Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  “What is this place?” she whispered to Gabriel, her voice cold and horror-struck.

  “The Bidon,” Gabriel replied. “Housing for the exploit workers.”

  Housing? Alouette thought as she glanced around again, shuddering at the rusting shacks, with their pockmarked roofs and off-kilter doors. That’s a generous term.

  “This is where the Third Estate live in Montfer?”

  “Most of them,” Gabriel said. “Some are lucky and get jobs as live-in servants in the Second Estate quartier on the other side of the wall. But most everyone in Montfer is somehow connected to the exploits. If they’re not digging the iron from the ground, they’re processing it into PermaSteel in the fabriques. Or catching fish in the harbor to feed the workers.”

  Alouette peered into one of the crooked shacks and saw a young woman trying to rock a crying baby to sleep. She locked eyes with Alouette, and the desperation in the woman’s gaze made Alouette’s stomach clench.

  She looked away. “Someone should … do something about this,” she whispered to Gabriel. “The Ministère should—”

  “The Ministère doesn’t care.”

  The reply came like a slap in the face. She suddenly heard Principale Francine’s words echoed back at her:

  “The Regime is extremely corrupt. The very origins of Laterre were unjust and divisive, designed to keep the poor downtrodden and defeated and ignorant.”

  Then, with a flinch, Alouette realized that someone was trying to do something about this. The Vangarde. The sisters she’d left behind.

  Gabriel massaged his left shoulder. “Sols, that paralyzeur works fast.”

  Alouette cringed as she watched him shake out his dead arm. “Merci for that, by the way. No one has ever taken a rayonette pulse for me before.”

  “Honored to be the first.”

  Alouette still couldn’t seem to process what had happened back there, outside the Precinct. She’d taken down two Ministère officers. With her Tranquil Forme. The same way she’d been able to defeat Inspecteur Limier in the Forest Verdure.

  She’d somehow convinced herself that the incident in the forest had just been an accident. A fluke. The sisters’ Tranquil Forme wasn’t a weapon. It was a practice of mindful meditation. But clearly that had been a lie too. Just like all the rest of the things she’d been told about the Refuge over the past twelve years.

  “Oh, and before I forget,” Gabriel added, “here’s this back.”

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a long metal object. It was familiar, but it still took Alouette a second to make sense of it in Gabriel’s hand.

  “My screwdriver?” she asked, immediately looking down at her sac to check for holes in the fabric. “Where did you— How did you—?”

  “I swiped it outside the Precinct,” Gabriel said nonchalantly.

  “Swiped it?” she repeated curiously, still trying to keep up. “But why?”

  He waved the screwdriver at her. “To get out of the cuffs.”

  Alouette grabbed the tool and turned it around in her hands, like it had suddenly turned into a magic screwdriver.

  “Ministère cuffs have a weak point at one of the seams. I found it years ago.” He chuckled like this was highly amusing. “They still haven’t figured out how I keep escaping.”

  Alouette returned the screwdriver to her sac. “Where are we going?” She glanced uneasily at her surroundings. It wasn’t just the poverty that unsettled Alouette about the Bidon. There was something else, too. The stench of smelting iron in the air. The suck and pull of the heavy mud under her feet. The damp, stinging breeze swirling from the ocean to the east.

  Alouette soon realized that it felt … familiar.

  Not in her mind, exactly, but in her body. Her bones suddenly felt cold. Her stomach seemed to ache and clench with hunger. And her skin could distinctly remember the touch of a rough hand, slapping quick and fierce across her cheek.

  “There’s an inn right up here. The Jondrette. They’re sympathetic to our kind.” He turned to wink at her. “You know, us crocs. We can hide out there until the commotion dies down.”

  An inn?

  And just as the thought entered her mind, she saw it. Straight ahead. A ramshackle two-story building that sat sagging and crooked in the mud.

  Every droplet of blood in Alouette’s body seemed to pool down to her toes. She knew this place. She knew it in every part of her. She knew its tall rusting walls and how it towered above the shacks and hovels below. She remembered the overhang from the roof where a swing had once hung. A lone wooden broom was propped against the wall outside the entrance, and suddenly Alouette felt the sting of old blisters in her palms.

