Across a Star-Swept Sea

Nine

NO ONE HAD EVER said it out loud to Persis before. Not her father, or her mother, or the family medic who shook her head and frowned during her weekly visits to Scintillans. The word was verboten. Talk of Darkening was banished from the grounds. Never mind that she saw it echoed in the eyes of each servant on the estate. Never mind that she dreaded every time she visited the court that today would be the day the whispers began. That today would be the day the story escaped and became fodder for the gossips. The day it became spoken. The day it became real.

Did you hear about Lady Heloise Blake? Darkened. Guess that’s what comes of Lord Blake marrying a reg. Can you imagine? All that beauty, all that cleverness, drained away like water down a hole. I wonder if their daughter’s got it, too?

For hundreds of years, the survivors of the wars that had cracked open the Earth and destroyed every place and person except those on New Pacifica had lived as two populations: aristo and Reduced. The few natural regs born were viewed as aberrations. Then the Helo Cure came along, promising that every child born would be regular. The cure was adopted by both nations, and the Reduction ended in a single generation. But as with the Reduction itself, the side effects were discovered too late. Dementia of Acquired Regularity was the dark underbelly of the cure, the shadow that lay over the salvation of the human race.

It was inescapable. Gengineers could make fantastic beasts and nanotechnologists could customize every material under the stars, but no one could solve this puzzle. Just like Reduction, Darkening defied science; and again, there were those who wondered if the victims deserved their fate—if they should have been content to remain Reduced.

Without the Helo Cure, Heloise Blake would never have grown into the brilliant, perceptive woman she once was, would never have met Torin, would never have had Persis or lived so many happy years in Scintillans. Some days, when Persis was gripped by the terror of what was to come, she remembered something her mother had said to her long ago. Something she hadn’t understood at the time.

“Better a short life lived well.”

At first, you might dismiss the symptoms as mere forgetfulness, a slightly spaced-out look in the eyes. But that was just the first few months. Full-blown senility followed, along with loss of muscle control, as more and more areas of the brain were compromised. The year after that came loss of speech, loss of sight, loss of hearing. Most victims wound up motionless vegetables, trapped in a prison of their minds and bodies for the final months before their brains broke down completely and they passed away at last.

The Darkened were usually sent away to sanitariums—that is, if they didn’t take their own lives first. They’d escaped Reduction—the worst fate in the world was to be dragged back into its depths before they died.

Which was why the word was forbidden in Scintillans. Her mother was . . . sick. That was all. It wasn’t Darkening. It couldn’t be. As Heloise’s parents had both died young in an accident, there was no proof that either of them had it. No proof that this was, indeed, what ailed Lady Blake.

And since it wasn’t Darkening, there was no reason for Persis to get tested. No reason at all for her to learn whether or not she’d lose her mind and die in less than twenty-five years. No reason at all to think about what might lie in her future every single time she looked deep into a Reduced prisoner’s eyes and wondered what, if anything, they retained of their former selves while trapped in their mindless hell.

“Persis?” Justen passed a hand before her eyes. His voice was filled with a concern Persis resented at that moment. “You do know, right?”

“Shh!” She opened the door to Justen’s guest room and yanked him inside. “What part of ‘watch your tone’ makes you think it’s acceptable to start tossing around accusations in my home?”

“Accusations?” Justen asked, incredulous. “It’s DAR. She didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not her fault.”

“No,” Persis said without thinking. “It’s Persistence Helo’s.”

Justen didn’t look away, didn’t flinch as she expected. He met her eyes, his face grave. “Yes, it is. It’s horrible. Persis, I’m so sorry.”

Now she turned from him, from the pity on his face. They’d hidden it so well for so many months, but it had taken him seconds in her mother’s presence to see the truth. If this was the case, soon they wouldn’t be able to hide from anyone. Heloise Blake, once the darling of the Albian court, would vanish, and in her place would be a story about some reg who thought she was good enough to marry an aristo and infect the family line. Her mother would die in ignominy, the victim of a disease most aristos liked to pretend didn’t exist, because it would never touch them.

