TWENTY-THREE
THE GUN RESTED ON CADEMORE'S HIP, taunting him. Three paces forward. Knock over lamp to distract both guards. Single uppercut to Gifford’s jaw. Grab Cademore’s pistol. Daxton had rehearsed the attack a thousand times in the last hour alone. Five seconds, at the most, and he could free himself from this misery. One carefully aimed blast to his own leg and he’d be on his way to the blissful silence of the royal medical ward.
“And Theopoenne Fox, of course, will be singing as the prima donna,” Cerise droned on.
Though Daxton didn’t care much for theater, he preferred the topic to Cerise’s previous two-hour rant about the lack of lipstick available on the Atlas. The actress had learned of his house arrest from one of her spies over breakfast and had immediately barged into his room, eager to inflict her company upon him now that he couldn’t escape.
“They asked me to make an appearance tonight, but I didn’t want to take the attention away from poor Ms. Fox. She may not have many years left in the spotlight with such appealing younger talent available.” Cerise gave him a look of glee, as if the thought gave her joy. “She doesn’t even try to hide the wrinkles on her face anymore, poor wretched thing. Can you even imagine me, Cerise Rienne, sharing the stage with such an old crow?”
A holomirror emerged from Cerise’s massive purse, and her painted nails pressed against the faint lines growing from the corners of her mouth. The reflection pleased her enough, and she returned the device to the bag, twirling her pink hair suggestively over her generous cleavage.
Daxton looked toward the gun again.
Two paces. He could make it in two.
“Tomasz! Are you even listening?”
“Mmm,” was his reply.
“I asked what you intend to wear tonight. Not those ghastly casual things you favor. It’s a production of The Beggar Prince all the way from New London, and I’m not letting you go in rags.”
“Wouldn’t that just fit the theme of the play?”
Cerise pursed her lips. “Don’t confuse sarcasm with wit.”
A sudden realization dawned on him and he felt nearly dizzy with relief. “Actually, I can’t go. House arrest, remember?” He sighed dramatically. “I suppose you’ll have to take another lucky date while I stay here and enjoy the silence. Alone. By myself. Without you.”
Cademore coughed into a gloved hand. “Actually—”
Daxton’s head snapped toward the lieutenant. “Don’t,” he begged the guard. “I’ll give you anything you want—”
“—Advisor Doyle said—”
“I order you to shut your face.”
“—that the opera is an approved diplomatic event. You’re allowed to attend.”
Muck.
Cerise’s eyes widened in delight and she threw her arms around Daxton, who glowered at the lieutenant over her shoulder. “How wonderful!” she exclaimed, kissing him on the cheek. “Now you get to spend the entire evening right by my side.”
One pace. Surely he was fast enough—and desperate enough—to make it to the gun in one pace. It would be better than a night trapped in a theater box with the starlet, her claws sinking further and further into his life. He eyed the pistol again, debating whether or not he would have enough time to shoot his own leg and Cademore’s foot before the draadharts arrived to whisk him away.
He would make time.
Across the room, the closet door flew open, vomiting outfits onto the bed as Cerise searched through his clothes.
“A tuxedo, naturally, but which one?” she muttered. “Ah! Here we are.” She held up a garment bag as though she were accepting one of her golden statuette awards. “It’s tailored in the vintage style, so it will match my dress perfectly.”
“Fantastic,” growled Daxton.
Her ruby lips pressed together in a thin line. Though the studios in London paid fortunes to film her signature pout, he found it extremely unappealing. Because I know the true Cerise, he reminded himself. What would the trendmag headlines say if they understood how truly wretched the girl was?
“Tomasz,” she said, stressing each syllable as she inclined her head toward the lieutenants, “do not mock me in front of our guests.”
It took every ounce of his self-control not to shout his response. “They aren’t guests, Cerise. They’re guards.”
The corners of Cademore’s mouth quirked into the phantom of a smirk, and her eyes held a spark of amusement. She was laughing at him. Gifford seemed pleasant enough, and Daxton certainly didn’t think the lanky man deserved to lose his job, but any guilt over Cademore becoming unemployed was quickly waning with each of her smug looks. Shooting her in the foot was too good a punishment. He intended to devote his evening thinking of something infinitely more creative.
