Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  Marcellus nodded and held Théo’s gaze for a long, reassuring beat. “I believe you.”

  Théo seemed to visibly relax, his shoulders falling away from his ears.

  “Unfortunately,” Marcellus went on, “Chacal doesn’t. The kid was bragging about delivering messages for the Vangarde, and Chacal thinks he was telling the truth. Of course, the boy now claims he was lying, but that’s not enough to release him. If he admits to you that he was lying—in confidence when he thinks we’re not listening—I might be able to get him released.”

  Théo looked confused. “So, what exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Go into the interrogation room and pretend that you’re another suspect. Tell him that we brought you in for questioning. Try to get him to talk truthfully.” Marcellus thrust the TéléCom into Théo’s hands. “Take this. Tell him you stole it off me. It’ll earn you credibility.”

  The boy stared back at Marcellus, looking impressed.

  Sols, Marcellus was impressed himself. Maybe hanging out with this Fret rat had rubbed off on him. Maybe he would make a decent commandeur one day.

  He pointed to the TéléCom. “Click this in front of him and tell him you’re disabling the microcams. The window will go dark, but I’ll still be able to see you from the monitoring room. I’ll connect to your audio chip, so I’ll be able to hear everything you hear, and I’ll be able to guide you through the whole thing.”

  Théo hesitantly took the TéléCom, glancing at Marcellus as though suspecting that this might be a trap.

  Marcellus nodded. “It’s okay. I trust you.”

  For a brief moment, Marcellus swore he saw a tiny smile break onto the boy’s face, but it was gone so fast, he couldn’t be sure.

  Without a word, Théo folded up the TéléCom and slid it into the pocket of his coat. Marcellus opened the door and led Théo into the hallway. He stopped in front of interrogation room 2.

  “Are you ready?” he said with a wink.

  Théo nodded but there was something in his eyes. An uncertainty that made Marcellus feel sort of queasy.

  “The sooner you can earn his trust and get him to admit this was all a game, the faster I can release him.”

  Théo nodded again, and Marcellus sucked in a breath.

  Here it goes.

  He unlocked the door and ripped it open. “You can’t lie to the Ministère and get away with it!” he bellowed, doing his best Chacal imitation. He grabbed Théo by the shoulders and gave him a shove, careful to push just hard enough to make it look real, but not hard enough to do any harm. Théo stumbled into the room, turning back to hiss at Marcellus.

  “Get in there and cool off!” Marcellus spat. “I’ll be back to try again.”

  Marcellus slammed the door and hurried down the hall to the monitoring room. Chacal was already there, along with a few of the other deputies.

  “Nice tactic,” Chacal said. “Get the déchets to do your work for you.” He flashed Marcellus a goading grin, as if waiting to see if Marcellus would react the same way he did in the interrogation room.

  Marcellus glared back at him. “Just give me your TéléCom, Sergent.”

  Chacal reached into his pocket and reluctantly handed over the device. “What’s wrong with your TéléCom?”

  Right then, as if answering the sergent’s question, Théo’s voice rang out through the monitoring room’s speakers. “Look what I copped off the pomp.”

  All eyes turned toward the giant monitor where Théo was pulling Marcellus’s TéléCom out of his pocket and brandishing it toward Roche.

  Chacal turned back to Marcellus with wide eyes. “Are you crazy? You let him have your TéléCom?”

  Marcellus waved him off with one hand while the other expertly tapped buttons on Chacal’s screen, connecting to Théo’s audio chip. “Can you hear me?” he spoke clearly into the device. “Touch your nose if you can.”

  On the screen, the boy rubbed at his nose.

  “How did you do that?” Roche asked Théo, looking impressed.

  Théo snorted. “Easy. I swiped it from his pocket when he was dragging me in here. You put up enough of a fight with one hand, they don’t notice what you’re doing with the other.”

  Marcellus could feel Chacal seething beside him. “This better work, Bonnefaçon.”

  Marcellus ignored him again, addressing Théo instead. “Now pretend to cut the feed.”

