Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  Chatine’s fist clenched around her fork as a thousand rebuttals sprang to her mind at once. But instead, she glanced down at her plate and, noticing it was empty, reached for the serving spoon and began piling on more eggs.

  Thankfully, Etienne changed the subject. “How’s the leg?”

  She shrugged. “Fine.”

  Etienne cocked another eyebrow. “Just fine?”

  She sighed. “Actually, a lot better.” It was still an understatement. When Brigitte had changed her bandages this morning, Chatine was shocked to see the wound was healing faster than she’d expected. She was even able to put weight on it and walk to the lodge without the use of her crutches. “Your maman is kind of magic.”

  Etienne smiled. “Yes, she is. She’s very good at her job.”

  “Is that because she used to be a cyborg?”

  Etienne shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Some people just have a gift, you know? She understands things on a level that most people don’t. It’s hard to explain.”

  “I get it,” Chatine said. Brigitte had a calmness about her. A quiet complexity that Chatine had never experienced before. It left Chatine feeling both at ease and desperately curious at the same time.

  She scanned the lodge and spotted Brigitte sitting a few tables away. The woman caught Chatine’s gaze, and as she smiled, the skin on the left side of her face crinkled around its maze of twisted scars.

  “Why did she choose to take out her cyborg circuity?” Chatine asked, keeping her voice low, even though they were still the only two at the table.

  Etienne took a sip from his cup of hot chocolat. “She said it was because her soul finally caught up to what her mind was doing, and it broke her in half.”

  Chatine squinted at him. “What?”

  Etienne sighed. “She doesn’t talk about it much, but apparently when you’re implanted with the cyborg circuitry, your mental capabilities are incredibly enhanced. But to protect the Regime from you turning your abilities against them, you’re also programmed not to question authority or disobey orders. Which means your ability to navigate moral ambiguities becomes clouded.” He chuckled. “Her words, obviously.”

  “You lost me,” Chatine said.

  Etienne leaned in closer to Chatine, his piercing dark eyes making it hard for her to swallow. “All I know is that right before she left, she was put on some special assignment that she won’t talk about with anyone.”

  Chatine felt herself being pulled toward him. Partly because of those eyes, and partly because of her own curiosity. “What kind of assignment.”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, she doesn’t like to talk about it. But apparently, it was classified and very confidential. There was only one other cyborg working with her. A woman, I think. All Maman will say about the project is that it was bad. Disturbing. And when she realized its repercussions for the planet, she woke up from the ‘cyborg sleep,’ as she calls it. After that, she and this other woman removed each other’s circuitries and left the Ministère.”

  “What happened to the other cyborg?”

  Etienne shrugged. “She doesn’t talk about her much either.”

  Chatine stole another glance at Brigitte before turning back to Etienne, prepared to ask another question. But just then, the door to the lodge burst open and a gaggle of children came barreling toward their table.

  “No! I’m sitting next to him!” one of them shouted.

  “No, I am!” another one said. “You sat next to him at dinner.”

  “I did not! That was Comète.”

  “You sat on the other side.”

  “Well, you’ll have to beat me there!”

  The mob continued to rush the table, elbowing one another to get ahead. Chatine felt the sudden inclination to run the other way. In the Frets, a gang of children charging at you meant only one thing: You were about to be jumped and robbed. They often worked in numbers to compensate for their size.

  The group screeched to a halt in front of Chatine, their confused gazes darting between her and Etienne in the next chair, as though this seating arrangement were some complicated puzzle they couldn’t solve. Then their eyes swiveled toward the empty chair on the other side of Etienne, and four of them dove for it at once, pushing and shoving one another out of the way. Somehow, in the fray, the smallest of the bunch, a young girl with dark glittery eyes and a riot of curls, managed to squirm her way into the chair. She looked to be no older than four. A wide grin spread over her face, and her stubby legs swung gleefully.

  “Astra! Get down!” one of the boys cried. “You can’t sit there.”

