Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  Chatine’s gaze flicked back and forth between the two men. She could almost see the electrical charge in the air. Like lightning caught between two conductors. Limier’s eyes were narrowed, his lip curled into a snarl. The hooded man’s eyes were wide with alarm.

  “It’s not moving. We need more help!”

  It was Marcellus’s panicked voice that finally made Alouette’s father pull his eyes away from Limier and look over at the collapsed statue. At the young boy pinned beneath the bottom half. At the men grunting with effort but getting nowhere.

  His eyes narrowed in concern. He glanced again at the inspecteur, indecision playing across his face.

  And then it was as though something snapped inside Alouette’s father. He released his daughter and stalked back through the Marsh, pushing people and debris aside until he reached the foot of the statue. With his large hand, he gestured for Marcellus and the other men to move aside. He bent his legs—as thick as PermaSteel beams—until he could maneuver his hands underneath the statue. With a deep, guttural growl, he pressed upward from his feet, using all the power of his legs, back, and arms. Sweat immediately beaded on his forehead. His face twisted grotesquely from the effort. But slowly, the old Patriarche’s legs began to lift. A sliver of a gap opened up.

  Alouette’s father dug his heels into the mud and grunted again as he continued to hoist up the bottom half of the statue. Finally, when the gap was large enough, Marcellus and the two other men rushed forward to pull Roche to safety. He was deathly pale and clutching his crushed arm, but otherwise he looked unscathed.

  Chatine’s mouth fell open as a gasp of disbelief escaped. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Four of them had attempted to lift that statue. Four of them had failed.

  But this one man—this giant, droid-like man—had done it.

  Once Roche was clear, Alouette’s father released his grip. The bronze statue collapsed to the ground with a loud crash, and the hood covering the man’s head fell back against the nape of his neck, revealing a head of hair so white it was almost blinding.

  Chatine felt a jolt of recognition.

  She’d seen that hair before.

  She knew that man.

  He rushed to pull the hood back up and then quickly glanced around to search for something in the crowd. Chatine had only one guess whom he was looking for.

  The man’s gaze landed, again, on Inspecteur Limier, who was now pushing his way through the throngs of people, the cyborg wiring on his face still blinking so rapidly, it looked as though something had short-circuited.

  The man grabbed his daughter by the hand and began to pull her away again. Limier attempted to follow, but the crowd was too thick. Soon, his attention was pulled to Roche, who was being tended to by Marcellus. Chatine watched Marcellus yell urgently into his TéléCom, demanding that a médecin come to the Marsh immediately.

  Chatine felt the urge to stay with Roche. To make sure he was okay. But there was a stronger urge thrumming through her at that moment. An urge that went way back. A desperation to confirm the realization that was already starting to take shape in her mind.

  She tugged at her hood, pulling it farther over her face, and took a few paces backward, melting herself into the crowd like smoke. Then she did what she was best at: She started to follow her mark. She pursued Alouette and her father through the Marsh, keeping a safe distance as she weaved around crowds and stalls, until she watched them disappear into Fret 7.

  Inside the first hallway, Chatine lost sight of them. But when she stopped and listened, she heard two faint voices. Chatine followed the sound, creeping around corners and hugging the walls to remain unseen. When she finally caught up to the hooded man and his daughter, they were disappearing into the old mechanical room on the ground floor.

  Trying her best to ignore the sharp pain in her ankle, Chatine sidled up to the door and glanced around the corner. Strangely, Alouette and her father had vanished.

  Then Chatine heard the clank of metal. The sound reminded her of the noise the grates made when she hid her sac of trinkets under the floor of her couchette. She crept up to a large rusted machine and peered around it.

  And that’s when she saw Alouette slowly lowering herself into a narrow opening in the floor. She watched in awe as the girl’s head disappeared underground.

  Chatine almost laughed at the irony of the situation. Défecteurs living right under the Frets. She had to hand it to those dropouts. They were certainly crafty.

  But Chatine wasn’t concerned with where they were going. As she watched the large man start to climb down into the hole after his daughter, his hood slipped back from his head again, and Chatine was able to see his whole face.

  In a flash, all her suspicions were confirmed.

  The white hair.

  The huge shoulders.

  The giant hands.

  Chatine closed her eyes and let herself drift back to that night.

  The night the white-haired man came to their inn in Montfer.

  She could still see him standing in the doorway, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the low entryway. She could see the beautiful hand-painted doll in his hand. She could see Madeline’s smug little face as the man told her she was his daughter and took her away.

  Chatine’s eyes fluttered open and her heart hammered in her chest.

  It was the same daughter she had just watched disappear underneath Fret 7.

  The same girl who had killed Chatine’s little brother.

  She had been living right under her nose this entire time.

  - PART 5 -

  LITTLE LARK

  Of all the twelve planets in the System Divine, Laterre was the coldest, wettest, and darkest. The rain fell, the clouds never cleared, and the Third Estate were hungry. Hungry and wet and cold. Some cheated and conned. Others sold blood from their veins. But most gathered points and dreamed of living out the rest of their days under blue skies and gleaming Sols.

  And the rest of their nights under stars.

