Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  She sighed.

  This was completely futile. There were no answers to be found. No strange things lurking. She was almost ready to give up.

  But then Alouette saw it.

  A shimmer, a glint, at the back of the closet, on the top shelf.

  All the closets in the Refuge were carved directly into the bedrock, so their backs and sides looked much like the rest of the walls—uneven and very dark. Except there was something at the back of her father’s closet that was smooth enough to shine under the dim light of his room.

  After setting Katrina down, Alouette pushed aside the clothes on the top shelf and reached her hand to the back of the closet.

  “What on Laterre?” she whispered, shocked by what she felt beneath her fingertips.

  The back wall of the closet felt nothing like rock. It was smooth and soft, almost warm. It felt like the leather seat covers on the chairs in the Refuge’s library.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Alouette grabbed the chair from the corner of her father’s room. She positioned it in front of the closet and hopped up. From her new vantage point, she could see that the mysterious object on the top shelf was a case. An old leather valise with a shiny metal handle.

  She tugged it from its hiding place and gently carried it down from the closet over to the bed.

  The leather on the surface was worn and scratched, and two latches fastened the valise on either side. Alouette quickly popped them open and began to lift the lid, but she stopped herself. A wave of guilt suddenly surged inside her. Should she really be doing this? Snooping through her father’s things? It seemed like a betrayal.

  A betrayal of her father’s trust.

  A betrayal of his deep and clear love for her.

  But then she reminded herself of the convict in the Frets yesterday and the bumps on her father’s arm. There were clearly things her father didn’t trust her with.

  Alouette lifted the lid of the valise.

  And her hopes sank.

  It was full of clothes. Old clothes, faded and musty. Most likely garments her father used to wear before he ever came to the Refuge. Alouette quickly sifted through the neatly folded stacks of clothes, her disappointment growing with every boring shirt, wool sweater, and pair of trousers. With another sigh, she carefully started to restack the garments. She was just refolding a long, hooded coat, trying to position it exactly as she had found it, when she heard a clatter on the floor.

  Something had fallen out of the pocket of the coat. Alouette glanced down to see a small rectangular box made of titan. It glittered under the dim light of her father’s room.

  Gently, reverently, Alouette picked it up and studied its intricate design. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen anything so lovely. Ever. Engraved on the lid was an ornate image. A pair of majestic First World creatures sitting with their front paws raised atop a glistening planet. Alouette searched her memory for the name of the animals.

  Tigers?

  No, they didn’t have stripes. Instead, shaggy manes framed their faces almost like the rays of a Sol.

  Lions. She finally found the right word. King of the Beasts, she remembered reading once. The etching captured them so beautifully.

  She tried to open the lid, but unlike with the valise, it wouldn’t budge. The box stayed locked tight like a fist.

  She turned the box over in her hands, inspecting it. It was surprisingly heavy. As her fingers brushed over the engraved surface, her palms began to tingle with a strange and unexpected warmth. Like someone had wrapped a cozy, thick blanket around her.

  “Maman.” The word seemed to come from nowhere. Almost as though someone else had whispered it.

  Alouette startled at the sound exhaling from her own lips. She had no memories of ever saying that word. To anyone. Yet the two syllables felt familiar and reassuring on her tongue, as though they belonged there. She blinked and swallowed as she stared at the box. If this really had belonged to her mother, then why hadn’t her father ever shared it with her?

  Throughout the years, Alouette must have asked over a thousand questions about her mother. What did she look like? How did she speak? Where did she live? How did she get sick? But he’d given her so little in reply.

  “She loved you more than the three Sols, Little Lark. That’s all you need to know.”

  Alouette had heard that same answer so many times, she’d eventually stopped asking the questions. But at the sight of this beautiful box, Alouette’s chest suddenly ached. Ached like she’d lost something. Ached with guilt that she so rarely thought about her mother these days.

  Alouette wrapped her fingers around the box and squeezed. Hard. So hard that its corners dug into her palm. Suddenly, the ache in her chest had been replaced by something new. Something hot and burning and angry.

  She was so sick of it.

  The secrets.

  The mysteries.

  The torn-out pages.

  The hidden boxes.

  She needed answers. And she needed them now.

  Alouette tossed the box aside and grabbed for her father’s valise. She flipped it over, dumping all the contents out onto the bed. She ran her hands roughly through the various fabrics, her fingers searching pockets and folds and crevices.

  What else are you keeping from me? she wanted to cry aloud to her father. What other secrets are you hiding?

  Before long, Hugo Taureau’s bed looked like a windstorm had blown across it. There were clothes strewn everywhere. But Alouette no longer cared. She kept searching, kept rummaging, kept picking up garments and running her hands over every square millimètre of them.

  Until she stumbled upon something cold and hard and metallic. Something wrapped up in one of the old shirts.

  Alouette pulled out the long, tapered object and gripped it in her hands.

  She knew what it was. She’d never actually seen one in real life, but she’d read about candles in one of the library’s First World books. Stems of wax, topped with a tiny fire, that people used for reading before the days of electric light.

