Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  “Welcome, Ascension Winners!” The music lulled to a halt and the crowd hushed as an eager voice slipped into the air through the powerful speakers that were hidden among shrubs and flowerbeds.

  “I am Georges Bissette, and I will be your master of cérémonies for the night. First and foremost, I would like to personally welcome you to the Grand Palais and, of course, congratulate you on your triumphant Ascension to the Second Estate!”

  Cheers broke out across the Imperial Lawn. Chatine glanced toward the stage constructed in the center, where she could now see a man in a bright blue tailcoat who was addressing the crowd.

  “You’ll be very pleased to hear,” Georges went on, “that the Patriarche and Matrone will be arriving shortly to officially kick off the festivities.”

  Marcellus looked to Chatine, warmth and reassurance flickering in his eyes. “It’s time.”

  She nodded, took another steeling breath, and squeezed the vial in her hand before slowly turning around.

  “Good luck,” Marcellus whispered behind her.

  “Wait.” She spun back, grabbed Marcellus by the sleeve, and guided him farther into the cluster of hedges, until they had entirely disappeared from the banquet and were surrounded by a cocoon of twinkling, glowing green. The tiny lights threading through the bushes seemed to make every leaf glimmer and dance.

  “I …” She hastily searched for the right words. “Before we go through with this, there’s something I have to do.”

  Marcellus stared back at her, those intense hazel eyes of his deep and boundless. She’d spent so many nights lying awake on Bastille thinking about those eyes, wondering if she’d ever see them again. Now here they were.

  And she could not wait a second longer.

  She pulled the long silk glove from her left hand and slowly slid the ring from her thumb.

  For a moment, Marcellus just stared down at it, something indecipherable playing out on his face. Chatine couldn’t tell if it was anger, relief, surprise, or something else entirely. Something she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

  He tried to speak, but the words came out choppy and stammering. “You … How …”

  “I stole it from you. In the cruiseur on the way back from Montfer.”

  “Montfer?” Marcellus spat, his mind clearly doing the mental calculations, counting back how long ago that had been. How much had happened since then.

  An execution.

  A riot.

  An imprisonment.

  An escape.

  Countless deaths.

  And now a banquet that could change the course of a planet.

  Yet here it was. Safe and sound.

  “I’m convinced it protected me,” Chatine said quietly. “On Bastille.”

  Marcellus’s gaze snapped up to look at her. To collide with her. To crash into her and pull them both back to the roof of that fabrique. When she’d let down her hair and scrubbed the dirt from her face and shown him who she really was.

  When she’d kissed him and he’d called her a traitor.

  “But it doesn’t belong to me,” she whispered, as she took hold of Marcellus’s wrist, pried his fingers open, and dropped the silver band into his palm. “It never did.”

  Then, without another word, she darted out from the hedges and faded into the crowd.

  - CHAPTER 66 - ALOUETTE

  ALOUETTE MOVED SWIFTLY DOWN THE hallways of the Ministère’s Cyborg and Technology labs. With every corner she turned and every stark, echoing hallway she crossed, her heart pounded harder.

  “Turn left. Then another left. Do you see the door to your right? That’s the infirmerie.”

  She was grateful for the audio patch behind her ear and Cerise’s steady voice to guide her. She could never have made it here on her own. Alouette approached the door to the infirmerie and reached for the screwdriver on her toolbelt.

  “Wait!” Cerise called out, causing Alouette to recoil. “There’s a médicin coming out of there right now!”

  Panicked, Alouette spun around, trying to figure out how to blend in in the middle of this bleak white hallway. Unfortunately, she’d left her cleaning cart back inside the server room. She grabbed for a cloth tucked into her tool belt and made a show of wiping down a nearby window.

  “Stay calm,” Cerise warned. “Remember, cyborgs can sense elevated body temperatures and heart rates.”

