Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  Without warning, Marcellus’s heart swelled to the size of a Sol. His skin prickled. His legs felt like they might surrender beneath him and bring him thudding helplessly to the ground.

  And strangely, his eyes were the last to recognize her.

  He let out a breath so shocked and sudden, he wondered for a moment if it might be his last.

  Then, somehow, through the battering wind and the roaring engine and the kilomètres and kilomètres of lost land that surrounded them, Marcellus managed to find his voice.

  “Chatine?”

  - CHAPTER 58 - CHATINE

  MARCELLUS.

  Sitting across from her in a cruiseur, his hazel eyes twinkling, his lips quirked into a small smile.

  Marcellus.

  Crouched down in front of her chair in the interrogation room, gazing up at her, pleading with her to help him.

  Marcellus.

  Kissing her on the rooftop of the garment fabrique. Deeply. Intensely. Endlessly.

  And finally, Marcellus.

  Turning away from her. Calling her a traitor. Walking out of her life forever.

  That was what she had always believed. Those were the thoughts and visions and memories that had cycled through her mind during all those lonely days and nights on Bastille.

  But now …

  Marcellus.

  Standing in front of her in the middle of the Terrain Perdu, surrounded by a dying fire and the crashed wreckage of an escape pod. Staring at her like she was a ghost. A phantom. A vision.

  Just as she was staring at him.

  Because he was a ghost to her. He had been just as dead to her as little baby Henri. He had been just as impossible to bring back as her brother. And yet somehow, at some point, they had both come back to her.

  Chatine rubbed her finger against the silver ring that encircled her thumb. The one that she swore had saved her from Bastille. And the one that she was now certain had guided her right here. Right now. To this very spot. Like a tiny Sol, lighting a path through the darkness.

  Marcellus was the first to speak, shattering the silence that seemed to have encapsulated them like a dome. “Chatine?”

  But as desperately as Chatine wanted to reply, wanted to tell him all the things she’d ever dreamt of telling him while she’d lain awake at night, locked in that dingy tower on the moon—how she was sorry, how she didn’t mean to betray him, how she was selfish and stupide and blind—when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.

  Marcellus also seemed to be struggling. “How did you … ? I thought you were … ? What happened … ?” He huffed, frustrated with his own babbling, before finally sputtering out, “Who is that?”

  Chatine turned around to see Etienne standing behind her, his eyes dark and narrowed, his mouth pressed into a tight line. She nearly startled at the sight of him. As though she didn’t even recognize him. As though she’d been transported a month into the past, before she had ever been sent to Bastille, before she had ever been rescued by a strange and alluring pilote, before she had been welcomed into his home. It seemed to be the only way this situation made sense. It’s as if she were somehow living two different timelines at the same moment. Existing in two different worlds at once.

  How long had he been standing there?

  Chatine glanced back and forth between Etienne and Marcellus before finally managing to utter her first syllable. “Uh …” It wasn’t much, but it still felt like progress. She tried again. “He’s … um … well …”

  “She’s been living with me,” Etienne said, stepping up to stand next to Chatine.

  Chatine felt her entire face explode with heat, and suddenly the words not only came to her, they wouldn’t stop coming to her. “Well, yes, technically, that’s true because he rescued me from Bastille because I was injured trying to escape and he brought me back to his camp where his mother helped heal my leg because she used to be a médecin and also she removed my Skin because they don’t like Skins there because they sort of do their own thing but I’ve been living there because I didn’t have anywhere else to go and you know, because of the injury thing but now that I’m better I’m really not sure what I’m going to do because—”

  “A médecin?” someone asked, mercifully cutting Chatine off before she talked herself dizzy.

  Chatine glanced over Marcellus’s shoulder, noticing, for the first time, that he wasn’t alone out here in the middle of this frozen wilderness.

