Broken Crowns

by Lauren DeStefano

  He reaches out and puts his hand over mine.

  We ride back to the clock tower in silence.

  The night before the wedding, I can’t sleep. The clock tower strikes midnight and I can feel its chime rattling the walls. I stare at a patch of stone ceiling that’s illuminated by starlight.

  Basil stirs beside me. It’s been nearly a week since our fight about Judas, and even though we’ve made amends, we haven’t gotten very close to each other since then. I can still feel that argument hovering in the air around us, filled with the things we wish we hadn’t said, and the things we wish we had.

  “Can’t sleep?” he says.

  I shake my head against the pillow. “I’m thinking about the city lights in Havalais. If I looked out my bedroom window at night, I would see them in the distance, and sometimes I wouldn’t be able to tell which lights were stars. It was strange at first, but after a while it was comforting to know that someone else was always awake, going about their business somewhere out there. But here there’s just insects and stars.”

  He turns so that he’s facing me. “Those lights are still on. We just can’t see them.”

  After a long pause, he says, “When you think about Havalais, are you thinking about Judas, too?”

  I turn my head to look at him.

  “It’s all right if you are. I’d rather the truth than have you try to spare my feelings.”

  “Yes, but not in the way you might think,” I say. “I think about what it must be like for him to be living in a world Daphne wanted so badly to be a part of. I wonder if he’s thinking about her, what those thoughts are. And I think that they’ll always belong to each other, and how painful that must be, to have the other half of your destiny murdered.”

  In the starlight I can make out Basil’s face, but not clearly. All I can really see are his dark eyes watching me as he listens.

  “And then I think that if you had been murdered in that way, I would walk around every day feeling like I was half-dead. I would be just like him, in a way. I would look for you in other people, knowing the whole time I’d never find you. Or even anyone like you.

  “He says otherwise, but that’s why he kissed me. He was just looking for Daphne. And in a way, I was looking for you. I was thinking about you.”

  After a long silence he says, “If I ever lost you, I would be lost, too.” He puts his hand on my cheek, and his thumb brushes over my lips.

  My lips part, and I can taste his skin on the tip of my tongue. “It’s you,” I murmur. “It was always going to be you. I don’t know how you could think it would be anyone else.”

  He moves forward and kisses me, and I feel at last as though he understands what happened in the field with Judas. Understands me.

  “You never had to look elsewhere for me,” he says. “I’ve always been here.”

  I close my eyes against the darkness. I don’t want to think about what tomorrow will bring. I only want to know that he’s here with me now, and that whatever we face, it will be together.

  That much, the decision makers got right.

  13

  I have been told that more than a hundred people will attend my wedding. Honored specialists and patrolmen and even students from my academy. And Basil’s family, of course.

  I don’t even know a hundred people. I can count on both hands the ones who ought to attend, and with the exception of Basil, none of them will be there.

  It is strange to think that so many people will be in attendance for what should be a simple, ordinary affair.

  Basil has been taken to a separate room somewhere to be fitted into his suit and dressed.

  The seamstress has brought a standing mirror into my bedroom, and at Celeste’s instruction she is pinning cloth flowers around the waist of my dress.

  Once that’s done, Celeste lights a fire in the fireplace and uses the flames to heat up an iron hair curler. She sits me on the stool before the mirror and sets about rolling curls.

  “I saw that smile,” Celeste says brightly. “Admit it. You’re at least a little bit excited.”

  “I’m nervous, mostly,” I say. “What is this going to accomplish?”

  “Hope,” Celeste says.

  “Everyone keeps using that word.”

  “Well, it’s all we’ve got for now,” she says, twirling the curler so close to my scalp, I can feel the heat of it.

  I stare at my reflection in the mirror. If Pen were here, maybe she would have some glib remark about what should happen on my wedding night. Or even some advice. She’s the only one I’d want to talk to about it. But her first time was stolen from her; it was violent, and not what it was intended to be. I suppose that she felt changed by it, and I didn’t notice. How could I not have noticed?

