Justen jerked away. Enough was enough. “Per—”
She laughed again and splashed him. “What’s wrong, Galatean?” she asked loudly. Very loudly. “Am I moving too fast for you?”
Even over the sound of the surf, he heard snickers. He looked back to see a group of figures huddled on the steps near the entrance to the cove. As soon as they realized he’d spotted them, they turned and, laughing, scampered back up the steps.
“Who—” he asked under his breath as he watched them go, neck craned to peer over the lip of rock.
“Some children from the village,” Persis whispered, still on his lap. She sounded oddly breathless, as if the kiss had taken her as much by surprise as it had him. “Naturally they’re spying. But don’t worry, you put on a good show. This will help our case significantly.” He felt her slide off his lap and turned to face her, then gasped.
For Persis was floating in a sea full of stars. He watched in wonder as she twirled in place, then submerged herself entirely for a moment, only to burst out of the water, scattering sparkles off her skin and hair. She caught him staring openmouthed, and smiled broadly.
“Welcome,” she said, “to Scintillans Cove.”
“What is it?” he asked in wonder.
“What are they,” she corrected, lifting another palmful of starry water and letting it trickle back down her hands. “They are phosphorescent coral spawn, and they love the warmth here in the cove.”
Before he knew what he was doing, Justen had pushed off his perch and joined Persis in the water. The stars sparkled in the wake of his movements and he waved his arms and kicked his legs, just for the pure pleasure of watching galaxies wing out in the eddies. He dove and opened his eyes beneath the surface, ignoring the sting of salt to see the marine universe unfold all around. In the silence, he thought he might be in space. When he was young, he and Vania had discovered a book in the library that described outer space missions in ancient times, missions like the one that had kept all their ancestors safe during the wars. He’d wondered then what it had been like for those people to float alone among the stars while the world burned.
This was exactly what he’d imagined.
When his lungs could take no more, he surfaced, blinded by the seawater for a moment. He rubbed his eyes and found Persis floating calmly beside him, a few arm’s lengths away.
“Have you any place like this in Galatea?” She was on her back, staring up at the real stars appearing in the sky. They were surrounded. Stars above, stars below, and Persis, floating a few inches away, her arms and legs brushing against his in the water, sparkling everywhere they touched. Her hair flowed, pale and ghostly, in the water, the curves of her body like little shimmering islands peeking above the surface. Even after his swim, he could taste her in his mouth.
Somehow, he found his voice. “No, we don’t, and I grew up on the shore. I’ve heard of sea phosphorescence before but …”
“This cove is pretty special,” Persis said. “All Scintillans is.”
“Yes.” Seawater dripped onto his face. Was he swallowing stars? Or—coral spawn. He shouldn’t think this a miracle. He shouldn’t find it so impressive. A simple chemical reaction in the juvenile body of the … they sparkled and swirled in the water before him.
All right. Stars.
“And you’re right, I’m the heir.”
He blinked. Had he missed some part of the conversation while underwater? Then he remembered. They were talking about what it is he’d say he loved about Persis.
But that was before the stars. Before the kiss. He doubted he’d have to say anything now. Those kids on the steps would be convinced. Everyone would.
“Which is why,” she went on, still looking up, while the real stars flickered to life in the slice of sky they could see beyond the cliffs, “it’s important who I’m with. It’s important that he be someone I can trust, because if I marry—he’ll get it all.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
.....................................................................
Sixteen
FOR THE FIRST TIME since donning the mask that had defined her life for months, Persis found she didn’t resent the shallow, playful role she’d taken on. Here in the cove, with stars winking above the cliff top and weaving in and out of the knots in her hair, she could be the part of herself that wasn’t at odds with her faked persona. The part that entertained her mother with village chatter, who sailed her yacht in high winds and played with Slipstream on the shore. Justen had spent a day and a night fighting against the evils perpetuated by his fellow countrymen. He needed to relax. He needed laughter and splashing and … yes, even kisses. Who knew that better than a girl who’d spent months risking everything for the same purpose?
The kiss they’d shared had affected her more than she’d expected. It wasn’t her first kiss, or even the first time she’d kissed a boy for less than honest reasons. However, it might have been the first time she’d ever kissed someone who didn’t want her to.
Now that she knew how awful being on the receiving end of fake kisses felt, she never wanted to indulge in the practice again—though with her new duty as the object of Justen’s false affections, she doubted that was going to happen. She’d figured he’d enjoy it, what with him being a teenage boy and her being a pretty girl in a bathing suit. She’d thought he was enjoying it, and then, just as things had started getting interesting, he’d pushed her away.
And it had been here, in the star cove, where the greatest love story she knew had begun.
Two decades earlier, the young, idealistic heir to Scintillans had met his secret lover in this cove and told her that he didn’t care what it meant for his future in Albian society, that he didn’t even care if he was disowned by his parents or shunned by his king—he wouldn’t go another day without her by his side. Torin was rebellious and resolute, and Heloise was clever and charming, and theirs was a love story that won the hearts of the entire island.
