Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  “THE PREMIER ENFANT’S GOVERNESS, NADETTE Epernay, has confessed to the murder.”

  General Bonnefaçon’s hands gripped the podium, while his steady gaze roved over the Ministère’s situation room. Six rows of high-ranking officers sat in front of him, resembling droids with their stiff backs, stern faces, and identical ice-white uniforms. Beside the podium, the head of the Vallonay Policier, Inspecteur Limier, stood erect with his chin tilted upward and his hands behind his back. The circuitry in his face flickered and hummed.

  “We believe that Mademoiselle Epernay did not work alone,” the general went on.

  Sitting near the back of the room, trying to remain rigid like his fellow officers, Marcellus swallowed hard. He felt sick. Sick that little Marie was dead. Sick that Nadette had confessed to the murder.

  Sick that his mind kept returning to his own governess.

  “The poisoning was a clever piece of work,” Marcellus’s grandfather continued, pulling Marcellus back into the situation room. “Not the efforts of some brainless young girl.” The general motioned to a cyborg in green scrubs who flanked him on the other side of the podium. “Médecin Vichy, explain your findings.”

  The Chief Médecin stepped forward; the circuitry in her forehead and cheek winked and glistened under the harsh lights of the situation room.

  “Postmortem analyses show that the Premier Enfant was killed by a lethal dose of cyanide,” she began. “The poison caused immediate internal asphyxia, which resulted in rapid breathing, severe cerebral convulsions, vomiting, unconsciousness, and death within fifteen minutes.”

  Bile rose up from Marcellus’s stomach, and he had to swallow hard again. This was what had happened to little Marie? This horrible and painful death? How could the médecin sound so cold and stark delivering these facts? It was as if she were talking about a defective TéléCom, not a little girl.

  Marcellus wondered, not for the first time, whether some of these cyborgs really did have a piece of their humanity plucked out when their circuitry was put in. Perhaps that’s what enabled them to do their jobs so well.

  “We believe the cyanide was ingested via a piece of fruit, probably a peach, that the child ate this morning,” the médecin continued. “Cyanide occurs naturally in pitted or seeded fruits such as apples, cherries, and peaches. However, the level of cyanide in the Premier Enfant’s blood far exceeded any naturally occurring doses. My colleagues are running further tests, but our working hypothesis is that the cyanide came from the jewelry fabrique, where it is commonly used for gilding and cleaning.”

  The médecin prepared to speak again, but the general cut her off, taking back control of the podium. “The murder of the Premier Enfant was not the work of an amateur. Industrial-grade cyanide is not something a nineteen-year-old governess would have access to. This plot required planning and strategy.” The general scanned the situation room again, his face grave as he delivered his next words. “We are certain this was the work of the Vangarde.”

  Marcellus sucked in a sharp breath as whispers broke out among the officers in the room.

  “The Vangarde?”

  “They’re back?”

  “What does this mean?”

  Marcellus was asking himself the exact same questions. The Vangarde had been little more than ghosts for the past seventeen years, ever since Citizen Rousseau was arrested, bringing an end to the failed Rebellion of 488. However, every so often, one or two of their supporters would pop up somewhere—like Mabelle—just to remind Laterre that they had not fully disappeared. That they would always be lurking in the shadows, biding their time.

  But Marcellus had always felt comforted in knowing that the Vangarde had little hope of fully regrouping without their charismatic leader. She had been the strategic mind and rallying force behind the former rebellion. And as long as she remained behind bars on the moon, Marcellus felt safe from another uprising. Which was why he’d put no stock in the Patriarche’s paranoid insistence that the Vangarde were behind this murder.

  But now, as he listened to his grandfather’s briefing, he wondered how safe they really were. If the Vangarde could penetrate the Grand Palais, could murder a member of the Paresse family, what else were they capable of doing without Citizen Rousseau? Was it possible they were rising from the dead without her?

