Scout had never seen Emilie look so thoroughly exhausted and wired with energy at the same time. Some degree of those things was sort of her trademark, but never anything like the way she looked now. Too thin, too pale, too twitchy. Her shock of red hair had faded to a yellowish pink, white at the ends and dark brown at the roots. Scout hadn’t realized how carefully crafted her riot of curls had been until she saw it now in its matted, unkempt state.
She was watching Scout closely for her reaction to that name, the eyes behind those familiar dark frames wide, the pupils jumping back and forth.
“We have to get out of here,” Scout said at last. It made her heart hurt just looking at her friend. Watching from above, she hadn’t had a clue how bad things had gotten. She hadn’t even noticed the hair.
She had been so oblivious.
“Not just yet,” Sparrow said. “We’re supposed to leave with empty trays. The guards will check.”
“I’m not hungry,” Emilie said, turning away before Sparrow had even taken the domes off the dishes. The food smelled wonderful, rich roasted meats and vegetables swimming in buttery sauce with plenty of crusty bread.
But Scout found she wasn’t hungry either. Not that a handful of dried berries was enough to top her off, just that the idea of eating such heavy food when she was geared up to flee just felt wrong.
“We have to eat it,” Seeta said, pulling a chair up to the table and filling a plate with a bit from each dish.
“You look good,” Scout said.
“My sister takes good care of me,” Seeta said with a smile. She was the very opposite of Emilie, well fed with a healthy glow. There was a slight tremor to her hand when she lifted a spoonful of sprouts onto her own plate. Geeta saw Scout frown at it and gave her a small smile and a tilt to her head that seemed to say, “Much better but not 100 percent yet.”
“We should all try to eat something,” Daisy said. “We’ll need the fuel for when we run.”
“It’s safe to come over here, you know,” Sparrow said.
“Surveillance?” Daisy asked.
“All over,” Sparrow said perhaps too cheerily. “But you spoofed the system, right?”
“I’m not sure,” Daisy said.
“I am,” Scout said, and felt her cheeks flush again. But she held out a hand for Daisy to join them at the table. “Daisy, this is Geeta and Seeta Malini, and Emilie Tonnelier,” Scout said. “Which you already know since we’ve been watching you all for weeks now, but now we’re finally all face to face.”
“Hi,” Daisy said and ducked her head shyly.
“And this is Daisy,” Scout said. “She saved my life, and I guess I saved hers too, but she’s saved mine more.”
“Pleased to meet you, Daisy,” Geeta said, extending a hand. Seeta wiped her own on a napkin before holding it out as well. Emilie seemed occupied with something in the corner of the room and didn’t turn around.
“You’re from . . . what planet were you on?” Geeta asked, her gaze moving from Daisy to Scout.
“I was on a place called Schneeheim, but Daisy is actually also from Amatheon. A Planet Dweller, like me,” Scout said.
“Really?” Geeta said with keen interest.
“That’s not all she is,” Emilie mumbled over her shoulder.
“No, that’s not,” Daisy agreed, still mostly looking at the floor.
“What do you mean?” Geeta asked.
“She’s enhanced,” Scout said.
“An assassin,” Daisy said, finally raising her chin. “Built and trained by Shi Jian. But I am not one of hers. Not anymore.”
“I can promise you that,” Scout said earnestly.
Geeta and Seeta exchanged a glance. Then Geeta turned back to Daisy with a frown. “You saved Scout’s life?”
“From Shi Jian’s assassins,” Scout said. “And from Shi Jian herself.”
“That was a joint effort,” Daisy said. The corner of her mouth looked like she wanted to smile but couldn’t quite bring it off.
No one spoke for a long moment. The soft sound of Emilie keying her way through something on her tablet only made the silence more pronounced. Geeta kept looking like she wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words.
At last, it was Seeta who spoke. “If Scout trusts you, that’s good enough for me.”
“Thank you,” Daisy said. “I know what you’ve been through. I wish Scout and I had kept Shi Jian’s arm. We could have given it to you as a token.”
“You took her arm?” Geeta asked, nearly choking on the piece of bread she had been picking at.
“I’m sure she has a new one by now,” Scout said.
“And is madder than ever,” Daisy added.
“In both senses of the term,” Scout said. They exchanged a tired sort of smile.
“But she’s here now?” Daisy asked.
“No, not here,” Emilie said, coming back to the table with her tablet in her hands. “I’m not even sure if she’s on Amatheon. But she is involved in all of this.”
“We already knew she was,” Scout said with a frown.
“No, not like this,” Emilie said. “Sparrow told us what the governor told you this morning, about the war. I’ve been reading messages back and forth between the Months and a bunch of other people for weeks now, but it was all in code. None of it made a lick of sense. Until Sparrow said the word ‘war.’”
“So what is going on?” Scout asked.
“We already knew the Months were influencing the Space Farers, and we suspected they were controlling the rebels as well, right?” Emilie said. “But I intercepted some messages that were directed to some of the merchants that serve on the council of the so-called governor. They’ve been there for years, and the Months have been calling the shots for at least that long.”
“The governor says he suspected one or two, but he knows it’s all of them now,” Scout said.
“So, Space Farers, Planet Dwellers, and rebels—a three-way war, but where all three sides are being secretly commanded by the same two sisters?” Daisy frowned.
“Actually,” Geeta said slowly, then looked at Emilie.
“The people in the black not-uniforms are the ones influencing upper management,” Emilie said. “I don’t know who they work for, but it’s not the Months.”
“I thought it was Bo,” Scout said. “Now I'm thinking it was, but only at first. Then Shi Jian stopped relaying his orders and started issuing her own instead.”
“But that leaves us in the same place,” Daisy said. “All three factions being controlled through one person or intermediaries of the same person: Shi Jian. Why?”