His HDP pinged from the bedside table and he turned, grateful for the distraction. Sav’s message scrolled on and on, and it took Daxton a moment to digest the words. The plan was bold—crazy even—but the team seemed optimistic. Daxton wasn’t so sure; too much of the plan seemed to rely on chance and good luck, not enough on skill and solid reconnaissance. I should be out there instead of getting primped like a bloody peacock. However, if the others would be at the opera tonight, he would, too; he couldn’t stay behind closed doors while they risked everything.
“I’ll go,” he surrendered.
“Of course you will,” Cerise said a little too sweetly as she selected a pair of dress shoes to match the tuxedo, “because I wish it.”
Daxton felt his muscles tightening as he fought back the urge to storm out. This—her selfish sense of entitlement—would punctuate the rest of his life. He had to stop Chen Yao and prevent war between the nations, but in the meantime he was resigning himself to another kind of war: a lifetime of tense battles and microaggressions behind closed doors. The weight of it made his lungs feel heavy, as though he would never take a full, deep breath of free air ever again. “Don’t forget I’m still the prince, and you are not my fiancé,” he said quietly.
“Not yet,” Cerise admitted with a cheerful tone, “but soon.” She looked back to the closet. “I suppose I’ll have to choose your clothes for the ball as well.”
Her excitement at the idea was palpable. Gifford’s face showed signs of sympathy, and Daxton found himself envying the lieutenant. At least the man could marry whomever he wanted without fear of unleashing a scandal across the First World Union. But if the planet knew what the prince had done...
He pushed the memory of Liam’s blood-covered face, his eyes frozen in a look of agony, from his mind. Even now, the portrait hanging over the fireplace, the image of his brother’s easy smile and squared shoulders, haunted Daxton. Now wasn’t the time to lose focus, not when Sav, Blitz, Jasmeen, and Tesla were about to put their freedom on the line. Just more lives you’re tearing apart, a small voice nagged from the corners of his mind. Just like Freiter.
He’d checked the station’s hospital manifests and security reports every few hours since his arrival, but there had been no sign of his missing friend. Daxton feared the worst. Though he hadn’t argued it at the time, his uncle’s suggestion that Freiter was relaxing at a Red District brothel was preposterous. Daxton knew he preferred finding his latest fling at elite events, and the biggest event in the world was happening right here on the Atlas. Even if Freiter’s message hadn’t specified meeting on the station, his lust for luxury would surely draw him to the Centennial of the Crown.
“We’ll have to leave in time to walk the carpet,” Cerise instructed the lieutenants. “It’s the most important part of the evening. Curtains rise at nine o’clock, so make sure His Highness is ready several hours before.”
Gifford started to protest in the prince’s defense, but Cademore nodded curtly. “Certainly,” she agreed.
Daxton glared at the lieutenant’s leg. Her knee was a small target, but he could make it work.
Cerise looked at the prince, expecting him to fight the change in plans, but Daxton merely shrugged. He couldn’t help the team break int
o the commander’s office, but his night didn’t have to be a total waste. Most, if not all of the diplomats and distinguished guests would be in attendance, including Chen Yao. Daxton could use his vantage point in the royal theater box to keep an eye on the man. Useful after all. The thought steeled his determination, and he smiled.
Cerise mistook his expression for something more, sidling up against him and tracing a line against his jaw. “See? I knew you’d come around.” She stood on her toes, bringing her lips next to his hairline. “If you let me, I can make you very, very happy,” she purred.
Daxton jumped as her fingers explored the front of his pants, his face already flushing from the unexpected contact. He quickly brushed her hands away.
There was the pout again, and his teeth gnashed together once more. He feared his jaw would lock up by the end of the night if this kept up.
