Behind the Amstraadi sits a group of four whose haughty voices and bitter complaints identify them as Nobles. As soon as we take our seats at the back, the bus leaves.
“Aren’t we going to wait for the others?” I ask.
One of the Nobles twists around and sneers. “Ingrid won.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“You don’t know that,” her companion says.
“Why else would she and her Guardian dogs attack us with guns and blow up that cave?”
My heart somersaults, and all thoughts of raiding the kitchenette fade as I listen to the Nobles complain about Ingrid. The combined team of Nobles and Guardians received eight packs, each containing equipment vital for surviving and finding Gaia’s statuette. Ingrid seized the first aid, air guns, computer tablet, and trail mix, which she shared with her Guardian allies.
I glance at Emmera, whose face is too swollen for meaningful expressions. The Nobles probably used her tablet computer to find the hiding-places.
When the subject turns to politics, I walk to the kitchenette and open the refrigerator. Most of the food packages require heating in an electromagnetic oven, so I take some yogurts and bananas for the Harvesters. Emmera refuses to eat, but throughout the journey, the Nobles are too busy griping about Ingrid and her cheating to even bother about me.
Triumph fills my chest. If I can remain inconspicuous and let all the attention slide to Ingrid, that’s one less group of people pointing a knife to my back.
Hours later, we reach the palace, and the production assistants guide us to an empty classroom with eight tables that each seat two students. As I take a seat with Vitelotte at the back, my gaze rises to the empty wall at the front of the room. I wonder if this is where Prince Kevon had his lessons.
“Where is the winner?” asks one of the Noble girls from the front seat.
The production assistant who gave me the doctored water before my audition hugs her computer tablet and can’t look the Noble in the eye. “If you’ll kindly wait, there will be an announcement.”
I bite down on my lip. There’s no sign of the two Artisans who traveled up to the National Park with us. One of them was blonde. My gaze flickers to the Amstraadi girls who sit in front of me on the left of the room. If they’re all here, that means the dead girl I tripped over was an Artisan.
But what on earth happened to her friend?
The entire front wall flickers to life, and the production assistant scurries to the door. Prunella Broadleaf walks into the frame. Her long hair now hangs in uneven strands at her chin, looking like she’s cut it herself with a knife. She wears the same sackcloth dress as before, but the cuff around her neck stretches from her collarbone to her throat.
None of the Nobles sitting on the right flinches at this new development. One of them leans into her companion and whispers something that makes the other girl snort. My experience with Gemini Pixel tells me this kind of punishment is not unusual.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Prunella’s voice trembles and she lowers her lashes as though unable to look at the camera. “I regret to inform you that due to technical difficulties, we are unable to broadcast the completion of the task. Please enjoy these highlights.”
Whispers fill the right side of the room, but they soon turn to angry mutterings. The production assistant opens the door and rushes out into the hallway.
I turn to Vitelotte. “Where are all the camerawomen?”
“I don’t know,” she mutters. “But something must have gone terribly wrong.”
With a nod, I force my features into a neutral expression. Three dead girls and not a single one of them is me. I can see how some might consider that a catastrophe.
One of the Nobles shoots to her feet. “What’s happening?”
Byron Blake steps into the room and pinches the bridge of his nose. All traces of the gleeful celebrity are gone, replaced by a man who looks like he’s spent the past few hours staring into the barrel of Lady Circi’s gun.
“May I have your attention, please?” He raises his palms. “Six girls still haven’t returned from the task. We have scoured the park and there are no signs of the missing contestants.”
Nobody speaks, and the rapid thuds of my pulse echoes between my ears. At any minute, the footage will switch to something that incriminates Vitelotte and me. Silence stretches across the room until it takes the form of a pair of hands squeezing my neck.
“Our drones have captured footage of two charred bodies.” His voice is muffled, and I have to lean forward to catch what he’s saying. “One of the corpses is possibly Ingrid Strab.”
Chapter 6
A spasm of alarm shoots through my heart, but I force my features into a mask of neutrality. Neither of those burned corpses was Ingrid. I’m a hundred percent sure. But what if Ingrid disguised her voice? What if in my panicked state at having a gun pressed into my eye, I imagined that my potential killer was someone else?
Thoughts and possibilities whirl through my mind in a maelstrom of panic and paranoia. Cold shudders run across my skin, and it’s just like that time the country got hit with an epidemic of capybara flu that wiped out over three-quarters of our aged population.
Prince Kevon appears on the screen, and Byron steps aside. The prince wears a naval officer’s jacket with gold stripes on the shoulders. His hair is slicked back, which only emphasizes his furrowed brow. They’ve done something with the camera to bring out the color in his eyes, and they glow with an unusual shade of cobalt.
I hold my breath and wonder if he’s about to announce that one of the dead girls was in fact Ingrid Strab.
Ingrid is the Chamber of Minister’s favorite for winning the trials. Her father is the Minister of Integration. If she’s dead, I doubt that her family