  Théo pulled the second chair closer to Roche and sat down. He flashed him a cunning smile. “Watch this.” He tapped at the screen and Roche’s eyes went wide. “Now we’re alone,” Théo said, looking pleased with himself. He leaned back in the chair and put his feet on the table like he was going to take a nap.

  “What did they bring you in for?” Roche asked a moment later, still gaping at Théo as though he hung Bastille in the sky.

  Théo shrugged. “Same as you. Blah, blah, blah. Vangarde. Blah, blah, blah. Suspected enemy of the Regime. Only difference is, I’m not joking around. I told you not to joke around about this stuff. I told you it was serious.”

  Roche studied Théo for a long time, then flicked his gaze to the blackened TéléCom on the table between them. Marcellus felt himself leaning in to the screen.

  C’mon, he silently pleaded. Just admit this is a huge joke so we can all get out of here.

  Roche folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not joking around.”

  Théo scoffed. “Yes, you are. That’s what you Oublies do, you make up games in the Frets to keep yourself busy and—”

  “It’s not a game!” Roche whispered, and Marcellus felt a shiver at the urgency in the boy’s tone. “There’s a real rebellion brewing.”

  Théo gritted his teeth. “I know. Which is why you need to stop messing around.”

  “I’m not messing around. Like I told you before, the Vangarde trusts me. They pay me to run messages for them in the Frets.”

  Marcellus glanced at Chacal out of the corner of his eye. The wretch was chuckling to himself. He was enjoying this.

  Théo rolled his eyes. “No, they don’t.”

  “They do!” Roche insisted. “I swear.”

  “And how long has this been going on?” Théo asked in a high-pitched voice.

  Chacal snorted. “Sols, when is that boy going to become a man already?”

  “Shut up,” Marcellus snapped, keeping his gaze trained on the monitor.

  “A whole year,” Roche said proudly.

  “Prove it,” Théo challenged. “Tell me one of the messages.”

  Marcellus nodded. This was good. The boy was much better at this than he was.

  Roche scratched his nose, his confidence ebbing ever so slightly. “I can’t.”

  “Because, wait, let me guess. They’re top secret, right?” Théo was clearly mocking him.

  “No,” Roche replied. “Well, I mean, yeah, they are. But I can’t tell you what any of them said because they’re all written in the Forgotten Word.”

  Marcellus felt ice in his veins.

  WHAT? he thought at the exact same moment that Théo blurted out, “What?!”

  Roche looked pleased by the reaction. “That’s right. The Vangarde uses the Forgotten Word to pass messages to one another.”

  Marcellus’s mind started to spin.

  He’s joking.

  He has to be joking.

  This is all part of the game.

  But there was something niggling at Marcellus. A small itch at the back of his mind. A shiver of premonition that ran through him.

  It makes sense.

  What the kid was saying actually made sense. What if the Vangarde was using the Forgotten Word as their secret language? It would be the perfect code. No one could read it or write it anymore. Marcellus had met only two people in his life who could.

  Mabelle.

  And . . .

  A lump formed in his throat. Marcellus coughed, reached for a mug of water on the nearby table, and guzzled it down. He suddenly felt a craving for some of that di
sgusting dark brown weed wine that Théo had thrown in his face at the Jondrette. It would certainly dull the throbbing that was starting in his head.

  Alouette.

  She knew the Forgotten Word. She didn’t have a Skin. She wasn’t in the Communiqué. She was secretive. And skittish. And lived in hiding.

  Right, Marcellus assured himself. Because she’s a Défecteur and the daughter of a criminal.

  But then another voice screeched into his mind. A very different type of voice. The voice of doubt.

  What if she wasn’t a Défecteur, like he’d thought? What if she was something else? Something far more dangerous . . .

  He immediately shoved the thought away. It was ridiculous. It was ludicrous. The kid in the interrogation room was joking! He wore industrial exploit goggles on his head, for Sols’ sake! He was playing around. Marcellus was spiraling all because of some stupide prank from a twelve-year-old Fret rat.

  And yet . . .

  The thought wouldn’t go away. It lingered. It hovered. It was a dark, gray cloud soaked with rain, threatening to break open and destroy everything.

  Everything.