  The little girl—Astra—stuck two fingers in her mouth and sucked on them contently. But she did not move.

  The boy, who wore a giant hat with long, fuzzy ear flaps that nearly consumed his whole head, looked at Etienne for help. “Make her get down! I was supposed to sit there.”

  Astra removed her fingers from her mouth long enough to yell, “No!” before resuming her sucking.

  This caused a chorus of shouts and complaints until Etienne raised his hands up and said, “Whoa, whoa. Everyone calm down. There’s plenty of room at the table.”

  “Nuh-uh,” said the boy in the hat. “Not with her there.”

  “Hey,” Etienne said. “Perseus, that’s not very nice. That’s my new friend. Remember, the one I told you all about?”

  Suddenly, every pair of eyes was on Chatine, any and all former disapproval instantly evaporating. Astra’s fingers slipped from her mouth.

  “You’re a gridder?” Perseus asked. He was clearly the leader of this tiny gang.

  “Uh,” Chatine stammered, looking at all the mesmerized faces that surrounded her. “Yes. I guess, I am.”

  “And she was on Bastille,” Etienne added.

  “Can we see your tattoo?” Perseus asked, his eyes alight with mischief.

  Chatine rolled up her sleeve to reveal the five clusters of metallic bumps burned into her flesh. “There it is. Prisoner 51562.”

  “Whoa,” said one of the girls who reached out and ran her fingertips over the raised surface of the tattoo.

  “Did you ever live in one of those crashed ships in Vallonay?” Perseus asked.

  “They didn’t crash,” Etienne said, as though this had been a point of contention for a while. “They landed safely 505 years ago.”

  “Yes,” Chatine agreed, “They’re called the Frets. But they’re so old and crumbling, sometimes it feels like they crashed. Half of the stairs aren’t even there anymore.”

  “Soop,” Perseus said, sliding into the chair next to Chatine.

  “What’s it like to have a Skin?” another girl asked.

  Chatine spun to answer the question but was immediately bombarded by three more from different directions.

  “Have you ever eaten chou bread?”

  “Did you ever have to sell your blood?”

  “Did you win the Ascension?”

  Chatine snorted with laughter at that one. “No. Definitely not.”

  “What did I tell you?” Etienne leaned in to whisper. “Instant celebrity.”

  “Do you do magic tricks like Fabian?” one of the boys asked.

  “Who?” said Chatine.

  “One of the other gridders,” Etienne reminded her. “Who arrived earlier this month.”

  “Fabian does magic tricks,” Perseus explained. “He makes things disappear.”

  “Oh,” Chatine said, turning back to the boy who’d originally asked the question. “No.”

  “Do you dance like Gen?” another asked.

  “That’s his wife,” Etienne said. “She makes up funny dances.”

  “No.”

  “Can you brew a potion that makes people see stars?” another girl asked.

  Chatine looked to Etienne. “What?”

  “Weed wine,” Etienne whispered with a wink. “Fabian told them it was a magic potion.”

  “Can you count to a million?”

  “Can you pull a shiny button from my ear?
”

  Chatine was getting dizzy from all the questions being flung at her from every direction. Who were these mysterious Fabian and Gen? “No. I can’t do any of those things.”

  “What can you do?” This was Astra, the youngest. She had climbed into Etienne’s lap and was now staring at Chatine with her elbow propped on the table and her chin resting in her hand.

  “I … uh … I can climb.” She glanced down at her still-bandaged leg. “I mean, I could when I was …” but she trailed off as she realized that none of the children were even looking at her anymore. They’d all wandered off to find chairs at the table and were starting to help themselves to breakfast. All of them except Astra, who was still staring at Chatine from Etienne’s lap. But in the place of her once fascinated expression, she now looked almost sorry for Chatine. She shrugged as if to say, You can’t do magic, what did you expect?

  “Told you they’d be disappointed,” she whispered to Etienne.

