Seriously, Justen. Palmport.
There is no apology I can make that would be sufficient. Yet I swear to you that I never meant to hurt anyone. The Reduction drug was an accident. I was trying to make a new treatment for DAR, based on the architecture of the aristo brain, and I stumbled upon a compound that would, if administered to aristos, cause the effects you’ve seen. I made the mistake of telling my uncle.
By the time the flutter reached her, Justen had started typing again, and another flutter soon zipped after the first.
I promise I didn’t know what he intended. The day Queen Gala died, and I saw her body desecrated and her whole court Reduced, I lost all faith in the revolution. I went to Aldred. I tried to get him to stop. When that didn’t work, I even tried to sabotage the pills. He started to suspect what I was doing and restricted my access to the lab. That’s when I ran away to Albion.
She shot back:
My heart breaks for the poor little mad scientist cut off from his lab.
But then she remembered what the medic at the prison had said, about how the pills weren’t working as well as they used to. Had that been due to Justen’s sabotage? After a moment, he replied:
You want to know why Lacan recovered as quickly as he did? It was because the pills he was getting weren’t full strength. If you were to get my sister, she could tell you herself.
Was that what Remy had been doing at the Lacan estate in the first place? Persis would ask the girl. Justen’s flutter continued, its tone as frantic as his typing.
Believe me or don’t. It doesn’t matter. But you need this information: Vania Aldred has taken two of the visitors back to Galatea, including the Reduced one, and she plans to keep them there. She believes that Galateans can use the Reduced girl to create a drug that will cause permanent Reduction … and I’m afraid she may be right.
This is the absolute truth. I have nothing to gain from telling you this—and nothing to lose, either.
Persis frowned. Justen was a medic, and no one knew better than he how to create a Reduction drug. If he believed that scientists could use Tomorrow to make the effects permanent, then it was worth paying attention to. And yet, what if the whole story was a lie, engineered by Vania Aldred for the purpose of a trap?
She watched Justen wait by the wallport, growing increasingly agitated. She watched him pacing, foot tapping, then slamming his right hand against the wall in frustration. He turned around and their eyes met.
She smiled sweetly and waved at him.
He gave her a halfhearted wave in return. Did he honestly think the Wild Poppy owed him a response?
Persis beckoned to him, but he gave a little shake of his head and turned back to the port, typing furiously again. She waited as patiently as possible, but he seemed to be writing some kind of book over there.
Enough was enough. She marched over, the material of her skirt churning like the waves of a stormy sea. “What are you writing, dearest?” she cooed. “Love notes to a strange woman?”
He whirled around, blocking her view of the screen. “None of your business, Persis.”
He had that wrong. “You’ve been avoiding me for the entire party and now you’re melded to the wallport. People are going to think we’re fighting. We can’t have that.”
He groaned. “Not now, Persis. I’m in the middle of—I can’t. Not now.”
She arced her neck to look behind him. “You always say that.”
He slammed his hand over the display buttons and the port closed. “And I always mean it. Now leave me alone.”
Persis looked at him, her gaze steady and dangerous. “Show me,” she said slowly, “what you were typing.”
Justen stared at her for a moment, then raised his voice. “Excuse me, sir?” he called over her shoulder. She whirled to find a young courtier who looked vaguely familiar turning in their direction. “My sweet lady Persis is wild to try the fire dance, but I’m afraid I have not yet had the chance to learn the Albian style. Would you do me the honor of dancing with her for a bit so that I might observe you and learn?”
Persis snapped her jaw shut. The little sea sponge. So he hadn’t been ignoring all her lectures on courtly behavior!
The young aristo nodded. “Of course, Citizen Helo! It would be my pleasure.”
Justen gave her a grim smile and handed her off to the courtier. Carvel? Carrell? His name hovered just beyond the reach of her memory. As the man led her toward the dancers, she cast a glance over her shoulder at Justen, but he’d returned to the port.
Oh well. She’d find out eventually.
She stepped into the dance with her partner and immediately began messaging the rest of the League. The courtier probably thought she was acting a little too familiar with the way she draped her wrists over his shoulders and closed her eyes. That Persis Blake—what a flirt.
She told Andrine to find the other visitors and confirm that Andromeda and Tomorrow had departed. She told Tero to load up a boat with as many supplements as he could think of, as well as at least three different types of genetemp doses, just in case. She told Isla that the party had taken a rather desperate turn.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Justen standing there, his eyes glowing with the flames of the fire. “I think I’ve figured out the steps now.”
He cut in, and the courtier departed. Persis’s eyebrows drew together. How did he get here before his flutter? Were they too close to the fire? Flutters would melt in high heat conditions. She danced a little way from the flames.
“I don’t like arguing with you, Persis,” said Justen, as he spun her around. He still hadn’t learned the moves of the fire dance. His motions were too large, his hands too rough.
She found she didn’t really mind. “And I don’t like you sending love notes to other girls right in front of me.”
He gave her a wry smile. “What makes you think it’s another girl?”
