Across a Star-Swept Sea

her a short, stiff bow, then straightened and looked her right in the eyes. She was a royal. Not a god. “My name is Justen Helo—”

Her eyebrows rose and when she smiled this time, she looked less like a monarch and more like a teen getting a birthday present. Even from royalty, then.

“I’m the grandson of Darwin and Persistence Helo. And I’m here to ask you for asylum.”

At this, Isla blinked in surprise, but Persis just looked bored. Justen wondered if she even knew what “asylum” was.

“And,” he added, “I need it to remain a secret.”

“Why?” asked Isla. “I assure you I would have no compunction celebrating far and wide that a Helo would prefer living in Albion to braving the revolution.”

She was sensible at least, even if she had silly taste in friends. Maybe she just kept Persis around for fashion advice, though Justen wondered how advisable even that was. “I’d prefer my countrymen think I was just visiting your island,” he said, “at least until I can contrive to get my little sister out of Citizen Aldred’s house.” Even if his uncle guessed the truth, a public lie might be enough to protect Remy.

Persis lifted her head, her eyes keenly trained on his face. “Wait, that . . . revolution guy in Galatea has your sister imprisoned? Now that’s interesting!”

The princess batted her hand at her friend, and Persis sighed and returned her attention to the diagnostics hovering above her palmport disk. Justen bit back his frustration. Isla didn’t seem to mind the girl’s presence, and as a foreign reg, what right did he have to ask for an aristo’s removal? Besides, it was Persis who’d brought him here. He’d just have to bear it.

“Not imprisoned,” Justen corrected. Brainwashed maybe. Just as he’d been until recently. “Citizen Aldred is her guardian.” He’d been Justen’s guardian, too, and probably still thought of himself as such, though Justen was eighteen now.

It was amazing, all the thoughts that oozed out as soon as a single crack appeared in the surface of your beliefs. How long had Uncle Damos been planning the revolution? Had he known ten years ago, when he first agreed to take custody of the orphaned Helo children, how much goodwill he’d earn from the regs of Galatea?

He couldn’t have guessed that it was Justen who would hand him the weapon he needed to overthrow the government. Even Justen hadn’t known that when he’d done it.

“Guardian,” Isla said now. “Not that far from ‘guard.’”

Justen nodded in relief. So she did understand. “Right now, that’s the measure of it. We’re valuable to the revolution as symbols of the cure.”

“You’d be valuable to us as the same,” said Isla. “I take it you don’t wish to trade one gilded cage for another?”

“I’m not a symbol,” said Justen sourly. “And I’m certainly not a symbol of this revolution.”

“I like you better already,” Isla said. The bamboo blinds separating the antechamber from the court rustled. “Persis, darling, go see who it is bothering us.”

There was a man there, stuffed into yet another garish outfit and looking annoyed. “Who is that Galatean?” he hissed at Persis. “What is the princess doing with him?”

Persis pressed her hand to her chest. “Why, Council-man, a lady never tells.”

“Then what are you doing in there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” And she shut the blinds again. “That won’t hold him for long.”

“Of course,” said Isla. “Councilman Shift can’t stand the possibility that something, somewhere, is happening without his permission.” She sighed. “So far, this conversation has annoyed the chair of the Council and done damage to my reputation. I hope it’s worth it, Citizen.” She turned back to Justen, her skirts swirling around her, and fixed him with a queenly look.

He shocked himself by feeling the urge to step back, or bow, or sink to his knees. How did they do that, these aristos? He knew they weren’t born with such superiority, no matter what aristos claimed. Rather, both aristos and the people from the lower class had been indoctrinated since birth in their roles as master and underling. He thought he’d been taught to resist it, that the revolution had leeched it out of him, but the instinct obviously ran deep.

“Tell me, sir, if you please, what excuse you plan to use to your countrymen and your sister as to why you remain in Albion at my court. Surely you cannot prefer our aristocratic ways to the revolutionary ideals of Galatea?”

“I—hadn’t thought that through, yet.” He’d been too focused on getting out of Galatea before his grandmother’s work could do any more damage. Before he could. Escape was the priority. Excuses—and apologies—could come later.

Isla clucked her tongue and turned to her friend. “Persis, dear, wherever do you pick up these people?”

Persis was studying Justen with an appraising eye, as if he were a bolt of silk or a particularly fine hat. “This one picked me up, actually. As in, off the ground. He rescued me from the docks in Galatea.”

“Rescued?”

“Yes,” Persis admitted sheepishly. “I was suffering from genetemps sickness.”

Isla frowned. “I told you that would happen.” She stamped her foot. Royally, Justen noted. The way these two talked—they were real friends. A clearly clever princess and the half-aristo idiot socialite whose idea of a good time was to troll the slums of Halahou for genetemps and cheap silks.

Justen might be out of his depth here in Albion.

The princess returned her attention to him. “Why are you fleeing your country if you’re in such good graces with Citizen Aldred? You’re in no danger there.”

“But I am,” he said. As soon as reports came back from the Lacan estate, Uncle Damos’s suspicions would be verified. And, of course, Justen would be the prime suspect. “I no longer agree with the actions of my countrymen. I cannot support the revolution now that they’ve turned to”—he took a deep breath—“petty revenge and violence against innocents. Social justice is worth fighting for. A reign of terror is not.”

“So,” Isla said, “if you don’t act like the good little revolutionary, Aldred will make an example out of you?”

“Exactly.” Of course she knew how it worked. She was probably well versed in such methods of despotic rule. He’d been taught about its dangers by Uncle Damos himself, long before the revolution. How had it come to this—Justen Helo standing in the Albian throne room and casting his lot with a monarch?

“But you’re a Helo,” said Isla. “Aldred is not so foolish to do anything publicly.”

“Perhaps not,” he admitted, “but I’ve seen him in private.”

Persis’s mouth made a little round O. “You mean you think he would give you or your sister that Reduction drug I keep hearing about?”

Justen was hoping not, though it would be a fitting punishment for Justen’s disobedience, and Aldred knew it. There was nothing his uncle liked more than poetic justice. That’s why he’d pounced on the pinks.

Justen couldn’t decide if he was angrier with Remy or himself. A few days before he left, he’d confessed everything to her—all his doubts about the revolution, even how he’d sabotaged an entire batch of pinks ready for shipment to a prisoner estate out east. He expected shock but also support. Instead, his fourteen-year-old sister started brainstorming ideas on how to backtrack from the mess he’d made, as if he could. He’d already been barred from the labs. Uncle Damos suspected . . . something.

Remy didn’t get it. He wouldn’t take his actions back, even if it were possible. They’d exchanged some harsh words. She called him an idiot. He called her a child. And then she’d run off somewhere, likely to sulk, and wouldn’t answer his messages. He waited as long as he could, but figured Remy would be safe if he left. After all, she was still a model revolutionary citizen.

Isla began another circuit. “I can’t retrieve your sister for you.”

“Ooh,” said Persis, popping up from her focus on her palmport. “You know who might be great at that? The Wild Poppy.”

Justen snorted. “Right. Does he take requests?”

Isla paused. “What makes you think I have any control over what the Wild Poppy does or doesn’t do?” Another turn, another flick of her cape. “Me? Control one of my own subjects? Hilarious, right,