“The Months would see everything burn just because they can’t have it,” Scout guessed. “They’ve been dragging out this legal battle for years, but I’m guessing their lawyers told them they weren’t likely to win. If they can’t have Amatheon for themselves, they’ll destroy it.”
“But why?” Seeta asked.
“Who knows,” Emilie said, spinning a finger around her temple. “Knowing why isn’t going to help us, so let’s not focus on that now. And figuring out who Shi Jian is and who she works for is really a whole other matter. She’s covered her tracks really, really well. So let’s just focus on what’s in front of us. We see the steps that will lead to war. We have to stop them from happening.”
“Sparrow has told us your plan,” Geeta said.
“Most of that plan was Sparrow’s,” Scout said, and Sparrow beamed.
“We’re leaving tonight?” Seeta asked.
“We have a ship ready and waiting,” Scout said. “My dogs are already there.”
“Tonight,” Emilie repeated with a frown.
“What’s the problem?” Scout asked.
“She’s been digging into this Shi Jian stuff,” Geeta said.
“But you said we had to focus on not her,” Scout said.
“I know, it’s just hard to get good info on her,” Emilie said. “She’s planted a lot of false records. It feels like I’m close. But I won’t have access at all back home.”
“Didn’t Bo Tajaki contact you?” Scout asked. “I told him to. He’s been investigating the exact same thing.”
“Our hosts became a lot less accommodating once we got here,” Geeta said.
“They brought me back,” Seeta said.
“Yes, they did that,” Geeta grudgingly agreed. “But we’ve been prisoners, not guests. Prisoners they frequently seem to forget about entirely. We already testified for the court. Remotely, from here—we didn’t even get to go to the building. Since then, nothing. Not a word. No hint as to when we’ll get home.”
“Now,” Scout said. “We’re going home now.”
Emilie made a sound of protest, and Scout turned to look her in the eye. “Do you really think if you stay here and keep digging that you’ll find anything useful? Or will you just burn a lot more time chasing phantoms?”
“We need you, Emilie,” Seeta said when Emilie sullenly refused to reply.
“Fine,” Emilie agreed. “You’re right. I’ll be more use back home. Let down by the tech, but I guess of more use.”
“But I’ll be more use here,” Sparrow announced.
“Is that safe?” Daisy asked.
“Perfectly,” Sparrow said. “And I’ll be leaving when their ship departs, so we won’t even be far apart from each other for very long. You might still need someone on the inside when we’re back at Amatheon.”
“If you’re sure they don’t suspect you,” Scout said.
“And that they won’t suspect you had a part in us escaping,” Emilie added.
“That thing you did to spoof the security systems? I could never do a thing like that. Once they discover it, they’ll never even suspect me,” Sparrow said.
“I hope so,” Scout said. “Are you really, really sure? We have enough room for you on the ship. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I’m sure,” Sparrow said. “And I’m not alone. I have other friends in the compound and on the ship. I’ll be okay. But you guys should go.”
“How are we escaping?” Geeta asked.
“By glider,” Daisy said, unslinging the cylinder from her back and taking out one for each of them. She snapped hers open to demonstrate the wings. Geeta and Emilie looked intrigued, Geeta almost excited, but Seeta looked like she wanted to be ill.
“It’s easier than it looks, once you’re off the island,” Scout promised her.
“But how do we get off the island?” Seeta asked.
“Back the way we came,” Daisy said.
“There’s a grate on the bottom of the island,” Scout explained. “You’ll just jump down, and the glider will catch you.”
“That sounds doable,” Seeta agreed, taking one of the gilders and running her fingertips over the delicate plastic supports.
“Do we need to finish off this food before—” Scout started to say when the sudden wail of loud alarms drowned her out.
Sparrow’s face went pale. She said something, but her words were lost in the shriek of the alarms. She bit her lip, looking unsure of what to do. But then she raised her arms, herding them all out into the garden.
Scout skidded to a halt, amazed by the immense dome of sky that hung over the garden. It was deepest indigo, like no sky she had ever seen, and filled with a depth of stars.
Fake. It had to be. The sky here was always pink.
The sound of the alarm was no less shrill here, even though it looked as though they were outdoors. Sparrow pointed to the lowest part of the wall and Daisy ran up it, leaping and putting a foot on the rim of one of the gigantic planters, then reaching up and catching the edge of the wall and pulling herself up to sit on it. She quickly found a fine rope in one of her pockets and lowered it down to the grass.
Geeta climbed up after, then turned to help her sister manage the last meter. Emilie came up next.
Scout turned to try to speak to Sparrow one last time, then saw the heavy door swinging open behind her. She tried to push the last of the gliders into Sparrow’s hands, but Sparrow wouldn’t take it.
Then the door was fully open, the guards looking first to the beds and then to the table before turning their attention to the garden.
Scout gave the loudest, angriest yell her throat could muster, swinging the glider with both hands to strike Sparrow as hard as she could. The flimsy plastic exploded into a cascade of tiny pieces, and Sparrow was quite unhurt.
But Sparrow was also clever. She fell to the ground as if knocked over by the blow and lay there as if unable to move as Scout climbed up after the others.
Scout found she could see the sky beyond the wall, but it was like looking through thick, dark glass. Everything was tinged a murky blue. She searched until she caught sight of her friends. Daisy was circling nearby in her glider, hovering like a mother bird as Geeta and Seeta made their first struggling attempts to work out how to use the wings.
Emilie had waited for Scout. She gave Scout one of her signature wide grins.
“Ready to jump?” she asked. From the top of the wall, she could just be heard over the cacophony below.
“Together,” Scout said, ignoring the wail of alarms behind her and the sound of feet pounding towards her.
“Go!” she and Emilie cried together, and they jumped, bursting past the deep blue field of stars and out into the rosy pink void.