  “Candlestick.”

  As soon as she uttered the word aloud, it seemed to reverberate in her mind, like echoes from the past.

  “Hold the candlestick, ma petite. Don’t let it go. Do you understand? It’s very important. Don’t drop it.”

  And then, in a terrifying instant, Alouette was back on that cold, hard ground, side by side with her father, that enormous rock looming over their heads.

  It was the same memory she’d had in the stairwell yesterday when she’d been hiding from the droids. It had been vague and blurry in her mind. But now, as her fingertips grazed the smooth sides of the candlestick, there was more somehow. As if the fog covering her past was clearing, lifting, revealing details she’d never remembered.

  She could almost feel the rough dirt against her skin, the cold dampness of the ground seeping through her clothes. She could feel the pounding of her father’s heart so close to her own.

  He was frightened too. But why? The answer came almost immediately after her mind had posed the question.

  Because we were running.

  From something.

  From someone.

  She studied the candlestick in her hand. It twinkled in the light, with its slim titan stem flaring out into a six-sided base. She rotated it in her hands, studying the intricate floral patterns engraved into the metal. It was so cold to the touch and heavy in her hands. It was old, yes.

  But was it also stolen?

  Was that why they’d been running? Because her father had stolen this?

  But what could her father want with a candlestick?

  There was certainly no use for it on Laterre. After the Human Conservation Commission discovered the System Divine, they’d decided not to bring fire to the new world. It was deemed too volatile and too dangerous. Especially after half of the First World had been consumed by the deadly element in the Last Days.

  Alouette clutched her hands around the candlestick and
closed her eyes, letting the memory of that dark night continue to seep in. Still only bits and pieces, but the pieces were bigger. She could remember her legs aching. Her feet throbbing inside her shoes. The candlestick clutched tightly in her small hands. Her heart hadn’t been pounding only because she’d been scared, but because she’d been fatigued. She’d cried out from the pain and the weariness and the terror.

  And that’s when her father had raised his trembling finger to his lips.

  “Hush, ma petite. Hush.”

  They had been running. They had been hiding.

  Alouette’s eyes opened and she glanced around at the thick bedrock walls of the Refuge.

  Were they still hiding?

  Fear tore through Alouette, causing her body to tremble and her breath to hitch in her chest. She tossed the candlestick onto the pile of clothes and began to stuff everything back into the valise. She no longer cared if the clothes were refolded correctly. She just wanted to get out of her father’s room. Away from the memories. Away from her fears. That rock felt like it was still pressing down on her, threatening to crush her. That dark, cold night still felt like it was all around her, following her.

  Her father was a convict.

  An escaped convict.

  She was almost sure of that now.

  So what did that make Alouette? His accomplice? His hostage? Tears blurred her vision as she scooped up the last armful of clothes and threw it into the valise. The candlestick, which she hadn’t remembered was in the pile, toppled to the ground.

  She dropped quickly to her knees and reached for the candlestick with shaking hands. It wasn’t until she wrapped her fingers tightly around the stem that she spotted the crack in the metal. A tiny sliver where there once had been a seamless surface.

  It was broken.

  She had broken it.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she whispered as she fidgeted with the candlestick, trying to push the two ends together. But somehow, she only managed to make it worse.

  The crack grew wider.

  And yet, as Alouette studied the fissure, trying desperately to figure out how to fix it, she realized it almost looked . . . purposeful. As though it wasn’t a crack at all, but an opening of some kind.

  Alouette tilted her head, the panic suddenly giving way to curiosity.

  She grabbed the two ends of the candlestick and began to pull them in opposite directions, until she heard some type of mechanism inside click into place.

  Then, a moment later, she let out a gasp as her entire face was suddenly bathed in a glowing green light.

  - CHAPTER 27 -

  CHATINE

  CHATINE HAD NEVER BEEN INSIDE a cruiseur before. The inside was sleek and luxurious, like an extension of the Grand Palais. The walls were a seamless black plastique, slick and polished without a scratch in sight. As she took her seat, Chatine ran her hands over the soft upholstery. She’d never touched leather so soft before.

  “First time in a cruiseur?” Marcellus’s voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned to see that he was studying her with an amused expression.

  Chatine felt her face warm. She shoved her hands in her lap and leaned back on the seat. “Are you kidding? I ride in cruiseurs all the time. This is like my thousandth time.”

  Marcellus clearly didn’t believe her. “Right.” He relaxed into his seat opposite her and announced to the vehicle, “We’re ready.”

  A second later, the cruiseur seemed to jump five mètres in the air, leaving Chatine’s stomach back down on the ground. Involuntarily, she grabbed on to the first thing she could find and gripped it tightly, trying to stifle the shriek that bubbled up in her throat.

  As soon as the sensation of falling had passed, she glanced down at what she was holding and saw that it was Marcellus’s knee. He met her gaze, cocking a dark eyebrow, and she quickly released her grip, leaving an obvious wrinkle in the fabric of his uniform.