What makes you think it isn’t? She almost asked him aloud. Common wisdom held the Wild Poppy was an Albian aristo, and to the Albians, that meant he must be a man. But the Galateans had been ruled by queens for centuries. Women there had as much power as men. But even Justen, whose friend Vania was a revolutionary captain, whose own grandmother had invented the cure, took the story at face value.
His flutter sunk into her palm.
I understand now that you are the reason Noemi won’t tell me where she’s moved the refugees, as I am the reason they have probably been moved. And I don’t blame you, either. I can never forgive myself for what I have done to my countrymen. I will spend the rest of my life trying to reverse the pain and suffering I’ve caused and to atone for the shame I’ve brought to a family name that once symbolized hope to all New Pacifica.
I give you this information so you can take it to Noemi, who will confirm that I’m telling the truth. I do not yet know how to heal those regs who have been damaged by Reduction, but I believe I know how to prevent anyone else from being hurt. The answer lies in the Helo Cure.
A few days ago, I offered the cure to one of the visitors, though he is a natural reg. He feared he might have made his offspring vulnerable due to his primitive gengineering. In the old days, it was thought that the cure had no effect on those who were not Reduced, but now I think it’s something more. The cure won’t heal a Reduced brain, which is why it doesn’t fix the Reduced who take it. But it will prevent the damage of Reduction from ever taking place. In natural Reduction, this damage occurs in utero, in the developing brain of the fetus. The Helo Cure prevents that from happening. It will also, according to my models, prevent it from happening when one is given the Reduction drug.
Persis gasped. Could it be that simple?
“Are you all right?” Justen asked.
She nodded, swallowing. Justen’s message continued.
Take this information and guard your friends and allies, here and in Galatea. It might take a while to produce enough of the Helo Cure to protect the entire nation, but if they all take
it, they will be able to defend themselves, aristo and reg alike, from the revolutionaries’ terrible weapon.
With your help, I can begin to atone for the harm I’ve caused my countrymen and keep anyone else from being hurt like this again. Once, Persistence Helo was the hope of all New Pacifica. I’d hoped to follow in her footsteps, but I recognize now that you are the one who will save us.
You are the hope of every true patriot of my homeland.
Persis tightened her hands on Justen’s shoulders and buried her face against his chest.
“You’re not all right,” he said. “Too near the fire?”
“Justen,” she breathed. There was no question he was telling the truth. There was no possible purpose his lie would serve. Noemi could easily verify or dismiss his claims. She fluttered the medic at once, to be sure, but not a doubt remained in Persis’s mind. Everything fit—it fit what she knew of what was happening in Galatea; it fit with Vania’s befriending Andromeda and Tomorrow; it fit with the way Justen had been tied to his grandmother’s oblets and his nanorector models for the last day and a half; and it fit, most of all, with what she knew about Justen—what she’d known all along, if she’d been completely honest with herself.
And maybe it was time to be honest with him, too. She took a deep, shuddering breath. I’m the Wild Poppy. I’m the Wild Poppy. I’m the Wild Poppy. “I’m—”
Another flutter slipped into her palm.
Persis,
Your mother is ill. Bring Justen at once.
Love and duty,
Torin Blake
Her head shot up. “We have to find my parents.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Thirty
IT TOOK THE BETTER part of an hour to make sure Heloise was stabilized. Sedation would have been easier, but Torin was desperate to avoid it.
“Please,” he’d said to Justen. The three of them were in Isla’s private chambers, where Heloise could rest among the white pillows and swaying palm fronds. “This may be her last party. If there’s any way I can let her have a final glimpse …”
These aristos sure had their priorities screwed up.
When he was done, Persis was nowhere to be found.
“She left a while ago,” Torin explained. “Actually, I’m relieved. There are things she doesn’t need to see.”
“She’s seen them,” Justen argued, remembering the night Heloise had almost clawed her daughter’s lovely face off. “You can’t keep them from her. And you can’t let her go on like this, either, pretending it’s not happening. Do you know she hasn’t even been tested?”
“Actually,” said Heloise from the chaise, her voice so hard for once, the woman reminded him of her daughter. “We do know that. And I strongly believe she should be given that right. If she is to die like me, then she doesn’t need to know at sixteen.”
Torin didn’t respond, but his lips were pressed in a tight line. Justen could imagine his fear—that both his wife and daughter would die young, leaving him alone in Scintillans. If the Wild Poppy got Tomorrow back, Justen would make sure that never happened.
“She has too much life right now to dampen it with diagnoses,” Heloise went on. “Look at her, young and beautiful and in love!”
Justen looked away. She wasn’t in love. She was playing a game. A silly, stupid game to keep the peace on her island. She deserved more than that.
Torin took his wife’s hand. “I am glad that she found you right now, Justen. You’ve been such a blessing to our family. Such a help to Heloise and, well, I think you’re good for Persis, too. Before you came along, I was so worried for her. She’s too smart for most of the boys in Albion, you know. They won’t ever love a wife as clever as she, even if they’ll take her for the estate. They won’t love her, and she won’t love them, either. She can’t, with a mind like hers. She needs someone who will understand how brilliant she is, and love her for it.”
