IT WAS THE STRANGEST SHIP Chatine had ever seen. With its stubby wings, discolored paneling, and glowing bulbous cockpit, it looked like a giant fly perched hungrily over a plate of food.
This was no sleek Ministère ship shimmering in the starlight.
This was something else.
And it was about to take off.
Lights along the underbelly glowed, and Chatine squinted through the darkness to see several figures darting around an open hatch on the side of the ship. Three of them looked like prisoners—dressed in Bastille blue with long hair—while the others wore all black, their faces concealed beneath dark hats. They were carrying what appeared to be a stretcher up the loading ramp toward the open hatch.
“Come on!” Roche cried, already on the run. “We have to get on that ship!”
Chatine raced after him. Her heart was pounding. But not from the running. Chatine couldn’t shake the sensation that something was very wrong. Apart from the hovering ship, this rooftop was empty. Too empty. She thought back to Marcellus’s message, sent to her through the droid. He had told her to leave the Trésor tower. He had said her life was in danger.
But why?
They were halfway across the roof when the air started to shift. The wind picked up and shimmering moon dust swirled violently around them, like a sudden storm come to life. The breath caught in Chatine’s throat. She remembered that storm. She remembered that wind. The way it whipped and battered her like an invisible assailant.
She looked up at Roche just in time to see him disappear into a cloud of amber-colored dust.
“Ro—” she tried to cry out to him, but the word was swallowed up by a sound that Chatine swore she would remember for the rest of her life.
BOOOOOMMM!
The ground shook. Her vision exploded in a tempest of blazing light. All around her, the world was on fire. She glanced up into the dark Bastille sky just in time to see them soaring amid the stars. Ships she knew all too well. Wielding a destructive power that would forever haunt her memories.
Combatteurs.
And suddenly, everything about Marcellus’s warning message made sense. The Ministère was here. They knew about the breakout. And they were retaliating.
“ROCHE!” she screamed again, barreling forward, tripping over her own desperate feet. The ringing in her ears was so loud, she could barely hear her own voice shouting, “FASTER!”
But a second explosion drowned out the word.
BOOOOOMMM!
The explosif hit the far side of the tower, and up ahead, Chatine saw the lights from the strange ship shudder and flicker.
Oh Sols, no. Please don’t let it be hit.
The third explosif came not a second later. The ground shook and Chatine was thrown forward. She heard a long guttural scream, and every molecule of air in her body felt like it was being sucked out of her.
Roche?!
She searched the surrounding area, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. The smoke and dust were too thick. Her eyes burned. She tried to push herself back to her feet, but that’s when she heard the scream again. It was coming from her. A pain so fierce and hot was ripping through her leg with the force of a thousand paralyzeur pulses.
“Chatine!” Roche’s voice broke through the smoke and the ringing in her ears. Suddenly he was there, next to her, helping her back to her feet. The shirt of his uniform was ripped almost clean off. His face was covered in ash. But he was alive.
The ground, however, was crumbling beneath them.
Roche grabbed Chatine by the hand and they surged forward. Chatine’s left leg screamed in agony, but she didn’t dare look down for fear of what she might find there. With every thundering step of their feet, the rooftop seemed to dissolve further into nothing.
Coughing and fighting to see through the nearly impenetrable wall of smoke and debris, Chatine could just make out the black-clad figures loading the stretcher into the open door of the ship.
“Cargo aboard!” a voice called out. “Close the hatch. Prepare for liftoff.”
“Watch out!” someone else shouted.
BOOOOOMMM!
Another explosif hit the roof. The ship juddered. Debris erupted like upside down rain. A huge object came flying toward Chatine. She ducked as it disappeared into the thick smoke.
Then, to her horror, the ship’s loading ramp began to retract.
“It’s leaving!” Roche screamed, and they sprinted faster toward the ship. But a few seconds later, Chatine’s foot caught on something and she went down again, landing painfully on her injured knee. She bit back a horrendous scream that bubbled up in her throat. But then, as she looked down to see what she had tripped over, she suddenly understood what she had ducked only moments ago. And the scream finally broke free.
It was a body.
A very dead body.
And there was something familiar about her face.…
Another streak of fire tore across the sky, and the world around her exploded in a dizzying blaze of light.
“Chatine!” Roche cried again from somewhere in the chaos. Chatine scrambled back to her feet. Her outstretched hand found Roche’s, and they raced toward the hatch of the ship, which was now just a shrinking patch of light in the smoke.
And it was slowly rising.
The door was closing, and the ship was taking off.
They charged forward and pulled to a halt directly below the rising craft. Thinking fast, Chatine positioned herself behind Roche and locked her grip into a makeshift step. “I’m going to hoist you up!” she shouted over the noise, the whipping wind and blazing fires. “Once you’re on, you can reach down and pull me in.”
He nodded and tucked one foot into her hands. Chatine peered up at the ascending ship. Bracing against the pain in her leg, she prepared to thrust Roche upward.
“Ready? One, two …”
But she never got to three. Because the moment her gaze traveled back down to Roche and her eyes landed on his bare left shoulder, her whole body—legs, arms, heart, lungs, everything—froze.
For a full second, the world became silent.
And still.
And infinite.
A vacuum of time and space.
Until all that was left was Chatine and a small raindrop-shaped birthmark on the back of Roche’s shoulder.
His birthmark.
His shoulder.
Her mind emptied, apart from one endlessly looping thought:
It’s impossible.
It’s impossible.
It’s—
“Chatine!” Roche was screaming at her. She blinked and focused back on his face.
His face?
It’s impossible.
“The ship!”
Chatine shook herself out of her trance and looked up. The small patch of light had picked up speed. The ship was now a few mètres above their heads. It was rising too fast. They weren’t going to make it.
No, Chatine thought with a ferocious determination that stemmed from the deepest parts of her subconscious.
I’m not going to make it.
“Go!” she shouted. Then, with all the strength she could muster, she launched Roche into the air.
BOOOOOMMM!
Another explosif fell from the sky and imploded in a fiery cloud that sent Chatine flying backward. It seemed to take forever for her to land, but once she did, the pain in her left leg reverberated even louder than the blast. She swallowed down a scream as her gaze shot upward, back toward the Vangarde ship. Her chest squeezed when she saw that Roche had gripped onto the frame of the rapidly closing door and was now dangling there as the ship continued its ascent into the sky.
Panic hurtled through Chatine as she helplessly watched Roche’s spindly legs swing back and forth, his hands struggling to gain purchase.
Please. She said one more final prayer to the Sols. The Sols that had always been invisible to her. That had always seemed too far away to do any good. But now, she felt they were closer than ever. They had heard her prayers. They had brought her little brother back to her. Even if just for a moment.
And evidently, they were still listening, because just then, a pair of hands reached out from the door of the ship and grabbed Roche by the shoulders. Chatine collapsed in relief as she watched his body disappear through the narrowing sliver of light, just before the door closed completely.
Only then did she dare look down at what was left of her leg.
Only then did she see how bad the wound really was.
And only then did she allow herself to pass out.