Impostors

by Scott Westerfeld

  “Fell off my hoverboard.”

  Aribella shakes her head.

  “That’s what we thought, till we looked a little closer.” She touches my shoulder. “There’s an old dislocation here, and more breaks in your left wrist, your right knee. And scar tissue in the muscles all over your body. My physician says he’s never seen so many training injuries. Or such high-quality vision implants. Your body doesn’t lie, Rafia.”

  My fists curl. The Palafoxes might not have an army to match my father’s, but they’re just as smart as he is.

  We knew they’d check my DNA—it matches Rafi’s, of course. But how can I keep any secrets from them if they scan me while I sleep?

  Maybe more of the truth will distract her.

  “My brother’s kidnapping still haunts my father. So he made sure I could defend myself.”

  “That’s very sad.” She takes my hand again and looks into my eyes with a kind of pity. “But you should know something, Rafia. Whatever deal I’ve made with your father, I would never hurt you.”

  I stare at her, unbelieving.

  “This has to stay our little secret, of course,” she says. “For the sake of peace, I’ll pretend to stand by my threats. But you’ll always be safe under my roof. I swear to you.”

  Why is she telling me this? The hostage deal doesn’t work unless my father fears the worst. Unless she’s trying to get me on her side …

  But she’s also scared of me. She locked up Col’s hunting bow, even before she found the marks of training on my bones.

  Suddenly I know what she needs to hear.

  “I’ll never hurt anyone in your family, Aribella. I promise.”

  With a warm smile, she leans across to hug me. She smells like the garden in the center of House Palafox, fresh and alive—and powerful, like she makes her own rain.

  “Thank you, Rafi.” Aribella releases me and stands. “We have to trust each other.”

  “Of course.” Until she finds out I’m not my father’s real heir. Do you have to keep promises to impostors?

  “I notice you haven’t pinged home,” she says softly.

  I hesitate, wondering how to explain that there’s no one in Shreve I can talk to. Rafi’s friends would know I wasn’t her in five minutes, and my father’s never had a real conversation with me.

  The only person I want to talk to is my sister, and we can’t let the Palafoxes know there’s two of us.

  “I’ve been so busy. Maybe after the party.”

  “Of course. We should both be getting ready, I suppose.” Aribella straightens, smiles. “Everybody will be watching tonight.”

  I stand up, nodding. Everybody’s always watching me.

  The Palafoxes know how to throw a bash.

  The sky above the city is bright with explosions. Sharp little crackles scatter against the night, white and sudden. Willows of blue embers bloom, taking endless minutes to shimmer away. Vast scarlet umbrellas burn stately overhead.

  Inside House Palafox, safety flames ripple on the curtains, tumble down the gaudy columns lining the entryway. Even the music sets the air on fire, the instruments of the brass band sparking from their bells.

  The ballroom has expanded all day, its walls sliding grandly across the parquet floors. The party swells to fill the giant space, a long line of hovercars spilling out a thousand guests, all in more vibrant colors than anyone wears at a bash in Shreve.

  At first, Rafi’s ball gown feels dull. But as the crowd grows, the black and gray begins to stand out against this rainbow of fabric and flame. And Col looks perfect next to me. His midnight suit shines like dark metal, glinting with the sparks raining from the ceiling and the sky. His necktie is a nanoscreen, showing images of rolling ocean waves at night.

  “Smile for the hovercams,” he says. We’re on a balcony above the throng, raising glasses of champagne. “Spoiled brats aren’t permitted to be glum.”

  I hide my mouth behind my bubbly. “You know people read lips, right?”

  “Not here.” He gestures at the falling sparks. “Those shimmer at the exact speed of hovercam frame rates. Rattles the image just enough for privacy.”

  “Clever,” I say.

  “Necessary.”

  Again, the Victorians and their privacy obsession. But there’s something electric about knowing that our words are hidden, even with a million people watching.

  Rafi must be among them. She’s watched me out in public before, of course, at nightclubs and in big crowds. But always from a private suite, not from back in our bedroom. I wonder if she’s happy for me, finally getting the attention she always promised I would. Or is she only jealous of me now?

