Girls at the Edge of the World

by Laura Brooke Robson

  I rise up on my toes and press my lips to hers. I wish it were brighter in this dim street so I could chart each freckle on her nose and commit them to memory.

  How can I feel this way? After Cassia, I couldn’t imagine myself with anyone else. Even as I felt my attraction to Natasha grow, I never thought it could be like this. Never thought I’d feel this much. And I’m surprised at the realization.

  What I feel for Natasha doesn’t make what I felt for Cassia less true. It’s like when a Flood consumes old land to make way for the new. It doesn’t mean the old land never existed. It doesn’t mean no one ever danced, sang, raged, loved, on that land. While it stood, mountained and rivered, the land was good.

  Now that it’s gone, it’s not less. Just past.

  When our lips come apart, I squeeze Natasha’s hand one last time. Then I drop it.

  Natasha knocks on the door.

  A minute later, it creaks open. A young woman with long braids opens it. Her stomach, under her tunic, curves gently.

  “Oh, Tasha!” Pippa says. “And you must be Ella. It’s awfully early for a—” And then Pippa’s eyes trail across us, our wet clothes and my red-stained hands. Her lips part. “What’s going on?”

  “Please,” Natasha says. “We need your help.”

  Pippa leads us inside. Through a narrow hall and up the stairs. It’s dimly lit. Smells like old flowers. I don’t blame Natasha for not liking this place. Pippa takes us to a small bedroom, cramped. Stacks of books and newspapers fill the space under her bed. A colorful atlas lies open on the quilt. Pippa closes the door behind us.

  “Well,” Pippa says, “I’m not sure where to start.”

  Natasha glances at me. “Neither am I.”

  “What happened?” Pippa says. “Why are you here?”

  “We had to run,” Natasha says. “Ella—Nikolai was—”

  She won’t say it. It’s a kindness I don’t deserve.

  “I tried to poison Nikolai,” I say.

  “What?” Pippa says. “Why?”

  I close my eyes. Wince. “Cassia,” I say.

  “The princess?” Pippa says.

  So I explain. I tell them about losing my family but finding a new one in Cassia and Maret. I tell them about Andrei and the others arriving in Terrazza, murdering her. I tell them about revenge.

  “How can you be sure it was Nikolai?” Pippa says. “Tasha, you know him as well as any of us. Do you really think he could’ve done something like that?”

  “I can believe he was jealous of her,” she says. “Jealous of her cleverness. Jealous of her power.” A pause. “Do you think he could’ve sent Andrei to kill her?”

  Pippa chews on her lip. “I don’t know. Gregor would probably say no. But—but things changed after Nikolai exiled Cassia. Everything got . . . tenser.”

  “I know Nikolai is guilty,” I say. Even to my own ears, I sound exhausted. I feel like a one-note song.

  Cassia wanted Nikolai dead; Nikolai wanted Cassia dead. Are they so different?

  I sink onto the edge of Pippa’s bed.

  Seas. I was going to murder someone. The enormity of it hits me. If not for Natasha, I would’ve. I would be a murderer right now. I might never know whether or not Nikolai was guilty—but I would be.

  A shiver runs through me. I curl in on myself. Wrap my arms around my knees and stare at my wrist. When I rub my thumb across my siren, my skin puckers across the wide plane of her face, and it looks like she winks at me. Can I hate her and love her at the same time? She’s seen everything. The truths and the untruths. The heartbreak and the vengeance and the love. She’s seen plenty of things I’m ashamed of, plenty of things I regret. But I don’t ever want to regret who I am.

  “What now?” Pippa says. “Are you going to go back to the palace?”

  Natasha tenses. “Ella can’t.”

  I can’t go back to the palace, but can she? Would she? Will she?

  “Natasha,” I say softly. “Can I talk to you in private? For just a minute?”

  Pippa nods and steps outside. Seals the door gently behind her.

  Natasha hesitates by the bed. I stand up. Take her hands.

  I’m so tired of living for someone else’s memory.

  I’m so tired of pretending I don’t love her.

  “You saved me,” I say.

  She shakes her head, and I kiss her.

  “You saved me,” I say again. I feel pressure building behind my eyes. “And now I want to save you.”

  “I can’t—” she starts, but I kiss her again.

  “You have to go back to the palace,” I say. Is my voice steady? If it is, it’s a lie. My heart is breaking. “Go back to the palace. Marry Nikolai. Save the flyers. Save yourself.” I kiss her a third time, desperate, missing her already. Then I whisper, against her lips, “Survive.”

  “No,” Natasha says. “Not without you. I wasn’t sure, but I—”

  “You have to,” I say. It comes out fierce. Angry, almost. But this can’t all be for nothing.

  “No,” she says, and I see tears at the corners of her eyes. But I can’t let her do this. Give up everything. For me. She’s so close.

  “Listen,” I say. “The guards will be looking for us. They’ll think to come here. You need to leave before they do.” She’s trying to interrupt, to protest, but I keep going. “Nikolai cares for you. Genuinely, I think. You just . . . You just have to tell him that you were trying to figure out what I was up to.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Natasha says.