And then what? How could Persis go on, pretending to be the perfect aristo daughter, the perfect heir to her mother’s place in court, once the truth was known? Would she even be able to keep her position? What would Isla think when she knew what kind of secret Persis had been keeping?

“How long?” he asked again.

“A year.” What was the point of lying anymore?

He gave a single nod. “If so, she’s doing well. Her symptoms are exceedingly subtle. I trained in a dementia sanitarium. I know exactly what to look for in patients. I doubt the average person would even notice yet.”

“That’s indeed a comfort,” she replied drily.

His mouth quirked up in a rueful little smile.

“What!” She pounced. “What is so funny about our situation?”

Justen sobered instantly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That was incredibly inappropriate of me. It’s just—all the times I’ve counseled families about a loved one with DAR—it’s never been an aristo before. You sound so haughty. ‘Indeed.’”

“You are not counseling me.” He wanted haughty? She could reduce him to a cinder. How dare he come into her house and use forbidden words and ask forbidden questions and raise forbidden concerns? Helo or no, she wouldn’t allow it.

“Has anyone been?” he pressed. “Is anyone treating her? What about you, Persis? Have you been tested?”

To what end? What good could possibly come of knowing she had twenty-five years left to live? That she could risk her life saving Reduced aristos and end up just like one herself? That every day she spent pretending she was stupid was just a prelude to the horrible, true mental incapacity she might, like her mother, be doomed to face? “None of your business.”

“Actually,” said Justen, straightening, “it is. It is, quite literally, my business. Or rather, my life’s work. That’s what I want to do, Persis. That’s why I became a medic, that’s why I trained in a sanitarium. My grandmother—she did something wonderful, something that saved so many people—but every time someone honors her for it, every time someone honors me, I remember DAR. I think about the people who are dying because of the cure. I want to stop it. Forever.”

He went to his bedside table and pulled out several oblets. They were old and their surfaces were scratched and dull with age, like scuffed stones. He held them out.

“These were Persistence Helo’s. They contain all her work. At the end of her life, she devoted every resource she could to trying to find a cure for the curse she’d unwittingly unleashed upon humanity.”

Persis touched the oblets with a tentative hand. So the old medic Helo had been working on a solution, just as Persis had suspected. Just as she’d hoped. And here it was. In Scintillans! “How did you get these? I thought Persistence Helo left all her research to the Galatean Royal Laboratory.”

“Which is—thanks to the revolution—under the control of Citizen Aldred. He gave me access to them, back when we were on better terms. I never gave them back.”

“You stole them?” Persis dragged her gaze up from the precious oblets to Justen’s face, afraid to even contemplate what this might mean. Yesterday, Justen Helo had saved her life. Today, he was promising to save her mother’s.

“I had to. Unc— Citizen Aldred isn’t interested in DAR. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s even interested in helping the regs in general. Right now, the whole revolution is focused on one thing and one thing only—punishing the aristos.”

And anyone else who got in Aldred’s way, Persis wanted to point out.

“I can’t do the work I need to do there. That’s why I’ve come here.”

“With stolen oblets.”

“No one will notice they’re gone, trust me,” said Justen. “No one thinks they’re even of use, except me. I’m the only person on the lab staff who even cares about this stuff. And if I could have done the research back home, I would have stayed in Galatea.”

So he hadn’t told them the entire truth. He wasn’t seeking asylum because of some vague philosophical objections to the shape of the revolution.

“Galatea,” said Persis, heedless of her tone. This was not the time to play flake. She needed answers from him. All the answers. “Where you told my princess that you no longer believe in what they’re doing? Tell me, Citizen Helo, is it the torture you disagree with, or the fact that they aren’t giving your research sufficient attention?”

His eyes met hers, keen and so intense that Persis felt the instinct to toss her hair or bat her eyes or do something to deflect the impression she was getting that Justen Helo was seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time.

And worse, she almost wanted him to.

But he said nothing for a long moment. “It’s both,” he whispered at last. He tore his eyes away from hers, and faced the bed. His grip on the oblets was so strong his knuckles had gone pale. “It’s all . . . mixed up together.”