  A friend of Col’s joins us on the balcony, and the cyrano whispers in my ear.

  Yandre Marin, eldest child of a famous couple. Their father is a popular novelist, their mother a leader in the political opposition here.

  I don’t know what a novelist is, except that it must be old-fashioned. Victorians are smug about keeping crumbly pastimes alive, from calligraphy to kayaking.

  But Yandre’s mother is an opposition leader? In Shreve, no one invites their political enemies to parties.

  I smile and curtsy, admiring Yandre’s long blue dress, its hem wreathed with flowers stitched in gold. A flash tattoo on their bare shoulder pulses with the music.

  “Welcome to Victoria,” Yandre says, bowing in return. “I hope you won’t judge us all by your boring host.”

  “Boring!” Col protests. “Did you miss the part where we welcomed her with rebels?”

  “You never welcome me with rebels!” Yandre looks my way, waiting for Rafi’s famous wit to manifest.

  My sister would say something bubbly, making light of the attack. I understand the theory of jokes like this, turning an uncomfortable topic into humor, but I haven’t had much practice. The cyrano is silent.

  Col steps in. “Your family practically are rebels, Yandre. Besides, you’re just here to drink Jefa’s champagne.”

  “And for my weekly dose of dullness.” Yandre turns to me. “Has he given you the cloud forest lecture yet?”

  “The first day,” I manage. Which is only marginally bubbly.

  They’re still waiting for me to be funny. So I open my mouth, hoping that nothing too brain-missing comes out …

  “‘She’s not coming to save us.’”

  Yandre frowns, pushing their long black hair over one ear. “Pardon?”

  I have no idea why, out of all the madness of that day, those words stuck. But now I have to explain.

  “During the attack, we took cover under a Rusty building. There was an abandoned camp down there, with rebel code all over the ceiling. The only thing we could read was, ‘She’s not coming to save us.’”

  “I wonder who she is,” Yandre says. “Our patron saint, Victoria? She was forced into a marriage with a heathen. Not unlike your predicament, Rafia.”

  “Don’t be brain-missing,” Col says. “The rebels don’t care about pre-Rusty sky-gods.”

  “A saint isn’t a god, silly boy. And our city is named after her.”

  Col sighs. “I hate it when that happens.”

  “You hate what?” Yandre says with a laugh. “When your hovercar crash-lands in a cryptic rebel base? Is that a thing?”

  “No. When you hear a snatch of someone else’s conversation, and it sounds mysterious and significant”—Col watches as a glittering sparkler falls past the balcony—“but you never find out what it means.”

  “You’re so deep, chico.” Yandre rolls their eyes and turns to me. “I’ll ask my little brother. He’s a bit of a rebel—not the kind that shoots at visiting celebrities, of course. But he might know that slogan.”

  I smile back at them. “Thank you.”

  “Speaking of your brother,” Col says quietly. “Did he find what I asked for?”

  Yandre nods. “I hid it under the daybed in the west room—Grandma Zefina let me in to fix my dress. But why you need a pulse charger is beyond me.”r />
  I take another swig to hide my expression.

  “We just do.” Col grins at me. “We can sneak it down to the old building tonight.”

  I stare at him. “With a million people watching? We’d need a pretty big diversion.”

  Yandre takes us both by the arms, and laughs.

  “This is Victoria, my dear. Parties are their own diversion.”

  An hour later, the diversion arrives.

  There’s no warning, no ping from the city interface about taking cover. Just a sudden barrage from all directions.

  The first one hits Yandre, a blur of motion in the corner of my eye, a pop as scarlet powder streaks their blue dress. I startle, but Col and Yandre only laugh.

  Then something hits my shoulder. I barely feel it—the outer shell is some kind of aerogel, light as a puff of air. It breaks and scatters luminous green powder across my ball gown.

  Overhead, the air is crisscrossed with projectiles.

  “What the hell?”

