“No, I—” Alouette started to correct the woman. She had her all wrong. But she stopped herself when she realized that perhaps that was the perfect description of Alouette right now. Desperate and craving something that was just out of reach.
The truth was, she had a sinking feeling that she was chasing dust, hunting down infinitesimal particles of matter that were thrown on the wind long ago.
But that dust was all Alouette had.
“I can take you there,” the woman said before curling her lips into a sneer. “For a price.”
Alouette nodded. She was starting to learn that this was how things worked in places like this. Nothing was free. Everything was for sale. Alouette rummaged through her sac, pulled out her last slice of chou bread, and offered it to the woman. She clearly deemed it worthy, because she devoured the bread and then, in a gruff voice, muttered, “Follow me,” before wading into the crowd.
Clutching her elbow tight against her bag, Alouette followed behind. They wove through the docks and up a winding street lined with dilapidated and shuttered stalls. In the morning, the vendors would probably sell fish heads and sea snails that, according to the Chronicles, were food staples in Montfer.
The farther away from the docks they got, the more Alouette felt she could breathe again. Soon the stalls gave way to much larger buildings. Fabriques, Alouette guessed, because of the discarded crates littering the muddy streets. They made their way through an alley between two of these industrial buildings whose corrugated walls loomed over them like rusting battlements. The nearby streetlamps did little to chase away the all-consuming blackness of Laterre’s Darkest Night or the terrors that seemed to lurk around every corner of this town.
“I’m Dahlia.” The woman introduced herself without turning around.
“Nice to meet you,” Alouette muttered, caught between her inclination to be nice and the guardedness she was quickly developing.
Dahlia snorted. “And do you have a name?”
Alouette swallowed. “My name is Alou—” But she stopped herself, realizing she probably shouldn’t be using that name anymore, especially to someone like Dahlia. Alouette was the daughter of an escaped convict named Jean Legrand. And now, through no fault of her own, Alouette was also associated with the Vangarde. Despite having left the Refuge, she was still in hiding. And she feared she would be for the rest of her life. Whether she liked it or not.
“I mean,” Alouette said, “My name is … Madeline.”
The name still sounded foreign on her lips. She’d only just found out about it two weeks ago. It was the name her mother had given her. Before her father had changed it to Alouette when they’d come to the Refuge.
The woman chuckled again. “Are you sure about that, chéri?”
Despite her trepidation, Alouette found herself smiling at the question. “No,” she admitted. She wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
“Well, you better make up your mind. And fast. You’re not going to get very far on this planet if you don’t know who you are.” She picked up her pace as they passed by another long alleyway. Alouette made the mistake of peering down it, into the darkness, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Through the gloom, a dozen pairs of eyes flashed and stared back at her, and on the ground, there was a series of strange, misshapen shadows. Almost like a row of bony carcasses—
“That’s the Taudis,” Dahlia whispered. “Gang territory. I wouldn’t linger.”
Alouette scurried away, a chill seeping into her skin that had nothing to do with the damp, cold air. Somehow, this place, this city, seemed even worse than Vallonay. Worse than the Frets. She didn’t know how that was possible. She didn’t know such worseness could exist.
“This your first time at a blood bordel?” Dahlia asked, casting a doubtful, sidelong look at Alouette.
“Yes,” Alouette said quietly, debating whether or not she should elaborate. She quickly decided not.
“I remember my first time.”
The shock on Alouette’s face made Dahlia laugh. “Don’t look so surprised, chéri. Every girl around here has done it at least once. When the babies are screaming from hunger or freezing from the cold, you’ll do just about anything to make it stop.”
Alouette cleared her throat, unsure what to say to that. So she simply asked, “Does it … Did it hurt?”
Dahlia shook her head. “Maybe for a second. But it’s over pretty quick. It’s the next few days you have to worry about. That’s when the regret sinks in. When your body is too tired to do anything, and the bruises start to appear, and no amount of food seems to quench the hunger. Not that there is any food.”