  “Did you say that you know a médecin?” the same voice asked, and Chatine could now see it belonged to a girl. A girl with dark curls as wild as the Terrain Perdu and eyes as dark as the Darkest Night. A girl who instinctively made every fiber of Chatine’s body tremble with envy and guilt and anger and remorse.

  It was her.

  It was Madeline.

  The girl who had lived with Chatine’s family for three years. Who had been wrongfully blamed for Henri’s death. Who had captured Marcellus’s attention in the Frets. Who he’d called Alouette.

  Chatine now glanced back and forth between Marcellus and Madeline, standing only a mètre apart, both dirty and disheveled and shivering from the cold, clearly having landed here together.

  “Is this médecin nearby?” Madeline continued. “Can she help us? Our friend is in really bad condition.” She gestured back toward the dying fire, where Chatine could see a man bundled in a layer of blankets, his eyes half closed, his face covered in a sheening layer of sweat despite the freezing temperatures out here.

  “What happened to him?” Etienne was suddenly on the move, striding purposefully toward the man. He knelt down to examine him.

  “He was shot,” said a girl who Chatine didn’t recognize. But from the style of her clothes—despite their ragged and dirty appearance—Chatine guessed she had to be Second Estate.

  “Shot?” Etienne asked, confused. “By a paralyzeur?”

  “No,” Marcellus said, speaking for the first time since he’d bombarded Chatine with questions. “It was a cluster bullet.”

  Chatine scowled. What the fric is a cluster bullet?

  Etienne scoffed and jokingly asked. “A cluster bullet? What, was he on Albion?”

  “Yes,” Marcellus said, and the graveness in his tone hardened Etienne’s expression.

  Chatine spun to face Marcellus. “What were you doing on—”

  “There’s no time,” Etienne cut her off. “His infection is bad. We need to get him back to the camp immediately.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” the Second Estate girl asked, her voice barely a whimper.

  “I don’t know,” Etienne said bluntly. “My maman is a healer. She’ll be able to tell us more. Help me lift him.”

  Marcellus, who had been watching Etienne with a strange mix of confusion and distrust, suddenly sprang into action. With the help of Madeline, they lifted the injured man and carried him swiftly yet carefully toward the idling ship.

  “Chatine, open the cargo hold,” Etienne called out.

  Chatine darted into the cockpit and quickly found the controls for the hatch. The loading ramp clanked and clattered open, and she jumped back out to see Etienne, Marcellus, and Madeline carrying the man into the hold. Once he was safely aboard, Etienne grabbed Chatine by the elbow and pulled her out of earshot of the others.

  “Do you know these people?” he asked. His eyes flickered toward the loading ramp and seemed to land directly on Marcellus. “Can we trust them?”

  Chatine followed his gaze, once again marveling at the events that had brought them here. Brought all of them together. Chatine, Etienne, Marcellus, Madeline. Her present and past—both near and far—all colliding like reckless stars. The Sols were either trying to send her some kind of cryptic message, or they just had a really whacked sense of humor.

  Either way, she knew what her answer had to be.

  “Yes,” she said decisively, knowing that single word would seal her fate in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  - CHAPTER 59 - MARCELLUS

&n
bsp; “WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG? WHY isn’t he out yet?”

  Cerise hadn’t stopped pacing the length of the small Med Center since they’d arrived. She was like a cat prowling the gardens behind the Grand Palais kitchens, waiting for scraps of food. Every time she reached one end of the room and turned, the thermal blanket wrapped around her slender frame would snap and crackle.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Alouette said for what had to be the tenth time, and yet it was as though Cerise could hear nothing but the fears playing out in her own head.

  “He should be out by now. How long does it take to remove a cluster bullet?”

  “A long time,” Alouette replied. “You saw the wound. It was bad. And cluster bullets are designed to spread and do as much damage as possible.”

  Once again, Marcellus was amazed by her seemingly endless well of patience. With Cerise. With him back in the Terrain Perdu when he foolishly thought he could walk to find help. With everyone. She just seemed to have a natural gift for calming people and talking sense when everything else felt senseless.