  It was all coming back to her now. The memories, like shards of glass, slipping and sliding back together into something almost whole. Working for measly scraps of bread and small helpings of stew. Sleeping under a small table where the feet of strangers would kick against her and the drip of sticky weed wine would trickle through the slats. Scrubbing and sweeping and hauling reeds from the misty boglands for their foul-smelling homemade wine.

  Her life with the Renards.

  “Are you okay?” Gabriel asked, and it was only then that she realized she’d stopped walking. Her eyes fluttered open. Gabriel was a few paces ahead of her, his face perfectly framed between the posts of the inn’s front porch. The low light danced across his cheeks, and suddenly, Alouette was struck with another sense of familiarity. For a moment, she swore she’d seen his face before.

  She followed behind Gabriel as he scurried up to the inn and yanked hard on the door. The moment it opened, Alouette felt like she’d been punched.

  Tables and chairs had been swept aside, and every square-mètre of the inn was jammed with people. Their pulsating, pent-up energy was palpable in the air.

  “Is it always like this?” Alouette asked.

  She could read the answer on Gabriel’s stunned face. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

  At the back of the room, a fierce-eyed woman dressed entirely in red stood on top of the bar, wielding a glowing blue laser. Beside her, a young girl squirmed and kicked as the flickering device moved closer to the inside of her wrist.

  “Sols!” Alouette cried out. “What is she—”

  But the words caught in her throat as she spotted a man pushing his way through the crowd, heading for the front corner of the inn. His hair was dark and wavy. His stature tall and achingly familiar. Her heart skipped.

  Marcellus?

  She instantly shook the thought away. It was ridiculous. And impossible. It couldn’t be him. What would he be doing here at this hour? In this middle of this commotion?

  But for some reason, she couldn’t tear her eyes off him.

  There was something about the way he walked. With both purpose and hesitation. She took a step closer, tracking the young man as he approached a towering stack of furniture in the corner of the inn. He ripped a piece of fabric from his threadbare coat and inserted it between two legs of a chair. But it wasn’t until he struck the match that she knew, for sure, it was him.

  Suddenly, she wasn’t inside the Jondrette. She was back in the Forest Verdure, sitting beside a warm fire. With his eyes dancing across from her. Those eyes that now danced in the flame of the tiny match.

  Alouette gasped with realization as her gaze darted back to the bar where the woman with the laser was mere centimètres away from searing that girl’s skin.

  He’s causing a diversion.

  Marcellus held the fire to the cloth, and before Alouette could blink, the world exploded into flames. They shot out the windows of the inn, breaking effortlessly through the thick plastique. They rippled across the Jondrette floor like lava from a First World volcano.

  Alouette staggered backward, smashing into Gabriel.

  “What the fric?” he cried, staring wide-eyed at the blaze. “Is that …”

  “Fire!” Alouette bellowed, expelling every gramme of oxygen in her already-burning lungs.


  Screams broke out around the inn. Flames licked up the walls like giant, glowing tongues, and smoke billowed everywhere in choking waves. Alouette searched frantically for Marcellus, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. The smoke was already too thick. She charged headlong toward the flames only to be pulled back a split second later by Gabriel. “I don’t know much about fire, but I don’t think you’re supposed to run toward it!”

  With a frustrated yelp, she yanked her arm free and kept running. But with everyone else rushing toward the door, she felt like a fish swimming upstream. Heat from the flames blazed her skin as she scanned the room, searching for his face, until she finally spotted a body slumped against a wooden support beam only mètres away from the voracious flames. He was unconscious, his chin lolling against his chest.

  “Marcellus!” Alouette cried out, shock and fear rippling through her.

  At the sound of her voice, Marcellus’s eyelids dragged open. He smiled wistfully up at her, like he wasn’t seconds away from being burned alive.

  “Alouette?” he said in a misty, far-off tone. “Am I dreaming?”