Alouette’s mouth went dry. There was still so much of this world she didn’t yet know. So much the sisters hadn’t prepared her for, despite how many volumes of the Chronicles she’d read.
She clutched her arm tighter around her sac as they passed by another darkened alleyway. At the end of this one, however, Alouette could see a warm, golden glow. Almost like a Sol rising in the distance. Which of course, she knew was impossible. Night had fallen hours ago. And even if it were dawn, she would never actually be able to see a Sol rise on Laterre. The cloud coverage was too thick.
“Second Estate quartier,” Dahlia said, as though she could read the question right on Alouette’s face. “Where the superviseurs and foremen have their manoirs. They couldn’t be bothered to live over here with the rest of us dirty déchets, so they built a wall.”
“How long have you lived here?” Alouette asked uneasily.
“All my life,” Dahlia replied, and Alouette remarked on something unusual in her voice. It wasn’t pride exactly. It was more like dignity. “Don’t worry. You get used to it after a while. Home is home.”
Home.
The word was like an angry punch in the gut for Alouette. Four simple letters that had sent her chasing dust across the Secana Sea.
Sols, how she longed to be as certain as Dahlia about that word.
She remembered the message Sister Denise had sent Alouette through Marcellus’s TéléCom two weeks ago. The message that had launched this slow decline of her certainty and sanity.
When the Lark flies home, the Regime will fall.
Alouette still wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. What was Sister Denise trying to tell her? To go home to the Refuge and join the sisters? Help them bring down this faulty Regime with all its cracks and injustices? That was definitely the most convincing answer.
But Alouette wasn’t convinced.
Because the Refuge would never be her home again. Not in the way she remembered it, anyway. Never again would she eat her meals in Grateful Silence, lulled by the gentle clink of soup spoons. Never again would she dust the precious volumes of the Chronicles in the library. Or sit on the bed in the room that Sister Jacqui and Sister Denise shared, chattering on about what she’d read that day while Jacqui paced and asked insightful questions, and Denise prodded at some disassembled Ministère device that lay open on her desk.
That Refuge had been a lie. A delusion that had crumbled before her very eyes the moment Principale Francine had revealed the truth.
Alouette felt her fists clench in frustration. The sisters might have wanted her to fly home. To be their “Little Lark.” A member of the Vangarde. But Alouette’s feathers were wilted now. Her wings ached from flying so far.
She was a lost lark with no home.
“Here we are,” Dahlia said.
Alouette blinked and glanced up at the building that loomed above them.
“This is it?” Alouette asked, suddenly wondering if Dahlia had led her to the wrong place. She wasn’t expecting the Grand Palais, but she certainly wasn’t expecting this. The crooked structure sat slumped in the Montfer mud, its low, rusted roof dangling at an awkward angle and its small, grated windows like a row of lopsided mouths. An old wooden door, whose slats had been gnawed and pummeled by the damp air, was the only perpendicular part of the building. “Is this the only bordel in the city?”
<
br /> “Yes, but don’t be nervous,” Dahlia said, her gruff voice softening ever so slightly. “Madame Blanchard has been here for years. She’ll take good care of you.”
That’s what I’m counting on, Alouette thought with a shudder. She glanced back up at the ominous building, trying to work up the courage to go inside. She was thousands of kilomètres from where she’d started, and yet, still so far from where she wanted to be. But that door was a step in the right direction, right? Or, at least, a step in a direction. She had to take it.
“Merci,” she murmured, without pulling her gaze away from the door. She wanted to say more to the woman who had guided her here. She felt like she should say more. But everything on the tip of her tongue felt trite and pointless. I’m sorry you have to live like this. I’m sorry I can’t help. I’m sorry the planet is so broken. But it didn’t seem to matter. Because when Alouette turned back around and gazed into the mist, Dahlia was gone.
And the answers to the questions Alouette had been asking her whole life were waiting behind that weather-beaten door.
