by Galaxy Craze
Thomas glanced at the stairway that led downstairs and kept his voice low, clearly concerned we might be overheard.
“Head west till you see the old station entrance,” he said. “Go down those stairs and then onto the tracks. Into the tunnel. It’ll be dark, but I’ll give you a candle. Keep walking west. You’ll find their camp soon enough. If they don’t find you first.”
“How do you know where they are?” Tanner asked.
“We were part of the resistance,” Thomas whispered back. “Until we lost our son. Now all we want is some peace and quiet.”
Tanner nodded. “Who’s their leader?”
“Guy named Silver,” Thomas replied. “He’s ex-military, used to be in charge of British Intelligence. But he was always, for whatever reason, at odds with the king, God rest his soul.”
My bread caught in my throat at the mention of my father. It came so unexpectedly.
“God rest his soul,” Tanner said, respectfully. I sensed him restraining himself from reaching for my hand.
I kept my eyes on my plate.
Tanner and I finished our tea and thanked Thomas and Libby for their hospitality. “Here,” Thomas said, handing Tanner his gun back. “If you’re going down there, you’re going to need this.” Then we bid them farewell.
It had never once occurred to them that I was Princess Eliza. I was both relieved by that, and a little sad. To them, I was just Polly McGregor, a girl trying to escape a dangerous situation. To Tanner, I was a princess trying to save her sister. But who was I really? Where was the real Eliza in the midst of all of that?
Still in our uniforms, Tanner and I followed Thomas’s instructions through the occupied city streets, to the old London Victoria station. We kept our heads up, walking briskly, as though we were real Ryker guards, even though my every instinct was to keep my head down and hide.
Finally, we reached the entrance to the Underground, the telltale red and white sign gleaming in the early morning light. We looked around quickly, making sure no one was watching before we ducked under the rope across it and hurried down the stairs.
It was pitch-dark in the abandoned station. Tanner held out the candle Thomas had given us, illuminating the old tracks, which were filled with trash and looked slick and damp.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Eliza?” he asked, and I nodded. If these rebels were planning some way to overthrow Demkoe, I wanted to help. I couldn’t just sit around, imagining what they were doing to Mary.
I held the candle as Tanner climbed slowly down to the empty tracks below. Then I followed, landing with a soft squelch. Tanner took my hand, and this time I didn’t push him away.
We walked west through the dark with careful, deliberate steps. The cold, damp air filled our lungs with each breath. In the distance I could hear water falling, hitting something metal. A family of black rats skittered across our path. But the scariest part of all was the darkness. Everything was dark—in front of us, behind us, above us. Darkness everywhere, except the tiny sphere of light from our feeble candle flame. Tanner guarded it protectively with his hand. Neither of us had to say that if he let it go out, we were doomed. We could wander around here blindly until we starved to death.
Nearly half an hour later, we were still walking.
“Are we sure we went the right way?” I finally asked Tanner.
“I’m sure of it,” he said. “We’re almost there, I have a feeling.”
I looked at him. In the dim glow of our candlelight it was difficult to see his face, but I sensed something different about him. A burst of energy, of excitement, that I hadn’t seen before. It occurred to me that after a decade trapped on Demkoe’s ship, Tanner was getting his first taste of freedom. Something in my heart broke at the fact that this was his freedom—walking around in the dark Underground, looking for rebels who may or may not exist.
“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” I said softly.
“Eliza, we’ve been over this. I want to destroy Demkoe as much as you do.”
I nodded. I had a sudden urge to hug him, to show him how grateful I was for all his support these few weeks, but I kept my hands by my sides. “Where in America did you grow up?” I asked, suddenly curious. Tanner knew all about my childhood, but I knew next to nothing about his.
The question surprised him. His face grew distant, as though he was trying to see something very far away.
“The Midwest,” he said.
“What was it like there?”
“Corn for miles,” he said with a smile. “And cows. We’d drink milk with every meal, have meat and potatoes for dinner. It was the kind of place where a stranger would strike up a conversation with you at the market that could last for an hour.”
“Sounds like paradise.”
That brought a laugh from him. “It wasn’t, believe me. But it was home.”
“You miss it,” I said.
Tanner nodded. “I miss the silliest things the most. Like buckeye candy. You probably don’t even know what that is.”
I shook my head.
“My mother used to make them.” Tanner got a dreamy look in his eye. “It’s made of peanut butter dipped in chocolate, named after the nuts that fall from buckeye trees. You’ve never tasted anything so perfect.”
“What’s peanut butter?” I asked, curious.
“You’ve never had peanut butter?” Tanner asked, as though I had confessed some terrible crime.
I shrugged, smiling. “I guess it’s an American thing?”
“Okay, once this is all over, I’m finding you some peanut butter,” he said firmly. “Even if I have to grow the peanuts and grind them up myself.”
Once this is all over. We hadn’t really talked about that before—what chance there was for a life after all of this, the invasion and Mary’s captivity. I decided to play along.