  Alouette wrapped her arms around him and tried to lift him to his feet. “No, you’re not dreaming. But you need to get up.”

  “Dead, then?”

  She grunted from the effort of trying to hoist him up. “Not dead, either. Marcellus, please. Help me. I can’t lift you.”

  Then, all at once, he seemed to register the flames, the burning building, the danger. His eyes snapped open and he looked urgently from Alouette to the fire. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” She gestured desperately to the encroaching flames. “But you need to move.”

  Leaning on Alouette for strength, Marcellus rose unsteadily to his feet, and they hobbled quickly out of reach of the fire. Marcellus held his hand to his head as though he were trying to steady the room. “You’re real,” he whispered, finally focusing on her with clear eyes. He shook his head. “What are you doing—?” But his question was stopped short by a soft, muffled cry coming from somewhere behind them.

  “Sols! Cerise,” Marcellus exclaimed.

  Alouette spun around to find the dark-haired girl from the bar writhing on the ground with a dirty rag stuffed into her mouth. Her hands and ankles were bound. Marcellus charged toward her, dropped to his knees, and began fumbling with the ropes bound around her ankles. Alouette went to work on her wrists. A second later, a loud cracking noise rang out above and, as they turned toward the sound, a ceiling beam engulfed in hungry, blinding flames came crashing down to the floor behind them.

  “Hurry!” Alouette cried as her trembling fingers fought to untie the rope.

  Just then, the kitchen door swung open and Gabriel emerged with a knife clutched in one hand. “Move aside,” he commanded as he knelt down beside the girl and began to saw through the rope.

  “Cerise,” Marcellus spoke directly to the girl. He obviously knew her somehow. “Can you walk?”

  The girl nodded, her dark eyes brimming with gratitude.

  “C’mon.” Marcellus yanked Cerise to her feet and they charged toward the front door. But it was a dead end. The fallen beam from the ceiling had completely blocked the entrance. The old door and half the wall around it were now consumed in flames. Panic clawed at Alouette’s chest, and now, in the consuming heat and smothering smoke, she fully understood why starting fires had been banned on Laterre. They were volatile and ravenous and out of control.

  “I don’t understand,” Marcellus called out, stumbling away from the flames. “I’ve never seen a fire catch so fast. It was just supposed to be a small flame. To scare everyone away.”

  “The weed wine,” Alouette said with sudden realization. She remembered the stickiness of the tables and floors from when she was little. The noxious alcohol that clung to everything. “It must be flammable.”

  Marcellus glanced anxiously around the burning inn. “How do we get out?”

  “Over here!” Gabriel darted behind the bar and they all followed after him, through a rickety door, and into the grimy kitchen. Alouette held her breath, trying to stave off the bitter memories of this place that swarmed around her like flies, biting at her skin.

  “Fric,” Gabriel said, pulling to a sudden halt in the middle of the room. Alouette followed his gaze until they were both staring out the same window, at the flashing orange lights of Policier patroleurs, transporteurs, and …

  Her heart clattered to a halt behind her ribs.

  Droids.

  She’d prayed she’d never have to see another one of those metal monsters for as long as she lived.

  “They must have followed us here,” Gabriel said to Alouette.

  “Followed you?” Marcellus asked with wide eyes.

  “We’re trapped.” Gabriel collapsed against the counter.

  “Hold on.” The girl named Cerise pulled a TéléCom from her pocket and bent over it, her long dark hair curtaining her face. “I have an idea. Follow me.”

  Before anyone could respond, she spun around and headed out of the kitchen, right back toward the flames.

  “Cerise!” Marcellus called after her. “Where are you going?”

  “Does no one understand what fire is?” Gabriel shouted in exasperation. “You’re not supposed to run toward it!”

  “Trust me!” Cerise yelled over her shoulder.

  Reluctantly, they all followed Cerise out of the kitchen to find the fire had overtaken the entire room. Ravenous flames were eating through the old bar, floorboards glowed like exploding Sols, and the walls could barely be seen behind the curtain of smoke.

