscious, just as Persis had.

What was she thinking? Of course Vania was lying. Persis wondered if Vania even had the visitors at all. Maybe this had all been a trap for the Wild Poppy. Maybe Justen was in on the plan with Vania, and she’d stupidly, stupidly trusted him . . . and why?

Why did she so badly want to believe everything he said? Because he was a Helo? Because he was handsome? Because he took care of her mother and laughed at her sea mink and stole her breath whenever he kissed her—even though they were supposedly faking it all?

She might be the cleverest girl in Albion, but it turned out she had a huge blind spot when it came to good-looking revolutionary medics with famous names. And if he’d been lying to get the Poppy to trust his information back at the luau, maybe he was lying about his discovery regarding the Helo Cure as well. Even now, tied up and maybe only minutes away from being Reduced, Persis had been berating herself for not forcing Tero to track down a few doses of the cure before she and Andrine left. She’d been so concerned about getting the visitors back before anything happened to them. But maybe it was a waste of her energy, to regret rushing off before she protect herself with the cure.

Maybe his confession was a lie, too, like everything else Justen had ever done.

“You certainly look like you’re feeling better, Lady Blake,” came Vania’s voice from behind her. She turned to see Vania returning with three others: two guards who carried a bundle between them and a third, shorter one. Persis blinked through the darkness, and her heart lit up. Remy.

But the younger girl wasn’t looking at her at all. Her entire focus was on the bundle the guards were carrying, her face awash with fear.

“Look, I brought you something,” Vania said as the guards placed the bundle nearby. “Your boyfriend.”

Persis stared down at the unconscious body a meter away. Was it Justen? From this angle, she could hardly make out his features, and his sideburns seemed flaked with a lighter color. She looked down at his hands—the large, caring medic’s hands that had held her so carefully in the star cove, that had held her when they danced near the fire at court, that had mopped her brow when she’d had genetemps sickness and helped her mother during her spell tonight. Yes, it was Justen.

What was he doing here? Unconscious?

“Careful!” she heard Remy cry to the guards, sounding more like a little girl than she ever had on the floor of Isla’s throne room. “He’s sick. Ask her what she did to him.”

Vania looked questioningly at Persis. What new trick was this?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Persis replied truthfully. “I left Justen safe and sound in Albion.” And he should still be there.

“Lies,” Vania said, and wagged her finger at Persis. “All lies. I’ll tell you what you did to him, you aristo scum. You turned him against his family, against his work, and against the revolution. The Justen that Remy and I know would never have gone anywhere with someone like you. He never would have left us here, abandoning everything he believed.”

Persis narrowed her eyes, more confused than ever. What kind of information did Vania hope to get from her now? If she knew Justen was one of her spies, why was she accusing him of treason against the revolution? As the sky in the east grew ever lighter, she took another look at Justen’s unconscious form. Galatean military uniform, slightly longer sideburns than she remembered him having, and that flaky light color in his hair. She recognized it now. It was the same temporary hair dye she used when she was in disguise.

Had Justen been sneaking around Galatea in disguise? Impossible notions began boiling up in her mind. She’d left him at the court, tending her mother. There was no way he’d come here, unless . . .

Unless he was telling her the truth back at the luau. Unless he’d come to help. If Justen hadn’t been lying to her, it changed everything. Everything. Maybe Isla’s forces were in Galatea, even now. Maybe that’s what Remy had come to tell her.

But why like this? Why not simply overtake Vania and her crew of guards? She looked to Remy, but the girl’s expression was harsh and closed, as it had been the day they’d fought near the skimmer, as it had been the moment she’d woken up in Isla’s court. Something had gone terribly wrong.

“The Justen I know,” Persis said, directing her response to Remy, “wanted to help people. He knew that the revolution was never meant to torture anyone.” There was not a glimmer of recognition in the girl’s eyes. Whose side was she on? Had Vania won the girl back to the revolution? If so, it must have happened recently, since Vania seemed to have been sincerely surprised to discover the Wild Poppy’s true identity.

“Helping people? Was that what he was doing partying with a princess in Albion?” Vania asked snidely. “How exactly does that help anyone?”

“Everything she says is a lie,” Remy said now, her voice as cold as Vania’s had ever been. “She sits here and lectures us on the true meaning of revolution, and she’s as bad an aristo as any of them.”

Vania put her hand on Remy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We know how to take care of aristos around here.”