“Well, if you make peanut butter, I promise to make you some buckeyes,” I said, and found myself hoping it would come true. I imagined standing with Tanner over a stove, laughing and teasing each other as we created something from nothing. It was a nice image, even if it was just a fantasy.
The two of us allowed a few seconds of hopeful, nostalgic silence to settle over us as we continued walking. Then the tube tracks turned sharply to the left.
“I knew this was going too smoothly,” Tanner said.
We came to a wall of abandoned train cars, lined up side by side, blocking our way forward.
“It’s a barricade.” Tanner crouched down to look through the few inches of space between the ground and bottom of the train car. “I think we can squeeze through, but it’ll be tight.”
Tanner got down on his belly and started to crawl. His top half disappeared, and his voice came back to me muffled. “It’s safe,” he called back. “Come on.”
I got on the ground and belly-crawled behind him, scratching the skin of my hands and muddying my clothes. If only it had just been one car we had to slide beneath. But they just kept going—there must have been ten or twelve of them at least. I started to feel like I would never emerge, like I would be stuck here underneath train cars for the rest of my life.
But finally I caught sight of a light, and shuffled forward with a new burst of speed. Then I was sliding out from under the final barricade, right behind Tanner, wincing as I stood up on my tender joints once more. We were at the rebel camp.
It was like a secret underground city. Old train cars had been converted into homes, makeshift offices, and bunkers. Beds had been set up inside the cars, on the seats where, in another lifetime, people used to sit and read the paper on their way to work. Supply crates lined the tunnel walls, alongside piles of blankets, tarps, and extra clothing and shoes. Everything was lit by warm electric lights, a generator humming in a far corner. I couldn’t believe it. They had electricity down here?
In the center of the wide-open space was a cluster of train cars that was clearly the headquarters of the operation—like a town square, if this were a town. A
group of young men and women were crowded around it, their voices raised. When they saw us, two of them quickly came over, weapons at the ready.
“We’re unarmed,” Tanner said, though he did still have that gun hidden beneath his clothes. We both held our hands up, to show that we came in peace. I wished we’d been able to stop and change out of our army uniforms, but they had been too useful a disguise on the surface to get rid of.
“We aren’t spies,” I called out. “We come in peace, to join you.”
The crowd split down the middle, allowing us a better view inside the car they were surrounding. There was some kind of meeting going on. A group of men stood around a giant map littered with lines and pins. Unlike the ragtag-looking group surrounding the car, they appeared to have some degree of authority.
I locked eyes with the man standing before the map, knowing simply from his demeanor that he was the man in charge, and his expression lit up with recognition. He held up a hand, stopping another of the official-looking men mid-sentence, and stepped out of the train car.
“Princess Eliza,” he said.
He knew me. This must be Silver.
He was just a few years younger than my father, with a head full of astonishing silver hair—probably his namesake. For an older man, he was in incredible physical shape, tall and strong. Even through the thick canvas of his drab green military jacket, I could make out the tight cut of his chest and shoulders.
“Yes,” I said, nodding in greeting. “We’ve just escaped the palace. My sister, the queen, is still trapped inside. We have to rescue her. Please, we have to storm the palace!”
Silver stared through me for a few seconds before speaking. “So you think you can just walk in here and immediately start ordering everyone around. Is that right? You say storm the palace, and we all jump to follow your orders?”
Tanner stiffened at my side, but I held out a hand to stop him from doing anything rash.
“Well, Your Highness,” Silver continued, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the word. “That’s not how things work down here. I know you’ve probably never gone without special treatment before, without special allowances for your sense of entitlement. But here in the Tube, we’re all equals.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant,” I said. “I’m just worried about my sister. You don’t understand what he’s like—Demkoe, how horrible he is.”
“I don’t understand what he’s like?” Silver repeated my words, and I realized I’d made a mistake. “The common people are massacred every day, hundreds of innocent men and women dying at his hands, while you and your sisters are prisoners inside the palace. And we’re the ones who don’t understand what he’s like?” He paused, his eyes glittering angrily. “For once, Princess, try to think about someone besides yourself.”
I kept my eyes on Silver’s, refusing to back down, refusing to let him degrade me in front of the others. Never in my life had I been spoken to this way, not even by Cornelius Hollister. Not even by Demkoe himself. Silver was publicly shaming me in front of my own people, and I wouldn’t let them see me broken. I wasn’t the selfish girl he thought I was, and I would prove it.
“I hear there’s going to be a royal wedding,” one of the rebels called out. “Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.”
A few people in the crowd chuckled, but Silver quieted them. He turned to me. “Your motives may be skewed, but you have the right idea, Princess. We do, in fact, plan to storm the palace. In a matter of days. But we need something first. If you can provide it …”
“Anything,” Tanner said. “Name it.”
“We need dynamite,” Silver barked. His black marble eyes glistened. “Find some and bring it back to us. Consider this your test mission. To prove yourselves and your loyalty to our cause.”
Tanner’s face dropped. “But that’s impossible. How in the world are we supposed to do that? There hasn’t been any dynamite since the Seventeen Days, or any of the materials necessary to make some.”