  I start talking faster. “Gospodin might be dangerous, but if you get one of the mushrooms he used, you’ll have a way to protect yourself. To prove what he did.” I explain quickly, where to find the botanical book in the library, the page about the mushroom, and though Natasha doesn’t say anything, she never stops shaking her head.

  “Ella, no,” she says. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” I say. “It doesn’t matter. I’d rather see you safe. Don’t you understand?”

  “Don’t you understand that I’d rather see you safe?” she says.

  I feel myself go still. No, I want to say, of course I don’t understand. It never occurred to me that I could love anyone else after Cassia. But even more impossible is the idea that someone else could love me.

  I sit back down on the bed. Natasha sits next to me.

  “We could go somewhere, right?” Natasha says. “Run?”

  She pulls Pippa’s atlas closer. Flips through the pages. All the countries the ocean will soon swallow. All the land that won’t be there much longer. I watch her flip past illustrations of gleaming lakes and crumbling cliffs and mountains that rise from the tundra to pierce the northern lights.

  “We could go anywhere,” Natasha says.

  I would go anywhere with Natasha. But nowhere we could go will give her as much as Nikolai could give her on the royal fleet.

  Am I selfish if I say yes? I want to. So badly.

  “Tasha—”

  The door opens again.

  “You two have to run,” Pippa says. “Now.”

  We get to our feet. “Why?”

  I hear a pounding on the door downstairs.

  “Guards,” Pippa says. “They’re here.”

  My heart is hammering. A door creaks open. Voices from below drift up to us. A man—a guard—saying, “Iskra. Come on. We were friends when you were in the palace.”

  “Well, we’re not friends now.”

  “We just need to check for the flyers.”

  Pippa motions us forward. She runs down the hall on silent feet.

  I reach back behind me, searching for Natasha, and I find her there. I find her hand, her fingers, lace them through mine.

  She squeezes.

  We race after Pippa down the hall and through a shor
t door that moans when she pushes against it.

  “What was that?” a man’s voice says.

  “Hurry!” Pippa leads us down the stairs at a run. My heart surges to match the pace. We careen down the stairs, abandoning any pretense of stealth. One flight of stairs, two flights—

  We fly to the ground floor and barrel through another door.

  I don’t let go of Natasha’s hand the whole way.

  The door opens into a wet, grimy alley.

  “Go,” Pippa says.

  Natasha and I spill out onto the wet street and start to run.

  We shoot around a corner. Natasha stops so abruptly I slam into her. She stumbles but keeps her footing, grabbing my shoulders and turning me in the other direction. I catch a glimpse of why.

  Four tall men in guard uniforms are running down the alley after us.

  We take off the opposite way. Run until we’re gasping for breath. Run until my legs and chest ache.

  There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere.

  We hurdle around a corner, and I reach for Natasha’s hand. Behind us, footsteps, fast on the wet cobblestone.

  This wasn’t—this wasn’t how any of this was meant to go.

  Guards behind us. City disappearing in front of us. And then the edge of New Sundstad, the ocean open in front of us.

  When I shouted at Natasha—when I saved her from my own poison—I ruined any chance I had to kill Nikolai. I didn’t have time to think. But I’d do it again.

  I couldn’t save Cassia. I can save Natasha.

  We skid to a stop at the edge of the city. I look over my shoulder in time to see shadows, the guards, surging out of the street we just ran through, cornering us against the sea.

  “What are we going to—” Natasha says.

  “I trusted you!” I shout. “And you betrayed me!”

  The guards are here. Natasha’s eyes are wide, confused.

  “You and Nikolai deserve each other,” I say.

  And then I push her into the ocean.

  61

  NATASHA

  I splash into the water. The cold shocks the air out of me. When I surface, I gasp.

  Why did Ella do that?

  I grab at the seawall, trying to find a way back up. The stone is slick and rises higher than I am tall. I can’t stop coughing.

  Distantly, I hear a voice. The guards?

  I open my mouth to shout. A wave hits me sideways. Fills my lungs with seawater. I start to cough. Slap the side of the wall. But the ocean is big, loud, and I’m tiny.

  And then—hands reaching down. Pale and freckled. I grab them, and someone strong lifts me out of the water and into a puddle on the cobblestones. I cough up another mouthful of water.

  “Natasha?” Gregor crouches next to me, sets a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

  I see the boots of a few other guards. All of them hunching down, looking at me with great concern.

  So that’s what Ella did.

  She made it seem like I tricked her. So that I wouldn’t get in trouble. So that the guards would set gentle hands on my shoulder and look at me with great concern.

  I gaze around the street.

  Ella’s already gone.

  “What happened?” I say. I’m shivering and dizzy.

  “You’re fine,” Gregor says. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  Fine? I’m not fine. I’ve never been further from fine.

  “Where’s Ella?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Gregor’s voice is sharp. He gives me a warning look. “That was clever of you. Leading her to a dead end.”

  I feel slow, heavy. “Right.”

  Where is she?

  When we get back to the palace, Gregor deposits me in the flyer bedroom. Katla’s the only one there. She springs to her feet, hurries toward me.

  “What’s going on?” Katla says.