  “Well, isn’t that convenient,” Théo was saying to Roche on the screen; the signature sarcasm that Marcellus had come to know so well was back in his tone. “The secret spy messages you’ve been hired to deliver are written in a language you can’t even read.”

  “They are,” Roche insisted.

  “Then where are these Forgotten Word messages? Do you have any with you?”

  Roche shook his head. “Nope. I ate the last one before they took me to the Med Center, so those flics couldn’t get their hands on it.”

  “You ate it,” Théo confirmed doubtfully.

  “Yup. Stuffed it right down my throat. It tasted better than chou bread.”

  “How do I know you’re not—”

  “Ask him if he remembers any of the words!” Marcellus barked into Théo’s ear, causing him—and everyone in the monitoring room with Marcellus—to jump.

  “What are you doing?” Chacal asked, stepping up beside Marcellus. But once again, Marcellus ignored him. He approached the wall and placed his palms flat against the screen. He pressed and pressed as though he could reach right through it and manipulate the entire conversation with his hands. Change the outcome of whatever came next.

  Théo tilted his head, questioning Marcellus’s directive.

  Marcellus repeated it. Slower this time. Clearer. But with the same sense of urgency. “Ask him if he can remember any of the words from the messages. If he’s been delivering them for as long as he says, he has to remember something. Turn on the TéléCom, ask him to sketch what he remembers.”

  Annoyance flashed over Théo’s face. He clearly didn’t like where Marcellus was going with this, but Marcellus didn’t care. He had to know. He had to put his suspicion to rest. This nonsense had gone on long enough.

  Théo pulled the TéléCom toward him and swiped on the screen. “Fine,” he said to Roche. “If you’ve really been running secret Forgotten Word messages for the Vangarde for a whole year, you have to remember something they’ve written.” He pushed the TéléCom across the table with one finger. “Write something.”

  Roche balked, leaning away from the TéléCom as though it might bite him.

  “You can’t, can you?” Théo taunted.

  Roche bit his bottom lip, looking torn.

  “Because, admit it, you made this all up. There are no messages. You were never hired by the Vangarde. You’ve never even spoken to a member of the Vangarde, am I right?

  Even though he could tell Théo was trying to sound like his usual tough, cavalier self, Marcellus could hear the desperation in his voice. Théo wanted—no, needed—Roche to cave. He needed him to confess that he’d been lying all this time. That it was all a sham.

  And, ironically, Marcellus needed the exact same thing.

  Their desperation was perfectly aligned.

  Roche glanced down at the TéléCom, his stoic expression starting to crumble, his shoulders starting to slouch. Marcellus could see, in the monitor, the pulse of the boy’s throat as he swallowed. As his body admitted the defeat before his voice could.

  Marcellus felt himself sag so deeply in relief, he feared he might drop right to the ground. He closed his eyes. He tried to gain control of his racing heart.

  It’s over.

  It was nothing.

  Just a game.

  “Actually,” Roche said, “there is one word they’ve been using a lot lately.”

  Marcellus’s head snapped up, and on the monitor, he saw Roche hesitantly reach out and pull the TéléCom toward him.

  “Oh yeah?” Théo asked doubtfully. “What’s that?”

  Roche’s face twisted in concentration, and for a moment it looked as though he really was trying to reach into the back corners of his mind and wrench something loose. He poised his fingertip over the screen of the TéléCom. His tongue slipped out the side of his mouth as he seemed to fall into a deep, focused trance.

  Then, slowly, he started to trace something onto the screen.

  Marcellus hurriedly tapped the monitor in front of him to mirror the TéléCom Roche was using. He blinked in disbelief at the long vertical black line that was appearing in front of him. The monitoring room was silent. Everyone—even Chacal—looked as though the fate of the planet rested on this twelve-year-old kid’s scribbles.

  Roche finished his line and immediately started another. This one was horizontal, branching out, at a right angle, from the bottom of the first line.

  L.

  Marcellus recognized it immediately.

  “That’s it?” Théo mocked. “That’s all you remember? You drew a corner.”

  “Wait,” Roche told him without looking up. “There’s more.”