“We accept your mission,” I called out, cutting off Tanner.
Silver raised his eyebrows.
The faces of the rebels changed. I’d surprised them with my willingness. Some of them whispered to one another, wondering if I was bluffing, perhaps placing bets if I could actually do it.
“We can’t make any promises,” I said. “But we’ll do our best.”
Tanner was looking at me in confusion. I knew what he was thinking: Eliza, why are you setting us up for defeat this way? I knew he thought I was making it worse, that they would mock us even more when we failed.
We wouldn’t fail.
“Well then.” Silver crossed his arms over his broad chest. “That’s the spirit. You’ll leave this evening, for safety. Until then, make yourselves at home. It’s no Buckingham Palace, but I trust you’ll manage.”
23
“Princess?” A girl who looked no older than fifteen approached me hesitantly. Her blonde hair was in a high ponytail—just the way Mary used to wear it, I remembered with a pang—and she had on ratty pants and a gray top. “I can show you to a car, if you want.”
“That would be lovely,” I said, trying to channel Mary’s poise.
The girl led us to an unoccupied train car, empty except for a few blankets. “It’s not much,” she said apologetically, but I cut her off.
“It’s perfect. Thank you,” I said, and she grinned.
“Are you hungry? You must be hungry.” She ran off before we could say anything else.
Tanner and I unfolded the blankets on the train car, making a sort of makeshift bed, then sat down. Moments later the girl returned, with a pitcher of water and a tray of sandwiches. A boy was with her, a few years younger than the girl maybe, but with the same bright blond hair.
“I’m Allison,” the girl said, setting the food on the table and watching us. “This is Chip. He’s my brother.”
Chip held out a cup of water. I gratefully accepted the cup from him, gulping it down, then reached for two sandwiches.
“Take as many as you want,” Allison urged, clearly seeing how hungry I was. “We have plenty.”
I reached back for the plate after Tanner had taken at least six of them, grabbing one more and biting into it. They were delicious.
Allison and Chip stood there watching us eat. They clearly wanted to say something but weren’t sure how to begin. I set down the sandwich I was holding. “How did you end up here?” I asked gently.
“Same as you, for the most part,” Chip said. “We couldn’t stay where we were.”
Tanner nodded and then Allison began speaking in a hushed tone. “I’m sorry about Silver,” she said. “But try to see our side of it. He’s good for us, even if he didn’t come off so well back there.”
“No explanation is needed,” I said to put her at ease. “From what Tanner and I saw of the city, it’s clear everyone has suffered a great deal. Silver is only being as tough as he needs to be under these circumstances. I’m glad he organized everyone, and is fighting back.”
Allison nodded. “We didn’t know what to think at first, when we saw you and the queen welcoming Demkoe Ryker. But then when we heard the queen’s fiancé was killed, that she had agreed to marry him …” She sniffed. “My brother and I were going to go to the wedding, the real one, I mean.” I imagined them there, waving British flags and cheering as Mary and Eoghan paraded through the streets. Now that would never happen.
“The Ryker guards formed a police force to help keep the peace,” Chip said, returning to the topic at hand. “They started to impose a curfew, regulate food, that kind of thing. We all began to recognize his true colors and fight back, but by then he and his police force had total control. They had the lay of the land.”
“Until Silver came along,” Tanner said.
“We know he can be hotheaded,” Allison qualified. “And he can be unpredictable. But until Silver stepped up to lead the rebellion, we were all just a bunch of kids screaming about how we weren�
��t happy with the way things were, with no idea how to fix it.”
“We need him. He’s the only one with the know-how to lead us out of this mess,” Chip added.
“Eliza and I understand that.” Tanner gently put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We all want the same thing, freedom.”
That brought a hopeful grin from both of them. Tanner had such a way with words, I thought. He always knew just what to say to put people at ease. It was one of his greatest gifts.
“Anyway, good luck on your mission,” Allison said, leading the way out. She paused at the door, suddenly shy again. “It’s an honor to meet you.” Then they stepped outside, closing the door behind them.
Tanner sat down on the seat next to me. “We should try to get a little bit of rest before heading out,” he said. “Neither of us slept much last night. Here, I’ll take the floor,” he offered, moving a blanket down to the floor of the old subway car. The seat was almost too narrow for one person to sleep on, let alone two.
“No!” I protested. “I mean, I’m going to sleep on the floor with you.”
We piled all the blankets together into a kind of makeshift sleeping bag, then snuggled together, my back curled up against Tanner’s chest. It’s just because I’m so cold, I told myself, but I knew better.
“Eliza,” he murmured, once I’d settled in. “This mission Silver’s given us. It’s a setup. You understand that, right?”
I didn’t answer.
“Silver wants us to fail,” Tanner continued. “I think it’s all just to make a point. To make us look silly in front of his rebels. Maybe he thinks it’ll boost morale. To have them rally against you, because in his mind you represent the old ways.”
“We’re not going to fail and we’re not going to look silly,” I said to the ceiling.
“Eliza. There can’t be a single stick of dynamite left in all of England. You know that as well as I do.”