“No,” I say with a trembling laugh. “This will be fine.”
As soon as she leaves, I take the watch out of my boot and skim the messages. They’re all along the same vein. What’s happening? Did I reach the palace? Did I find the secret entrances? Anxiety tightens my chest until my lungs feel about the size of my fists.
A final message pops up on the screen:
WHY DID YOU RUN FROM ME?
All the soothing effects of the hot chocolate vanish, leaving me with an ache that seizes my throat. That whisper in the wind had been Ryce. I’m not sure how long he’s been in the Oasis, but if he saw that naked footage and wanted to check up on me, my actions tonight might make him think I’ve changed my mind about the revolution.
A tight knot forms in my stomach, and I press a command to reply, to call back, but the communication only seems to be one-way. That, or Ryce has given up on me already.
YOU MUST COMPLETE THIS MISSION.
“I’m trying,” I murmur. But my efforts are not enough.
I thought I could enter the Princess Trials and stay out of sight while the cameras focussed on the girls who actually want Prince Kevon. I thought I’d be in the palace by now, enjoying sumptuous meals during the day and sneaking through the hallways at night to perform my mission.
Even though Ryce and Carolina know about the interim round and they know I haven’t yet progressed to the palace round, they still expect results.
Tears trickle down my cheeks, and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. Nobody said the revolution would ever be easy, and I won’t succumb to self-pity.
I stare at the watch, waiting for the next message, but it remains silent. With a sigh, I ease myself into bed and close my eyes.
In the morning, a delivery person in burgundy brings a covered tray, and we eat scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, and avocado toast in the shaded area outside the pool’s thatched hut.
Leaves overhead rustle in the mint-scented breeze, and the morning sun shines down on a pair of black swans swimming circles in the wild pool.
Our table and chairs are wooden, but Forelle presses a button on the table, and one of the slats tilts on its side and lengthens into a vision screen. Forelle sets it to the Lifestyle Channel, where Montana addresses the camera in a black one-piece suit and stands next to Prunella Broadleaf, whose floor-length gown is also black.
“What terrible news,” he says. “When we envisaged a pageant where young ladies compete for the attention of the prince, we didn’t take into account the pressures it would put on those in our society who are more mentally delicate.”
I take a forkful of toast, barely tasting the avocado and chopped tomatoes, and hope he’s not implying that I’m mentally deficient for escaping an attempted murder.
Prunella nods. “Rafaela von Eyck was a beautiful soul, and the stress of sharing Prince Kevon with all those girls broke her spirit.”
Montana shakes his head. “It’s always a terrible tragedy when a young lady takes her own life.”
“What?” I clench my knife and fork like clubs. Why did I ever think that speaking out yesterday against Prunella would make a difference?
“But you told me it was murder.” Forelle turns to me, her green eyes wide.
“This is a coverup,” I snarl.
The pair talk about Rafaela’s acting career, and clips of her in different roles play on a screen behind them. She is even more breathtaking in her movies than in real life, and an ache spreads through my heart at the memories of her last moments.
As the subject turns to her associations with various actors, images of her with an array of handsome young men appear onscreen. I shake my head. “They’re trying to portray her as having lots of men. She got through to the audition stage and wasn’t even like that.”
Forelle’s brows draw together in an expression of skepticism. What she doesn’t understand is that clips can be sliced and rearranged out of order to depict any kind of story, whether true or false. If I told her about the naked clip that had led to the girls attacking me en masse, her head would probably explode.
Prunella dabs a fake tear with a lace handkerchief. “With one girl taking her life due to the pressures of the Princess Trials, and another absconded and forfeiting her place, we’ve decided to bring forward the ball to tonight.”
“What?” I roar at the screen.
Forelle’s eyes bulge. “What’s absconded?”
I explain that the word means that I ran away but that it has negative connotations.
One of the benefits of having a parent who was born in the Barrens is the stringent standards the Nobles set for Foundlings and their offspring. To join the Phangloria Echelons, they not only have to demonstrate genetic perfection but pass a dizzying amount of aptitude tests that most Harvesters would fail.
Mom taught me to read before school and supplemented my basic education with lessons on history and literature. With her intelligence and knowledge, she’s wasted as a Harvester and should be a teacher, but those jobs are reserved for the Guardian Echelon. She’s well-read, articulate, and quick-witted, but she’s never known anything else but the Barrens and feels that her life as a Harvester is the equivalent of living like royalty.
I turn to Forelle. “Is there any way I can find out what they said about me earlier?”
“Sure.” She points a remote at the screen and switches to another channel with images from the Princess Trials. When I turn to her for an explanation, she says, “There’s a live channel and another one where you can skip to camera feeds of your favorite candidates.”
“Oh,” I say, not completely understanding how it works. “Can I see anything related to me?”
Forelle clicks several buttons, and a matrix flashes on the screen with all thirty girls’