  I feel a burn at the back of my head and I wince.

  “Sorry,” Celeste says. “It’s my stupid stomach, getting in the way of everything.”

  “Does it hurt?” I ask.

  “What—being pregnant? No, I wouldn’t say that ‘hurt’ is the right word. But sometimes I feel like I’m in the body of a seventy-year-old. Once I sit down and get comfortable, it takes ages to stand back up again. My back aches, my knees. I never know what’s going to give me heartburn anymore. And I can’t get enough of the color blue.”

  “Blue?” I say.

  “Yes. The other day, for example, I was looking for something to read in the library upstairs, and I came upon this old book with a bright blue cover. It didn’t even have a title printed on it. It was just pure blue, and I wanted to take a bite right out of it.”

  “Colors don’t have a taste,” I say. “It would have tasted like paper, I should think.”

  “I didn’t say it made sense.”

  “Did you?” I ask.

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you bite into it?”

  “Please. I’m not quite that insane. Though I admit it’s becoming a battle between what I know is logical and what I want. My mother says I’ve always been that way, though.” There’s a moment of melancholy at her mention of her mother; she wanted so desperately to save her, and now her chances are slimmer than ever. Even if the queen were to survive this ordeal and find a way to the ground, I don’t think they would be able to cure her sun disease. Professor Leander died of that very thing.

  Celeste slides the curler away from my hair, watching with satisfaction as the new curl bounces into place. “I so wish I could come. Papa told me I’m not even allowed to watch from the windows. He’s got the entire kingdom thinking I’ve contracted some fever from the ground and that I’m all but dead. Meanwhile I’m trapped in this tower going out of my head, ready to start eating books.”

  She walks around me and begins curling the hair on the other side of my head. “Thank goodness you’re back. I’ve been so bored and now it’s like I have a living doll to play with. Before Azure left for the ground, his hair had grown longer. You may have noticed, it’s almost to his shoulders. I asked if he’d let me style it for him and he about bit my head off.”

  “It’s not that I mind letting you play with my hair, but how much longer am I going to be in the clock tower?” I say. “Basil and I get married and we just stay up here? We don’t get an apartment? Do something other than be paraded around Internment?”

  “You’ll get an apartment,” Celeste says. “A nice one with actual electricity, unlike this ancient place. It will just take a while. Once King Ingram is dead, I’d bet. Things will be better then.”

  With all this talk of dead kings, I wonder whether Celeste has ever admitted to herself, even once, that this kingdom would be better off if King Furlow were dead, too, and surely she’s wise enough to know he’ll never change his ways, but I don’t think she’s capable of admitting it.

  She finishes with my hair and then sits on the edge of the bed, admiring me.

  “You truly are lucky,” she says. “I never believed betrothals were for the best until I met you and Pen and saw for myself that sometimes they a
re. Even your brother and his wife seem to get on rather well.”

  “Sometimes betrothals work,” I say. “But sometimes not.” I look at her reflection.

  “It’s not as though Az were going to get a fitting match, no matter what the decision makers decided,” she says, and grins, but sadly. “You could line up the most beautiful girls in the city. You could even find a few who would put up with his ego. The heart wants what it wants, I guess.”

  I hope the prince is able to find what he wants, at least.

  Celeste is pouting when the patrolmen come to take me to the courtyard. “It isn’t fair that Morgan must be escorted by patrolmen to her own wedding.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say. Although that’s not true. This isn’t at all how I wanted my wedding to go.

  “I’ll be there for the ring ceremony,” Celeste insists. “Papa won’t be able to keep me away.”

  The stuffy heat of the stairwell smothers me, and as I follow the patrolmen down into the darkness that will end at the courtyard, Pen’s words find me: Our people would do anything to keep the city afloat.

  That was what she told Nim that night in the empty amusement park as the three of us lamented what we’d lost.

