At last she turned her stare to Max, the third uniformed man in the room, addressing him for the first time. “What about the girl? Any news of the girl?”
He looked at his queen, studying her shriveled gray skin and her ghostlike eyes, wondering how she could even see through the haze that coated them. He knew, however, that nothing escaped her. Except, perhaps, this: “No, Your Majesty. We know nothing of the girl.”
The lie felt easy rolling from his tongue, and he wondered if that was how his head would feel when the guillotine separated it from his body were she to discover the truth.
He wondered, also, why he hadn’t told her, why he’d decided to keep the information to himself. She was his queen, it was his duty to divulge any and all information she demanded of him.
He pictured the pale girl with the silvery blond hair whom he’d seen twice now at the club, and he justified to himself that he wasn’t actually lying. He didn’t know who she was. He had no way of k
nowing if this was the girl for whom they’d been searching.
The queen scrutinized him, her milky gaze raking him from head to toe, and—he knew from the antipathy on her face—finding him lacking. But not, he rea Bght 821lized, discerning the inaccuracy of his statement.
“Leave,” she commanded, releasing them, at last, from the cruel heat.
VI
I stayed awake well into the night, replaying the moment that Max had walked into the club—and then deliberately ignored me—over and over again in my mind. When I awoke, I was frustrated to find that I’d overslept and my parents had gone ahead without me. Since there was no school today, I thought about pulling the covers over my head and just staying there, avoiding the real world and pretending that last night had never happened at all. Unfortunately, my parents still needed me, and I couldn’t let them down.
I dressed quickly, binding my hair away from my face and rushing out the door, into streets that were already crowded and sun-scorched.
Morning in the marketplace had always been one of my favorite times. I’d loved the bustle of activity, the rush of the Serving class as they attended to the needs of their assigned households. It was when the first loaves of bread were being pulled from the ovens and fresh tea leaves were being brewed. When Englaise was the only language spoken, as shopkeepers were forced to trade in the universal language.
But now the streets were choked, and the new refugees suffocated me as I was propelled forward by the swell of bodies.
I stopped once, as did nearly everyone around me, to notice that the flags in the plaza had been changed overnight. The white flags of Ludania no longer flew—spotless and crisp—above the square. In their place, the queen’s flags had been raised, a golden profile of the queen herself set atop a bloodred field.
Yet another reminder that queen came before country, and I could feel her grip tightening like a noose as I wondered where this would end.
I was glad to be swallowed again by the claustrophobic mass.
When I reached my parents’ restaurant and saw who awaited me, I suddenly wished that I had stayed home in bed, and I hesitated midstep, nearly stumbling as the urge to run away overwhelmed me.
There was Max, sitting at one of the small sidewalk tables out front, his long legs stretched casually before him. I quelled the sudden rush of embarrassment I felt as I remembered how easily he’d disregarded me the night before, without hesitation. And no matter how hard I tried to push it down, the memory stayed with me, just as it had throughout the night.
I could still leave, I realized. He had yet to notice my approach.
But then he glanced up, his gaze capturing mine. I was unable to move. Or even to breathe. I became a clog in the constantly shifting foot traffic, as people bumped and crowded me.
In broad daylight, away from the darkened shadows of the club, he appeared even younger than he had in my memories. I doubted he was much older than I was: eighteen, perhaps nineteen. His eyes were intense, and I again had the feeling that I shouldn’t be meeting them directly, that I ought to look away. Yet they were as deep and mesmerizing as they were alarming. And I was spellbound.
I tried to find those feelings again, the one Cgaihaps nins from that first night, the trepidation and imminent danger that had forced me to flee from the club when I’d heard his friends speaking. But somehow, standing here in the bright sunlight of the marketplace, I was unable to recall them. And the longer I stayed there, my eyes locked with his, the harder it was to imagine that I’d ever felt them at all.
I was afraid of him, and my heart beat entirely too fast inside my chest, but not for the same reasons that I’d been frightened that night.
He stood from the table as I approached hesitantly, and I tried to read his expression, but just like the night before, it was impossible to interpret.
I frowned. “What are you doing here?” I asked when I finally reached him.
His eyebrows raised just the barest degree, making me feel things I had no business feeling as a rush of heat surged through me. But I refused to let him see how he affected me.
“I came to see you,” he answered far too easily.
“I guessed that much.” I crossed my arms as I glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. I wasn’t ready to answer prying questions from my parents. I lifted my chin. “Why?”
“You’re not one for conversation, are you?” He studied my expression, and I could see amusement flickering just behind those charcoal eyes. Eyes that I’d spent far too much time imagining. But I wasn’t amused. At last, he exhaled loudly. “Honestly, I’m not exactly sure why I came. I probably shouldn’t be here at all. But you intrigue me, and I had to see you again.”
“You saw me last night, but I didn’t intrigue you then. You barely noticed me.”
Max hesitated, frowning. “That’s not true. I noticed . . .” He lowered his voice as his hand slipped to my arm. It was a quiet warning. “You should be careful about who you keep company with.”