  Alouette took a deep breath. Behind her, she heard the infirmerie door open and footsteps echo on the polished floor. She glanced over her shoulder to see a woman in green scrubs retreating down the hallway. Alouette turned and darted through the open door just before it sealed shut.

  Leaning against the wall, she took a moment to try to steady herself. The sound of heavy, labored breathing punctured the air. Alouette was certain it had to be coming from her, but when she finally turned around and her gaze fell upon the real source of the sound, something fierce and hot and panicked bubbled up in her chest.

  Even though she knew what she had come here to do, even though she’d been mentally preparing herself from the moment she’d left the server room, she still hadn’t prepared herself for this. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

  In the center of the room, a large machine puffed and wheezed. Lights flashed along its underside, and a tangle of tubes and wires snaked in and out of a long, cylindrical dome on top. And laying under the curved and clear plastique, still and silent as the dead, was Inspecteur Limier.

  Except he wasn’t dead.

  Not quite.

  His eyes were closed. His skin was waxy and his head bandaged. Oxygen pumped into his lungs, moving his chest up and down. And the circuitry implanted into the left side of his face hummed and blinked. Just as it had done the night he’d tried to kill her. Just as it had done the moment before Alouette had fired that rayonette into the wet air of the Forest Verdure and watched the pulse bury itself into his temple before exploding in a shower of sparks.

  “Okay, I’ve deactivated the security feed to that room.” Cerise jolted her out of her memories. “But it’s only a matter of time before someone notices the outage, so be quick.”

  Steeling herself, Alouette scurried across the room toward a small console connected to the side of the plastique dome. “Search internal memory chip,” she whispered shakily. “Filter for files logged with detention facility and interrogation.”

  The control panel emitted a soft beep as results started to populate the screen.

  “It’s working,” she reported back to Cerise. “Lots of files are coming up.”

  “Good. Let’s hope one of them is intact.”

  Alouette stared down at Inspecteur Limier as the program rooted around in his damaged brain. She knew that by the time Sister Jacqui and Sister Denise had been transferred to the general’s facility, Inspecteur Limier had already been incapacitated. But Marcellus had been certain Limier knew where the facility was located.

  Please, she thought desperately. Please tell us where they are.

  As the screen continued to fill with search results, the circuitry implanted in the side of the inspecteur’s face gave a sharp, rapid flash and suddenly, a memory started to push its way to the surface of Alouette’s mind. As if that program were rooting around in her own brain as well. She suddenly recalled something Limier had said to her back in the Forest Verdure, minutes before he had tried to kill her and Alouette had turned him into this.

  “If it isn’t little Madeline. Alive and well. I thought you were dead. Pity. It would have made all of this so much tidier.”

  The words sent a shiver down Alouette’s spine. At the time, she hadn’t thought much of them. They were just the nonsensical babblings of a man possessed. But that was before she’d been to the blood bordel in Montfer. That was before she’d spoken to the madame. Before she’d learned that she was, indeed, supposed to be dead.

  The Communiqué had confirmed it.

  Madeline Villette had died in 490.

  But how did Inspecteur Limier kno
w that? Or more important, why did he even care? Madeline Villette had just been some random baby, born to a Third Estate servant, living in Montfer. While Limier had been a cyborg inspecteur working halfway across the planet.

  But then, Alouette recalled the clue that had sent her on this desperate quest to begin with.

  “You are a criminal,” Inspecteur Limier had said to Hugo. “And she is the daughter of a worthless blood whore. The Regime has no use for either of you.”

  Something was tickling at the edges of Alouette’s consciousness. Something that made her legs feel wobbly and her scalp tingle.

  Inspecteur Limier had clearly known her mother. He knew that she’d sold her blood. He knew that she’d had a daughter. And that she’d named her Madeline.

  A daughter he thought was dead.

  The control panel let out a soft ding, alerting Alouette that the search was complete. She peered back at the screen, reminding herself to stay focused. Any minute now, another médecin could walk through that door.

  “What do you see?” Cerise prompted.