  Etienne chuckled. “Oh, this is normal. They have the attention spans of flies. You’ll be a celebrity again in another few minutes.” He lifted Astra and deposited her back into her chair. One of the other children had already filled her plate with food, and she began happily eating her breakfast.

  Chatine warily eyed each of the tiny faces around the table, like she didn’t quite trust them.

  “You don’t have a lot of experience with children, do you?” Etienne asked, and Chatine realized he’d been watching her.

  “Um.” She pressed a fingertip against a bread crumb on her plate and brought it to her mouth. “Not really, no. Third Estaters don’t get to be children for very long. I mean, ever since I was five, I had to take care of—” An alarm bell went off in her head as she approached the danger zone. She quickly stepped back. “Anyway. Who are all these kids?”

  Etienne looked surprised by the question, as though he thought the answer was obvious. “They’re my siblings.”

  Shocked, Chatine quickly scanned the table, counting twelve in total. And some of them looked to be very similar in age. Her gaze flickered back to Brigitte a few tables away. “Wow. Your maman has been busy.”

  Etienne laughed. “They’re not all biologically hers.” Then, when Chatine gave him a confused look, he clarified, “I mean, she didn’t give birth to all of them. When we lose members of our community, the children get assimilated into new families. But you’d never know the difference. We treat them just like our own. It helps everyone with the grieving process.”

  Chatine’s eyes cut to Etienne. Was he referring to the roundups? She searched his face for a hint of that grimace she’d seen the other night. But his face remained neutral.

  “Your maman said something about how the communities recently had to merge together,” Chatine said, “because their numbers were so low. And how it’s been a difficult adjustment.”

  Etienne nodded. “That’s right.” He gestured around at all the tables, which were now completely filled. “The problem was that our communities were all so different. We valued different things and had different skills. But it’s all fine now, obviously. Everyone gets along.”

  Chatine glanced around the lodge. Chatter and laughter wafted through the room as easily as rain fell in the Marsh. The Défecteurs passed plates, banged their forks to make animated points, and leaned into one another to share stories and jokes. No one sat alone. No one lurked on the periphery, waiting to con or swindle or cheat the others out of a larg.

  Her forefinger instinctively rubbed at her thumb, at the place where Marcellus’s ring used to be. The memory of it was already growing fainter. She wondered if there would ever come a day when she stopped searching for it.

  “What about your community? What were their skills?”

  “We’ve always been shipbuilders. Maman says we descended from the people who built the original freightships that left the First World, but I don’t know if that’s really true.”

  Chatine gave a snort. “Yeah, I’ve been inside your ship. I don’t think that’s true.”

  Etienne scooped up a scrap of egg from his plate and flung it at Chatine’s face. She ducked, and it landed on one of the ear flaps of Perseus’s hat. He didn’t seem to notice as he continued to heap food into his mouth.

  “Anyway,” Etienne went on, “now that we’re one community, and have worked out the kinks, we’ve built the most advanced camp that any of us have ever lived in.”

  Chatine peered around at the other tables, taking a rough count. There were only about a hundred people in the room. Was that really all that was left of the Défecteurs?

  “How many people used to be in your community?” she asked, her gaze still taking in all the unfamiliar faces. “Before the last roundup.”

  A rough scraping noise startled her and snapped her attention back to Etienne, but he was no longer in his seat. He had pushed his chair back and was now standing. “I should go. Marilyn still needs some more maintenance.” Without another word, he left the table and carried his plate to the kitchen.

  “He doesn’t talk about the roundups.”

  Chatine looked over at Perseus in his big hat seated next to her. “Why not?”

  He shrugged as he shoveled more food into his mouth. “He just doesn’t.”

  She caught sight of Etienne walking toward the door of the lodge. There was something almost stiff and awkward about his steps.

  “Have you ever asked him?” Chatine turned her attention back to Perseus. “Why he doesn’t talk about it.”