  Théo sighed, growing impatient with what he clearly thought was a farce.

  Marcellus watched with a bone-dry throat as the boy—an orphan who claimed to be a Vangarde spy—shakily sketched out three more letters on the TéléCom.

  Marcellus stared at the enormous screen in front of him, feeling like the entire planet of Laterre had just tilted on its axis. And maybe it had. Maybe this was the end for all of them. Maybe the Last Days had finally come to this world as well.

  Because Marcellus wasn’t sure how he was going to survive after this moment.

  How any of them were going to survive.

  Images and voices and colors swirled in his mind, like mist caught in a brewing storm. Mabelle. Walking out of the fog. Humming that haunting tune.

  Little Marie Paresse. Convulsing. Vomiting. Her face turning blue.

  Alouette. Sitting next to him at the fireside. Smiling that dazzling smile. Disappearing into the crowd like a phantom.

  General Bonnefaçon. Standing in that darkened hallway of the Grand Palais. Uttering his menacing warning. “You cannot let your emotions and ties to the past skew your judgments of the present.”

  But that’s exactly what he’d done, wasn’t it? He’d let his emotions skew his judgment.

  Marcellus was sure of it now.

  Chacal clapped him on the back, startling Marcellus out of his reverie. “Any idea what that gibberish says?”

  Marcellus felt his head fall into a dazed nod. “Yes,” he said, still staring unblinkingly at the wall.

  At the letters that had just appeared in front of him as though written by an unseen hand. By a ghost.

  “It says ‘Lark.’ ”

  - CHAPTER 56 -

  ALOUETTE

  ALOUETTE’S FEET POUNDED SO HARD on the floor tiles, the whole Refuge seemed to shake. Her breath was rough and jagged in her throat, and her heart beat like a hammer inside her chest. In one hand, she gripped Katrina, her doll, and in the other, the titan box.

  “Jacqui!” she cried, bursting into the bedroom that Sister Jacqui shared with Sister Denise.

  Sister Jacqui, who was alone in the room, dropped a bag she’d been holding and spun around. �
��Little Lark?”

  “You said . . . you said . . . ,” Alouette began, but she couldn’t find the words. She couldn’t find the breath.

  Sister Jacqui rushed forward and took Alouette by the elbow, guiding her into the room. “Shhh. Come here. Sit down.” Jacqui gestured toward the bed, littered with books. Jacqui and Denise were the only two sisters who shared a room in the Refuge, and everywhere—every shelf, table, chair, and surface, including their bed—was always covered in Jacqui’s books or Denise’s disassembled gadgets.

  Alouette lowered herself down between two of the books. Jacqui sat next to her. But a moment later, Alouette sprang back up. She couldn’t sit. Her body felt too wound, too taught.

  She started to pace.

  “You said that knowledge is within us, but that it’s also out there to be found.” Alouette’s voice was fast and shaky. “You said that, and so I did. I went out there. I had to. I had to find out.” She couldn’t stop the words now. It was like someone had jammed on the kitchen faucet and the water was flowing, hot and fierce and gushing. “I had to find out if it was true. About Papa. I just wanted to know. And now—” A sob caught in her throat. She swallowed it down. “I’ve messed up everything. Now he’s gone. He’s gone to Reichenstat. He said we would both go. But he left without me. He’s taken all his things. His clothes. Everything . . .”—she held out her shaking hands, which still held the doll and the box—“except these.”

  Sister Jacqui looked at Alouette for a moment and then at the objects clutched in her fists.

  “Take a deep breath,” Jacqui coaxed, reaching out to rest a calming hand on top of Alouette’s.

  Alouette did as she was told, although her breath still came out ragged and trembling.

  “And another,” Jacqui said, nodding and breathing with Alouette. “Now, let’s start from the beginning.”

  With the air in her lungs and the sister’s hand on hers, Alouette’s legs finally loosened. She sat back down next to Jacqui.

  Part of her knew that if she told Sister Jacqui everything, if she really did start at the beginning, then it would also be the end. The end of Jacqui’s unwavering trust in her. The end of being sworn in as a sister. Maybe even the end of her welcome here in the Refuge.