- CHAPTER 12 - MARCELLUS
“WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG?” THE Patriarche grumbled. “Why can’t we see her yet?”
Marcellus stood tucked in the corner of Warden Gallant’s office, watching the Patriarche pace the room in his fluttering silk dressing gown. Meanwhile, Chaumont, the Patriarche’s favorite advisor, stood like a statue, with his hands clasped behind his back. Shimmering on the front pocket of his dark green robe were the two lions of the Paresse family crest.
The moment the words had left General Bonnefaçon’s lips—“Citizen Rousseau is dead”—the Patriarche had demanded he see the body for himself. But after more than thirty seconds of the general trying to connect his TéléCom to the morgue security cams, the Patriarche stormed out of the imperial appartements and marched straight to the Ministère headquarters, with the general and Marcellus in tow.
“We’re pulling up the feed now, Monsieur Patriarche.” Warden Gallant ran a hand through his usually immaculate silver hair. “This is not a sector of the prison that we access regularly.” He turned to a technicien currently standing in front of a vast control panel, deftly maneuvering her hands across the screens. “Rolland, what is the status?”
“I’m connecting to the microcam network for the Med Center now,” she replied in that affectless tone that all cyborgs seemed to have. “Just a few more moments.”
The Patriarche began to pace again. Marcellus stood back, behind his grandfather, afraid to even breathe.
Citizen Rousseau is dead.
He was still numb with shock. As if metal was dripping through his veins. And that word—“dead”—it felt so heavy. So final. So hopeless.
The Patriarche stopped pacing to yell at the technicien. “I want that feed up right this second—”
“The feed is up,” Rolland announced. She didn’t even blink in the face of the Patriarche’s wrath.
Frantically, the Patriarche spun around to face one of the dozens of screens that lined the walls of the warden’s office. His gaze flicked to each one, unsure where to look. A moment later, the center screen blinked to life, and Marcellus felt his heart skitter at the sight before him.
On the screen was a dark and dingy room crammed full of gurneys. Each one held an emaciated body, pummeled, beaten, and eroded from life on Bastille. The microcam scanned the room, panning over every body, every face. Their features were all different, and yet they were the same in their wretchedness. They had all died the same bleak, arduous, and miserable death in captivity. And in every single one of their faces, Marcellus saw his own father. Eyes glassy, hands spotted, fingertips blackened.
Thank the Sols Chatine was still alive up there. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what his heart would do if he had to see her in a place like this. Unable to stomach the sight of any more bodies, Marcellus turned away and searched the warden’s office for a safe place to look. His gaze finally landed on the glowing sculpture sitting on the small table next to him. He knew this elaborate model of the System Divine well. Marcellus had spent so many hours staring at it during the countless security briefings his grandfather had dragged him to over the years, he had the whole thing memorized. Every moon of Albion, every crater of Usonia, every floating rock in the Asteroid Channel. Each item was so carefully rendered with tiny lights, shimmering filaments, and delicate plastique molding. There was even a cluster of miniscule laser beams depicting the rings of Samsara.
“Move left,” the warden directed Rolland. “More. More. There!”
Marcellus reluctantly returned his gaze to the monitor. To the face that was now emblazoned on the screen. The face that everyone in this room had come here to see.
Citizen Rousseau.
Her cheeks had sunken into dark craters; her lips had shriveled to a thin, puckered line; and her skin was so dried out and wrinkled, it seemed to fold in on itself a thousand times. Gray hair fanned out in brittle waves, and her eyes—the same eyes that Marcellus had seen blaze with such fire and passion in old footage from the last rebellion—now stared blank and vacant, like two lifeless pebbles on the shores of the Secana Sea.
A stunned silence descended over the room. Over the planet. Marcellus took a step forward, out of his corner, just to make sure he was seeing the image clearly.
Seconds passed that felt like hours. There was no movement. No breath. No life.