  Perseus shook his head. “Nope. Maman said he’ll talk about it when he’s ready.”

  Chatine nodded, knowing from experience that that could quite possibly be never.

  “Do you think Fabian will bring us back bonbons?” one of the girls asked to no one in particular.

  “He said he would,” replied Perseus. “And he never breaks a promise.”

  “What kind of bonbons do you think they’ll be?” the girl asked. “Where do you think he’ll get them?”

  Perseus shrugged. “Who cares?”

  Chatine glanced again around the room. The tables were starting to clear out as more people finished their breakfast. “And where are these famous gridders you keep talking about?”

  “One of the pilotes took them to look for their lost children,” said Perseus with a sad shake of his head.

  “What happened to them?” Chatine asked.

  “They got separated,” one of the other children explained. “When the Policier came to their town and started to arrest people.”

  Perseus leaned in close to Chatine so that the other children couldn’t hear and whispered, “Just between you and me, I don’t think they’re going to find them.”

  “Why not?” Chatine whispered back.

  “Because when the Policier come, that’s it. You’re a goner.”

  Chatine felt a squeeze in her chest at this little boy’s shrewd yet haunting observation. She glanced around the room once more. But this time, she found herself wondering how many people here had lost someone.

  Just like Etienne.

  Just like these other gridders.

  Just like her.

  “But they’re coming back to the camp tomorrow,” Astra said after plucking her fingers from her mouth. “They promised to be back for the cérémonie.”

  “What cérémonie?” Chatine asked.

  “The linking cérémonie,” said Perseus with an air of expertise that amused Chatine. “It’s a huge deal. Everyone comes.”

  Chatine felt a sudden panic rush over her at the idea of any kind of social gathering with these people. “Well, I’ll probably skip it.”

  Perseus stared at her as though she had just arrived from one of the farthest planets of the system. “No one skips a linking cérémonie,” he said with a snort. “If you live here, you have to come.”

  - CHAPTER 43 - ALOUETTE

  “AND NOW THE SECOND SEQUENCE,” Alouette whispered into the darkness. “Ghostly Stars.”

  Wheeling her
arms in front of her, she took three graceful steps forward. The dark skies of Albion seemed to echo her movements with their glowing moons and thousands of twinkling pinpricks of light.

  “In this sequence we give thanks to the journey of our ancestors, who traveled far from their dying First World through endless space to establish a new life.”

  Sister Laurel’s voice whispered in Alouette’s memory as she moved through the sequence on the square patch of grass behind the small house. She knew she should probably stay inside, where Dr. Collins assured them it was safe. But after so many years living underground in a hidden-away Refuge, she yearned for these new sensations of being outside. The feeling of a breeze on her skin. The cool and dewy suck of grass under her bare feet. The curious sounds of a small sleeping town.

  Alouette moved on to the next sequence, Orbit of the Divine. But with this movement, as her right arm arched up, she felt it. The thud and crack of her elbow meeting the officer’s jaw. Her mind shifted back to Montfer and the Policier Precinct, remembering the electricity that had charged through her body. The ease with which her legs had kicked, her fists had flown, and her elbows had jabbed.

  She picked up speed, moving faster now, through The Darkest Night, The Gray Cloak, and on to Elevate the Meek. Just as she had back in Montfer, she felt the strength of the moves. Their power. Their precision. Their secrets. Their—

  The back door of the house opened with a soft creak, startling Alouette. She wobbled and nearly fell over. But a hand reached out to catch her. When she looked up, she saw Gabriel’s big grin glinting in the darkness.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, looking sheepish for breaking her concentration. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” Alouette said, catching her breath and finding her balance.

  Gabriel let go of her waist and took a seat on the small flight of stone steps that led down to the tiny garden. “I couldn’t stay in that house any longer. I was going out of my mind.” He took a deep breath, but it did little to relax the taut muscles around his neck.

  Alouette sat down next to him, wiping the beads of sweat from her brow. “Are you okay?”