“WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG? WHY isn’t he out yet?”
Cerise hadn’t stopped pacing the length of the small Med Center since they’d arrived. She was like a cat prowling the gardens behind the Grand Palais kitchens, waiting for scraps of food. Every time she reached one end of the room and turned, the thermal blanket wrapped around her slender frame would snap and crackle.
“He’s going to be fine,” Alouette said for what had to be the tenth time, and yet it was as though Cerise could hear nothing but the fears playing out in her own head.
“He should be out by now. How long does it take to remove a cluster bullet?”
“A long time,” Alouette replied. “You saw the wound. It was bad. And cluster bullets are designed to spread and do as much damage as possible.”
Once again, Marcellus was amazed by her seemingly endless well of patience. With Cerise. With him back in the Terrain Perdu when he foolishly thought he could walk to find help. With everyone. She just seemed to have a natural gift for calming people and talking sense when everything else felt senseless.
Cerise made another sharp turn and continued pacing, her gaze never leaving the door that Gabriel had been carried through earlier. They’d been told it led to some kind of operating room, but Cerise hadn’t looked convinced. And to be honest, Marcellus hadn’t been all that convinced either.
After boarding the strange ship with Chatine and being forced to don blindfolds, they’d arrived at a camp in the middle of the Terrain Perdu with odd-shaped buildings that were nearly invisible from the air. Just like the ship had been when it had landed near their crash site.
Défecteurs, Marcellus had soon surmised, but he was still struggling to wrap his mind around it. He’d always heard rumors that some of them had survived his grandfather’s roundups, but he was never quite sure. He’d had a hard time believing that they could exist anywhere without the Ministère knowing. And yet here they were.
Marcellus took a sip of hot chocolat from the cup clutched between his slowly thawing fingers. He pulled his thermal blanket tighter over his shoulders and glanced around the peculiar little Med Center. The shelves were stacked with supplies, and there was a row of neatly made-up cots, like the one he and Alouette were currently sitting on. He was in complete awe of all of it. This camp. This hiding place of the Défecteurs. He’d only ever known about one other Défecteur camp, buried deep in the Forest Verdure. But that one had been abandoned.
That one had been his hiding place.
Cerise completed another lap of the room. “What kind of Med Center is this, anyway? It doesn’t look like a real Med Center, and that woman who took Gabriel in there didn’t look like a real médecin.” She was whispering even though the three of them were the only ones in the room.
After they’d arrived and Gabriel had disappeared behind the operating room door with a woman who had quickly introduced herself as Brigitte, Chatine had run off somewhere with that tall, chisel-jawed pilote. Etienne, she’d called him. Marcellus wasn’t exactly sure why, but he didn’t have a good feeling about him.
That was another thing Marcellus hadn’t yet been able to wrap his mind around. Chatine Renard had escaped from Bastille? And was now living with Défecteurs who had removed her Skin? That was why his constant searches for her had always come back with “Location unknown?”
“Cerise,” Alouette said gently, “why don’t you sit down and have some hot chocolat? It’ll help calm you down.”
But Cerise ignored her and continued pacing.
Marcellus finished off his drink but kept the cup gripped in his hands. Now that he was getting warm, he was also starting to feel antsy being cooped up in here. He still had no idea what was happening on the rest of Laterre. They’d been unable to get a signal in the Terrain Perdu, and the Défecteurs had confiscated their two TéléComs the moment they’d arrived at the camp, despite Cerise’s insistence that neither of them were trackable. Apparently, they didn’t approve of Ministère devices around here. Not that Marcellus could blame them. But he was anxious to find out what the general was doing. Had he already started his war? Had he already taken command of his Third Estate army?
What was he planning next?
That was the question that was killing Marcellus. He had half a mind to start pacing right alongside Cerise.
“How do we even know that woman knows what she’s doing?” Cerise jerked her thumb toward the operating room door. “She might do more harm to him than good in there.”
Marcellus heard something that sounded like a growl, and his gaze snapped toward the other end of the room where, in the doorway, Etienne now stood with Chatine.
“That woman is my maman,” Etienne said in a low, threatening voice. “And she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
Cerise looked momentarily stunned by Etienne’s presence and slightly alarmed by his tone, but then she flicked her long dark hair defiantly over her shoulder and pulled her spine straight. “I have no doubt she thinks she knows what she’s doing. But I’m just saying, she might not have the experience to—”
“Did you see the scars on her face?” Etienne said, moving farther into the room. Marcellus couldn’t help but notice that his fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides like pistons. Apparently, he didn’t have a good feeling about them, either.