  Cerise made another sharp turn and continued pacing, her gaze never leaving the door that Gabriel had been carried through earlier. They’d been told it led to some kind of operating room, but Cerise hadn’t looked convinced. And to be honest, Marcellus hadn’t been all that convinced either.

  After boarding the strange ship with Chatine and being forced to don blindfolds, they’d arrived at a camp in the middle of the Terrain Perdu with odd-shaped buildings that were nearly invisible from the air. Just like the ship had been when it had landed near their crash site.

  Défecteurs, Marcellus had soon surmised, but he was still struggling to wrap his mind around it. He’d always heard rumors that some of them had survived his grandfather’s roundups, but he was never quite sure. He’d had a hard time believing that they could exist anywhere without the Ministère knowing. And yet here they were.

  Marcellus took a sip of hot chocolat from the cup clutched between his slowly thawing fingers. He pulled his thermal blanket tighter over his shoulders and glanced around the peculiar little Med Center. The shelves were stacked with supplies, and there was a row of neatly made-up cots, like the one he and Alouette were currently sitting on. He was in complete awe of all of it. This camp. This hiding place of the Défecteurs. He’d only ever known about one other Défecteur camp, buried deep in the Forest Verdure. But that one had been abandoned.

  That one had been his hiding place.

  Cerise completed another lap of the room. “What kind of Med Center is this, anyway? It doesn’t look like a real Med Center, and that woman who took Gabriel in there didn’t look like a real médecin.” She was whispering even though the three of them were the only ones in the room.

  After they’d arrived and Gabriel had disappeared behind the operating room door with a woman who had quickly introduced herself as Brigitte, Chatine had run off somewhere with that tall, chisel-jawed pilote. Etienne, she’d called him. Marcellus wasn’t exactly sure why, but he didn’t have a good feeling about him.

  That was another thing Marcellus hadn’t yet been able to wrap his mind around. Chatine Renard had escaped from Bastille? And was now living with Défecteurs who had removed her Skin? That was why his constant searches for her had always come back with “Location unknown?”

  “Cerise,” Alouette said gently, “why don’t you sit down and have some hot chocolat? It’ll help calm you down.”

  But Cerise ignored her and continued pacing.

  Marcellus finished off his drink but kept the cup gripped in his hands. Now that he was getting warm, he was also starting to feel antsy being cooped up in here. He still had no idea what was happening on the rest of Laterre. They’d been unable to get a signal in the Terrain Perdu, and the Défecteurs had confiscated their two TéléComs the moment they’d arrived at the camp, despite Cerise’s insistence that neither of them were trackable. Apparently, they didn’t approve of Ministère devices around here. Not that Marcellus could blame them. But he was anxious to find out what the general was doing. Had he already started his war? Had he already taken command of his Third Estate army?

  What was he planning next?

  That was the question that was killing Marcellus. He had half a mind to start pacing right alongside Cerise.

  “How do we even know that woman knows what she’s doing?” Cerise jerked her thumb toward the operating room door. “She might do more harm to him than good in there.”

  Marcellus heard something that sounded like a growl, and his gaze snapped toward the other end of the room where, in the doorway, Etienne now stood with Chatine.

  “That woman is my maman,” Etienne said in a low, threatening voice. “And she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

  Cerise looked momentarily stunned by Etienne’s presence and slightly alarmed by his tone, but then she flicked her long dark hair defiantly over her shoulder and pulled her spine straight. “I have no doubt she thinks she knows what she’s doing. But I’m just saying, she might not have the experience to—”

  “Did you see the scars on her face?” Etienne said, moving farther into the room. Marcellus couldn’t help but notice that his fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides like pistons. Apparently, he didn’t have a good feeling about them, either.

  “That’s where her circuitry used to be,” he went on, shooting a pointed look at Cerise. “From when she was a cyborg.” Etienne positioned himself in the corner and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, like I said, she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

  Cerise’s mouth fell open. “Another one? She …” But the words faded on her lips, as her mind seemed to fritz and whirl.

