“What are they doing here?” I ask.
“Informal interviews,” she says, her voice bitter. “This is an opportunity for them to see which girl meets their standards to become the next queen. Some old vulture just told me I had put the Ridgeback family to shame, and I’d be lucky to work in waste disposal.”
“Does he have the power to affect your future?”
She shoots me an impatient glare. “The Minister of Guardian Employment? Yeah, I think so.”
Shaking off my irritation, I glance further into the line. The buffet table is over twenty feet long and crammed with dishes. Watermelons carved to look like peacocks sit at two feet intervals among platters of rainbow-colored lettuces, bowls of bean salad, chopped and shredded vegetables, and sauces of every color.
At the far end of the table are tiers of twenty-inch-wide bowls laden with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, and blackberries. There’s enough here to feed five-hundred Harvesters. I glance over my shoulder at the cameras, wondering if this flagrant waste of food will appear on OasisVision.
“Where’s Gemini?” I ask.
She huffs a bitter laugh. “Do you think I want to stand next to a traitor and ruin my name completely?”
I purse my lips and wait for her to finish her rant. Berta couldn’t have predicted that the Amstraad ambassador would order her return to the Trials as a form of entertainment, but she could have avoided this by not gatecrashing the audition.
But I don’t tell her this, of course. After Prunella’s stunt this morning and her reminder to the girls to make me a target, I’m in no position to make enemies.
Eventually, she says, “They took her away a few minutes after you left.”
“Why?”
She raises a shoulder. “How should I know? What did they show you?”
In halting words, I describe the Netface reunion with my family. We reach the table, and a woman in burgundy ignores my request for potato salad and dumps purple leaves on my plate.
In the middle of the table is a fish larger than my younger brothers. Its body is skinned, stuffed with lemon wedges, and topped with cucumber slices, but whoever prepared it left the head and tail intact. From its pink flesh, it might be a salmon, but the ones for sale at the Rugosa Dome are no more than twelve-inches long. Its mouth gapes open, revealing inch-long, serrated teeth, and its milky eyes stare out at us in death.
The assistant places a generous chunk of fish on my plate, and when I get to the part of the story where I saw the guards onscreen, Berta says, “Huh.”
A tight fist squeezes my insides. “Do you think there’s another purpose for the guards?”
“Probably.” She flicks her head to a seating area outside the tent and walks ahead with her plate. “The Trials haven’t properly started yet and you’re not even a candidate, but you’re spending all that time with Prince Kevon. People are bound to get interested in your parents.”
“What do you mean?” I quicken my steps across the law.
“Here they are!” Montana strides toward us clad in a white one-piece suit that clings to his muscular frame.
Next to him is a small man wearing a lightweight military jacket with four oversized pockets over the chest and sides. The white of his outfit clashes with the yellow tint in his skin, and I have to blink several times to work out that this is the Amstraad ambassador.
“The underdog and bucking bronco.” Montana chuckles.
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Berta mutters.
Montana claps the smaller man on the shoulder and beams. “Thanks to you three, one-hundred Phanglorians will benefit from these wonderful new health monitors.”
Normally, a bitter thought would float to the surface of my mind about how Harvesters won’t receive any of this Amstraadi bounty, but not today. I place my plate of salad on the wooden table and clutch the monitor stuck to my wrist.
After seeing the electrical surge that killed Rafaela, the Nobles can keep those weapons of mass assassination.
“I didn’t exactly volunteer for this,” snaps Berta.
“By storming the stage and presenting yourself to the judges as a candidate, you tacitly agreed to all the terms of the Princess Trials contract.” He bares his white teeth in an expression that’s the opposite of a smile. “Those in breach—”
“Forget it!” Berta picks up her plate and walks toward the other end of the garden, where there’s a set of tables and chairs by the spit roast.
Montana steps away. “I will leave you in the bronco’s hands, Your Excellency.”
The Amstraad ambassador inclines his head, and we both watch him walk toward a crowd of people in white surrounding Ingrid Strab, likely helping her commiserate on her awful date with Prince Kevon.
“That one is the Chamber of Ministers’ favorite,” says the ambassador. “However, I would say that Prince Kevon does not appreciate the charms of my girls or Miss Strab.”
“Your Excellency, why did you choose me?” I ask.
He turns to the camerawoman. “Leave us.”
Without a word, she backs several feet away, but the ambassador waves his hand and shoos her even further. The tightness in my shoulders relaxes only a fraction, as I have no idea why someone so important wishes to be alone with me.
It’s impossible to see the ambassador’s full expression because his spectacles have tinted, but his thin lips form a tight smile.
“I think you are an interesting young woman to know.” He makes a guttural sound in the back of his throat.
My skin prickles at the peculiar sound. I long to ask him about what happened to Rafaela’s monitor, but it might sound like an accusation. “And Gemini Pixel?”
His face hardens. “Our society is a hard one, where food is scarce, and everybody survives on rations.”
My brows draw together, and I tilt my
