“Which means?”
“Maybe it’s a trick, to kill Rafi if she tries to escape. Or maybe he wanted it simple, so there wasn’t any danger of a bogus line of code killing her.”
“And you can’t tell which?”
“If we had two more hours.” Leyva looks back at Zura.
She’s almost done setting the charges. Our surviving tech has the hoverboards ready to go. Yandre has the plasma gun shouldered.
“What do you think, little sister?” Rafi fingers the necklace. “Would he rather kill me than let me go?”
Everything I know about our father goes rushing through me. It’s acid in my veins.
“He hates to lose, Rafi.” My voice starts to shake. “If you get away from him, it’s like losing Seanan again. He can’t let that happen.”
“He wouldn’t kill me,” she says.
I step closer to her.
“The whole time I was at House Palafox, I thought the same. But he tried to, because nothing matters to him except winning. I’m sorry, Rafi. I swear to you I’ll come back and save—”
Rafi takes the handscreen from Leyva, pushes the button.
The necklace pops open.
I stare—relieved, astonished, a sliver of me shattered.
“Sorry, little sister.” She gives me a gentle smile. “It sucks, I know. But it’s not like he’d ever throw me away.”
We stand on our hoverboards, ready to fly.
The charges are set. Yandre has already pulled the priming trigger on their plasma gun. The whine of its battery fills the trophy room like a boiling tea kettle.
Above us, the proximity grenades are going off one by one. The enemy clearing that floor. But they’re taking their time—
They think we’re trapped here.
We’re only waiting for an opening outside.
“We should have a clear path in five, four, three …” Dr. Leyva begins, then shakes his head. “No, wait. Heavy attack ship in the way.”
I groan. “Stop doing that!”
Leyva shrugs, staring at his handscreen. “You think this is easy?”
He’s watching the newly free and rampant feeds of the citizens of Shreve. Two million people, all broadcasting whatever they want for the first time since our father took over.
Most of them are covering the battle, of course. Thousands are standing on their roofs, pointing cams at the tower, where signs of combat still flash in the windows.
They all want to know if they’re really free yet.
They aren’t, because we failed.
But at least I’ve saved my sister.
She’s waiting on her board with the rest of us, wearing a sneak suit stripped from a dead Special. The camo is set to midnight black, but on Rafi it looks like a fashion choice.
Her feathered dress is neatly folded in the corner. The open bomb collar sits on top, a good-bye note from a runaway.
Boss X shifts nervously on his motionless board. “You’re sure blowing out that wall won’t kill us?”
“The charges are ninety-eight percent directional,” Zura says. “You can trust Victorian tech.”
“Ninety-eight.” Boss X spits on the floor.
“Let’s go, Doctor,” Zura says. “We’re just giving them more time to surround us.”
Leyva shakes his head. “Actually, they’re moving away from the tower and back toward the city. There are demonstrations popping up—fireworks, crowds, like All Saints’ Day in Victoria. The military’s more worried about its own citizens than us!”
“Told you it was a good speech,” Rafi says.
I share a smile with her, but I’m worried about what happens to all those protestors next week, when the spy dust is back in the air again.
Does one night of freedom really change anything?
“There’s still the matter of soldiers coming for us.” Zura glances up at the hole in the ceiling.
Searchlights are crawling the floor up there.
“Another heavy unit’s peeling away,” Leyva says, staring at his screen. “Heading back out to the battlefield. Something’s happening out there!”
I stand straighter on my hoverboard, hopeful for a moment.
Maybe the Victorians held some units in reserve. Maybe they’re still fighting, and there’s time for the rebellion in Shreve to take hold …
But then Dr. Leyva’s face crumples.
“No,” he says softly.
“What now?” Zura yells.
Leyva looks straight at me. “I’m sorry, Frey. It’s just coming on the feeds. Why the battle ended sooner than we thought—his car was shot down.”
I shake my head. “What do you mean?”
He hands the screen to me. “That heavy unit just went out to take custody of him.”
I stare at the image on the feeds.
Col Palafox.
He’s dirty, bloody. His eyes glazed, his wrists tied with smart plastic. Surrounded by two Shreve soldiers.
My father’s prisoner.
“Please, no.” My voice breaks.
Rafi puts a hand softly on my shoulder. “Poor Frey. You looked so sweet in that red jacket.”
I look up at the others, pleading for a plan, some way to rescue Col. Yandre turns away, swearing under their breath.
Only Zura meets my eyes, her expression one of utter hatred.
She must be wondering if Artura Vigil was right.
“It’s not your fault,” Rafi whispers in my ear.
But it is. This was all my plan.
A whomp comes from the floor above us, a smoke canister exploding. The billowing edge of a thick cloud pushes through the hole in the ceiling.
“Doctor,” Zura says. “We have to go now.”
Leyva doesn’t take the screen from me, just nods his assent. Everyone steps back onto their boards.
Zura hits the charges. The wall blows outward in a furious roar, shards of duralloy tearing through the hovercars and drones outside. The force of the blast sends me staggering backward.