  With each step down, I feel as though Internment is sinking below my feet, and I know that Pen is right. I don’t know why this task has fallen to Basil and me, but we must do whatever it takes to save our city. Even if it means playing along with the king’s silly plan.

  I hear the music a moment before I step outside. The sun is high and blinding, the grass and flowers a perfect brightness that Havalais for all its wonder can’t claim.

  There’s a trail of multicolored petals making a path to the garden. The trail ends at a field of poppies as red as a lake of blood. And there Basil stands in a black suit, a hard shadow against all the red.

  He must surely be burning under this hot sun in such dark clothes, but if he is, he doesn’t show it. This is the most elegant he has ever been. The brass music moves between us, the only breeze in the still air, and he turns his head just as I step onto the cobblestone clearing.

  The corner of his mouth raises into a reassuring smile meant only for me.

  People line the path between us. Old classmates from a lifetime ago. Citizens. People I’ve seen but seldom spoken to.

  I don’t have to look into the crowd to know that Basil’s family isn’t among them. I can see the sadness in his eyes, buried where only I could notice it glimmering like a fleck in a stone.

  I approach him, and as I reach him, I glance up at the clock tower, wondering if I’ll find Celeste spying from one of the windows. But all I see in the high windows is the cloudless sky reflected back.

  The king himself is standing between us when I finally reach Basil, and he’s holding a sheet of paper with the standard vows. He means to officiate this ceremony, then. Usually it’s a patrolman. My father was the one to officiate Lex and Alice’s wedding. I wanted him to officiate mine one day. It’s just another thing that has been stolen from my family by King Furlow.

  As he begins to read the words, the promises Basil and I must keep to each other, I imagine King Furlow lying dead in his own blood.

  I don’t hear the words that are being said. Basil takes my hands, and I know we’re approaching the end of this thing, that a few words of consent uttered by each of us will make it official. And then while the others are celebrating, we’ll be taken to the blood room and our rings will be filled.

  “Morgan,” King Furlow says. It’s so bizarre to hear him speak my name so informally that I don’t realize right away that it’s my turn to speak.

  I raise my head and look at him, cursedly alive and well. “Do you consent to these vows?” he asks.

  “I . . .” Basil’s expression is steely, unreadable. In a single word he’ll belong to me.

  And then the ground rattles under our feet, and there’s a roar like thunder. The wind pushes all those heavy curls in front of my eyes, and I bat them away so that I can see what is happening.

  Basil’s grip on my hand tightens, and I’m not sure whether it’s fear or hope that makes the laugh bubble up in my throat. There on the horizon is King Ingram’s jet, tearing through the sky.

  The alarm on King Furlow’s face says that this arrival was not planned, and that the jet is not returning for its routine shipment of sunstone-rich soil.

  The jet is also not landing in its usual spot, far in the outreaches on the other side of the fence. It’s close to the city, too close.

  “Come on,” Basil says, and we run past the king and through the field of poppies. I lose one of my shoes as I go, and kick the second one away.

  The king doesn’t come after us. He has his own chaos to contend with. All his wedding guests are running away from the jet. Basil and I are the only ones running toward it.

  14

  “What about Celeste?” I yell over the roar of the wind. It smells like exhaust and fire and all the ever-advancing mechanical devices of the ground.

  “She’ll be safer where she is,” Basil says.

  I stop running, and, still tethered by my hand, he stops too. We’re both breathing hard. I meet his eyes. “If this is an attack and they’ve come for King Furlow, we have to go back for her. Promise.”

  He nods.

  The jet crash-lands at the fence that surrounds the city, causing it to collapse onto the tracks with a shrill whine and the sound of engines dying.

  I double over to catch my breath, both of us choking on the fumes. There’s a satchel abandoned on the ground. Everyone has fled in fear. They have perhaps grown accustomed to the jet’s arrival at a safe distance, but something is clearly amiss this time.