  Stars in an artificial sky.

  From The Chronicles of the Sisterhood, Volume 7, Chapter 15

  - CHAPTER 49 -

  ALOUETTE

  THE SILENCE IN THE REFUGE had never been so deafening.

  Alouette sat in the small kitchen, her hands shaking in her lap. Her father sat across from her. He was staring down at his own hands, his face as flat and hard and unreadable as the bedrock behind him. His cropped hair glowed like ice under the kitchen’s single lamp, which hung just above his head.

  Since they’d returned from the Marsh ten minutes ago, he’d said only seven words: “Sit down, Alouette. I need to think.”

  And so, while the sisters were still locked behind their Assemblée doors, they sat. Just the two of them. The quiet punctuated every now and again only by an echoing drip from the nearby sink.

  Alouette had tried to speak, but her father had raised his finger and shushed her with a fierceness she’d never seen before. At least never directed at her—not until today. She wasn’t sure if her hands were shaking now because of his silencing . . . or because of his silence.

  She was used to her father being quiet. He’d always been a man of few words. But this? This was different.

  Alouette was frozen to her seat, terrified. Terrified he might start to speak, even yell. Terrified he might never speak and they would spend the rest of the day like this, twin stars trapped in a soundless orbit.

  As they sat, memories of the day kept popping up and bubbling over in Alouette’s mind.

  The crowds in the marketplace. The awful execution. The Forest Verdure with its giant trees and strange graves. Marcellus’s eyes. His green-brown eyes, so full of kindness and sadness. And secrets . . .

  He was no longer just Marcellus Bonnefaçon. She could never think of him that way again. From now on, he would always be Officer Bonnefaçon. The grandson of the general.

  And then Alouette thought about the Marsh.

  Being pulled away, yanked by he
r father through the crowds.

  The little boy, stuck.

  And her father . . .

  “How did you lift that statue?”

  The question darted out of Alouette before she could think to stop it. It wasn’t even one of the questions she’d really wanted to ask.

  After a few very long moments, her father looked up. This time, though, he didn’t raise his finger or hush her. This time, his eyes bored straight into hers. Deep and dark and glimmering. They seemed to hold a million questions. A million frustrations. Or, even worse, a million disappointments.

  Whatever it was, his look made Alouette’s stomach roll with nerves and her heart ache with grief. For a moment, all she wanted to do was slink down off her chair, fall to the ground, and curl into a ball on the cool kitchen floor.

  “The boy was hurt,” her father finally said before his gaze slipped back down to his hands.

  Alouette knew better than to point out that her father hadn’t answered her question. He’d only said why he’d lifted the statue, not how.

  There’d never been any doubt in Alouette’s mind that her father was strong. But now, after what she’d seen in the Marsh, it was clear that her father’s strength was something different. Her father had succeeded in lifting that huge bronze statue all alone, where three men and that scrawny boy in the black hood had failed.

  Where had her father gained strength like that?

  Unconsciously answering her own question, Alouette shifted her gaze from her father’s white hair down to his right bicep. It was covered with his shirt sleeve, but she could just about make out the contours of those five dimpled bumps.

  2.4.6.0.1.

  His prisoner tattoo.

  That’s where such strength had come from, she realized. Or worse, perhaps it was his incredible strength that had put him on Bastille in the first place.

  Her father looked up again, but this time his eyes were bleary and dazed. It was like he was waking from a dream, only to be confused by the reality he’d woken into.

  “Papa?” Alouette whispered.

  He blinked, then straightened his back and wide shoulders. “We’ll have to leave very soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Alouette stared over at him, stunned.

  “I’ll have to secure us passage,” he went on. It was suddenly as though Alouette wasn’t even in the room with him. Her father had slipped into some kind of trance. “He knows where I am now. It’s the only way.”

  Alouette had no idea what her father was talking about.

  “Passage?” she whispered, scared to interrupt him.

  “Reichenstat would be far enough away,” he muttered, standing up and pacing the small kitchen. “I probably should have just taken you there to begin with.”

  Alouette’s eyebrows flew up. “Reichenstat?”

  Why was he talking about a planet worlds away from Laterre?

  “I should have enough funds to get us there and some left over to start a new life.” Her father paused, running his hands over his coarse white hair. “Hopefully enough.”

  It was like the row of lights in Sister Laurel’s plant propagation room turning on, one after another. Everything suddenly emerged into light and Alouette now understood what her father was rambling about.

  “We’re going to Reichenstat?!”

  The words burst out of her so loudly that her father immediately raised his finger and shushed her again.

  Alouette lowered her voice to a frantic whisper.

  “But, Papa, we can’t go to Reichenstat. Laterre is our home. This is where we live. Here, with the sisters. In the Refuge.” She waved her arms around at the kitchen. “You’re their cook. And I’m a sister now. Look!” She reached into the front of her tunic and pulled out the string of devotion beads that Principale Francine had given her just last night. The sight of them—the thought of losing everything she’d worked for—made her chest tighten and her breath snag in her throat.