Persis frowned, an expression she rarely indulged in outside of missions. If what he was saying was true, he could be holding in his hands the key to helping her mother. To helping her. If what he was saying was true, then Justen Helo was no ordinary refugee. He wasn’t even a simple celebrity refugee. He was a spy, with the potential to save even more people than the Wild Poppy.

Even if he didn’t know it yet.

WHEN JUSTEN HAD FIRST set off for Albion, his grandmother’s oblets concealed in his pockets, he knew he’d have to share the secrets to be found within. With Princess Isla perhaps, or more than likely, one of her science advisers. If he hoped to be put to work in the research labs of Albion, he’d certainly be forced to tell the scientists there what he was working on.

But he hadn’t expected the first person he’d confide in would be an empty-headed aristo he was supposed to be having a relationship with. Then again, he was no longer entirely sure that Persis Blake was empty-headed. Shallow, sure, and woefully ignorant about every weighty topic affecting both her nation and his own—but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew her way around the court. She knew where her loyalties lay. And despite the ridiculous head-in-the-sand approach her family seemed to be taking to Lady Heloise’s illness, she wasn’t stupid about DAR, either.

There was an unmistakable hunger in the way Persis had asked him for information. It made sense, especially if her family was just trying to ignore the problem, as if that would make it go away. Persis might be flighty, but she was no fool. Her mother was sick, and Persis wanted to do anything possible to help her.

Which meant she might help him as well.

And he had a lot less to fear from Persis than he might from actual scientists. Actual scientists who might start reading more into the research than she would, who would start putting two and two together and figuring out the real reason he’d been forced to flee Galatea. Justen still hadn’t quite worked out what would happen if the Albians figured that part out.

He was even afraid to face it himself.

“You really think the information in here will help?” she asked now, still examining the oblets.

He nodded. “I do. I think my grandmother was close to a breakthrough when she died. And we’ve collected so much more data in the last two generations about DAR.”

But Persis looked skeptical. “If she was so close, then why wasn’t anyone in Galatea able to solve the problem before now?” She shook her head, a furrow appearing on her brow. “I mean, I’m sure you’re very smart, Justen, but there are other scientists in your country who have been treating DAR for decades.”

“Until the revolution,” said Justen, “no one had access to these oblets. They were kept under lock and key by the royal house of Galatea.”

Persis looked up at him, her expression unreadable.

Silly aristo. “DAR is a sickness of regs,” he explained, frustrated. “No one in power in Galatea cared what happened to them.” He regarded her carefully. “Can you honestly say it’s any different in Albion?”

“We have very nice sanitariums—” Persis began halfheartedly.

“Let me guess. Beautiful gardens, impeccable grounds, bars on every window?” he scoffed. “Don’t tell me what they’re like. I trained in one. And you know very well it’s the same here. There’s a reason your family wants your mother’s condition kept secret.”

Persis said nothing, just stared at him with a defiantly raised chin.

“Your Princess Isla talks about avoiding a revolution,” he said. “Perhaps she should start by admitting things in her country aren’t as different from those in Galatea as she wants everyone to believe.”

She pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t know much about that,” was all she said. “And I don’t really care, either.”

“Then what do you care about?” he practically shouted.

Persis was silent again. “I care about my mother’s future. I know someone who works at the west coast sanitarium. Noemi Dorric. She’s a brilliant medic,” she added, though Justen wasn’t sure he should take Persis’s word on the matter. Still . . . “If you’re serious about this, I can arrange to have you installed in a laboratory there as soon as tomorrow.”

He looked at Persis. “You can do that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Justen, I’m one of those aristos whose crushing power you’re always deriding. We can work it for good, too.”

“True,” he allowed with a chagrined smirk.

She lifted her shoulders. “Besides, even if that weren’t the case, you’re a Helo and under the protection of Princess Isla. Your only challenge will be finding time to turn down all the invitations you’re about to get for your medic services.”

“True again. Shall I rely on you to be my social secretary, then?”

At that, the aristo graced him again with one of her dazzling smiles. “You couldn’t have chosen better if you tried.”