  “Cascarones,” Col says. “To ruffle up the bash a little. It’s a tradition that dates back to the pre-Rusty festival of—”

  A bolt of brilliant blue streaks his forehead.

  “Oh so perfect,” Yandre manages through their laughter.

  The projectiles are hitting everyone. Pinging into champagne flutes, marking dresses, suits, hats, faces with colored powder. The party redoubles in energy around us, and the musicians switch to a faster tempo.

  Dancing erupts in the milling crowd.

  “Come on,” Col says, taking my hand. “It’ll take a minute for the hovercams to find cover.”

  Yandre raises their glass as we slip away. “Have fun, you two.”

  Col leads me to the edge of the crowd, then along the ballroom’s back wall. Cascarones smack and pop around us. Another hits me, a soft kiss between my shoulder blades.

  We reach the corner, and Col opens a hidden door.

  “If anyone asks, you wanted to clean up.”

  I almost protest this cover story—I like the vivid streaks on my ball gown. But Rafi would hate her design being marred by random colors.

  She must be glued to the feeds right now, wondering where I am. Has she guessed that I’ve snuck away with Col? Will it hurt her face rank to be associated with someone as boring and studious as him?

  He leads me through the door into a narrow space, stuffed with the extra furniture crowded out by the expansion of the ballroom. He pulls a flare from his pocket, snaps its top. A bright flickering erupts, and safety sparks cascade down my ball gown. Of course—like the fireworks outside, the flare pulses, dazzling any watching cams.

  Col weaves among chairs, couches, reading desks, heading straight for a daybed in the corner. Kneeling, he pulls out an object wrapped in white plastic.

  He hands it to me. “Is this what you need?”

  The charger feels bulky, old-fashioned. But so was the pulse knife.

  “It should work.”

  Col smiles. His eyes are bright, and there’s a trickle of sweat channeling the blue powder on his face. I wonder if this is the first time he’s snuck around in his own house.

  “Do we have time?” I whisper.

  He nods. “When Yandre tells people we snuck out together, no one will come looking.”

  “Oh. Right.” Rafi would make a joke about now.

  I’ve got nothing.

  “Sorry,” Col says, looking embarrassed

  Then I remember one of Rafi’s famous lines.

  “If I cared what people said, they’d only gossip more.”

  The impersonation was perfect, even the wearily raised eyebrow to drive it home. But Col just frowns at me, then leads me to another door.

  Minutes later we’re running along the stone wall at the edge of the old building. Once we’re past the retina lock, Col drops the flare and grinds it out under his heel. He leads me down a dark hallway into the weapons room.

  I cross to the case that holds the pulse knife and drop to my knees. It doesn’t take long to find the right spot—on the bottom, just beneath the knife.

  With a squeeze, the charger wakes up, clinging to the case with magnetics. It detects the knife and begins a charge cycle, pulsing fast and featherlight.

  “So how does it work?” Col asks.

  I stand and face him. “Once the knife’s charged, it can free itself. Then we use it to open the case with your bow.”

  “That’ll make a mess, right?”

  “Like a bomb hit.” I shrug. “But you said no one comes down here.”

  “Hardly ever.” He gives his hunting bow a look of longing. “How much time?”

  “To fully charge? A day or so. Tomorrow night, we can sneak back and tell the knife to cut its way out—if it still works.”

  Col comes closer, staring down through the ferroglass.

  I hold my hand out above the knife and make the come to me gesture—middle and ring fingers together, the others splayed.

  For a moment the knife does nothing. But then a pale red light appears on its hilt.

  “See that? It wants to jump into my hand. But it doesn’t have enough juice.”

  “And it can cut through ferroglass?”

  I grin at him. “Like sponge cake.”

  “Okay,” he says. “But there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  The words yank my attention away from the knife. He’s staring at me, his dark eyes intense.

  I put on Rafi’s amused voice. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Something’s different. This isn’t you.”

  Of course. The real Rafi wouldn’t leave a global audience to help someone steal a hunting bow. She wouldn’t spend all night talking to one boy, with a thousand other guests to charm. And she certainly wouldn’t stand here explaining how pulse knives work.