  “Nadette did not act alone,” the general went on. “Officers LaPorte and Meudon are continuing their interrogation of the governess, as well as every worker in the jewelry fabrique, in an attempt to identify any accomplices.”

  Accomplices.

  Marcellus’s mind raced as he thought back to the search he had performed on his TéléCom earlier. The search that revealed Mabelle had escaped from prison in the sixth month of this year. What had she been doing since then?

  Was she the accomplice his grandfather was referring to?

  Marcellus simply couldn’t bring himself to believe that his beloved governess would ever be capable of murder. Let alone the murder of a child. Marcellus wanted so badly to shove the idea from his brain, but it seemed too big of a coincidence to just ignore.

  Mabelle escapes from prison, and less than a month later, Marie Paresse, the only heir to the Paresse family, is dead?

  “From here on out, we will focus all our resources on rooting out this terrorist group before they can rise up against us again,” the general announced.

  Inspecteur Limier, still standing rigidly beside the general, lifted his chin higher. His orange eye glowed fiercely and his circuitry flashed, as if the general’s directive had pushed the cyborg into a new gear.

  “Everyone—I repeat, everyone—in this room is tasked with gathering intel on the Vangarde,” General Bonnefaçon continued. “We want to know who they are, where they are, and what they are planning next.”

  Beads of sweat began to trickle down the back of Marcellus’s neck as he thought about his father’s prisoner shirt. He’d thankfully been able to stash it in his bedroom before he’d been called to the briefing. But now, standing here, surrounded by nearly every high-ranking member of the Ministère, it was as though he could still feel the shirt blazing against his skin. He still felt like a fraud.

  My dear Marcellou, Mabelle is in Montfer. Go to her.

  He should turn the shirt over to his grandfather. He knew this. It was exactly the kind of “intel” his grandfather was referring to. It pointed directly to a Vangarde operative. If Mabelle was in Montfer, perhaps there was a Vangarde cell operating out of there. Perhaps she was leading it.

  But how would he ever explain his possession of the shirt to his grandfather without causing suspicion?

  “All our efforts will be redirected to this new objective,” the general continued. “You will all be assigned a region and will have full authority to arrest anyone suspected of Vangarde activities or affiliations. Anyone who resists arrest will be sent directly to Bastille.” The general pushed a fist onto the podium. “The assassination of our Premier Enfant is an act of treason. Mademoiselle Epernay and anyone found to have been working with her will be punished accordingly.”

  Murmurs of assent percolated the room.

  “We cannot have any more lives lost to cruel and senseless terrorism. The Vangarde promise freedom, yet all they offer is destruction and bloodshed and chaos.” He pounded his fist on the podium. “The safety of Laterre depends upon these terrorists being found and eliminated. It depends on you.”

  Hearing these words, Marcellus felt as though every cloud on Laterre had gathered above his head, threatening to descend. As Laterre’s most brilliant strategist, General Bonnefaçon was obsessed with order and obedience. Not just on Laterre, but in his own family. Ever since Marcellus’s father had bombed that exploit in the name of the Vangarde, Marcellus had become a suspect. A potential criminal. Even though he had been only a year old at the time.

  And now, with the Premier Enfant dead, the Vangarde possibly on the rise again, and the fate of the entire planet resting on the general’s shoulders, Marcel
lus knew he could not—would not—give his grandfather any reason to doubt him.

  He’d taken that shirt off his father’s body in a moment of weakness. He’d hidden it in his uniform in a moment of stupidity. And now, in a moment of clarity, he knew exactly what he had to do.

  The shirt—and the message contained within it—must be destroyed.

  - CHAPTER 22 -

  CHATINE

  AS CHATINE WALKED THE DARK streets of Vallonay, avoiding the pleading eyes of starving children and the begging hands of their parents, she thought about everything that had just happened.

  Could she really do it? Work for General Bonnefaçon? Spy for the leader of the Second Estate? She hadn’t given the general an answer, and she really didn’t know what answer to give.

