Across a Star-Swept Sea

you opening diplomatic relations with our princess regent?”

“She’s looking for the Wild Poppy,” Justen muttered.

Persis pressed a gloved hand against her chain mail–encased throat. “How extraordinary! And here I’d been under the impression that the revolutionaries thought our celebrated spy was an actual threat to them. He won’t be half so much fun to gossip about if the Galateans don’t even care.”

“We do care,” Vania snapped. “That’s why I’m here to find him.”

Persis cocked her head. “They can’t care too much, if all they sent was a little girl.”

Justen groaned and stepped between them before Vania could do what she wanted. “You’re going to have to indulge Persis, Vania. She’s Albian, remember? She doesn’t really understand the concept of women having leadership positions.”

“Oh? I thought she was friends with the princess,” Vania growled.

“I am,” Persis trilled. “She wouldn’t dare leave her dressing room without getting my approval on her footwear.”

Justen turned to Vania with a look on his face that said see?

Except Vania didn’t see. She didn’t see at all what Justen could possibly find attractive about this empty- headed, shallow, crazily clothed aristo. She looked on in horror as Justen tried explaining to Persis that Vania actually had a very important job back home. He spoke to her as one might to a child.

“Persis, you know that’s not how things work in Galatea. Vania is a very well-respected captain of the military police.”

What sort of affection could possibly grow from this? Was this what men liked? Was this what Justen liked? No, she’d never believe that. Justen needed someone who could match him intellectually.

“And because she’s Citizen Aldred’s daughter, she has much more experience than most her age.”

Well, he needn’t have added that part.

“I suppose,” Persis said at last, “that’s good news for the Poppy. And for any aristos he might wish to save.”

“I assure you it is not,” Vania stated. “I will stop the Wild Poppy from undermining my homeland’s new government.”

Beneath the veil, Vania saw Persis’s eyes slide in her direction. “Shall you? I’ll be curious to see that.” Then the aristo addressed Justen. “How fierce you all are in Galatea. Tell me, Justen, is this what most men of your nationality prefer in a woman?”

Finally, a good question. Vania turned to her old friend, who looked like he wanted to sink through the polished stone floor.

“Persis,” he said with a sigh, “not now.”

Ah, so all was not perfect in his aristocratic paradise. And, really, how could it be? As they liked to say in Galatea, his aristo girlfriend didn’t need pinks to be an idiot.

The girl shrugged. “Well,” she conceded, “I suppose it must be their fierceness. It certainly isn’t their sense of fashion. Will your friend be staying long, Justen?”

“No,” said Justen with a definitive shake of his head. “She won’t be staying at all.”

Persis nodded regally. “It was nice to meet you, Captain.” She sashayed off.

Vania congratulated herself on her remarkable restraint. She hadn’t even rolled her eyes. “Justen,” she said, “you’ve gone mad. Aristos? Albion? This moronic, spoiled brat? I don’t even know you anymore.”

“No, you don’t. And I don’t know you. When the revolution began, it was about making a better Galatea. Is this better? Torturing and imprisoning your own citizens? Threatening your best friends?”

To be fair, she hadn’t threatened him, just the spoiled aristo brat he’d taken up with. And it hadn’t even been a threat so much as a statement of fact. “Stop being so dramatic. It’s impossible that you’ve changed so much so quickly. What’s happened to you, Justen? Don’t you remember the day the old queen was sentenced? Don’t you remember how happy we were? Finally, we’d been able to change the world.”

“We changed it,” he agreed. “But not for the better.”

Vania sighed. This was going nowhere. Justen must have had his brains sucked out by his new girlfriend. She gathered her strength for another argument, but was interrupted by a message ping. She pulled out her oblet.

Captain Aldred,

Report: There’s been a break-in at the prison and the entire Ford family and their servants escaped. Their cells were left empty except for the sign of the Wild Poppy.

Where are you?

Long live the revolution,

General Gawnt

Nineteen

PERSIS MANAGED TO KEEP it together until she’d reached her bedroom, until she’d engaged the privacy screens, until she’d sat down at her vanity, unwound her mesh veil, and stared in the mirror at the rashy burns all over her face.

She met her angry, amber gaze in the glass, and her eyes began to sting.

“I did it,” she grumbled to her reflection, “though I’d rather have tossed him off the pali.”

The whole way back from Galatea, she’d been planning to do just that. Capture Justen as she’d captured his sister, drag him to the throne room for interrogation—maybe even utilize those neuroeels Isla claimed to have in the dungeon.

Six months as the Wild Poppy, and she’d never felt such an urge to get violent. Six months playing dumb, and she’d never felt as stupid as she did right now. She’d invited Justen into her home. She’d introduced him to the princess. She’d told him all about her mother’s illness. She’d kissed him in the star cove. And, worst of all, she’d shown him the refugees in the sanitarium—the poor, broken people he was responsible for creating. And all the time, Justen had been lying to her. All the time, he was a worse enemy than Citizen Aldred himself.

Here she was, the most celebrated and loathed spy in New Pacifica, and she’d been taken in by a freshly cooled medic with a kind face and a famous name.

She’d planned to confront him with all that the very second she got home to Scintillans, but then she walked onto the terrace and saw him talking to Vania Aldred. Captain Vania Aldred, his “old friend.” Captain Vania Aldred who’d toppled the Ford estate, and who’d apparently come to Albion specifically to seek out the Wild Poppy. Possibly with Justen’s help.

Persis needed a plan. A good spy would neutralize her enemy as soon as possible. A great spy would go a step further. If Justen was working for the revolution in Albion, it would be better to play his game and use his position against him. She just had to find out if he suspected her first.

She looked at the girl in the mirror. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, bloodshot and baggy with exhaustion from the mission and the genetemps. Her face was swollen and red, her lips set in an angry line. Not the beautiful socialite any longer and not the skillfully disguised spy with the masculine features and corresponding beard. In this moment she was Persis, raw and unfiltered. The scared girl with the sick mother and the best friend trying single-handedly to yank her country back from the brink of revolution. The silly teenager with a crush on a famous boy who’d made her promises so convincing she’d almost risked it all in the star cove. And she could scrub and primp and style and none of that would change.

But she’d learned her lesson. She smoothed her expression as well as she could. She could do this. She was the greatest spy in New Pacifica. Bit by bit, she vanished, leaving only the steely determination of the Wild Poppy.

The screen pulsed. “Persis?” came Justen’s voice.

She pasted on her most vacant smile, until even the Wild Poppy was hidden beneath the mask of Persis