I raised my eyebrows, daring him to finish his thoughts, but he didn’t need to; I’d noticed the way he looked at Xander. “Is that why you pretended not to know me?” I wrenched my arm from his grip.
He took a step closer, and my ribs crushed my heart, threatening to stop it from beating. I wanted it to be fear, and that’s what I told myself it was, that I felt threatened by Max. But I knew better, I knew it was something more. And then he surprised me by softly asking, “Why did you leave so early that first night?”
I was afraid to speak, but he just stood there, waiting. I tilted my head back, so I could meet his stare. I wavered, trying to decide how to answer him, and then I simply said, “I wasn’t feeling well.”
He gazed down at me, and I had the strangest feeling he knew I was lying. But he only sighed, a reluctant smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Will you walk with me?” he asked at last.
It would have been easier to answer if I could breathe, and if my pulse would stop fluttering so wildly. I shook my head, unable to stop staring. “No.” I finally trusted my voice. “I need to get inside. I have work to do.”
“What are you so afraid of?” He said it so tenderly, so gently, that I almost didn’t realize he hadn’t spoken in Englaise. Yet it wasn’t Parshon, either, which was the only other language I could have responded to.
I’d heard those sounds—that dialect—only one other time, that night at the club, when his friends had spoken about Brooklynn.
And the law was clear.
I blinked once, keeping his dark gaze in view for an instant too long, and then I dropped my head. This time my heart crashed within my chest for entirely the right reasons: fear, terror, dread.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
I prayed that he believed me. He reached across, inching my chin up so he could look at me.
There was a scowl on his face, or was it something else? I wished that I could decipher his expressions as easily as I’d translated his words.
And that was
when we heard it—the cheer coming from the square at the center of the marketplace. An execution.
I didn’t move, didn’t blink.
But Max did. He flinched, as violently as if he’d just been slapped in the face. And then his eyes filled with such sadness that I felt like he was reading my most private inner thoughts.
The thoughts that said, How can anyone celebrate such an event? Why would anyone want to be there to witness it?
It was the reason I avoided the central square each and every day.
I glanced around, nervous that someone might have seen his reaction. The law didn’t dictate that we show joy at such an event, but it was best not to draw unwanted attention by showing revulsion, either, not with so many citizens willing to turn on one another.
After all, whoever had just been hanged in the square was considered a criminal—an enemy of the queen, possibly even a spy.
Or maybe just someone who refused to look away in the presence of a language that wasn’t her own.
His hand reached for mine, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin at the back of my hand where the hand stamp was still healing. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind and walk with me? I’d really like to get to know you better. I think there’s more to you than just a pretty girl with a sharp tongue.” He smiled fully then, his eyes crinkling—boyishly charming. I did my best not to notice.
“There’s not. I’m just a simple vendor girl. And I’m late for work.” I turned on my heel, my head throbbing as I left him standing there on the sidewalk. I rounded the corner at the alley, wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible, and when I reached the back entrance and stepped into the familiar kitchen, I immediately felt the tension in my muscles seeping out in a rush.
I hadn’t realized that I’d been so stiff in his presence, practically stonelike.
Or that I’d been holding my breath almost the entire time.
The sirens that shattered the still of the night felt like they were coming from inside my darkened bedroom. I sat upright in my bed, my body jolted from sleep far ahead of my brain. Beside me, I felt Angelina’s body start, and then her fingers were digging into my side, clinging to me.
I blinked, trying to clear my thoughts, to make sense of what was happening as the sirens continued to blare from the streets outside.
An attack, I was slow to realize. The city was under attack. These were not the sirens of a drill.
My bedroom door crashed open, battering the wall behind it. I jumped again.
My father marched across the room in two long strides, handing me my boots and a jacket. My mother was already scooping Angelina off the bed and stuffing her into her own coat.
There was no time to be sleepy or sluggish. I shrugged into the sleeves of my jacket.
“Take your sister down into the mine shafts.” My father’s voice was brisk, no-nonsense.
My mother handed my sister over to me, and I took her, my feet trembling as I stepped into my unlaced boots.
“What about you? You’re not coming with us?”
My father dropped to his knees and tied my laces, while my mother petted Angelina’s hair. She kissed us both, tears in her eyes.
“No, we’ll stay here, in case the troops come. If your mother and I are here, maybe they’ll believe that it’s just the two of us, that we live alone.” He stood as he finished, meeting my worried expression. “Then maybe they won’t come looking for you and your sister.”
His words didn’t make sense to me, but none of this did. Why would the troops be interested in us at all, with or without our parents? Why would they bother searching for two girls, children who’d escaped into the night?
I shook my head, wanting to protest, to tell him that I wouldn’t go without them, but couldn’t find my voice.
“Go, Charlaina. Now.” He pushed me toward the door. “We don’t have time to argue.”
I dug in my heels, but he was stronger than me and pushed harder than I could. Angelina clung to me, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck, Muffin dangling from her white-knuckled fist. Her eyes were wide and terror-filled.
I relented as the sirens outside assailed my ears; I had to get Angelina to safety.