  “You can’t go up there!” Gabriel bellowed to Cerise, who was now making her way through the flames toward a decrepit staircase that looked one second away from collapsing. “There’s no exit up there!”

  Cerise paused long enough to shout back, “If you want to stay down there and take your chances with the fire and the droids, be my guest!”

  Gabriel gestured helplessly at Alouette, his face stained with soot and ash. “That girl is whacked. I’m not going—” But he was cut off by a loud crash as the front door of the inn gave way and three enormous droids barreled inside.

  Gabriel let out a small shriek. “Upstairs it is!”

  He bounded up the steps after Cerise, followed closely by Alouette and Marcellus. One of the droids gave chase, ascending the staircase behind them, its hulking silver frame shaking the foundation with every step.

  “Faster!” Marcellus urged.

  The droid reached the first landing and made a swipe at Marcellus, just managing to grip the sleeve of his coat in its metal fist. Marcellus cried out and staggered back.

  “Marcellus!” Alouette grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the droid’s grip. The droid took another step, but the staircase was already weakened by the flames, and its massive metal foot crashed right through the wood.

  “Go!” Marcellus shouted.

  They charged up the rest of the steps. A terrible creaking noise followed, and Alouette spun around just in time to see every step they’d just climbed disintegrating right before their eyes, pulling the droid down into a storm cloud of fire and smoke.

  “In here!” Cerise called, beckoning them from an open doorway. They stumbled inside and Marcellus slammed the door shut. Smoke immediately began to slither underneath the door frame.

  Terrified and out of breath, Alouette quickly took in her surroundings. She remembered these low, sloping ceilings, sagging, unmade bed, and old wardrobe. This used to be the Renards’ bedroom. Not much had changed, and just as Gabriel had warned them, there was no exit up here. Only a single dirty plastique window.

  “Fric!” Gabriel swore, punching his hand into the mattress of the bed.

  But Cerise wasn’t even listening. She stalked purposefully toward the window and shoved it open. The cool night air instantly rushed inside like a lost traveler, desperate for the warmth of the fire. Then, they all watched in horror as the girl climbed up onto the windo
wsill and stepped straight off the edge.

  “No!” Alouette sprinted toward the window, cringing in anticipation of the sight she was certain was waiting for her: a mangled body crushed against the ground. But a second later, a sleek silver cruiseur rose up into the air, causing Alouette to jump back. Cerise was perched in the open doorway, a look of urgency on her face. “What are you all staring at? Get in already!”

  Alouette, Marcellus, and Gabriel dove inside the hovering vehicle. The door slid shut and Cerise called out, “Go!”

  Alouette was wrenched backward onto the leather seat as the cruiseur launched away from the burning building. The flames were destroying everything in their path. Not just wood and mortar, but the memories they held too: the terrifying sound of pounding footsteps, the suffocating stench of hot, angry breath in her face. Blisters and splinters and aching feet. The piercing wail of a baby crying in the distance.

  The fire consumed it all, until the old inn finally collapsed in on itself in a fountain of sparks, flying debris, and pluming, choking smoke. And as it all disappeared—every wall, every chair, every table, every childhood memory—Alouette felt something deep inside of her break free.

  - CHAPTER 25 - MARCELLUS

  THE JONDRETTE WAS GONE. DISINTEGRATED. Nothing left but rubble and ash. Marcellus stared numbly out the window as the cruiseur soared high above the darkened streets of Montfer, putting welcome distance between them and the line of Policier patroleurs and transporteurs stationed outside the wreckage.

  What happened back there?

  It had all transpired so fast, Marcellus barely had a second to wrap his mind around it. First the Red Scar were claiming responsibility for the TéléSkin bombing, and then there was a laser, something about Nadette Epernay’s sister, and before he knew it, the whole inn was ablaze.

  “That fire wasn’t exactly discreet, mec. But it worked.”

  Marcellus tore his eyes away from the window and stared at the shaggy-haired man with soot on his face who was sitting across from him. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  “This is Gabriel,” Alouette explained. “He and I—”