  Alouette squinted at the panel. “There are a lot of files. Are these really all logged with detention facility and interrogation?”

  “He was the inspecteur of the Vallonay Policier Precinct. So probably yes.”

  Alouette’s stomach turned as she braved another glance at the incapacitated inspecteur. How many people had been tortured by this man?

  She tapped on the first file. A moment later, one of the monitors on the wall of the room blinked to life. Grainy blackness filled the screen, followed by a loud screeching noise. She winced and scrubbed forward in the footage, only to find more static. She tried a different file, but it was the same. File after file of nothing but darkness or the indecipherable jumble of shapes.

  “They’re all corrupted,” she whispered to Cerise, feeling the hope squeeze out of her.

  “Keep looking.”

  Alouette tapped the next file on the screen. Then the next. Until she was quickly nearing the end of the search results. She let out a small whimper of frustration. She was the reason all of these files were corrupt. She was the one who put that pulse in the inspecteur’s head. Jacqui and Denise were the only two sisters left in the world. If she couldn’t find them—if she couldn’t fulfill her promise to Dr. Collins—would it be her fault?

  She clicked on the next file but froze when she heard something behind her. It was the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing.

  Someone else was in the room with her.

  Alouette spun around, pulse racing, fingertips tingling. But there was no one there. The room was empty apart from …

  She turned back toward the bed of the unconscious inspecteur and watched as he took in a long, noisy breath. This one, however, wasn’t assisted by the tubes that tunneled down his throat. This was a lengthy, deliberate inhale through his nose. Almost as though he was trying to capture every scent in the room.

  Alouette staggered back. “Cerise,” she whispered urgently. “I think he’s waking up.”

  “What?”

  The inspecteur inhaled again, his nostrils flaring.

  “You should get out of there,” Cerise said.

  Alouette turned toward the door, preparing to run, but a slight movement caught her eye. She snapped her gaze back to the monitor on the wall just in time to see a face flicker into view. The image strained against the static, like it was fighting to be seen. Sounds came, distorted and echoing, and then the face appeared again. This time closer. Clearer. It was a man. His haunted, terrified eyes were bulging, and his haggard cheeks were streaked with tears. Alouette could just make out some kind of metal wire pinching at his neck before the soundtrack screeched and the footage warped again, replaced with a sequence of flickering images—a fist punching through the air, a pool of blood, wrists bound by chains.

  Alouette squirmed at the sight but still forced herself to step closer to the monitor, to the jagged splintered footage, trying to make out any detail that might reveal where it was captured. But everything was so jumbled and hazy.

  “What are you doing?” Cerise screeched.

  Ignoring her, Alouette hurried back to the control panel. She darted a look at the inspecteur. His eyes were still closed, but his circuitry was flickering with more intensity now. More alertness.

  “Requesting coordinates,” she whispered to the panel.

  There was a hesitant pause before the reply came. “No coordinates found.”

  Alouette bit her lip, trying to organize her thoughts. There had to be a way to figure out where this memory was captured. She stared down at the inspecteur, who was still breathing deeply, his eyelids fluttering as though he was dreaming about this very same memory. Walking back through it in his own mind.

  And an idea came to her.

  Hastily, Alouette jabbed at the control panel. “Requesting time stamp.”

  There was another pause, but this time, the console reported back, “Month 8, Day 19, Year 504. 11.29.”

  “Find all memories dated one hour before.”

  The program went to work again, and soon a new file started to play. Black static filled the screen, and Alouette’s heart sank again as she assumed it was another corrupted file. But then, a moment later, she realized, the static was moving. Rushing past. Because it was not static at all. But rather, a vast and dark ocean.

  The Secana Sea! Alouette realized with a jolt of adrenaline.

  Limier was flying over the Secana Sea. The soundtrack whooshed and roared as the vehicle—a cruiseur, perhaps?—drew closer to something in the distance. It almost looked like an island.