Cerise fumed, embarrassed at his rejection. She pushed him backward and crossed the room, snatching her purse from the seat of the armchair. “Tomasz LaRose,” she spat, raising a dagger-like nail in his direction, “you are going to escort me tonight, no matter how much the idea may make you sick. You’ll smile, wave at the trendmag reporters, and tell everyone how in love we are. Because if you don’t, I may just get upset. And when I’m upset, I tend to do a lot of talking, especially to the owner of the Inquiring Star—”
“I will never love you.”
Cerise recoiled. “You don’t know that.”
“Look,” Daxton conceded, his voice weary. “You’ve won. I will go tonight. You can make me dance, and sing, and whatever else will keep you quiet. And yes, if that means I have to marry you, then that’s the grave my mistakes have dug for me. You’ll have rooms in the palace, servants to answer your every whim, and one day you’ll even have a queen’s crown. But you can’t command my heart. That much, at least, belongs only to me.”
Her slender fingers tightened around the handle of her bag, and the creases of her knuckles turned white from the strain. She stormed to the door, yanking it open with a sharp crack loud enough to thunder down the hall. “I will break you, Tomasz,” she spat, her eyes narrowing to murderous slits, “or I will destroy everything you hold dear.”
TWENTY-FOUR
VELVET CURTAINS ROSE TO THE CEILING in towering pillars of red and gold. The theater wings were a bustle of bodies in fabrics, magnificent set pieces, and singers hurrying to make their marks before the stage manager called for places. In the madness of the opera’s pre-show, no one noticed several spare costumes go missing.
Beside Tesla, Sav spoke softly, his words muffled behind the cloak obscuring his features. “Ten minutes until curtain, and then we make our way to the upper catwalk.”
The rest of the group acknowledged the instructions with curt nods. They’d studied the schematics of the theater for the past four hours, until the small blue lines seemed to blur on the screen of Blitz’s HDP. It had only taken the tech expert a matter of seconds to hack the systems, downloading every file from the Atlas’ mainframe that so much as briefly mentioned the opera hall. Tesla didn’t want to admit her jealousy at how quickly he’d accomplished something which would have taken her months.
Jasmeen, wearing a long black robe and a partial bird-like mask, pressed deeper into the shadows as straggling crew members ran past their hiding place outside the makeup room. A quiet, pitch-perfect melody rang out from just behind a red curtain toward the front of the stage—Theopoenne Fox preparing her vocals. It would only be a matter of seconds now before the show began.
A mechanical noise filled the air. Above her, Tesla watched as the gears of the curtain pulleys ground against one another, raising the grand drape. She leaned out from behind Blitz’s gilded serpentine mask and watched as hundreds of richies came into view, each face waiting with bated breath. Daxton was out there, she knew, in a private balcony box toward stage right.
“Show time,” whispered Jasmeen.
Blitz took the lead, winding his way behind a stack of prop tables to a narrow door at the center of the backstage area. He plugged a small device into the door’s digital display, which beeped a pattern of tones, and grinned when a light on the door’s lock turned green. “Gotta love technology. Your turn, Meen.”
They slipped through the doorway—Jasmeen now running in the lead—climbed a winding staircase three flights, and exited out onto a small grated landing. The crowd below shimmered in a sea of tuxedos and glittering ball gowns. Theopoenne Fox began a slow, somber number to the polite applause of the crowd. Tesla watched the singer run to the arms of a smartly dressed man—the Beggar Prince, she guessed, having read the show’s synopsis earlier. Something about the prima donna’s warm vibrato sounded familiar, like the blurry shadows of a dream just after waking, though Tesla couldn’t remember having ever watched an opera in her life.
“Catwalk guard in three... two... one,” Jasmeen counted. The hooked beak of her mask lowered as she crouched in preparation. As expected, a guard rounded the corner, his eyes widening at the sight of three grotesquely clothed creatures in his path. It was over before Tesla could blink—a small dose of a sleeping injection, mixed by Sav, which was administered to the guard’s neck through a combination of lightning motions and a transparent adhesive patch. Jasmeen set him down gently, concealing his body behind a pile of old lighting equipment.
Tesla gawked, stunned at how quickly the guard had been rendered immobile. She barely registered Sav’s words as he relayed the plan’s next task.