“That’s where her circuitry used to be,” he went on, shooting a pointed look at Cerise. “From when she was a cyborg.” Etienne positioned himself in the corner and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, like I said, she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
Cerise’s mouth fell open. “Another one? She …” But the words faded on her lips, as her mind seemed to fritz and whirl.
Marcellus’s mind was whirling too as he remembered the scars that he’d briefly glimpsed on Brigitte’s face. Now that he thought about it, they looked almost identical to the scars that he’d seen on Denise’s face.
He cut his gaze to Alouette, who was chewing on her bottom lip, lost in what he assumed to be the exact same thoughts.
“I brought you some more hot chocolat.”
Marcellus glanced up to see Chatine standing in front of him, a silver flask in her hand. She unscrewed the top and filled his cup with more of the steaming liquid before walking tentatively over to Alouette.
“It’s Alouette now, right?” she asked in a voice Marcellus had never heard before. It was quiet and gentle. “Your name?”
Alouette nodded. “My father changed it from Madeline after we left the inn.”
Marcellus watched in confusion as something powerful and strangely tender passed between the two girls. Some kind of unspoken conversation that he could not even begin to understand.
“You two know each other,” he said dazedly as he suddenly remembered something Chatine had told him back at the Vallonay Policier Precinct before she was sent to Bastille. His brow furrowed, trying to recall the details. “You used to live together?”
Chatine nodded. “She stayed with my family at the Jondrette.”
Marcellus’s gaze snapped to Alouette as he thought back to that rundown inn that was now nothing more than a pile of ashes. “You lived there?”
Alouette nodded. “When I was very young. Before Hugo brought me to the sisters.”
“We … ,” Chatine began before turning to Alouette with wide, apologetic eyes. “We treated her very badly.”
A hint of a smile broke onto Alouette’s face. A silent gesture of forgiveness. Chatine filled Alouette’s cup with hot chocolat, and Alouette focused back on Cerise, who was still pacing the room. Chatine sat down next to Marcellus on the cot. Marcellus could feel Etienne’s dark eyes watching them from the other side of the room.
“So,” Marcellus said uneasily to Chatine, clutching his cup, “are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to guess?”
Chatine flashed him a playful smirk. “Whatever do you mean, Officer?”
Marcellus rolled his eyes. “You’re living with Défecteurs? I didn’t think they’d exactly be your style.”
“Actually,” Chatine said in a low, conspiratorial tone, “it turns out they really don’t like being called that.”
Marcellus snorted and then, upon realizing that Chatine was not joking, schooled his expression. “Oh. So, what do they like to be called?”
Chatine flicked her eyes toward Etienne, who was still glowering at them from the corner, looking not too unlike those guards who had boarded their voyageur on Albion. “They’re really not label people.”
Marcellus gaped at her. With the short hair, that strange white-and-gray clothing, and this new relaxed air about her, he barely recognized the girl. Then again, he’d spent most of their time together thinking she was someone else. He wondered if he’d ever truly known the real Chatine Renard at all.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Chatine asked, nervously raking a hand through her cropped hair. “You don’t like it.”
Marcellus cleared his throat. “No, I do,” he rushed to say. “A lot. I just …”
Chatine cracked a smile, and Marcellus felt his cheeks flood with heat. He dropped his gaze down to his hands and muttered, “I’m just having a hard time getting my head around all of this. You living here. With them.”
“They’re nothing like I thought they’d be. They’re good people. They saved me. And they’re going to save your friend in there. Who, by the way, doesn’t exactly look like your style either. Since when do you hang out with shaggy-haired Third Estaters?”
“Well,” Marcellus said, a grin pulling on his lips. “I did know this boy once named Théo. He had pretty shaggy hair too. I just never saw it because—”
“Right, right,” Chatine interrupted. “I stand corrected.” She ran her fingers over her scalp again, as though trying to remember what it felt like before all the hair was shaved off.
Marcellus’s smile instantly faded, and his stomach clenched. “Was it bad? Up there on Bastille?”
“No,” she deadpanned. “It was paradise. All the chou bread you can eat and hours of stimulating conversation down in the zyttrium exploits.”