  Gregor nods at me. “Get her warmed up. Captain Waska will want to talk to her. Nikolai too.” Then he leaves.

  Katla wraps a towel around my shoulders. Frowns at me.

  “Ella tried to kill Nikolai,” I whisper.

  Her face pales. “What?”

  I tell her everything. If she’s surprised to hear about my feelings, Ella’s feelings, the kiss, she doesn’t show it. When I ask, she just shrugs. “I noticed Ella’s tattoo months ago. I figured she would tell me if she wanted to.”

  “And me?”

  “I am neither surprised nor unsurprised.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “You know I’ve been in the room when you and Ella look at each other, right?”

  My cheeks heat.

  “You know what does surprise me?” she says, lowering her voice. “The fact that you’d help someone who wanted to assassinate the king.”

  “It was a split-second decision,” I say. “Momentary insanity?”

  But . . . was it? If I had to do it over, would I still help Ella? Now that I know what I know. That I wasn’t misunderstanding. That she wasn’t innocent. She wanted to kill Nikolai—simple as that.

  Would I help her again?

  I start shivering harder.

  “Okay,” Katla says, exhaling. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to say. You knew she trusted you, so you decided to help her get out of the palace to figure out who she was working with. Once you knew what her motives were, you led her to a dead end so the guards could catch her. You are loyal to the crown. You want nothing to do with Ella. Got it?”

  “Where do you think she is?” I say.

  “You’re not allowed to ask that. All this is too suspicious as is.”

  “Please, Katla,” I say. “Go talk to the guards. Gretta. Someone has to know something.”

  She frowns. Inspects me carefully. “Okay. But—be careful, all right? Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

  When she leaves, the room is too quiet. I can hear my heart beating. I stand very still in the middle of the room.

  Was Ella telling the truth? If Nikolai killed Cassia, maybe he orchestrated bog plague too. I want to tell someone, but I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll just incriminate myself more.

  The door flies open.

  Adelaida slams it behind her and raises a finger at me. “What,” she says, “is going on?”

  I open my mouth. Close it again.

  “On the list of worst ways I’ve ever been woken up, let’s put at the top: ‘The Captain of the Guard storms into my room to tell me two of my flyers have attempted to assassinate the king and are currently missing.’”

  “I . . . I wasn’t helping Ella.” I try to repeat the excuse Katla fed me. “I was just trying to figure out who she was working with.”

  “And?” Adelaida says. “Did you?”

  “Maret.”

  Her eyebrows life. “Nikolai’s aunt?”

  “Ella knew Maret and Cassia,” I say. “She was traveling with them. She told me Nikolai had Cassia killed, and then she told me this theory about bog plague, and I think it’s actually—”

  Adelaida holds up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re in enough trouble,” she says. “Don’t spout theories about bog plague. Or about the king sending assassins after his sister. You are going to be quiet and cooperative. The pinnacle of loyalty. Understand?”

  I nod slowly. “But what about Ella?”

  “It’s better if you don’t ask about Ella.”

  Dread creeps in.

  “Where is she?”

  Adelaida’s eyes inch across me. Her lips purse. And then she turns away, like she can’t bear to look at me. “Captain Waska just told me. Executed.”

  She might as well be speaking another language. My ears are ringing too much to make se
nse of anything she says. “There must be some kind of mistake,” I say. “No. I—she’s going to be executed?”

  “No, Natasha,” Adelaida says, her voice almost soft, just for a moment. “She’s already dead.”

  62

  ELLA

  When the guards drag me into the bowels of the Gray Palace, everything goes dark. The stairs are so damp, I feel like I’m being rained on. The farther we go, the colder the air gets.

  Andrei’s hand is tight around my wrist as he forces me down the stairs. He’s enjoying this. He runs his thumb across my tattoo, like I always do when I’m nervous, or sad, or thinking about a girl I love. “Crap tattoo,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say, and I’m furious to hear my voice hitch with tears. “Shame you didn’t brand me with more care.”

  Andrei snorts. “Shame you couldn’t just shut your legs and go marry a nice man.”

  I bend my knee and lift my foot, slamming it up between his legs. Andrei hisses and stumbles, and the guard in front of me peers back with concern.

  “Watch it,” Andrei says.

  “Shame you couldn’t just close your legs and keep me from kicking you,” I say.

  His grip wrenches my skin, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from yelling in pain.

  But Natasha is safe, right? It has to be worth it as long as Natasha is safe.

  We reach the bottom of the stairs. One of the guards unlocks a cell and shoves me inside. The rattling of the door, slammed, echoes.

  When they leave, I wrap my hands around the bars. Gaze through the darkness.

  Silence.

  Then, a man’s voice, accented: “You okay?”

  I peer at the cell across from mine. I see a shadowed, tan face. Younger than I expected. An aquiline nose.

  “What are you down here for?” he says.

  “Really bad poetry,” I say. “You?”

  “Really good science.”

  I suddenly place the accent. “Oh! You’re one of the Skaratan scholars. You were hunting for polar bears.”

  The man winces. Behind him, someone says something in Skaratan. Skaratan was never one of my father’s languages of choice—I have no idea what they’re saying.