  Marcellus’s mind was whirling too as he remembered the scars that he’d briefly glimpsed on Brigitte’s face. Now that he thought about it, they looked almost identical to the scars that he’d seen on Denise’s face.

  He cut his gaze to Alouette, who was chewing on her bottom lip, lost in what he assumed to be the exact same thoughts.

  “I brought you some more hot chocolat.”

  Marcellus glanced up to see Chatine standing in front of him, a silver flask in her hand. She unscrewed the top and filled his cup with more of the steaming liquid before walking tentatively over to Alouette.

  “It’s Alouette now, right?” she asked in a voice Marcellus had never heard before. It was quiet and gentle. “Your name?”

  Alouette nodded. “My father changed it from Madeline after we left the inn.”

  Marcellus watched in confusion as something powerful and strangely tender passed between the two girls. Some kind of unspoken conversation that he could not even begin to understand.

  “You two know each other,” he said dazedly as he suddenly remembered something Chatine had told him back at the Vallonay Policier Precinct before she was sent to Bastille. His brow furrowed, trying to recall the details. “You used to live together?”

  Chatine nodded. “She stayed with my family at the Jondrette.”

  Marcellus’s gaze snapped to Alouette as he thought back to that rundown inn that was now nothing more than a pile of ashes. “You lived there?”

  Alouette nodded. “When I was very young. Before Hugo brought me to the sisters.”

  “We … ,” Chatine began before turning to Alouette with wide, apologetic eyes. “We treated her very badly.”

  A hint of a smile broke onto Alouette’s face. A silent gesture of forgiveness. Chatine filled Alouette’s cup with hot chocolat, and Alouette focused back on Cerise, who was still pacing the room. Chatine sat down next to Marcellus on the cot. Marcellus could feel Etienne’s dark eyes watching them from the other side of the room.

  “So,” Marcellus said uneasily to Chatine, clutching his cup, “are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to guess?”

  Chatine flashed him a playful smirk. “Whatever do you mean, Officer?”

  Marcellus rolled his eyes. “You’re living with Défecteurs? I didn’t think they’d
exactly be your style.”

  “Actually,” Chatine said in a low, conspiratorial tone, “it turns out they really don’t like being called that.”

  Marcellus snorted and then, upon realizing that Chatine was not joking, schooled his expression. “Oh. So, what do they like to be called?”

  Chatine flicked her eyes toward Etienne, who was still glowering at them from the corner, looking not too unlike those guards who had boarded their voyageur on Albion. “They’re really not label people.”

  Marcellus gaped at her. With the short hair, that strange white-and-gray clothing, and this new relaxed air about her, he barely recognized the girl. Then again, he’d spent most of their time together thinking she was someone else. He wondered if he’d ever truly known the real Chatine Renard at all.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Chatine asked, nervously raking a hand through her cropped hair. “You don’t like it.”

  Marcellus cleared his throat. “No, I do,” he rushed to say. “A lot. I just …”

  Chatine cracked a smile, and Marcellus felt his cheeks flood with heat. He dropped his gaze down to his hands and muttered, “I’m just having a hard time getting my head around all of this. You living here. With them.”

  “They’re nothing like I thought they’d be. They’re good people. They saved me. And they’re going to save your friend in there. Who, by the way, doesn’t exactly look like your style either. Since when do you hang out with shaggy-haired Third Estaters?”

  “Well,” Marcellus said, a grin pulling on his lips. “I did know this boy once named Théo. He had pretty shaggy hair too. I just never saw it because—”

  “Right, right,” Chatine interrupted. “I stand corrected.” She ran her fingers over her scalp again, as though trying to remember what it felt like before all the hair was shaved off.

  Marcellus’s smile instantly faded, and his stomach clenched. “Was it bad? Up there on Bastille?”