Marcellus knew she was making a joke, but he still felt chastised. Of course it was bad up there. It was horrible. The worst conditions a human being could endure. He took a breath, steeling himself to ask the question that had been secretly plaguing him ever since he’d first watched Chatine’s arrest report. “Was it my fault?”
Chatine’s head snapped toward him. “What?”
“Your arrest. Was it my fault? Did you get sent to Bastille because of me?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because Marcellus is always trying to take credit for other people’s misfortunes,” Cerise muttered. She turned toward the operating room door. “Argh! Would it kill someone to give us an update or something! He could be lying dead in there for all we know!”
Alouette shared a knowing look with Marcellus before jumping to her feet and guiding Cerise back to the cot with her. Cerise sat down on the thin mattress, and Alouette handed her a mug of hot chocolat. “Sit here. Drink this. Don’t move.” Alouette sat down beside her and linked her arm with Cerise’s. The gesture, Marcellus was certain, was meant to be both comforting and restraining.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Chatine whispered.
“I just …” Marcellus floundered for words. “You never would have been sent there if it weren’t for me. The general never would have hired you to spy on me and you never—”
“I never would have gotten out of there if it weren’t for you. You saved me. Your message from the droid—if it weren’t for that, I might have died in that tower.”
“Why were you on Bastille?” Marcellus turned back to her to see the lightness had vanished from her eyes. “Your arrest alert just said treason.”
“I lied to the general,” she explained without meeting his gaze. “I discovered where the Vangarde base was, and I told him I would lead him to it. But I lied. I led him somewhere else, and he had me sent straight to Bastille.”
At this admission, Alouette glanced over at Chatine. “You found the Refuge?”
“Refuge?” Chatine repeated curiously.
“That’s what the Vangarde call their base,” Marcellus explained.
“Yes. I found it.”
“And you protected it?” Alouette asked.
“I protected the Frets. I protected my people. And I guess, yes, I protected the Vangarde, too.”
Chatine turned to meet Marcellus’s gaze, her intense gray eyes the color of Laterre’s sky. And at that moment, something flowed through Marcellus. Something unnerving yet comforting, irritating yet familiar. He’d been so wrong about her. So many times. This girl who’d spied on him. Who’d deceived him. This girl who’d joked with him. Challenged him.
Kissed him.
This last memory made Marcellus’s frozen toes feel warmer than they’d felt in a lifetime. He hastily pulled his gaze away from hers only to have it land on Etienne. The Défecteur was glaring at Marcellus as though he had microcams affixed to the inside of Marcellus’s brain, monitoring all of his thoughts and emotions. As though he, too, were watching Marcellus and Chatine kiss on that rooftop in an endless loop.
Marcellus cleared his throat and instead turned his eyes to Alouette, but looking at her only made his heart clench with some other emotion he couldn’t quite identify. He dropped his gaze to the floor, which right now felt like the only safe place in the room.
“How did you escape?” Alouette asked Chatine.
“I … ,” Chatine began with difficulty. “I escaped when the Vangarde was breaking out Citizen Rousseau.” She looked like she was about to cry. She opened her mouth to say more, but no sound came out. Instead, it was Etienne who spoke.
He took a step out of his corner and unlocked his arms from across his broad chest. “There were two ships on the mission, but we lost contact with the other one shortly after it took off.”
Comprehension suddenly crashed into Marcellus. These people had helped the Vangarde break out Citizen Rousseau? That strange ship he’d seen on the roof belonged to them?
Etienne looked to Chatine, who was staring numbly at the ground, and the hardness of his gaze softened. “Her little brother was on the other ship.”
“Roche,” Chatine whispered, her voice cracking. “It was Roche. He was my lost baby brother, and I didn’t even know until it was too late. Back then, we called him—”
“Henri,” Alouette said with sudden realization. “I remember now. At the inn. Late at night, I would wake up to the sound of his cries. You would go to him. You would sing to him.”
As Marcellus watched the rivulets of tears make their way down Chatine’s cheeks, he felt like the whole planet was imploding around him. His insides caved in on themselves. The walls of the chalet came crumbling down. Not only had his grandfather killed Citizen Rousseau and Mabelle and Alouette’s beloved sisters in that attack. He’d also killed Roche. That clever boy Marcellus had interrogated in the Precinct. Chatine’s little brother.
