In moments, I’ve finished the fruit, and my stomach rumbles for more. Disgruntled murmurs travel across the room, and I can’t blame the other girls. What should be several days of luxury at the palace has turned into an unknown fate in the empty headquarters of the Navy. While I’m no stranger to hunger, this is the first time I’ve had to watch someone feast while being deliberately starved.
Prunella takes her time over her bowl of breakfast and taps on a screen that she shares with her co-host. I fold my arms across my chest and let my gaze drift to the table of Nobles, where the short-haired girl who I had noticed before leans across and whispers something to Rafaela Van Eyck. The actress rears back, and her pretty features twist into a rictus of rage.
My brows rise. It looks like Dad was right about the conflict between the contestants.
Mom’s voice pipes up in the back of my head. I might be hungry, but at least I don’t have to work in the heat.
“Welcome back,” Prunella says into the camera. “We have a real treat for you viewers, a trial designed to bring out the best in our young hopefuls and educate them on the world beyond the Great Wall.”
I rub my dry throat, hoping Prunella isn’t going to throw us into the desert.
Behind her, a screen displays a slideshow of a barren landscape of jagged rocks and hills. It looks like the desert, except that there’s a lake of boiling red liquid that resembles blood. My throat convulses. This can’t be a real location.
“The Detroit Depression,” Berta growls.
Gemini claps both hands over her face and whimpers.
“What is that?” I whisper.
“Didn’t you pay attention to your Environmental Studies classes?” Berta rolls her eyes. “Never mind.”
“Berta?”
“The most hostile microclimate in the continent?” Her brows rise, as though that should mean something.
I shake my head.
Her nostrils flare, and her chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. “Broadleaf is taking us through the Great Wall, through tribes of wild men, out of the desert into the place that terrifies even insane cannibals.”
Cries of horror spread across the room, mirroring exactly what’s going on in my mind. Even the Amstraadi girls share nervous glances. When the slideshow switches to cracked earth where molten lava that bubbles and sparks to the surface, every ounce of moisture leaves my throat, and I clap a hand over my mouth.
What on earth is Prunella Broadleaf thinking?
Chapter 13
Prunella leads us out of the dining room in single file with camerawomen filming our expressions. The line of girls appears longer than the forty-five sitting around the table and stretches down the long hallway.
Berta marches ahead of me, and Gemini is behind. Even though my heart flutters like the wings of a trapped bird, I pull back my shoulders and raise my head.
I hope that they show this portion of the show on OasisVision, as Carolina and Ryce are probably expecting me to have made progress on finding a secret entrance into the palace.
A lump forms in my throat. If they keep moving us about, it’s going to be impossible for Ryce to find me when he arrives at the Oasis to make a delivery.
“We’re going to die.” Gemini’s whisper makes the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I turn to find two camerawomen filming her reaction. That’s when I realize that Prunella is probably just trying to make us overreact to get exciting footage for her show. She would get into trouble if anything happened to the Noble girls and Ambassador Pascal’s protégées.
That thought is the only thing that keeps me going while we step out onto the street, where hoards of reporters stand on either side of a walkway lined by armed guards.
“Rafaela,” they all shout.
Up ahead is a stagecoach with blacked-out windows. All the girls board through its front door, except for one.
“Rafaela,” bellows another reporter. “Turn left.”
The brown-haired Noble stands to one side, posing in her jumpsuit for the camera. Beside her is the short-haired Noble, whose name I haven’t yet learned as the reporters haven’t shouted for her. The look on the other girl’s face is sourer than spoiled vinegar.
“Come along.” Byron Blake pats me in the back.
I follow Berta onto the bus, which is blissfully cool and already filled with frightened girls. Only the two rows in front are free, and Berta stretches out in the middle of her double seat, her splayed arms broadcasting her desire to be alone. I take the seat opposite and sit at the window, while Gemini sits at my side.
A cacophony of sounds reaches my ears. They’re mostly complaints about the meager rations, the Amstraadi additions, and not getting a chance to go to the palace. I lean back in my seat, nodding along to the complaints as these changes are endangering my mission.
Rafaela von Eyck and the other girl board the coach. The short-haired Noble takes the seat in front of us, and Rafaela glances at Berta, who shuffles across her seat to the aisle side, further marking her territory. Rafaela glances around for an alternative place, but I’m guessing there are none because her lips tighten, and she sits next to the short-haired girl.
A whistle cuts through the conversation. I raise my head to find Prunella at the front with a small screen dangling from the ceiling on her left. To her right sits Byron Blake at the driver’s seat, wearing a pair of thick goggles I assume will help him see through the blackened window.
Prunella raises both palms and beams. “Alright girls, some of you might think we’re traveling north out of Phangloria, but we’re not.”
Cries of relief fill the stagecoach, and all the tension leaves my body in an outward breath. Gemini collapses forward, resting her head on