Justen bit back his bark of laughter. Brilliant? Persis was occasionally witty with a bit of poetry, but—
“It got to the point that I worried this new phase of hers—the parties and the gossip and the dresses—was her way of trying to prove that she wasn’t the smartest woman of her generation. Like she could be the perfect Albian socialite if she tried hard enough. And, God help me, I indulged her in it. I even let her drop out of school, since at least it meant she’d spend more time home with us. I didn’t want the last—” Here Torin broke down.
Heloise drew his hand to her chest. “It’s all right, my love.”
“Persis is very sweet,” Justen said automatically. But “sweet” seemed somehow insufficient to describe her. She was beautiful and fun loving. She was kind and fiery. She’d been there to help him and to comfort him.
She’d even been the one to give him words to use against Vania.
He found he could not agree with Torin. Many men would fall for a woman like Persis. He might, if he didn’t value more seriousness in his partners. Actually, it was quite touching to see a set of parents so smitten with their child that they’d excuse her faults and mistake her for brilliant. He wondered if his own parents would have seen him that way, had they survived. If they would have told him he was forgiven for his mistakes and that he could make restitution for the things he’d done.
“I don’t think sweet’s the word for it.” Heloise sighed, then laughed, as if remembering. “Oh, the arguments I’ve had with that girl. Inappropriate clothing, daredevil stunts on the pali, political debates …” She turned to her husband, eyes as lit up as her daughter’s. “Oh, Torin, do you remember that campaign she started in the village when she was seven to change the Blake family flower from frangipani?”
“Yes!” Torin replied, chuckling. “What was it she wanted to change to again?”
Heloise shook her head, trying to recall. “I think … it was those poppies. The pua kala? Because they grow wild on the wall by the star cove …”
“Right.” Torin nodded, grinning. “Something about how the pua kala was a far more interesting flower—”
“Stronger and more resilient,” his wife said through giggles.
“With a more important history with the ancients as medicine.” Torin threw back his head, laughing. “You ought to appreciate that one, Justen.”
“She’s right,” Justen said slowly. “Pua kala was valued by the ancients for more than its beauty. It was a highly revered plant.” Medicinal and spiny and wild. Useful and dangerous and tough.
Torin shrugged good naturedly. “And since they’re both yellow and white, we wouldn’t even have to do any redecorating.”
Heloise was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “But if we’d changed it, whatever symbol would the Wild Poppy use now?”
All laughter stopped. All three of them fell silent.
No. It wasn’t possible. Justen looked at the stunned faces of Persis’s parents. Her rich aristo father, her brilliant reg mother. Both thought that Persis was strong willed and brave and the smartest girl in Albion. They’d raised her to be patriotic and kind, on an estate the farthest south of any in Albion, and they’d given her a swift yacht and a clever sea mink and an education alongside the princess of the island.
But it simply wasn’t possible. He’d been living beside her for nearly two weeks. He knew her well, and more than well enough to know that Persis was too simple, too shallow, too …
No.
Justen had met her in Galatea. In disguise. She’d introduced him to the princess, and sat in her throne room. She’d introduced him to Noemi, and visited the refugees at his side. She’d prevented the Albian courtiers from sending out messages on her boat, and then been handed the visitors like she’d know what to do with them. She’d come to find him when he’d been fluttering with the Poppy, then disappeared the moment he was distracted.
She wasn’t the most fo
olish person in Albion. He was, because he hadn’t seen it before now.
Persis Blake was the Wild Poppy.
HER HIGHNESS PRINCESS REGENT Isla of Albion stood in the middle of her throne room, her head held high, the white swirls of her outrageous gown floating around her of their own accord, powered by tiny, buzzing nanobots. Her white hair was arrayed in enormous wings that shot out from her head. She looked very intimidating.
Torin Blake, however, was standing before her and he did not seem remotely impressed. All he’d been able to ascertain so far was that Persis, along with Andrine, were long gone from the royal court, and possibly from the island altogether. “You will tell me what you and my daughter have been up to,” he stated firmly, “and you will do so right now.”
“Will I?” Isla replied haughtily, looking from Torin to Justen to Heloise. “I think you will watch your tongue in my palace, sir.”
He shook his head. “Don’t you talk like that to me, young lady. You want to launch military operations against Galatea, I’m all for it. You want to use my daughter and my boats and my tenants to sneak around playing spy games, I’ll have something to say about it.”
“Officially,” offered Tero sheepishly, arriving in the room with Kai and Elliot in tow, “it was Persis who used those things, which she technically has the right to, being a Blake and all.”
“Tero!” Isla cried, exasperated.
The gengineer shrugged his shoulders. “What, you think we’re going to get away with denying it? These are the Blakes, Isla, not the Blockings.” But he flinched as he looked at his lord and lady anyway.
“So it’s true,” Justen said. “You two and Persis—”
“And my sister,” Tero added matter-of-factly.
“You guys are the Wild Poppy?”
“The League of the Wild Poppy, yes.”
“Tero,” Isla tried again. “Shut. Up.”
“Don’t you dare shut up, Finch,” said Torin Blake. “I may not be able to tell Her Highness here what to do, but you’ll listen to me.”
Across a Star-Swept Sea Page 32
