“GABRIEL!” CERISE WAS ALREADY UNBUCKLING her restraints and jumping to her feet before Alouette had even finished processing the empty seat next to them.
They left him behind?
No. They couldn’t have. Her mind scrambled to piece together the pandemonium of the last five minutes. She’d seen him on the tarmac when they were running to the ship. She swore she had. He had been right next to her. But had she actually seen him board the ship?
Her stomach seized.
It had been too chaotic. First the aerodrones, then Dr. Collins getting shot, then the guards firing at them. It had been impossible to make sense of anything. She’d been so focused on getting to the ship, getting on the ship and getting as far away from that planet as possible, she hadn’t even noticed Gabriel was …
The breath hitched in her chest.
They left him behind.
She heard voices around the ship, calling his name. Searching for him. “Gabriel?”
Hands trembling, Alouette fumbled with the buckle of her restraints until the latch popped open. She set Dr. Collins’s canister down on the seat, and then she was running. Darting from room to room. The galley. The sleeping couchettes. The—
“Oh my Sols, Gabriel!” Cerise’s voice howled from the cargo hold.
Alouette hammered down the steps, but her feet skidded to a halt as she took in the scene in front of her, her mind struggling to make sense of it.
Blood. So much blood. Rivers of blood. Leading to …
A body. Lying on its side. Curled in on itself, as though trying—and failing—to keep all that blood inside. Cerise was already on the ground, assessing the situation, her hands and clothes stained red.
“He’s been shot!” she cried. “I didn’t even know. He just kept running. But he …” her voice trailed off as shudders overtook her. Tears swallowed her words. Gabriel’s body started to tremble.
A cacophony of voices clamored for attention in Alouette’s head.
“Stay calm. Panic will only cloud your judgment—”
“Staunch the flow—”
“You are strong, Little Lark—”
“Apply pressure—”
“You are ready, Alouette—”
It was the sisters. They were all speaking to her at once. She clutched her temples in an attempt to drown them all out and focus only on what was important right now.
Sister Laurel. Her wellness lessons. Alouette had never learned how to deal with a situation like this. They didn’t have cluster bullets on Laterre. But the principles of any open wound had to be the same, right? Yes, it was just like when she’d helped Marcellus in the Frets that day they’d met. She needed to stop the bleeding.
Snapping out of her trance, she lunged toward Gabriel and fell to her knees beside him. She ran her fingers up and down the length of his back. The skin was intact. Which meant the cluster bullet was still inside of him.
“We need to flip him over so I can see the wound.” Alouette was surprised by the calmness of her own voice. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest, but her thoughts were clear and focused.
Cerise scooted back, making room, and together the two managed to gently roll Gabriel onto his back. Cerise let out a gasp that echoed the horror flashing through Alouette’s mind. In the center of Gabriel’s stomach, just below his rib cage, was a jagged, open gash, roughly the size of Alouette’s thumb.
Blood was still spilling out of it, soaking his clothes and the floor. Alouette pressed down, trying to cover it with her hands. But it wasn’t enough pressure. She needed more weight. Rocking back into her heels, she rearranged herself so that she could press one knee into Gabriel’s abdomen. He groaned in response, his eyelids fluttering.
“Are you sure you should be doing that?” Cerise looked on, aghast.
“Yes.”
Just then, Marcellus barreled down the stairs and stopped when he saw the carnage. His eyes grew wide. “W-w-what happened?”
“He’s been shot,” Alouette said matter-of-factly. “He’s losing a lot of blood. There’s probably a med kit in the infirmerie. Can you go look?”
Marcellus nodded numbly and disappeared back up the steps.
Gabriel let out a soft moan, drifting in and out of consciousness. Cerise started to sob into her hands.
Marcellus returned less than two minutes later, carrying a small leather box which he handed to Alouette. “Bad news,” he said breathlessly. “The scans in the flight bridge are showing three warships within range.”
Cerise instantly stopped crying. “The Albion Royal Space Fleet?”
Marcellus nodded. “Lady Alexander must have alerted them. If we don’t do something to conceal ourselves, we’re going to be surrounded by micro-fighters before we’re ever able to accelerate to supervoyage.”
“Fric! Fric! Fric!” Cerise swore.
Keeping her knee pressed firmly on the wound, Alouette tore open the med kit and riffled around. The supplies were slim, but she found some gauze, which she immediately pushed onto Gabriel’s wound.
“Can you do something?” Marcellus asked Cerise.
Cerise looked up at him, her tearstained face splotchy and hopeless. “What can I possibly do? They’ve already overridden my cloaking code. I don’t know what else to—”
“What about the moons?” Alouette said, peering up from her position beside Gabriel. “What’s the closest one to the ship?”
“What?” Cerise asked, confused, but then a second later, her eyes lit up with comprehension. “A moon is big enough to shield us from their scans!” She wiped her cheeks, looking relieved to have something else to do besides stand there and watch Gabriel bleed. “I’m on it!” she called, bounding back up the steps to the bridge.
Alouette pressed more gauze into Gabriel’s stomach. He moaned and murmured something unintelligible.
“Shhh,” Alouette told him. “Be still. Don’t try to talk.”
She brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. It was tangled and damp with sweat, but in that moment, he looked just like the young boy she remembered from the inn. Vague and disjointed visions of him flickered through her mind: Gabriel smiling at her from behind a bubbling pot of stew. Gabriel offering to carry one of her heavy pails from the boglands. Gabriel snatching a scrap of bread from the table while Madame Renard’s back was turned.
“Is he going to be okay?” Marcellus asked in a shattered whisper.
But Alouette didn’t respond right away. The hastily made dressing on Gabriel’s wound was already soaking through. She pulled more gauze out of the med kit and pressed it down.
“Cluster bullets are very lethal,” she said evenly. “Once inside the body, they disintegrate and shoot off tiny pieces of shrapnel in all directions, ripping holes in delicate organs, veins, and lungs.” She fought to keep her voice from breaking. She fought to channel Sister Laurel, who would not cry nor break down in the face of an injury like this. Because she knew it would hinder her ability to do her job. She had to stay calm. In control. Even though she felt like she had a cluster bullet lodged inside of her, too.
“How do you know this?” Marcellus asked.
“From the Chronicles. There was an entire volume about Albion. It was never my favorite because I always thought, When would I ever need to know this?” Alouette let out a breath. “If only I knew.”
“Can you help him?” Marcellus asked, his eyes glassy.
“He needs surgery,” she said quietly. “If the shrapnel is not removed with the right equipment, it will eventually become infected and will poison Gabriel from the inside.”
Marcellus stood there, speechless and terrified. In his eyes, Alouette saw the desperation. The pleading. Please, fix this. Find a way to fix this. “Where are we going to get this equipment? We can’t take him to a med center. He’s wanted by the Ministère.”
Alouette darted her eyes back to Gabriel’s face. It was wan and drawn, as if every gramme of blood had seeped away.
She inhaled a long breath. “The Refuge. I can take him there while you and Cerise get the inhibitor into the water treatment centers.”
“But the Vangarde are …” Marcellus’s voice trailed off, and his gaze dropped to the ground, as though he was afraid to continue, as though he felt the need to protect Alouette from any reminder of the truth. But Alouette no longer needed protecting.
“I know,” she said quietly, gazing up at Marcellus. “The Vangarde are gone. The Refuge is empty.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “Which means I will have to find what I need from Sister Laurel’s journals and perform the procedure myself.”