General Bonnefaçon had destroyed all their lives. He was an enemy to everyone in this room. To Chatine, who’d suffered on Bastille. To Alouette, who’d lost the only family she’d ever known. To Gabriel, who was fighting for his life in that operating room right now. To Cerise, who’d left behind her comfortable life in Ledôme only to be stuck here, staring at a door and praying to the Sols that Gabriel would make it out. Even to these Défecteurs, who had been banished to the frozen tundra of the Terrain Perdu in an attempt to escape the Ministère’s wrath. They were all victims of his grandfather’s vicious game. They’d all been made miserable because of him.
And for all they knew, he could be destroying even more lives right this minute.
The thought made the room spin. Marcellus gripped tightly to the edge of his cot and tried to take deep breaths. He didn’t know how much longer he could stay locked up here. He didn’t know how much more waiting he could take.
“Your friend is stable.”
The voice came from behind Cerise, startling everyone. Marcellus looked up to see Brigitte, the former cyborg médecin, standing in the doorway of the operating room dressed in her medical scrubs, her scarred face covered by a surgical mask that stopped just below her eyes.
Cerise’s gaze seemed to track right to the splatters of blood on the front of Brigitte’s shirt. “Oh my Sols! He’s alive? He’s going to be okay?”
Brigitte grabbed Cerise’s hands in hers and squeezed them tightly. “He’s going to be okay. I was able to get all the fragments of the cluster bullet out. And I went ahead and removed his TéléSkin while he was under. He’s going to make it. He’s a fighter.”
Cerise collapsed in relief onto the nearest cot. “Oh, thank the Sols.”
“Pretty nasty things, those cluster bullets,” said Brigitte. “Do you want to tell me how he got shot?”
Cerise looked to Alouette, who looked to Marcellus, who looked to the floor again. “We were pursued by the Royal Guard.” He swallowed. “On Albion.”
He expected Brigitte to react with shock. It wasn’t every day you met a Laterrian who had been to Albion. But she simply nodded for him to continue.
Marcellus anxiously cleared his throat. “My grandfather, as you might know, is General Bonnefaçon.” Once again, the Défecteur’s expression remained neutral, even in the face of her enemy. “But I swear I don’t work for him anymore. You don’t have to worry about me—”
“If I was worried,” Brigitte interrupted calmly, “you wouldn’t be here.”
“Right.” Marcellus felt a flicker of relief, followed quickly by confusion. “Wait, why aren’t you worried?”
Brigitte cracked a small smile. “Let’s just say we have some of the same friends.”
Marcellus wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, so he simply stored it away to be questioned later. “Well, anyway, we went to Albion to track down a source who had been working with the general to build a weapon.”
Chatine stiffened. “What kind of weapon?”
Marcellus looked to Cerise, who looked to Alouette, who held Chatine’s gaze with unwavering strength. “It’s an update. For the Third Estate Skins. It gives the general the ability to control people. To make them violent.”
“We believe he wants to turn the Third Estate into his own personal army,” Marcellus added.
“What?” Chatine said in a breathless whisper.
“Our source on Albion designed an inhibitor that would prevent the general from being able to control people through the Skins,” Marcellus explained. “But unfortunately, the majority of it was destroyed.”
“What exactly does he plan to do with this weapon?” Chatine asked.
“We don’t know yet,” said Marcellus. “All we know is that he wants control of the Regime, and he’s going to use the Third Estate to get it.”
Chatine glanced down at her left wrist, and Marcellus could make out a faint red scar where her Skin used to be.
It was only then that Marcellus realized the médecin still hadn’t reacted to what he’d just told them. And when he peered back up at Brigitte, he noticed she was not looking at him. She was looking back into the operating room, a pensive, almost troubled expression on her face.
“What is it?” Marcellus asked, alarmed.
It felt like forever before Brigitte spoke. Her gaze was still trained on the operating room door, her mind clearly working. “Something happened when I was operating on your friend.”
“What?” Cerise asked.
“Right before I removed his Skin,” Brigitte said haltingly, like she was trying to organize her thoughts and speak at the same time, “something appeared on the screen. I believe it was one of your Universal Alerts.”
Marcellus’s stomach rolled. His grandfather. The weapon. It was already starting. “What was it?” he asked desperately, leaping to his feet. “What did the general say?”
When Brigitte finally turned back to Marcellus, there was something in her eyes that told him it was even worse than he imagined. “No, not the general. It was the Patriarche.”