She has told me before that she’s had her fill of them for a lifetime no matter the tragedy, and that holds true. She says nothing.
“I can’t tell you the rest,” I say. “I would if the whole story belonged to me, but it isn’t all mine to tell. That’s the only part that matters to me, anyway. They’re dead, and I can’t stay. This all sounds so incredible that I wouldn’t expect you to believe it.”
“I believe you,” she says.
Of course she does. She’s out of her mind, the only girl left in the academy who’d still want to have anything to do with me. We’re the same sort. We always have been.
As I’m rising to a stand, there’s a stab of pain in the side of my neck, and I can’t move a muscle. The dart that’s just hit Pen’s shoulder is the only explanation. We’ve just been attacked. Something moves in the trees, and I’m falling back into someone’s waiting arms.
23
—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten
YOU’RE A LOUSY SHOT,” THE GIRL HUFFS. “You almost completely missed her neck. Papa would have never let you hear the end of that.”
“I am doing our father a favor, might I remind you,” the boy says, grunting as he hoists Pen over his shoulder. “We’ve just done more work in five seconds than his incompetent staff has done since that girl’s murder. Honestly. Letting fugitives run about this city like it’s a giant floating tea party.”
“I’ve always loved your analogies, Brother,” the girl says as she drags me from under the arms. I recognize her long hair, half of it braided around her head like a crown. The girls in my class have all tried to imitate that braid, with little success. It can be worn this perfectly by only one girl—the king’s only daughter, Princess Celeste.
The boy holding Pen can only be Prince Azure, then. Not that I can move to look at him. With some effort I’m just able to blink.
“He’d thank us if he knew,” the prince says.
The princess smells like cinnamon and something else, something I’d find pleasant if it were wafting out of a teahouse or spilling from one of the many bottles on Alice’s dresser. Now it just nauseates me.
Blackness is clouding my vision, and I fight it. I’ve already been poisoned once; I refuse to succumb so easily again.
I cling to the words the prince and princess are saying. They provide no answers, but they’re keeping me conscious.
“Mine is heavy,” he complains.
“Weakling,” she says. “It’ll be a wonder to me when you inherit this city.”
“I don’t see you carrying yours over your shoulder,” he says.
“About that, you should be more careful,” the princess says. “Maybe she’s our prisoner, but that’s no reason to destroy such a lovely dress.”
Despite the circumstances, all the girls of Internment would hate Pen if they knew that her dress had caught the attention of the princess. It was among the many presents from Pen’s mother. “Compensation for inebriation,” Pen calls them.
“I don’t know why we need both of them, anyway,” the prince says. “The patrolman’s daughter is the one we need.”
“Can’t leave witnesses,” the princess says. “So I’ll thank you to quit moaning about it.”
Can’t leave witnesses. I hope they’ve overlooked Judas, but there’s no indication that he’s nearby. With horror I wonder if he returned to the flower shop to give Pen and me a chance to say our good-byes. He might have no idea what just happened.
My heart should be pounding—I’m frightened enough—but my body won’t work. Perhaps the dart was meant to render me unconscious and I’m fighting it somehow. Or perhaps they want me to have my awareness when they torture me.
I have plenty of time to worry and speculate. The prince and princess trudge through the woods for what feels like forever, arguing the whole way.
“Would you be quiet now?” the princess says. There’s a heavy thud, and then the prince is flinging me into a wagon beside Pen. Just as he’s about to cover us with a large cloth, he stoops forward and brings his face close to mine. His breath is cinnamon, too. His eyes are clear, reflecting two perfect little skies full of stars.
“I think your dart killed her,” he says. “Her eyes are open.”
I will myself not to blink.
The princess brings herself close, her white rabbit fur cuffs sweeping across my forehead as she clears the hair from my face. Only the king’s family wears white fur, because they spend most all their time indoors, and it’s supposed to symbolize their purity of spirit. The rest of us would never be able to keep it clean.
The princess’s hand hovers over my mouth for a few seconds. “No, she’s definitely breathing.”
“It’s creepy,” the prince says. “It’s like she’s staring at me.”
I feel the fur cuff against my face again as the princess brushes my eyelids closed. “There. Happy?”
“Yes. Lovely.”
There’s darkness, the weight of the cloth covering me completely.
We’re taken a bit farther, and then a voice says, “Your mother has asked that you not hunt in your best clothes.”
“We’re sorry,” the prince says. “We’ve caught a deer this time, though. We’ll send it to the food factory once Celeste has sawed the antlers for her jewelry collection.”
Meat is a rare delicacy, mostly reserved for the festival of stars, and hunting is restricted to those who work in the food factories, but apparently those rules don’t apply to the king’s family.
There are the sounds of doors closing. I can feel Pen’s limp body jostling against mine as the wagon is steered through a series of turns, and then I think we’re being hoisted down a flight of stairs. I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are heavy. The prince and princess are whispering now, and their words are lost to the throb of blood in my ears. I’m still fighting for consciousness when the wagon goes still. There’s the smell much like the one underground when Judas led me outside from the metal bird.
“Do you think it would be too mean of me to steal that dress?” the princess says. “It’s so lovely.”
“You’re ridiculous,” the prince says. “You can’t leave her naked.”
“You should be thanking me for the opportunity,” she says.
He says something in return, but it’s as though they’re talking underwater. The words make no sense. The blackness takes over.
It’s the chime that wakes me, so close that the sound is caught between my teeth. Internment feels as though it’s shaking.
Another chime. Another.
“It’s three o’clock,” Pen says.
I open my eyes to the light of a single candle flickering in a sconce on the stone wall. Pen is slumped under it, arms behind her back, staring where the light doesn’t reach.
“We’re in the clock tower,” she adds. “In case you haven’t guessed.”
She doesn’t sound angry or frightened, just exhausted.
I realize my hands are tied behind my back with twine, but I manage to push myself up against the wall.