“We’ll come for you when it’s safe.” My father’s voice softened when he realized that I was moving, finally, toward the door.
Behind me, I heard my mother’s sobs.
When I hit the streets, I drifted into a sea of hundreds—maybe thousands—of others who were also evacuating their homes. I was pushed and shoved from every direction, and I could feel panic coming off the crowd.
The siren’s blast was earsplitting out here in the open—the loudspeakers were set up every hundred feet or so, and i Bght m">.
It didn’t matter, though; the sirens were enough to keep me moving.
There were designated bomb shelters throughout the city, in churches, schools, and even abandoned passageways beneath the streets. That was where most of the people were headed. That was where families had arranged to meet in the event that the battles came close to home.
Yet Angelina and I wouldn’t go to the shelters like the others, because our father feared that the shelters were too exposed. He worried that there was nothing secret about those hiding places. Safe from attack maybe, but not from the troops that could march into the city from the east, or from rebel forces fighting to overthrow Queen Sabara. And sometimes men—at least those in the midst of war—were to be feared more than any weapons. Men could be brutal, ruthless, deadly.
We were to hide someplace else. In the mine shafts just outside the city.
My boots pounded heavily against the ground as I shoved my way through the crowds, gripping Angelina as I leaned forward, battering body against body at times. The farther we moved away from the city’s core, the thinner the masses grew, until it was just the two of us, and the occasional straggler, who remained in the night.
I knew we were close. I could see the walls that encircled the city—walls that had been constructed to keep us safe, to keep our enemies at bay, yet now contained us and trapped us inside. They were the only thing separating us from the mine shafts beyond.
I watched as others climbed those walls, others who probably had mind-sets similar to my father’s.
We reached the perimeter, where the tall concrete barricade stood between us and our destination, and I untangled Angelina from my arms, forcing her to stand on her own two feet. “You have to go first,” I insisted.
She stiffened, but did as I told her. I lifted her up the wall as high as I could and then I shoved with all my strength. I didn’t have time to feel guilty as I listened to her land on the other side of the wall.
I scrambled up after her, using my boots to dig into the cement as I strained to pull myself up. When I was almost to the top, my foot slipped and the right side of my face slammed into the punishing concrete. The taste of fresh blood filled my mouth, and my eyes burned with unshed tears. I was sure I’d just shattered my cheekbone. But I refused to fall back to the ground behind me, and I clung to the wall, pulling until my arms burned. Finally I hooked one of my legs over the top and dragged myself the rest of the way up.
It was dark on the other side, with none of the light from the city finding its way through.
“Get out of the way,” I called down to Angelina, not sure exactly where she was.
I leaped from the wall, landing heavily on my feet and crouching low, my hands splayed in the damp grass in front of me. Angelina scrambled forward, finding me in the darkness, her small hands reaching for me Bgaim">dinjust moments after I hit the ground. Behind me, the sirens never relented.
I didn’t waste any time; I reached around her waist, ignoring the fatigue in my arms and the fiery pain in my cheek, and I hauled her up again as I raced toward the mines ahead of us.
Brush and vines that grew around the mouth of the shaft looked like the shadowy outlines of jagged teeth. I barreled forward, not bothering to glance around to see who might
be watching us. I needed to get inside, to find cover.
In the shaft, the blackness was almost complete, but I didn’t slow. I reached out, using the chiseled walls to guide me. I knew these tunnels; Aron and Brook and I had passed many long days inside these passageways as children, exploring and setting up camps and pretending that the mines were our own private queendoms.
And now I prayed they would provide shelter for me and my sister.
We stayed hidden within the caverns long after the sirens had stopped screaming. My cheek continued to throb, finding rhythm with my pulse until I knew my eye would soon swell shut.
I let my lids drift closed, fatigue settling through me. I felt fingertips brush over the bruise that was already forming—Angelina’s fingertips—and before I could stop her, her lips brushed over it too, kissing it lightly. So much like a mother might do.
My own fingers closed around hers, my eyes wide now, alert. But it was too late. Already I could feel tingling in the wake of her touch. Already I could feel the ache beginning to fade.
“Don’t,” I whispered, thankful it was dark in the cavern, and that no one could see us. “You can’t do that. Never. Do you understand?”
She stared back at me, and I hated the flash of hurt I saw on her face in the gloom. I didn’t mean to frighten, or even to scold her. I just wanted to protect her and keep her safe. But her touch reminded me of why I was here, of why I’d been injured in the first place, and it forced me to forget about the sirens, the panic, the pain.
We couldn’t risk exposing our secrets in front of anyone. Ever.
“It’s okay. We’re safe now,” I soothed, squeezing her until I felt her relax again in my arms.
Eventually, Angelina drifted into a fitful sleep, but there was little chance that I would sleep tonight. I was tired—exhausted even—but the fear kept creeping back in, keeping me vigilant. That, and the nagging discomfort.
Beneath my jacket, my thin nightdress provided little warmth; Angelina provided the rest. I squirmed against the unyielding wall, trying not to disturb my sister, but my arm was cramped and my back and shoulders ached.