  There was an island somewhere on Laterre? But Alouette had always been taught the planet consisted of a single landmass. She lunged for the control panel again and reversed the footage on high speed, mesmerized as Limier’s memory tracked all the way back to Vallonay. Over the docklands. Into the Frets. And back to a cruiseur station just outside the Policier Precinct.

  Jabbing her hand down, Alouette stopped the footage and scrubbed it forward a few seconds. On the monitor, in juddering, splintered pieces, Alouette watched the inspecteur board the cruiseur and, in his gruff, monotonous tone, articulate a long string of coordinates.

  Her breath shuddered in her chest.

  He was giving the cruiseur a destination.

  A location.

  Hastily, she pulled out the TéléCom Cerise had loaned her and recited the coordinates into the screen. Sure enough, a single orange dot appeared off the northwest coast of Laterre’s great landmass. An island. A secret island. Where her beloved sisters awaited.

  Relief flooded through Alouette. It was beautiful and intoxicating and distracting. So distracting, she didn’t even see the hand reaching out from the bed beside her until it wrapped around her wrist. She screamed and scrambled backward, shaking herself from Limier’s grasp. When she looked back at the inspecteur, she saw that his eyes were open—one a dark brown, the other a vibrant cybernetic orange. And they were both looking at her.

  Alouette rushed back toward the door and scurried into the hallway. She tried to keep her pace slow, natural, all the while glancing over her shoulder for the inspecteur. “Cerise,” she whispered breathlessly into her audio patch as she turned the corner and exited the door to the cyborg labs. “I’ve got it. I’ve got the coordinates. I know where they are.”

  There was no response. And it was only then that Alouette realized she’d hadn’t heard anything from Cerise in a while. Her footsteps slowed.

  “Cerise?” she asked quietly.

  Still nothing.

  Alouette’s hackles rose. Something was wrong.

  She quickened her pace, trying desperately to remember the path she’d taken from server room 12, but the hallways were long and daunting, and they all looked the same. She had no idea if she was getting closer or farther away.

  “Alouette?”

  The voice was like a song in her ears. “Cerise! Are you okay? What happened? I can’t find my way ba
ck. I—”

  “Don’t come back.”

  Alouette skidded to a halt. “What?”

  “Don’t come back here.” Cerise’s voice was harsh and cold. It sent a chill through Alouette. “Get out of the Ministère. Now. And whatever you do, don’t try to rescue me.”

  “I—I don’t understand. What happened?”

  “Just promise me you won’t try to rescue me.”

  “Cerise,” Alouette tried, something hot clawing at her throat.

  “Promise me,” she repeated. Her tone was unlike Alouette had ever heard it. Desperation mixed with something akin to anger.

  “Okay,” she finally said in a broken whisper. “I promise. But will you please just tell me—”

  “Vive La Vangarde,” Cerise said quietly. And then there was nothing but silence.

  “Cerise?” Alouette whispered into her audio patch, but the line had gone dead.

  Terrified and winded, she glanced around the empty hallway, as though she expected the answer to this impossible situation to appear through the nearest door. Leave the Ministère? Without Cerise?

  No, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t just—

  Heavy footsteps reverberated through the empty hallway. It sounded like an invading army. Alouette readied herself to run until she heard a deep, angry voice bellow, “She’s in server room 12. I want guards stationed all down this hallway. She is not getting away.”

  Quietly, Alouette followed the sound of the voice, tiptoeing toward the nearest corner. When she poked her head around the edge, she saw a man in a black tuxedo standing outside the same closed door that she had broken into earlier. The man was flanked by two guards in Ministère uniforms and a female cyborg in a white lab coat.

  Alouette’s gut twisted, and she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from crying out. She had to do something. Cause a diversion. Distract them. Lead them away from that door. She could not let Cerise go down for this. But before she could even begin to formulate a plan, the door to the server room swept open and Alouette heard Cerise’s bright and chipper voice call out, “Papa! Bonsoir! How have you been? You look well. That tux is simply divine on you. How is the banquet going?”