  Hugo stared at the beads as though he couldn’t make out what they were. Then his head snapped up. Alouette saw determination in his eyes and heard resolution in his voice as he said, “It’s not safe for us here anymore, Little Lark. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

  Alouette’s hands began to shake harder. “Papa, is this about me leaving the Refuge today? I promise, I really promise, I will never do that again. I know that was a stupide thing to do. It was unsafe. But I won’t ever do it again. I promise.”

  But her father simply shook his head and said nothing.

  “Please, Papa, listen to me. We can’t go to Reichenstat. It’s so far away. Where would we live? We don’t know anyone there. How would you find work? The Chronicles say it’s cold on Reichenstat. Very cold. Snow and ice covers most of the lands.” Her voice cracked. “We don’t have the right clothes.”

  “Alouette,” her father said after sighing heavily. “We have no choice. It’s too dangerous here for us now. It’s time to leave. I suggest you start packing.”

  Panic seized Alouette as she watched her father turn toward the door of the kitchen. For a moment, all she could do was silently open and close her mouth. But just as her father was about to duck under the doorway, her voice finally came to her.

  “No!”

  Her father stopped and looked back.

  “No,” she said again. The sound harder. Her voice firmer. “I’m not going. I don’t want to go to Reichenstat. I can’t go.”

  His forehead furrowed. “This is not up for debate, Little Lark.”

  Alouette pushed herself up from her seat and hurried toward her father. “Yes, it is. You can’t keep making decisions for me. You can’t keep hiding things from me and expecting me to just go along with it. This is my home. This is our home. It’s where we belong. I’m not leaving.” The words came out in a breathless, desperate rush.

  Her father let out a weary sigh and cast his gaze to the floor. “We can’t stay.”

  “We can. I promise, we can, Papa.” But she could tell her pleas were doing nothing.

  “This is about that boy, isn’t it?” her father snapped, his voice deep and stern.

  “No,” Alouette shot back. And it was the truth. She didn’t want to see Officer Bonnefaçon ever again. She couldn’t see him ever again. But suddenly, now, when she thought about flying off to Reichenstat—about being so far away from him—for some reason she felt sick and dizzy.

  “You don’t know what you want,” her father said, a note of sadness mixed in with the anger. “You are a child; you don’t know what is best for you. I do and so I am taking you to Reichenstat for your safety.”

  “I am not a child!” Tears pricked at Alouette’s eyes, and she angrily swatted them away. “Not anymore.”

  “Well, you are still too young to make decisions for yourself,” Hugo said with an air of finality before he started again toward the door.

  Frustration and despair suddenly erupted inside Alouette. “I may be young, but at least I am not a criminal!”

  Her father stopped in his tracks, frozen for a few beats. Then he turned and gave her a long, silent stare.

  Heat bloomed in Alouette’s cheeks and her stomach flipped. But she couldn’t stop now that she’d started. Nor could she stop the tears that were streaming down her face. “I know you were on Bastille. You’re a convict. A thief, perhaps. Maybe even a murderer! I don’t know because you never tell me anything. You leave me to guess and assume and think the worst.” She was sobbing now. Hysterical. But she managed to point at his arm. “I know all about your past, Prisoner 24601.”

  Her father just continued to stare at her. The lines on his face looked deeper than ever, and his eyes were flat and hard.

  Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “Pack your things, Alouette. We leave tomorrow.”

  - CHAPTER 50 -

  MARCELLUS

  THE NEXT MORNING, MARCELLUS AND his grandfather walked in silence. Two peacocks skittered out of their way as they moved along the wide avenue, lined with tall cypress tr
ees, toward the gates of the Ministère headquarters. The early morning Sols shone just above the horizon line in the TéléSky.

  The weather in Ledôme was always programmed to be comfortable: warm but not hot, dry but not too much. Yet, this morning, Marcellus’s skin pricked and sweltered under his stiff uniform. He was tired, too. He’d lain awake most of the night with thoughts of Alouette cycling through his mind.

  Her father seemed like a dangerous man. The way he’d pulled that statue off the child by himself. Who had that kind of strength? And was it that strength that kept his daughter locked away and afraid to leave? Alouette’s face had looked so terrified and ashamed when her father had found her. He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened when they’d arrived back home.

  Wherever that was.

  Marcellus squeezed his hands into fists as he walked. He couldn’t believe he’d let them get away. After Alouette’s father had pulled the statue off the boy, Marcellus had been so preoccupied with calling for help and getting the injured boy to the Med Center, he hadn’t even noticed them slip into the crowd. The next time he’d looked up, the two of them were gone. Both vanished like ghosts.

  “General Bonnefaçon.”

  Inspecteur Limier’s voice punctured Marcellus’s thoughts. He’d appeared suddenly behind them on the path, without a single audible footstep.

  “You’re late,” Marcellus’s grandfather stated without breaking his stride or turning his head. They were currently passing under the massive marble arch that marked the entrance to the Ministère grounds. Its towering roof and sculptured sides gleamed in the artificial Sol-light. The inspecteur maneuvered his way between Marcellus and the general, and Marcellus found himself having to fall a few paces behind.

  “An important matter detained me,” said the inspecteur.

  “And what is that?” the general asked.

  “LeGrand is still alive,” Limier announced.