Across a Star-Swept Sea

child that they’d excuse her faults and mistake her for brilliant. He wondered if his own parents would have seen him that way, had they survived. If they would have told him he was forgiven for his mistakes and that he could make restitution for the things he’d done.

“I don’t think sweet’s the word for it.” Heloise sighed, then laughed, as if remembering. “Oh, the arguments I’ve had with that girl. Inappropriate clothing, daredevil stunts on the pali, political debates . . .” She turned to her husband, eyes as lit up as her daughter’s. “Oh, Torin, do you remember that campaign she started in the village when she was seven to change the Blake family flower from frangipani?”

“Yes!” Torin replied, chuckling. “What was it she wanted to change to again?”

Heloise shook her head, trying to recall. “I think . . . it was those poppies. The pua kala? Because they grow wild on the wall by the star cove . . .”

“Right.” Torin nodded, grinning. “Something about how the pua kala was a far more interesting flower —”

“Stronger and more resilient,” his wife said through giggles.

“With a more important history with the ancients as medicine.” Torin threw back his head, laughing. “You ought to appreciate that one, Justen.”

“She’s right,” Justen said slowly. “Pua kala was valued by the ancients for more than its beauty. It was a highly revered plant.” Medicinal and spiny and wild. Useful and dangerous and tough.

Torin shrugged good-naturedly. “And since they’re both yellow and white, we wouldn’t even have to do any redecorating.”

Heloise was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “But if we’d changed it, whatever symbol would the Wild Poppy use now?”

All laughter stopped. All three of them fell silent.

No. It wasn’t possible. Justen looked at the stunned faces of Persis’s parents. Her rich aristo father, her brilliant reg mother. Both thought that Persis was strong willed and brave and the smartest girl in Albion. They’d raised her to be patriotic and kind, on an estate the farthest south of any in Albion, and they’d given her a swift yacht and a clever sea mink and an education alongside the princess of the island.

But it simply wasn’t possible. He’d been living beside her for nearly two weeks. He knew her well, and more than well enough to know that Persis was too simple, too shallow, too . . .

No.

Justen had met her in Galatea. In disguise. She’d introduced him to the princess, and sat in her throne room. She’d introduced him to Noemi, and visited the refugees at his side. She’d prevented the Albian courtiers from sending out messages on her boat, and then been handed the visitors like she’d know what to do with them. She’d come to find him when he’d been fluttering with the Poppy, then disappeared the moment he was distracted.

She wasn’t the most foolish person in Albion. He was, because he hadn’t seen it before now.

Persis Blake was the Wild Poppy.

HER HIGHNESS PRINCESS REGENT Isla of Albion stood in the middle of her throne room, her head held high, the white swirls of her outrageous gown floating around her of their own accord, powered by tiny, buzzing nanobots. Her white hair was arrayed in enormous wings that shot out from her head. She looked very intimidating.

Torin Blake, however, was standing before her and he did not seem remotely impressed. All he’d been able to ascertain so far was that Persis, along with Andrine, was long gone from the royal court, and possibly from the island altogether. “You will tell me what you and my daughter have been up to,” he stated firmly, “and you will do so right now.”

“Will I?” Isla replied haughtily, looking from Torin to Justen to Heloise. “I think you will watch your tongue in my palace, sir.”

He shook his head. “Don’t you talk like that to me, young lady. You want to launch military operations against Galatea, I’m all for it. You want to use my daughter and my boats and my tenants to sneak around playing spy games, I’ll have something to say about it.”

“Officially,” offered Tero sheepishly, arriving in the room with Kai and Elliot in tow, “it was Persis who used those things, which she technically has the right to, being a Blake and all.”

“Tero!” Isla cried, exasperated.

The gengineer shrugged his shoulders. “What, you think we’re going to get away with denying it? These are the Blakes, Isla, not the Blockings.” But he flinched as he looked at his lord and lady anyway.

“So it’s true,” Justen said. “You two and Persis—”

“And my sister,” Tero added matter-of-factly.

“You guys are the Wild Poppy?”

“The League of the Wild Poppy, yes.”

“Tero,” Isla tried again. “Shut. Up.”

“Don’t you dare shut up, Finch,” said Torin Blake. “I may not be able to tell Her Highness here what to do, but you’ll listen to me.”

For the first time, Justen could appreciate an aristo’s power. He wanted answers out of Tero, too.

The Blakes were looking from Isla to Tero, their faces drained of color. Kai and Elliot were remaining silent, clearly realizing that this matter was none of their business.

“You are saying,” Heloise began slowly, and Justen was sure it took all her strength to speak aloud, “that my daughter, with the assistance of a few of her school friends, has been spending the last six months running back and forth from Galatea in disguise, defying Citizen Aldred and his entire army, in a foolhardy and possibly deadly attempt to liberate imprisoned Galatean aristos and other dissidents?”

Tero grimaced but nodded.

Heloise turned toward her husband. “I knew we spoiled her.”

“Noemi Dorric is fired,” Torin said. “Fired. She’ll be lucky if she can get a job vaccinating cuttle jellies when I’m done with her.”

“Sir,” said Justen quickly, “Noemi Dorric is a skilled medic and—”

“And she had no business helping my daughter with such dangerous activities and not telling anyone!” Torin whirled on Justen. “And what, exactly, did you know about all this, Citizen Helo?”

Justen raised his hands in surrender. “Nothing! Believe me, I’m even more blown away by this than you are.”

Completely blown away and more than a little fascinated. His mind reeled with replays of conversations he’d had with Persis that now overflowed with double meanings. When she’d comforted him in the sanitarium, confided in him in the star cove, scolded him on the Daydream—all those times, she was New Pacifica’s most infamous spy.

She’d known all along that he was responsible for the Reduction drug, yet she’d welcomed him into her home. Why? To keep a closer eye on him? Why had she let him visit the refugees, if she only planned to rip him away? And what had she made of his confession an hour ago at the party? What had she been thinking while they danced . . .

Justen felt knocked sideways as if by a giant wave. Persis Blake was the most skilled actress he’d ever known. He’d handed her all that information, and she’d talked to him about dancing.

He looked at Tero. “When she left, what did she take with her in terms of drugs?”

“Drugs, now?” Torin Blake roared.

If Kai and Elliot had seemed out of their depths at the party, they looked completely lost now.

Tero appeared ill at ease. “The usual. Supplements for knockout doses. Enough genetemps for her and my sister and the targets.”

“Genetemps!” Her father threw up his hands in despair. “This is a disaster.” He turned to the princess. “I want you to send a security detail down there to get my daughter back. Now.”

“Please,” Isla scoffed. “Do you think for a moment that Persis would let a few paltry Albian soldiers stop her? She’s outwitted the entire guard force of Halahou city prison.”