And all I can think is: Col is being brought here to this tower, a captive. Because he listened to me, followed my plan. Threw his army away for my sister.
The hoverboards rise up, their lifting fans at maximum speed. The wind ripples the paintings around us, stirs the dust and smoke in the room.
My team shoots off into the night, Yandre sending a blazing spheromak of plasma bolting out ahead of them, shredding still more hovercars in their path.
All in camo black, they disappear against the dark sky.
They won’t notice I’m missing until it’s too late to turn around.
I step from my hoverboard. Strip my sneak suit off, my gloves, and earpiece.
Shivering in the cold wind coming through the jagged hole, I cross to the dress that Rafi wore for our sixteenth birthday. They never made a copy for me. The party was only for half a dozen friends—no need for a body double.
But Rafi never forgot that I liked this dress. She wore it for me tonight.
I slip it over my head. The smart fibers beneath the feathers stretch; our bodies have parted ways over the last month, just a little. But once it slides down and around my hips, the dress feels like it was made for me.
I hide Dr. Leyva’s handscreen behind the painting of Aribella Palafox. Then I close the bomb collar around my neck.
Click.
When Col is brought here, I’ll be waiting. Ready to free him, to fight for him. To take him back to his brother and whatever’s left of the Victorian army.
It will be okay.
The Shreve commandos come crashing down into the trophy room a minute later. Twenty of them in full armor, with stun guns and a dozen screaming battle drones.
They find me fixing my hair.
“You’re late,” I say in my best Rafi voice. “Our visitors have already gone.”
“Your father will see you now,” Dona Oliver says.
I give her a bored sigh as I stand up and smooth my dress. He’s kept me waiting for two hours
outside his office.
How petty. Just because I helped my sister make a little speech. What was I going to do—let her pretend to be me?
Dona watches as I walk past, but there’s no suspicion in her eyes. Only fear of what he’ll do to me.
I’m more worried about Dona than anyone else. The last time Rafi and I switched places, she was the one who caught us.
But it’s one thing, telling twins apart when they’re standing side by side, another when there’s only one in front of you. And quite another to believe that anyone would snap a bomb collar around her own neck.
I can still hear that click.
The office door closes behind me.
For the first time in my life, I’m alone with my father.
From behind his desk, he looks up at me. His eyes travel across what I’m wearing.
I spent all morning in Rafi’s closet, remembering all the times I’ve watched her get dressed. Trying not to get lost in the maze of materials, cuts, and biases, the rules of formal, casual, cocktail, creative. Trying to imagine that it all really belongs to me.
Only the best clothes for the first daughter of Shreve.
With Rafi’s voice in my head, I stayed conservative—a buttoned white shirt and dark skirt, modest shoes. Like someone applying for a job.
My father looks like he hasn’t slept. He flew straight back from the peace conference, of course. He must have spent the night trying to put his city back in order.
He gestures to a pair of chairs by the window.
We sit together, the city of Shreve spread out below us. The scars of battle blacken the farm belt, and the debris of protests fills the streets.
But nothing shows more damage than this tower, a gaping chunk blown out of my father’s edifice. From my bedroom window, I saw people on the rooftops gazing up at it.
We’ve made him look weak, at least.
“Have you seen what they’re saying about us?” he asks.
It takes me a moment to answer. The city feeds must still be churning after the revelations in our speech last night. Rafi would have read them all by now; choosing the right clothes would’ve taken her only seconds.
At the edge of her mocking voice, I ask him, “You haven’t got the feeds under control yet?”
“In time. For now, let them talk, so we’ll know who to deal with once the dust is back in the air.”
I smile at his logic, my stomach churning. How many people has my call for rebellion put at risk?
My father leans forward in the chair, closer to me than he’s ever been before.
“Do you finally understand?” He waves a hand at the city. “With nothing but a few rebels and Palafox diehards, Frey did all this. And she forced you to make that … speech.”
His whole frame shudders with anger.
But not at me. At my little sister.
For a moment, I’m too head-spun to speak. A hundred excuses were ready on my tongue. How I had no choice. How it was better with me, Rafi, in front of the camera, to take control if Frey went too far. How I knew the battle was already won.
But my father has already made the excuses for me.
“We made your sister too well, too dangerous,” he says. “Do you see now why I tried to kill her at the start of this?”
He’s pleading for my approval.
After Col’s diagnosis of Rafi’s psyche, I almost forgot how formidable she can be. But this was always her job—making people feel she was on their side, no matter what crimes my father committed.
Maybe she’s worked the same magic with him.
“Frey isn’t my sister anymore,” I say softly. “She killed Naya right in front of me. It was grisly, Daddy.”
“Of course it was. I’m so sorry, Rafia.” But he doesn’t look sorry. He looks pleased, maybe a little surprised that I’m agreeing with him so easily.
Rafi would have made him work harder.
I run a fingertip along my necklace.
“Don’t you think it’s time we took this off?”
