Of Beauty and Beast

crops that should have taken months to grow were ready to be harvested. Yuan was saved,” I say, though with less enthusiasm than my father used when telling this story.

“The king remarried that evening, and since then the city has never been without a queen, or a daughter in line to be queen, for more than a single night. There are similar stories about the other domed cities. Each one felt the call and formed covenants of their own.”

Gem grunts his dubious grunt.

“That’s the story as I know it.” I turn my palms over to stare at the lines creasing the skin, embarrassed without really knowing why. “The covenant came to the queen in a vision, and the king wrote it down. No mention of who or what made the roses grow. I suppose I’ve always thought …”

“Thought what?”

“I don’t know. It seemed to me …” I peek at him through my lashes.

“Maybe it was the power of her sacrifice that created the magic.”

“I’ve seen sacrifice,” Gem says. “I’ve seen old men wander into the desert to die to give their hut one less mouth to feed. I’ve seen mothers choose between two babies when there isn’t enough milk for them both.

No magic roses sprang up when their blood was shed. There’s something darker here.”

“What do you mean?”

He studies me a moment before saying, “My people have legends, too.”

“I know that,” I say with a tired smile.

“I don’t mean legends like the girl who loved the star. I mean history.

Stories from when our tribe was young and some still remembered—” A knock at the door makes us both turn our heads. Needle stands in the doorway with the rope she took to Gem the night we left for the desert, and an expression that clearly communicates she thinks it’s time for him to go.

“Just a few more minutes,” I say, profoundly relieved Gem preferred to talk instead of kiss. I can’t believe I didn’t think about the open door. If Needle had come to fetch Gem and had found us kissing, or worse, she would have been scandalized. She would be scandalized if it were any boy, but a Monstrous boy …

I pause, studying Needle as she studies Gem. What does she think of him? She set him free, and sent me out into the desert with him. She must trust him, or at least trust me enough to have faith in my judgment. And she didn’t seem afraid when he crawled onto the balcony. She seemed more afraid of Bo, so … maybe …

“We’ll join you in the music room when he’s ready,” I say. The hope that I might be able to talk to Needle about the way I feel about Gem lifts my spirits. At least a little.

Needle moves a hand to her lips and then rubs the same hand in a circle on her stomach, but I shake my head. “No, we don’t need anything else to eat or drink,” I say. “Thank you.”

She takes a step back into the hall, but I can tell she’s reluctant to go.

Every minute Gem’s here is another minute we could be discovered. Bo could be fetching his father and a team of guards right now. I don’t think he would risk his future—he wants to be king and understands how stubborn I can be if I don’t get my way—but Needle’s right. We won’t be safe until Gem’s back in his cell.

“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “We’ll be quick. I promise.”

Needle smiles—a grin that transforms her simple face into something truly beautiful—and nods before disappearing down the hall toward the music room.

“She’s happy you can see her,” Gem says.

“I’m happy I can see her, too.” I turn back to him. “I never understood how much I was missing. We have our own language, but she says a hundred things at once with her face.”

“She does. And she’s right. I should go. We can—”

“Not yet,” I beg, wishing he never had to go. “Tell me your people’s version of the story. It won’t take long, will it?”

Gem’s forehead wrinkles, the scales there crinkling like tissue paper.

“Not too long …” He takes a breath, and his forehead smoothes. “The legends of my people say the old ships brought too many colonists. They expected many of the settlers to die in the first years here, falling prey to predators or disease. But this world was good to them. Their numbers grew, and by the time the domes were complete, there wasn’t enough room inside for everyone. The people who organized the expeditions, those in power, the people you call the nobles, saw what was coming and took steps to protect themselves. They crept into the domes in the night and locked the other colonists out.”

“Because they had mutated?”

“A little, but back then my people still looked more like the Smooth Skins,” he says, taking my hand in his and turning it over, running his finger over the flaky skin where my claws would be if I had them. “They didn’t fully mutate until months later.… The summer heat was brutal that year, and brought new predators from the mountains. My people were dying of sunstroke and animal attacks. They left their settlement and returned to New Hope to—”

“One of the first cities,” I say, pleased I paid attention to my history lessons. “But that’s hundreds of miles south, past Port South even.”

“My people were originally part of the New Hope settlement,” he says. “So they returned there, begging to be allowed in until the heat passed, but the people inside refused to open the gates. That’s when my ancestors started north. They hoped the summer would be easier here, but it wasn’t. They made it as far as Yuan before being taken in by another group of outsiders. They had built shelters with the remains of their ship and were weathering the heat a little better.”

He crosses his arms, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders. It was hard for me to imagine him being descended from the same people as the small, narrow men of this city. Learning that half of his people came from somewhere else makes sense.

“The real changes started not long after,” he continues. “But my ancestors were grateful. They considered the mutations a blessing.

Mutation allowed them to survive the heat, and fight off predators. In those days, there were still giant horned cats hunting the lands here.”

I blink. “Horned cats?”

He nods. “At first, the creatures left us alone, but when the land outside the domes began to die, their usual prey died along with it and they began hunting people.”

“It’s strange to think of the world being so … different.”

“But it was different,” he says with a passion that assures me this isn’t just a story for him. This is his history, the legacy of his people. “There were forests and grasslands and fruit and game. In the early days, there was no reason for my people to envy the people in the domed cities. We had everything we needed. Even when the forests died and the grassland turned to desert, we survived. After the mutations, our children were all born larger and stronger than Smooth Skins, with scales and claws and other adaptations that allowed us to survive.”

“Then why …” I hesitate, knowing I’ll have to phrase my question carefully. “Why did your people and the others outside the domes attack the cities? I understand you need food now,” I hurry to add, “and it’s a matter of survival, but the first of the domes fell four hundred years ago.”

“That’s when the tribes began to realize the truth,” he says. “That while our land was dying, the land beneath the domes grew more and more fruitful. Our elders said it was bad magic, and some of the more violent tribes decided it was time for the cities to be destroyed.”

“But if that’s true,” I say, finally understanding all his talk of Yuan robbing the land beyond our walls, “then why hasn’t the desert come back to life? Almost all of the domed cities have fallen. There are only three left.

Shouldn’t the world beyond the domes have recovered with fewer cities … draining the lands outside?”

Gem looks away, watching the lamp on my bedside table burn, uncertainty clear in his eyes. “Some of the tribes to the north think all of the cities must fall before the planet will begin to heal.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe they’re right. My chief thought …”

“She thought what?”

“She thought …” When his gaze returns to me, his eyes are so full of pain, it summons a sound from my throat.