“Tesla?” Blitz asked, concern showing from behind holes located just above his fox-faced snout. “You okay?”
She nodded, then looked back to the guard. “I didn’t think to ask earlier, but he’ll be alright, won’t he?”
Blitz smiled and patted her arm. “Just a killer headache and one heck of a story to tell his friends. But we have to move now with the others.” He took her hand, gently pulling her forward toward a perpendicular platform where Sav and Jasmeen waited, the latter visibly annoyed by the delay.
“We need to stay together,” she said.
Tesla dropped her sweaty hand from Blitz’s, wiping it against her heavy wool costume. “Sorry.”
Sav eyed his wristcomm, taking note of the scene unfurling below on the stage. “If Blitz’s information is correct—”
“Hey,” Blitz whined. “Don’t question the master.”
Jasmeen rolled her eyes. “After what happened at Cape Town, can you really blame us for second-guessing your ability to read schematics?”
“What happened at Cape Town?” Tesla asked.
Blitz procured a set of digital binoculars from the folds of his costume, scanning the expansive catwalks for any signs of unexpected company. “I may have misunderstood a section of the shipyard’s layout,” he mumbled.
“Our informant gave us a detailed map of an assembly-line factory, but her handwriting wasn’t the most legible. Blitz insisted the map said cogs,” Sav explained with a small laugh. “Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves in the midst of a pack of hungry canine attackers instead of discarded engine parts.” He chuckled again, louder this time. “I’d forgotten about that job.”
“Well, I haven’t,” Jasmeen mused. “And neither has the scar on my backside.”
Tesla started to laugh along with the others, until Jasmeen silenced them all with a lethal glare.
Blitz pointed at a spot on the balcony. “Daxton at our two o’clock.” He connected the feed from his binoculars to the auxiliary input on his HDP. Instantly, the larger screen filled with an image of the prince, immaculately dressed in a tailored tuxedo, his back resting against the expensive red velvet seats of his private box. Tesla tried not to focus on Cerise beaming by his side as she clutched his arm. Daxton’s free hand drifted below his seat, and a tiny beam of green light pulsed once, then again.
“He sees us,” Blitz confirmed.
“Good. Do you spot Yao anywhere?”
Blitz moved the binoculars down each row of the diplomatic s
eats. “No sign of him. What if he didn’t come?”
“There!” said Tesla, moving Blitz’s hands forward an inch to reveal the ambassador sitting next to a beautiful woman dressed in a ballgown cut in the latest Neo-American fashion. Yao inclined his head toward his date, his lips brushing against her temple, and the woman fluttered her lashes from behind a mechanical opera fan.
“Predictable,” muttered Jasmeen bitterly as she watched the two exchange a kiss. “I knew he was a scoundrel.”
Tesla peered at the HDP screen. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”
“I studied his file. He has a lovely wife and three perfect children.”
“So?” prompted Tesla, still not understanding.
Jasmeen pointed at the woman. “So, that is not his wife. It’s Yvonne Archwater, his mistress.”
“Ah.”
“How can he be so bold about it?” Jasmeen said with a shake of her head. “It’s so disrespectful to his wife. And why would anyone willingly be with a married man like that?”
“Money, power, position, benefits,” Blitz counted on his fingers.
“Good sex?” Sav offered.
Jasmeen punched him in the arm. “You’re disgusting.”
They made themselves comfortable, waiting for their cue while the opera unfolded below. Tesla spotted the Grand Imperator and Imperatoress in their own lux boxes, flanked on either side by a dozen or so guards. Beside them, Commander Grey leaned over every few moments to whisper into the Grand Imperator’s ear. The sight of the man made Tesla’s muscles tense. The hackchip she’d used to download the files of her father’s trial felt like a stone in the pocket of her cloak.
Theopoenne Fox began a slow, haunting melody, turning to the audience as the chorus echoed the tune. Tesla craned her neck over the railing to watch the singer step to the front of the stage. She stared, transfixed, as the woman lifted her voice, and for a moment, it felt almost as if the theater lay empty save for the two of them.
The same gossamer memories tugged at the back of Tesla’s mind as the lyrics began:
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