  The wind begins to settle, and after a long pause, the door to the jet swings open. “You nearly killed us!” Thomas yells. He is the first to stagger down the metal steps, with Pen holding the back of his shirt in her fist to steady him as they both stumble dizzily into the daylight.

  “There are no scratches on any of you, so quit yapping. You all volunteered me to fly this thing in the first place,” Nim says, following after them. The frame of his lenses is dented.

  Basil and I run to them, and Pen sags gratefully against me. “Oh, thank goodness, a welcome committee that isn’t wielding weapons.”

  “Give it a minute and there will be,” Basil says. “What are you doing back here?”

  “That’s the problem with this city—its utter lack of communication.” We all turn to see Prince Azure leaning in the doorway, not a hair out of place. “You haven’t heard? The king of Havalais is dead.”

  Pen rolls her eyes as she looks from him to me. “He’s been rehearsing that line for the entire flight.”

  “How’d I do?” the prince asks. He descends the steps as though they were flanked by adoring fans. He’s looking at Basil and me. “Did our arrival interrupt a wedding?”

  I ignore him. “Is King Ingram really dead?” I ask Pen.

  “He is. It’s a bloody mess down there.” Her shoulders drop. “I tried to go back for your brother and Alice, but there wasn’t time.”

  “They’ll be all right,” Nim assures us. “They’re with my siblings someplace safe.”

  It’s doubtful that Lex would have come along anyway, he’s so insistent on never returning. Maybe it’s just that he couldn’t face what this city has become since we first left it. I couldn’t blame him for that.

  “I had hoped my father would be here to greet us,” Prince Azure says, and I’m not sure whether he’s serious.

  “He is probably trying to quell the hysterical crowd,” I say.

  “Yes, well,” Prince Azure says, and steps over the tracks and begins walking. “Shall we?”

  The prince of Internment taking a casual stroll through the city is a rare sight, but if people are watching, they are doing so from the other side of windows, terrified of what fresh horrors this jet will bring with it.

  “It was poison,” Pen whispers to me as we all cross th
e tracks.

  “Who did it?” Basil asks.

  “I’m not sure,” Pen says. “One of his own men, I suspect. So many have cause to hate him. All I know is that Nim saw it coming, and he woke us from our beds in the middle of the night and packed us into the jet. There wasn’t time to get everyone.” She gives me a reassuring smile. “Lex and Alice truly will be safe. Nim had to leave his siblings behind, too. This was less safe for them. And I did check on him every day since you left.”

  “How is he?”

  “As stubborn as ever. Disgruntled—you know.”

  “I do.”

  “But he misses you. Truly.”

  I walk between Basil and Pen, and I’m so relieved to see her, I could almost forget the wars happening far below our feet and here on this floating city.

  “We didn’t really interrupt your wedding, did we?” she asks.

  “You did, actually. But that’s all right. I’d rather you were in attendance anyway.” I catch her glancing at my ring. “We never had a chance to make it official.”

  “Good,” she says, trying to sound as though she’s taking this lightly. “Plenty of time for proper weddings after the dust has settled.”

  Being married is the least of my concerns, and I know Pen shares this sentiment, but the distraction takes us from the fear of what’s to come. King Ingram is dead. That must mean that Jack Piper has assumed leadership. He isn’t a better candidate. He’s a man with horrors of his own to unleash.

  The prince looks back at Basil and me. “Where is my sister?”

  “In the clock tower, last I saw her,” I say. “The king wouldn’t let her outside.”

  “But you did see her? Talk to her? She’s well?”

  Nim also glances at me, and beneath his cool exterior I see someone who is tired and fearful himself. I hold his gaze for a moment before I look back to the prince. “Yes.”

  Thomas is trying to keep up with Pen, who won’t look at him.

  There’s no smell of tonic, and she is alert and sober, which is all I need to know for now. “There’s much to talk about,” she whispers.