Persis was the happily ever after of that story. It was her proud legacy and the cloud that hung over her head. She wondered how much longer her mother would remember the night Persis had been told about like a bedtime story all her life. The night her parents swam in the star cove and promised to defy every rule they knew. What if she fell in love like that, what if she married and had children and ended up as sick as her mother? She couldn’t do that to another family. Persis closed her eyes until she could breathe again. Love and duty, as the Blake family motto went.
For months now, the latter trumped the former.
“Are you saying that your future husband will be in charge here?” Justen asked, appalled.
“Yes, of course.”
“Of course?” Justen scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. You were born here. This land is yours.”
Well, if that wasn’t the least revolutionary thing she’d ever heard him say. “Well, lucky for me, I have no interest in such boring pursuits as land ownership. I’d be happy to let my future husband handle that sort of thing.”
“I find that hard to believe, Persis. I bet you won’t even let your future husband pick out his own clothes.”
She smiled in spite of herself. He had her there. “The laws of Albion require that a woman and her holdings are the property of her father, her husband, her brother, or her son. Women can’t inherit unless there’s no man in the picture at all.”
“Then if I were you,” Justen said, “I’d never marry at all. Stay single and control your land as you see fit.”
She laughed and splashed at him. “You wouldn’t condemn the villagers to a life of foolishness and fashion, would you?”
“No, but I doubt you would either. You love the people here too much. You can’t fool me, Lady Blake.”
That stopped her in her tracks. She had better fool him. She might be forgetting herself here in the star cove, but her mission was still all-important. Then again, maybe it was time to stop lying
to Justen. If he was working to help the refugees, he was halfway in the League already.
And what would he do if she did tell him? Would he even believe her? Would he fight by her side? Would he kiss her for real?
She cleared her throat. “It’s how things work in Albion, though. Men make the decisions. This is why Isla is only the princess regent, and her infant brother is the king. If Albie had never been born, they’d be pressuring Isla to marry as soon as possible, so the country could get a proper king.”
Justen snorted. “Some hereditary rule. You can take control of the country just by marrying the princess?”
“I suppose you prefer taking control of the country through a military coup, Citizen Helo?” she snapped.
Justen squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment. “No. That’s not what I meant.”
And Persis had not meant to turn to such a serious topic. That wasn’t how the flaky, shallow girl she pretended to be would act if she had brought a handsome young man down to the star cove. Even one she was just pretending to like for Isla’s sake. She mustn’t forget herself, no matter how many stars sparked against her skin, no matter what Justen had done today for the people the Poppy had rescued. This was a mission—same as any other. She was used to the role of Persis Flake. She needed to remember that the role of starry-eyed admirer of Justen Helo was just as false.
“I had wanted the queen removed from office,” he said quietly, returning to the ledge. “She was cruel to her subjects and unfair to the regs. Personally, I’d already argued with her more than a year ago about access to my grandmother’s research. She … patronized me. Acted like I was a child playing scientist instead of a student doing legitimate research. It was right of the people of Galatea to seek to remove her from power. I will not deny that. But—everything else. It wasn’t motivated by justice. It was something much darker.”
“Revenge,” Persis whispered, though she wasn’t sure if he heard. Revenge for all the cruelty and the dismissals and the wrongs done to an entire people.
“I wasn’t there when the queen was sentenced,” Justen said. “But I was there the night she died. I saw … what happened afterward.”
He was weighing his words carefully, Persis noted. And with good reason, for “what happened afterward” was that a mob had formed, and they’d taken their desire for revenge into their own hands, stealing the queen’s body and tossing it into her private cove to be devoured by her own mini-orcas.
He shook his head. “It got out of hand. All of it. No one deserves the punishment of Reduction. No one deserves to have their body desecrated as the queen’s was. This is not the world we’ve fought to create here on New Pacifica. This isn’t the life Persistence Helo wanted the regs to have.”
Persis ducked her head beneath the warm water then, as the only other option would have been to throw herself on him and kiss him again. Justen Helo was handsome and smart and was trying to be the hero his famous name required, but she had a job to do, too. He wouldn’t ever kiss her by choice. He didn’t even know who she was.
When she surfaced, he continued. “I thought, perhaps, it was all a terrible mistake. I didn’t think it would continue. I’ve been proved wrong again and again these last six months, but I never thought it would get as bad as what I saw in the sanitarium yesterday.” He ran his hands across his short, prickly hair, starlight flowing from his fingers and down his arms in streams.
Persis nodded. It’s what everyone thought. And everyone had been wrong. That’s why the Poppy had been born.
“I don’t know how we’ll ever recover from this. I don’t know how to make it better.”
She glided to his side on the bench. “There is only one way to recover from the evil humanity does to itself: overcome it. It’s like my mother said at dinner the other night. We can only be responsible for what we ourselves do. Bad things happen in this world, and we are judged on how we respond. Do we take part in evil, or do we fight against it with all we have?”
Justen made no response to that at all.
Emboldened by the darkness, Persis continued. “Bad things have happened everywhere, even at my beloved Scintillans. My ancestors kept Reduced as slaves. My ancestors were Reduced slaves. But now things are different. When my father had the chance, he worked to make the lives of the regs here whatever they wanted them to be.”