  What if the general didn’t keep his word? What if she followed Marcellus and was able to deliver the information the general wanted, and he still shipped her off to Bastille? Then what? She’d be even worse off than she was now.

  Or would she?

  She shivered and pulled her tattered coat tighter around her, glancing up at the starless sky, inky black like a never-ending abyss. It was at this time of the day that Chatine could make believe that she was seeing straight into space. All the way to the end of the System Divine. And not at the constant clouds that hovered over Laterre like a dark omen.

  Laterre was currently in the season of the Darkest Night. But as far as Chatine was concerned, it was always the Darkest Night. She’d never known any other season. She’d heard some older people in the Frets tell stories about the season of the Red Twilight, when the faded crimson light of Sol 2 illuminated the cloudy sky thirty hours a day, even at night. And once, when she was a little girl living in Montfer, a very old woman had come into the inn who swore she was alive during the last White Night, when it was never dark. When the light of Sol 2 and Sol 3 shone all through the night. The idea was almost unfathomable to Chatine. Night was night. And it was always dark.

  Hardly anyone in the Third Estate lived long enough to see more than two seasons. And Chatine often wondered if the White Night was just a myth that people told to give one another hope. A promise of lighter days to come.

  Chatine turned down the dank alleyway behind Fret 19 and continued into the Fabrique District. She didn’t want to go home. Not yet. She needed to clear her mind. Weaving between buildings, she eventually made her way into the dimly lit square of the Planque: the small, hidden area of Vallonay behind the lumber fabrique. For the right price, one could buy the kinds of things here that were never available for sale in the Marsh—a jug of weed wine, a Skin hack, a few extra Ascension points. This was Délabré territory. Very little went on around here that her father’s gang didn’t have a hand in.

  Chatine paused when she reached Madame Marion’s blood bordel. Outside the building, three girls huddled together to stave off the cold. All of them looked younger than Chatine. Even in the low light, Chatine could see their bruises. Dark welts stamped across their skin. It was a common side effect of the procedure.

  Her gaze was immediately drawn to the girl on the far left of the group, the one dressed in what looked like a shiny new coat, red like the color of Sol 2. Purchased with blood money, no doubt. The more blood nutrients you sold to the bordels, the more money you made, and the more your body deteriorated.

  This girl was, by far, the frailest of the three. Her hair had already started to fall out in patches. Her limbs were as skinny and brittle as fallen twigs. And in among the bruises on her face, an angry red rash covered her skin. The girl’s fingernails were broken off and her teeth were brown and crumbling too.

  All so the First Estate could have their fancy face creams and injections to make them look young.

  Trading in blood nutrients was supposed to be illegal, but Chatine was pretty sure the Ministère just overlooked the whole operation. She’d never seen a Ministère officer ever step foot in the Planque, let alone come near a blood bordel. And she doubted anyone in the First or Second Estate knew what was really in those face creams.

  The blood of girls under the age of twenty-five was the most valuable. Apparently it was rich in the right kinds of nutrients.

  Chatine laughed aloud at the idea of a Fret girl like herself being rich in anything.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  Chatine startled when she realized the girl in the red coat was looking at her, talking to her. She quickly lowered her gaze and muttered, “Nothing.”

  “I’ve seen you around here before,” the girl said, a bitterness in her words. “Watching us. And now laughing at us. You think you’re better than us, don’t you?”

  Chatine hastily shook her head.

  “We’re making more than ten times what they pay at the fabriques,” the girl continued, sounding defensive. “Which means we’re feeding our families. And buying new clothes. Something you clearly can’t afford to do.”

  The other two girls snickered, and Chatine glanced down at her ratty black pants, the seams barely being held together with wire and mismatched pieces of metal. She told herself she didn’t care what those girls thought. She was better than them. She’d managed to make her way on this planet without selling her blood to the First Estate. And yet, she still felt like she wanted to shrivel right up into her coat and disappear.