“We have confirmation,” the warden announced. “Citizen Rousseau is dead.”
There was a hesitant stillness in the room, as though everyone was afraid to move. Afraid to even release a single breath that might cause this fragile hope to vanish into the air.
Then, celebration.
The room erupted in applause. Chaumont cheered. The warden pumped his fist in the air. The Patriarche’s face transformed into an exuberant smile as he gave the warden a congratulatory pat on the back. Even the implanted circuitry in Rolland’s face seemed to flicker a little faster.
Laterre’s most dangerous enemy was finally gone.
And everyone was rejoicing.
Everyone except Marcellus.
Marcellus turned away from the monitor, trying to collect his chaotic thoughts.
She’s really dead. What did this mean? For his grandfather? For the Vangarde? For the planet?
He knew the Vangarde had recently tried to break Citizen Rousseau out of Bastille. They had been unsuccessful, but his grandfather had been certain they would try again. Citizen Rousseau was the Vangarde’s most powerful weapon. Their best hope at a resurgence. They knew it. He knew it. Even the Patriarche knew it.
And now she was gone.
Marcellus itched to get out of this room, ride to the Frets, and drop another message to the Vangarde. If they were planning a second escape attempt, they had to call it off immediately. They had to know she was dead.
Marcellus scanned the office, watching the exalted faces and triumphant smiles, wondering if he could possibly slip out unseen. It wasn’t until he’d circled back to the monitor—to the image of Citizen Rousseau on the screen—that he noticed there was someone else in the room not celebrating.
General Bonnefaçon stood centimètres away from the screen, staring at Citizen Rousseau’s unmoving body dressed in her flimsy blue prisoner uniform. His gaze was intense, focused, his expression completely unreadable.
Marcellus felt the burning urge to jump inside his grandfather’s head and watch all his thoughts on repeat like a looped broadcast.
What are you thinking?
What are you plotting?
How does this affect your plan?
The general’s gaze suddenly snapped toward Marcellus, as though he knew Marcellus had been staring at him. “Contact Bastille Central Command. Tell the droids to power up the disintegrateur and start preparing the body.”
“Me?” Marcellus asked warily, glancing around the office for the warden. But Warden Gallant had disappeared behind his desk, busying himself with something on his T
éléCom.
“Now, Marcellus,” his grandfather boomed.
Marcellus fumbled for his TéléCom, trying to keep the room from spinning at the thought of that word. “Disintegration.” Soon, Citizen Rousseau would be reduced to nothing more than fragments of ice to be shot off into space. Her name would fizzle out. Her memory would slowly be erased from the people’s minds. She would become like a distant dream, fading with each passing day.
“Officer Bonnefaçon to Bastille Central Command,” Marcellus spoke shakily into his TéléCom.
“Stop.”
Marcellus glanced up to see the Patriarche stalking toward him, his eyes fierce and determined. “No disintegration.”
Marcellus’s brow furrowed. “I-I’m not sure I understand.”
“I want her body brought back here,” the Patriarche said in a low growl. “I want her head on display in the center of the Marsh. I want the entire planet to see it. The threat she poses to the Regime isn’t over until the people see her dead.”
Marcellus swallowed. “Of course, Monsieur Patriarche. I will make arrangements for a voyageur to be dispatched and—”
“I would strongly advise against that,” the general warned.
The Patriarche glanced anxiously around the room, his nostrils flaring. He did not like being contradicted. Especially in front of people. “What was that, General?”
“I would strongly advise against bringing Rousseau’s body back to Laterre,” the general repeated, his voice unwavering. “In fact, I would advise against anyone outside this room being made aware of her death.”
The Patriarche let out a hoarse chuckle. “Oh, really? So you just want everyone on Laterre to go on thinking she’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
The Patriarche huffed indignantly. “That’s the most stupide idea I’ve ever heard!”
“It might behoove us to listen to what the general has to say,” Chaumont calmly advised his boss.
Between Burning Worlds Page 11