Perfect Ruin

Pen dabs at Thomas’s face with a wet cloth. She presses it to either side of his neck, under his chin.

It’s just the three of us in the bunk room. The others are trying to make themselves useful in the Nucleus. Judas is keeping watch over Princess Celeste away from the others; with all the grace of her lineage, she allowed herself to be searched. She allowed me to remove my knife from her hand, and the tranquilizer darts from her belt and from the rims of her stockings, while Judas and Basil awkwardly averted their eyes.

“He seems unharmed,” I offer now by way of comfort.

Pen undoes the top buttons of his shirt, and she peels back the collar until she can see the bruise on the side of his neck. “It’s one of her stupid tranquilizers. He can probably hear everything we’re saying right now,” Pen says. “Thomas, you idiot.” She kisses his parted lips. “Why did you follow me?”

I can’t rid the smile from my face before she notices.

“What?”

“It’s just that I’ve never seen you act so fond of him before,” I say.

“Of course not,” she says. “He’s repulsive.” She brushes away some drool at the corner of his mouth with her thumb. “But he belongs to me.”

They’re still betrothed. Willingly, it would seem. Maybe the ground won’t change us at all.

I stand.

“Where are you going?” Pen says.

“To find Basil.”

I hurry down the hall, up the ladder, and nearly bump into Basil in the doorway to the Nucleus. He’s carrying the pieces that fell from the ceiling as we broke free of the city. “Careful,” he says. “You could cut yourself.”

I stand on the tips of my toes and bring my face close to his. “No I won’t,” I say. “Because you’re here. You wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

I kiss him. The back of his neck is warm when I touch it.

He stoops to set the debris on the floor, and then he’s touching the sides of my face, his hands as soft as air. His eyes have changed, gone hazy the way they do when our bodies are close. I like that I’m the only one that does this to him; I’m the only one who gets to see him this way. “Never,” he murmurs.

He gathers me up and I’m weightless before he sets me on the railing that overlooks the next level. He’s the only thing keeping me from falling back, out of the reach of daylight. I’m not afraid of falling. I don’t fear the sky beyond the train tracks like I did before. I can go anywhere just so long as it’s with him.

He has one arm around my back, while his other hand bunches my skirt up to my hips.

Say it, that voice is telling me again. Say that you love him. But what I say is, “I’ve never seen you like this.”

All I want to do is kiss him under these windows that are full of sky.

His mouth tastes the same as it did that afternoon when he told me he would follow me to the edge. We’re both still wearing our uniforms, which have been laundered and made to smell of soapberries, but there’s a familiarity to them.

“I don’t care if it’s in the sky or on the ground,” he says against my neck. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Even without the decision makers?” I say, drawing back.

“Especially then,” he says. “It wouldn’t have mattered whether or not we were paired up. It’s always been you, Morgan.”

I push forward so that my nose and forehead are against his, and I’m smiling so wide it hurts. “You’d choose an irrational like me?” I say. “Without being forced.”

He kisses me. “Yes.”

“A girl who’s terrible with math—”

“Yes.”

“A shameless daydreamer—”

“Yes.”

“Who’s brought you nothing but trouble?”

“Yes.” He holds my chin in his hand. “Yes. Daydream all you like.”

Over us, the sky goes dark. At first I wonder how evening could have come so quickly, but then I realize it’s the clouds that have gotten dark, not the sky. Though they don’t make a sound, it’s as though they’re growling at us.

Basil notices it too. I hop down from the railing and we both stare up at this strange new sky.

31

We are taught that curiosity is a thing to be feared. But our first trains came from curious minds. As did medicine, and clocks, and first kisses.

—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten

GET YOUR FINGERS OFF MY WINDOWS, kid,” the professor says. Amy doesn’t even hear him. She’s too busy gaping at the flecks of white that are whirling around us.

“What is this?” she gasps.

“I think they’re ice shavings,” I say. “Lex, you told me about this happening when clouds release water and it freezes.”

He raises his head toward the windows as though he’ll be able to look. I immediately regret what I’ve said; it’s got to be killing him that he can’t see any of what’s happening.

“It shouldn’t hurt us,” he says. “Not unless it’s coming down fast.”

“They’re like lightbugs,” Amy says. “Daphne and I used to catch them in jars.”

“Where are you going?” Basil says when I let go of his hand.

“Pen has to see this,” I say.

“Take the lantern, then,” he says.

It’s hard to believe the rest of the bird is dark while this fantastic thing is happening in the Nucleus.

When I find Pen in Amy’s bunk room, she’s speaking to Thomas in a low voice. His eyes are open, but murky. “Don’t worry,” Pen tells him, raising her voice when she hears me approach. “You’re free of that crazy princess now. We’ll kill her later, no matter if Morgan thinks she can stop us.”

“I’m on your side, you know,” I say.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for not letting me punch her.”

Thomas draws a sharp breath and then hoarsely says, “Not a good idea.”

“See?” I say. “He agrees with me.”

“No he doesn’t,” Pen says. “He’s been speaking nonsense for the last several minutes.”

“I only told you I love you,” Thomas says.

“Shush. How did you end up in the hands of that lunatic princess anyway?”

Weakly, he raises his arm, reaches into his shirt pocket, and retrieves a scrap of lace. Pen looks at her dress and realizes it’s the piece that’s missing from her collar. “She told me that she had you prisoner,” he says. “She said she would kill you if I didn’t follow her.”

“We should just leave her somewhere to fend for herself when we land,” Pen says. “I hope the people on the ground are savages with an appetite for blondes.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Did you want something?”

“Remember that frozen dust I told you about?” I say. “We’re flying in it.”

She turns her attention back to Thomas. Her fingers are trembling when she smoothes his blanket. Delirious though he may be, he notices and grabs her hand.

“Pen? Don’t you want to see it?” I say.

“No,” she says softly.

“But it’s unlike anything—”