  Chatine pulled her hood farther around her face and was about to keep walking when the girl said, “You should get started now while you’re still young.”

  Chatine nearly stumbled over her own feet. “What?”

  “Madame Marion pays good money for girls your age.”

  “I—I—” Chatine stammered, “I can’t sell my blood. I’m not a . . . I’m a boy.”

  The girl barked out a laugh, causing her two companions to laugh again too. “Who do you think you’re kidding? You’re not fooling me with that stupide hood.”

  A chill slithered its way up Chatine’s spine. She told herself to keep calm. Don’t let her emotions show. She attempted to lower her voice to a deep grumble. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But the girl in the red coat clearly wasn’t buying any of it. “Like I said, I’ve seen you around here. I’ve seen the way you stare at us. Boys look at us like they’re afraid we might touch them. You look at us like you’re afraid you might become us.”

  Chatine knew she should walk away. Get out of there before the girl’s big mouth caused her any trouble. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to move. Her gaze raked over the girl in the red coat before she finally found the courage to look into her hollow eyes.

  The girl stared back. Hard and chilling and broken.

  Chatine flinched as she felt something pass between them. A somber energy. An understanding of sorts. It was if they each somehow recognized that they were both human. Both struggling. Both victims of a corrupt planet.

  When the girl spoke again, her voice was noticeably softer. More fragile. As though that one look had brought down all her defenses. “You might as well join us. It’s either your choice or theirs. And if you’re going to end up here anyway, why not make sure it’s yours?”

  Chatine swallowed hard as another shiver racked her body. She finally managed to tear her gaze from the girl in red and turned and walked away. As she pulled her coat tighter around her, Chatine tried to imagine what her life would be like if she were to push back her hood, let down her hair, wash the camouflage of dirt from her face.

  Be who she truly was.

  Was the girl right? Was this where she would end up? Was it inevitable that she would eventually find herself on the front steps of a blood bordel, next in line to be hooked up to some horrible machine that sucked and spun your blood until every last drop of nutrients was scraped out?

  When Chatine braved another glance at the girl, she was back to talking with her friends, their three frail and wrecked bodies crammed together to keep warm.

  And in that moment, Chatine knew. They would all soon end up in that m
orgue. They would all eventually be lying on a gurney just like the young girl she had seen today. Frostbite, rot, starvation—Chatine’s destiny on this planet was clear. It had always been clear. Since the day she was born into this Regime, she was fated to die young. She would never see the stars. She would never feel the warmth of real Sol-light on her face. She would never escape.

  Because no one escaped.

  Chatine dropped her gaze to her Skin and tapped on the screen.

  “Recipient?” the voice echoed in her audio chip.

  “General Bonnefaçon.”

  Chatine waited, counting her breaths until she heard the AirLink access confirmed. “Please record your message.”

  The little red light on the corner of her Skin illuminated, and she spoke to her outstretched arm. She kept her message short. There weren’t many words required to convey her decision.

  “I’m in.”

  Even if it was a trap, even if the general had no intention of letting her leave this planet, this was still her best chance. Her only chance.

  She had to take it.

  She watched the message vanish from her Skin, disappearing into space to find its way across the decaying Frets, up the hill, through the walls of Ledôme, and onto the TéléCom screen of General Bonnefaçon. Up until today, he’d represented Chatine’s greatest enemy, and now he was her only hope.

  Oh, how the Sols liked to tease her.

  As Chatine walked away from the Planque, back to the Frets, she swore she could feel the eyes of the girl in the red coat following her. But she didn’t dare look back, for fear of facing what she’d left behind.

  - PART 3 -

  MONTFER

  They shared the same three Sols. They shared dates and times. They shared a First World, long ago. But the planets of the System Divine had flavors and colors and climates all their own. Sleek ships skimmed like flitting birds between the worlds. Warships, too, when alliances crumbled. Like twelve siblings across the stars, they squabbled among one another. And they were bound to one another.