  Col knows I’m not her.

  An escape plan flashes through my head—an open-handed strike to his temple. Then breaking into the case somehow and fleeing with the pulse knife and the charger. The party upstairs will give me a few hours of cover.

  But why would Col accuse me here, where no one can help him?

  He’s waiting for an answer. The real Rafia would have one.

  Not me.

  “On the feeds,” he says, “when you act like a spoiled littlie, I get now that it’s all a joke. That you’re making fun of people like us.”

  My racing heart settles a little.

  “It’s fun,” I tell him, “making fun of spoiled brats.”

  “Then why are you down here? There’s a hundred hovercams up there, all of them begging for it, and you didn’t do your act. What’s different now, Rafia?”

  Say something. Say anything.

  I touch my cyrano, hoping for something useful.

  Col Palafox. He’s the eldest son of the Victorian first family.

  The idiot machine thinks I’ve forgotten his name. My father’s voice, mocking me.

  “Why did my mother lock up my bow?” Col asks. “Is she scared of you?”

  “Yes,” I say, grateful for anything.

  He’s waiting for more, but I finally see a way out. To keep him from understanding my big secret, I have to give him a smaller one.

  “Your mother can’t know I told you this.” All my anxiety is in my voice.

  “Told me what?”

  “I’m a hostage here.”

  Col doesn’t react. Like he doesn’t even know the word.

  “I’m a prisoner,” I say. “A guarantee that my father’s forces won’t take over the ruins.”

  His voice is uncertain in the darkness. “And my mother agreed to this?”

  A strange urge to defend Aribella hits me. “She doesn’t like it either. And she’s promised not to hurt me, Col.”

  A bitter laugh forces its way out of him. “How nice for you. And she’s always saying we’re different from the other first families. I can’t believe her!”

  He looks angry enough to storm upstairs and confront Aribella right now. T
hat argument could go wrong for me in a hundred ways.

  I take hold of his arm. “She can’t find out that I told you.”

  “Of course not, but …” Col stares at me, uncertain. “Your father letting this happen, I halfway believe. But why did you agree to it?”

  I have to look away. Col will never understand that I didn’t have a choice.

  “I don’t want our cities to fight. With me here, they won’t.”

  “That’s very brave of you.” I can’t tell if he’s sarcastic or serious.

  “I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry.”

  He takes my right hand. Something electric goes through those knitted bones. “Don’t apologize, Rafi. And don’t worry. I’ll make sure Jefa keeps her promise.”

  He touches his lips to my hand. Just for a moment.

  “J’en mettrais ma main au feu,” he says.

  I’m staring at my hand, at his lips.

  The cyrano translates in my ear—I put my hand in the fire.

  What do they mean, those words? That kiss? Is this how they seal promises in Victoria? Or is it the start of something else?

  I don’t know anything about kissing.

  His dark eyes lock with mine. No one looks at me this intently, except Naya, when she’s sizing up my weaknesses. I feel measured, scanned, defenseless.

  Then Col lets go and turns toward the hallway.

  “We should get back to the party,” he says.

  I nod dumbly. Suddenly that swirl of music, fire, and projectiles seems safer than being alone with him.

  A strange thing has happened overnight—I’m popular here.

  Everyone expected bratty, sophisticated Rafia at the party, but they got me instead. All those guests and hovercams to charm, and I paid attention only to Col. Like some random, brain-missing with a sudden crush.

  And then, when that rain of cascarones came down, the two of us disappeared for half an hour.

  Rafi’s global face rank has dipped a little this morning; pairing off with the host is boring by her standards. But here in Victoria the audience was thrilled to see Col Palafox, their thoughtful first-family son, turn a dazzling socialite into a bubblehead.

  Watching the social feeds discuss this makes me twitchy—now that they’re about me instead of Rafi. All that focus on my ball gown, my posture, my hair. All that speculation about what’s going on with me and Col, when I don’t even know myself.