Across a Star-Swept Sea

day have to have. Isla could make as many jokes as she wanted about Persis’s dream boy, but the reality was much harder to pin down. Someone as clever as she was. Someone who cared as much as she did. Someone who saw the real her and loved her because of it, not in spite of it, the way everyone— even her parents, even Isla—did. It’s what she wanted, but it was impossible.

“When I marry,” she said at last, “it will not be a love story like my parents had. I relinquished any fantasy of that long ago.”

Love was magma, shooting from the Earth. It had the potential to form pillars of rock that would last for a thousand years or plumes of ash that choked the sky. She would never love like her father, never let herself be loved like her mother. She would never suffer what her parents were suffering now.

“Do not concern yourself, therefore, in pretending to be my perfect man. Your focus should be on the refugees now. They’re the ones in real need.”

This was, Persis decided, reason enough not to burden him with revelations about her true identity and the fact that she’d just put his sister in a rather precarious position. Though Persis knew that Remy was capable of the tasks they’d set before her, Justen seemed to consider his sister little more than a child.

Justen leaned back against the stone, as constellations swirled around and above them. “Oh, look,” he said. “You have a message.”

A flutternote flitted above their heads in Andrine’s preferred form of a flying fish. Persis lifted her hand out of the water and it dropped down, melting into her palmport.

I have received a message from our new young operative. The Ford barricades have fallen and the rebels have taken prisoner what remains of the family and their reg supporters. Immediate rescue required. The Fords are being transferred to Halahou city prison, with sentencing scheduled for sundown tomorrow.

Persis caught her breath. Remy Helo was already paying off. And with what Persis knew about the Reduction drug, it was imperative that the Poppy liberate the reg prisoners before they were dosed, or they’d suffer permanent damage.

“What does it say?” Justen asked.

She forced a giggle. “News travels fast on this island. Apparently it’s more than the village children who know about our kiss.”

“HOW CAN WE KNOW that this intelligence is true?” The image of Isla’s face, flickering in the lights coming in the window from Scintillans Village, looked skeptical. Andrine, Tero, and Persis were huddled around Tero’s oblet in Andrine’s bedroom, discussing the mission with the princess. Persis thought she’d spent more time here since becoming the Wild Poppy than she’d ever done growing up. They’d always played outside or up in Scintillans proper. Andrine’s room wasn’t . . . cramped exactly, but it was certainly smaller and less comfortable than Persis’s apartments at home.

All things she hadn’t thought of much before spending time with Justen Helo.

“Remy Helo has been back home for what—a day? Terribly convenient for her to have delivered such news so quickly.”

“I agree,” said Tero, sitting beside his sister on a bamboo trunk. “The timing of this is suspect. We could be walking into a trap. I mean, Persis and Andrine could. Wild mini-orcas couldn’t drag me to Galatea these days.”

Andrine shook her head. “I’ve talked to her at length. I trust her. She’s not the devious sort. She believes in the revolution, but she believes just as strongly that it’s gone astray. In that capacity, she’s willing to help us.”

Isla appeared nonplussed. “She’s not devious, you say, yet we’ve sent her into the arms of Citizen Aldred bearing our biggest secrets? Wonderful. I knew this was a bad idea. We’ll be at war within a week.”

“She doesn’t need to be devious,” said Persis. Remy’s best disguise was that she was undervalued. They couldn’t imagine her useful as anything, and certainly not as a spy. Persis did have some experience in that arena. “All she needs to do is keep her ears open. Andrine is right; Remy is as trustworthy as her brother.”

And, it seemed, just as interested in fixing the problems the revolution had wrought. It was good the information had come in when it had. Persis had been close to losing herself in the star cove. Or rather, close to being herself, which was just as dangerous.

“The fact that the Ford barricades have fallen has been verified by propaganda out of Galatea. In a few hours, I’m sure they’ll be telling us exactly what Remy has—that the Fords are to be sentenced in Halahou prison.”

“So what’s the rush?” asked Tero. “Why not rescue them after their sentencing, as you have with all the others? Security will be much more lax if they only have Reduced prisoners to guard. Don’t get cocky, Persis. I still remember the days when you couldn’t make it up the pali without scraping your knees.”

“Were those the days when you thought the height of chivalry was to burst cuttle jellies on Isla and me?” she replied.

“I remember that,” Isla said with a smirk. “My hair was sienna for a week, until the dye wore off.”

Tero fell silent, which was fine by Persis, since she didn’t plan to budge on this point. She couldn’t risk permanent damage being done to the regs who’d been captured along with the Ford family. But she also didn’t want to scare Tero and Andrine.

“Remy says that General Gawnt has been increasing security at the estate work camps in response to our activities. They will be expecting us at the Fords if we wait to get them once they’ve been Reduced and returned to their estate. But they won’t be expecting us at the prison.” She touched the oblet to pull up a file on the Halahou prison. “Since the revolution, the inmates and guards have changed, but the supply schedule has not. If we were to pose as one of their usual supply deliveries, we could infiltrate the grounds very easily.”

“More genetemps?” came Isla’s dry rejoinder. “Are you up for that, Tero?”

All three women looked at him and he clenched his jaw. “Am I ever going to live it down? Yes, I messed up Persis’s coding that one time. I’m not a genetemper, sorry. Have you ever had a problem with one of my palmport apps? Your knockout drug’s working fine, right, Perse?”

She shrugged. “So far.”

“And you, Your Highness? I’ve been keeping you and your brother in nonstop toys and I don’t recall a single complaint.” He glared at the image of Isla hovering over the oblet, and she looked down and away. An odd response, Persis thought. As if she was really hurt by his accusation.

“Yes.” Andrine rolled her eyes. “You’re brilliant. We get it. But you almost killed the Wild Poppy. If it wasn’t for Justen—”

Tero snorted. “Fine. Get your precious Helo to cook you up some genetemps, then.”

Persis expected New Pacifica would freeze over before that happened.

“I’ll stick to cuttle jellies and other life-forms on my own, low level.”

“What’s burning you?” Andrine asked her brother. “I’m just teasing.”

Persis, too, was taken aback by her friend’s tone. Was she really acting high-and-mighty? Andrine didn’t seem to think so, so what was Tero’s problem?

“Come on,” Persis said sweetly. “You know you’re our favorite gengineer, even if you did try to kill me that one time.”

“I didn’t try to,” he corrected, and the teasing was back in his tone. So whatever he was angry about, it wasn’t her fault. “If I’d actually tried, your little revolutionary boyfriend wouldn’t even have had a chance to save you.”

“He’s not really my boyfriend,” Persis said automatically.

“No,” he grumbled, grouchy again. “None of us have real boyfriends or girlfriends, do we?”

Andrine looked confused. Persis was sure she was wearing a similar expression.

“For a moment, let’s talk about something other than our love lives,” Isla cut in.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Persis said. For the last week, she’d been trying to get Isla to realize she had better things to do than go on a public relations campaign with Justen.

“Thank you!” Tero cried to Persis. She stared at him, baffled. There was something she was missing here, and that hardly ever happened.

“Look, we’re sorry for making fun of you,” she said at last. “Obviously, we think you’re a very talented