His smile fades, his eyes narrowing a little. He reaches over to take my hand, and a shiver travels down my spine.
It’s the first time he’s ever touched me.
“But without my little gift, she would’ve taken you away. It protects you from her.”
He thinks I should be grateful for this collar.
Rafi’s maxim rings in my head—This is not normal.
I give him a shrug. “I suppose. But maybe she’ll stop bothering us, now that you’ve destroyed the Palafoxes.”
“She won’t. Not while we have him in our house.” He makes a gesture.
The door to his private office opens, and two people step through. One is a soldier—not a house guard in a crisp gray uniform, but one of the commandos from last night, still in full body armor.
The other is Col Palafox.
I turn, pulling from my father’s touch, and give Col a bored look as my heart breaks.
“So this is the boy who’s riled up my little sister?”
He’s dirty, though they’ve wiped most of the blood from his face. His Victorian uniform has been replaced with a jumpsuit made by a hole in the wall. It doesn’t fit right, like they scanned him with his hands bound.
Still I want to wrap my arms around him, to breathe him in.
My father chuckles. “Frey had nothing to compare him to. Our fault, perhaps, for not widening her education.”
Col stares back at me.
For a brain-missing moment, I expect him to see through my disguise. As if he’ll somehow just know who I really am.
But he looks horrified by me. Like I’m some uncanny plastic replica of myself. I promised him that Rafia was on our side, and yet here she is, plotting with her father.
I stare into Col’s eyes, imploring him to read my thoughts.
It’s going to be okay.
But it isn’t—he’s wearing a bomb collar too. Not a necklace, like mine. A thick dark ring, like a dog collar.
“I was going to keep him hostage,” my father says. “To make the Victorians behave. But what’s the point now? Their army’s gone.”
“So we let him go?” I ask lightly. “A gesture of goodwill?”
My father lets out a roaring laugh. “I’ve missed your sense of humor, Rafia.”
I nod, taking the compliment, as always. “Then what do we do with him?”
My father shrugs. “We show those protestors how we deal with our enemies.”
I stare, not understanding.
“And think what it will do to Frey,” my father says. “Watching him executed will finally break her spirit.”
Executed.
For an awful moment, the room darkens around me. I see a portrait of Col hanging down in the trophy room, across from his mother’s. My heart rails in the cage of my chest.
My father narrows his eyes.
“What is it, Rafia?”
I draw a slow breath, my mind racing for an answer.
“An execution, Daddy?” My voice is quivering. “On the feeds? What will the other cities think?”
He gives a tired sigh. “It’s too late to worry about our reputation. Your sister’s speech has seen to that.”
“But what if there’s a way to fix it? To make them accept your control of Victoria?”
He stares at me, his eyes bored and heavy lidded. Like he’s made and discarded a hundred plans to rehabilitate himself.
“Like what, darling?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to save someone with words. All I understand is improvised weapons, finding weaknesses, and fighting with all my heart.
All I know is war.
I stand up and turn toward Col, my eyes pleading. He stares back at me, uncertain why I’m trying so hard to save him.
We connect, a slant of air kindling between us—
And I see the answer.
“What if Col Palafox wasn’t your prisoner, or your enemy at all? What if he was your son?”
&n
bsp; I turn back to my father, twisting my lips into Rafi’s cruelest smile.
“What if instead of killing Col, you give him to me?”
There’s a moment of silence. Thoughts scuttle across my father’s face, too quick to interpret.
It feels like the tower is tipping around us, broken by last night’s blast. Broken by all my mistakes.
At last my father murmurs, “An alliance of blood.”
“No more Victorian citizens resisting. No legitimate claim to Victoria for Teo Palafox. The perfect excuse for the other cities to buy our metal again.”
A low roll of laughter comes from my father. But he’s shaking his head.
“No one would believe it, unless we put the wedding on the feeds. Are you going to hold a knife to his throat?”
I turn to Col and reach out, stroke his arm. He shudders at my touch.
It’s going to be okay.
“I’ll persuade him, Father. You know how persistent I can be when it comes to getting what I want. How steadfast.”
A realization flashes across Col’s face—then he drops back into character, turning away from me, defiant.
I lean closer to my father, like I’m whispering a joke.
“The two of us married. Think what that will do to poor Frey.”
That’s when he laughs the hardest, rising grandly from his chair to gather me into a hug. My first hug from my father ever. I’ve never felt this before—the heat of his body, the mass of him, the greed.
And that’s when the rest of the plan comes clear …
The same night I escape this tower, my father will die at my hands.
Scott Westerfeld is the author of the Uglies series, the Leviathan trilogy, the Midnighters trilogy, the New York trilogy, the Zeroes series, as well as the Spill Zone graphic novels, the novel Afterworlds, and the first book in the Horizon series. He has also written books for adults. Born in Texas, he and his wife now split their time between Sydney, Australia and New York City. You can find him online at scottwesterfeld.com
Copyright © 2018 by Scott Westerfeld
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
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