  She tried to lean back again and relax, but the cruiseur was already flying forward. The movement made her uneasy, and she spread her arms out across the seat to try to regain her balance.

  “Your thousandth time in a cruiseur, huh?” Marcellus asked.

  Chatine scoffed and turned away from him, trying to look at the passing scenery, but the vehicle had no windows. She wished she could see outside. She’d never seen the Terrain Perdu before. She’d only heard stories of the endless tundra with nothing but frozen ground for thousands and thousands of kilomètres. How long would it take them to cross it? She’d heard that cruiseurs traveled almost as fast as the voyageurs that soared around the System Divine at supervoyage speed, bringing goods and people between planets. She was supposed to be on one of those ships next week. But instead, she was stuck in here with a spoiled Second Estate brat.

  She knew Marcellus was going to Montfer to investigate the Vangarde. That much she’d overheard when Marcellus was talking to Inspecteur Limier in the Marsh earlier. What she didn’t know, however, was whether this had anything to do with what the general had told her yesterday in his office. About the Vangarde attempting to recruit Marcellus.

  Chatine was not happy at the thought of returning to Montfer. She hadn’t been back there since her parents were run out of town for being crooks. She could still remember the smell of the Secana Sea as her family had boarded that rickety bateau headed for Vallonay.

  Unlike her parents, however, Chatine hadn’t left Montfer to escape her mistakes. She’d left to escape him. Even though Chatine had been only eight years old at the time and hadn’t really had a choice in the matter, this was what she’d told herself. She was getting away from the ghost of Henri.

  And now she was going back.

  Usonia better be worth it, she thought.

  Chatine cleared her throat. “So, what’s in Montfer?”

  Marcellus averted his gaze, suddenly appearing lost in his own thoughts. For a moment, Chatine worried he wasn’t going to answer her question, but then he finally mumbled, “A lead.”

  Chatine slumped in her seat. She was going to have to do better than that. She was going to have to dig deeper. Get him to open up. Earn his trust, just like the general had said.

  But the thought made her feel sick.

  Chatine was a croc. A con. A Fret rat. She could flit around like a phantom; she could lift a piece of chou bread from a stall without blinking an eye; she could rob a Second Estater while standing right in front of them. But what she was not and never would be was a confidante.

  “A lead?” she repeated, trying to sound cheerful. But who was she kidding? Chatine didn’t do cheerful. “Are you tracking down the Vangarde?”

  Marcellus shot her a look, clearly implying she was naïve. “Yes. The Vangarde.”

  Chatine clenched her teeth. She was really bad at this. Why couldn’t her job just be to follow him around without being seen? She was really good at not being seen.

  She swallowed and tried again. “So, who is this lead?” She took a stab in the dark. “Some Montfer croc who’s been stealing rayonettes from the Ministère and selling them to the Third Estate?”

  Marcellus’s head popped up and he gaped at Chatine as though she had stumbled upon some key piece of confidential information. Her hopes skyrocketed. Maybe her random guess hadn’t been so random. Maybe she was actually getting somewhere.

  “ ‘Croc’?” he asked with a smirk. “Is that another one of your little phrases?”

  Chatine balled her fists. “They’re not little phrases,” she fired back. “It’s how we talk. It’s our way of life. And if you want any hope of getting people in Montfer to talk to you, you should probably stop making fun of us.”

  The grin slid from Marcellus’s face. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Tell me what ‘croc’ means.”

  She sighed. That’s not exactly what she meant. She didn’t want to pass the entire cruiseur ride to Montfer defining Third Estate slang for Marcellus Bonnefaçon. “It means ‘criminal.’ ”

  “Criminal,” Marcellus repeate
d curiously.

  “Yes. So, this lead you’re looking for, I’ll need to know their name. So I know who to ask for when we get there.”

  “Why ‘croc’?” Marcellus asked, ignoring her. “Where does that come from? What are the origins?”

  Chatine rolled her eyes. Seriously? This was how she would be spending her day? The boy was about as interesting as a turnip. “I don’t know. We don’t sit around, drinking sparkles, discussing the origins of our language. It’s just what they’re called.”

  “Okay,” Marcellus said, putting his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Calm down.”

  Chatine took a breath.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “What do you mean, what else?”

  “What are some of the other words you use?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a log on my Skin. Look, I can’t help you unless you tell me who we’re looking for.”

  “Just name a few. I want to learn more about—”

  Right then, the cruiseur banked hard to the left, causing Chatine’s stomach to drop again. She let out an involuntary yelp and pressed down on the seat, trying to stabilize herself.

  Marcellus chuckled. “It’s okay. We’re just turning.”

  Chatine tried to play off her reaction. “I knew that.”

  “Really? Because you look like you’re going to vomit.”

  Just the word made Chatine’s stomach roll. She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed hard, trying to keep the sickness at bay. But she clearly wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Marcellus leaned forward across the small aisle between them. Chatine could smell his fresh, clean scent. It reminded her of Henri. The way the top of his head used to smell so good, so innocent, she would bury her nose in it and just breathe.