“Oh, and they want to be servants and fishermen?” Justen asked, skeptical.
“Not all of them, and not all of them are,” she replied. “Look at Tero. He’s a gengineer, though his father is our butler, Fredan.” She shrugged. “Regs like Tero have more choice than I do about what course they want to take in life.”
Justen’s eyes were so wide and round, Persis could make them out by starlight. “Andrine and Tero’s father is your butler? Andrine’s a friend of the princess and the daughter of a servant?”
For once, Persis did not have to pretend to be clueless. She was honestly baffled. “Who is the snob now, Justen Helo? Your grandmother was the daughter of Reduced slaves, and she invented the cure.”
“Yes, and fought almost every aristo on her island to do so.” Justen shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to such things being encouraged by aristos.”
“And I’m not used to men telling me I should lead my estate like an equal.” Well, except her father, that is. “Perhaps if more men took that approach with me, I wouldn’t be available to help you and Isla with your little romantic subterfuge.”
And that, Persis decided, was as honest as she could risk being with Justen Helo. She cast him a furtive glance, but if he was at all affected by her words, he didn’t show it. And why should he? If there was anything she understood about the revolutionary she’d invited into her home, it was that he was impervious to Persis’s infamous charm. He was too smart to be seduced by her stupidity, too industrious to be impressed by her idleness.
She wondered if he’d feel differently about the girl who was the Wild Poppy. Then again, he didn’t even know the Wild Poppy was a girl. Everyone, from this equality-minded Galatean to the most sexist aristo in Albion, thought the spy was a man.
“What would you be doing right now, if you weren’t helping Isla and me?” Justen asked her, rousing her from her thoughts.
What an apt question. Persis smiled. Planning more raids to his homeland, mostly.
“I mean, would you be looking for a real husband?”
Her mouth snapped shut. Oh, of course. Because the Persis she’d presented to him could do nothing more useful than find a husband.
He pressed on. “Did you have anyone in mind? Have you broken any hearts at court?”
She laughed aloud as an image of her confessing the truth to an incredulous Justen reared up in her head. She could tell him right now what she really did with her time, and he’d never believe her. Not a girl in a bikini in the star cove. Not the spoiled, stupid aristo she’d convinced him she was. Persis tossed a lock of wet hair behind her shoulder. “I’ve broken a dozen hearts this week. Don’t you know? I’m Persis Blake.”
He chuckled softly. “Fair enough. You know, we made a list of why I might have fallen for you, but we didn’t figure out what it is you see in me.”
“You’re Justen Helo. A man with a famous name. Wherever you go, people are impressed. That’s enough.”
“So that’s what you look for in a man?” Justen asked. “Fame?”
Sure. Fame would do for Persis Flake. “You’re easy on the eyes, too.”
“I’m not as beautiful as you.”
“Another bonus, as far as I’m concerned,” she replied, letting the compliment roll off her like so much star-studded water. She waved her hand at him. “Your fashion sense we can fix.”
“That can’t be all you care about, especially if you’re giving him your home. Especially if …” He trailed off.
Especially if she was going to Darken. Well, there was an argument for getting tested. If she had a reg brain, she would Darken like her mother, which meant she had a
vastly compressed timeline to get married and start a family. That was, if any aristo would risk reproducing with someone, even an aristo heiress, coded for DAR.
And there, also, was an argument not to get tested. If she was going to die and leave Scintillans to a stranger, better that it be someone she considered long and hard, rather than whatever young man just happened along first.
And if you spent any time at all working in a sanitarium, as Justen had, you already knew every side of the debate about getting tested for DAR. Some wanted to know so they could plan accordingly. Some didn’t, so they could live their lives without the specter of death.
“Persis,” he murmured, and it felt like a hug. “I just meant … with your parents’ example, you shouldn’t sell yourself short. You should marry someone who can be a true partner.”
The two sides of Persis Blake warred within her. It had been a long time since she’d considered—truly considered—what she wanted in a romantic partner, in the husband she would one day have to have. Isla could make as many jokes as she wanted about Persis’s dream boy, but the reality was much harder to pin down. Someone as clever as she was. Someone who cared as much as she did. Someone who saw the real her and loved her because of it, not in spite of it, the way everyone—even her parents, even Isla—did. It’s what she wanted, but it was impossible.
“When I marry,” she said at last, “it will not be a love story like my parents had. I relinquished any fantasy of that long ago.” Love was magma, shooting from the Earth. It had the potential to form pillars of rock that would last for a thousand years or plumes of ash that choked the sky. She would never love like her father, never let herself be loved like her mother. She would never suffer what her parents were suffering now. “Do not concern yourself, therefore, in pretending to be my perfect man. Your focus should be on the refugees now. They’re the ones in real need.”
This was, Persis decided, reason enough not to burden him with revelations about her true identity and the fact that she’d just put his sister into a rather precarious position. Though Persis knew that Remy was capable of the tasks they’d set before her, Justen seemed to consider his sister little more than a child.
Across a Star-Swept Sea Page 17