royal credits, all nice and aboveboard. But with everything still in flux with the government, it was best to carry cash. Especially if you weren’t exactly working aboveboard.
She slung the purse around her shoulder, then, one by one, helped the old woman carry the children into the back of the skimmer’s cab. As she settled the youngest, Mardette, the girl’s eyes fluttered open.
“Guuuuuh,” she mumbled.
Sharie swallowed. Mardette had a beautiful singing voice. She wondered if Reduced even knew how to carry a tune.
They’d be captured anyway. They’d be Reduced anyway. There was nothing Sharie could do to stop it. If she tried to help them, she’d wind up punished, just like all the other regs on the Ford estate. Sharie squeezed the purse hard, reassured by the weight of the money inside. And in addition to her wealth, she’d helped the revolution. They owed her now.
“By the way,” said the crone as she climbed back behind the driver’s seat of the skimmer, “what’s your plan if Ford’s people come looking for you?”
Sharie shook her head. “If they could escape the revolutionaries’ blockade, don’t you think they would?” She needn’t worry about the Fords, anyway. The revolution would protect her. Sharie had picked the winning side.
“Hmm,” said the crone, and took off.
As soon as she was gone, Sharie ran back into the house. The pallets on the floor still held the pink-stained imprints of the bodies of the Ford children, and Sharie averted her eyes. At least she had the money. She thrust her hand into the purse, reveling in the cool feel of the coins. This money would be more than enough to start her life in Halahou. She opened the purse, the better to see her reward. There they were, forty-five silver pieces. Money for nothing, except saving herself from the wrath of the revolutionaries. Light from the rising sun filtered in through the cottage windows and glittered on the surface of the coins.
Which began to change.
Before Sharie’s eyes, the engraving on each coin began to melt and swirl on the surface. Sharie blinked hard, but the optical illusion continued. She grabbed one of the coins and brought it close to her eyes. The face of old Queen Gala blurred, the lines becoming sharp and jagged, until they re-formed themselves into the shape of some sort of sharp-leaved flower.
She shook her head in shock and dismay. Nanotech wasn’t used on coins. Had she been tricked, given counterfeit money by that old crone? She flipped over the coin to see what it showed on the back.
The coin thudded to the counter. Sharie staggered backward.
There was a pounding on the door outside. “Sharie Bane? We’ve come for the children.”
Sharie clutched her hands to her chest, feeling the trap close tight. How could she have been so foolish? With trembling fingers, she opened the door. On the threshold stood two revolutionary guards and a third figure —a young woman in a pair of smart black pants and a matching military jacket with an insignia that marked her as a captain. Sharie’s gaze dropped to the name embroidered on the woman’s coat.
Vania Aldred, the young captain in charge of the Ford siege. Citizen Aldred’s own daughter. Sharie’s throat went dry.
“You
Sharie considered feigning ignorance. “I—”
The woman brushed past her, scanned the room. “Where are the Ford children? Have you failed to deliver on your promise to the revolution?”
“No . . . I . . .” Sharie’s gaze shot to the coins on the counter. The young woman—hardly more than a child herself—looked that way, too. She picked up one of the coins, then hissed and let it thud back to the counter.
“You idiot. What did he look like?”
“An—an old woman.” Sharie swallowed, stepping back. “Please, how could I have known? I didn’t . . .”
The captain gave a little jerk of her head. “No, you didn’t do anything you
“Please . . .” Sharie begged.
“Useless idiots like you,” Captain Aldred said, “don’t deserve your brains.”
JUSTEN HELO STROLLED DOWN the dock, hands in his pockets as if to protect the oblets he’d hidden there. He doubted anyone could actually see the pebble-sized computers, but he still felt better with his fists around them. So far, his escape had been uneventful. The staff at the records hall had barely noted his visit, and guards near the palace gate had merely inclined their heads in his direction as he passed. Now he was one narrow strait from safety.
Was he really going through with this?
Did he have a choice? As soon as the officials at the Lacan estate began to notice what he’d done, arrest would be right around the corner. He’d no longer be able to put his uncle off, no longer be able to prevent his research from becoming a mockery of everything he’d spent his life working toward.
Up ahead, a beautiful yacht tugged impatiently at its mooring ropes. It was Albian by the look of the rigging. Better and better. Travel between the nations had slowed since the revolution, but Justen had hoped there’d be someone at the port of Halahou who might give him passage. He strolled by the ship twice, hoping to catch a glimpse of the skipper, but saw no one on deck. On his third pass up the quay, one of the guards looked at him for a little too long, his eyes lighting with what might be recognition.
This had been a mistake—the latest of many. He should have known his uncle would guess his plans. There was a reason Damos Aldred had been the first to challenge Galatea’s ruling elite in the centuries since the island had been created.
“You there,” said a guard, and Justen tensed. But the man, clad in his revolutionary uniform, was not pointing in his direction but rather at someone behind him. Justen turned to see a figure staggering down the dock. Tall and elderly, the woman was an aristo by the look of her outfit, a cascade of silken ruffles in rust and midnight blue from her collarbone to her ankles. Her hair was arrayed in an elaborate tangle of curls and braids the color of storm clouds. Justen was surprised. He’d doubted there was an aristo on all Albion with natural-colored hair. And this aristo was most certainly Albian. A Galatean noble who’d somehow avoided the revolution this long would not come out dressed in such finery. That was just asking for trouble.
“You there,” the guard repeated. “Identify yourself.”
The aristo, whoever she was, paid no heed. She was focused on the yacht, as if she could maneuver herself aboard by sheer force of will.
An intoxicated Albian aristo entertaining herself with cheap thrills in the slums of the dock district. Contempt flashed through Justen and with it, regret. For all its claims, the revolution hadn’t done much to help the poorest regs. What was the point of punishing aristos for their behavior if the victims weren’t protected?
“Stop at once,” the guard cried.
The woman did stop now, and Justen noticed for the first time how iridescent the ruffles of her gown were as they shimmied and shivered in the sunlight. A split second later, he realized why. The aristo was shaking— shuddering so hard it was a wonder her teeth didn’t shatter in her mouth.
Genetemps sickness. That’s what it looked like, at least, and the most likely culprit if she’d been partying in the slums. With the instinct born of years of medic training, Justen reached out to her, and she collapsed against him. He clutched her head as she twitched and trembled in his arms. Greasy gray paste smeared onto his fingers from her braids. She slumped in his arms as boots pounded the planks behind them.
There was about to be trouble here. Trouble and attention, neither of which he could afford.
As the first of the guards reached them, the woman was yanked out of his hands. “Who do you think you are?” the guard shouted as she dangled like a limp eel in his meaty grip. “Aristo scum, you answer to us.”
Justen began to back up. Thankfully, they didn’t seem half as interested in him. On the yacht, he saw a flash of turquoise as an occupant peered over the rails at the commotion. The woman in the guard’s grip looked up at the boat and shook her head once. But even that effort seemed to be too much for her, and her eyes rolled back in
