Emmera frowns. “Don’t you care that Ingrid’s cheating? I’ve been watching the Princess Trials for days, and they keep repeating those scenes.”
I shake my head. “They can show whatever they want on the Lifestyle Channel. It’s not like Prince Kevon will decide which girl he wants on the popular vote.”
“Zea,” Emmera whispers.
“What?” I reply.
“They asked me if you were in love with someone else.”
I stare into her gray eyes, and it takes a few heartbeats for me to realize she’s talking about the interrogation. “What did you say?”
“They injected me with something, and I couldn’t say anything but the truth.”
The knots in my stomach tighten. If the bottle Mouse gave Emmera didn’t contain an antidote, what does that mean about Vitelotte’s answers? She’s far too level-headed to stab a prince just to prove her love to Ryce, but she might do it as a martyr to the revolution. And what on earth does Emmera know about me that she could reveal to Lady Circi? I lean close, waiting for her to answer my question.
She pulls on her collar. “I told them I didn’t know, but they kept asking if I thought you were in love with someone, or who you might be in love with.”
“What else did they ask?”
“Nothing about the person who actually stabbed the prince,” she whispers. “Only you.”
“Oh.” I’m not surprised they’re trying to dredge up things from my past to prove I already have a boyfriend. Let them try. The only men I spend time with in public are Dad and the twins.
Less than an hour later, the vehicle stops, and Ingrid steps in. All the conversations stop, and Ingrid casts us all a triumphant smirk before returning to her seat. Byron calls Sabre to take her turn for tea with the prince. The Amstraadi girl walks out of the vehicle, and we continue along the road.
I glare at the screen, where they’re playing footage of Ingrid dancing with an Amstraadi soldier alongside close-ups of Prince Kevon looking worried. I shake my head at the pathetic attempt to manufacture a romance and wish they would replay Ingrid’s disastrous first date with the prince.
Prunella Broadleaf stands in front of a screen, wearing her neck collar. Behind her is a close up of border guards at what looks like the Great Wall. They’re aiming guns at a crowd of naked people.
My heart sinks, and I exchange a frantic glance with Emmera. Is this how the producers of the Princess Trials will circumvent Prince Kevon’s order to keep the contestants safe?
“Why are those Foundlings attacking?” she asks.
Sabre stands over us, her freckled face splitting into a grin. “Those aren’t Foundlings, they’re wild men. How much do you want to bet that our next task will involve those cannibals? ”
Chapter 13
The wild men’s faces fill the screen. They look nothing like Firkin, the deformed Foundling I met in the woods or even like the Foundling who worked in Carolina’s underground watch station. Their features are completely human, save for the madness in their eyes.
One of the men, a brute with a scraggly blond beard, bares perfect teeth at the camera and wags a black tongue. Horrified gasps fill the front of the coach. Dark red pigment colors the skin around his eyes, and the rest of his face is encrusted with dirt.
Emmera leans into me and whispers, “Are they actors?”
With a frown, I meet the other girl’s worried eyes. This is actually a good question, considering what we saw in the farmer’s market. Most of the people selling produce were either Artisans or Nobles, and that manhunt for a supposedly missing Ingrid consisted of people Georgette recognized from theater school.
Twenty-five thousand people make up the Artisan Echelon, but what do they actually do? Five-thousand Nobles can’t need that many artists.
I chew the inside of my lip. “Maybe?”
Prunella steps in front of the footage and explains that the first round of nuclear attacks on America resulted in damaging amounts of radiation poisoning. Some unborn children suffered impaired brain development, which only worsened with subsequent generations and further nuclear attacks. In certain regions of America, humans regressed into a wild state akin to an advanced form of ape.
The camera cuts to a wide shot of hundreds of wild men gathered around a spot on the great wall. They draw back and then rush at a set of gates with loud roars. I place a hand over my mouth and lean forward as guards release a pronghorn through a gap in the wall.
All the wild men chase after the beast, which runs toward the horizon. When the group is out of range, an explosion brings up a huge cloud of dust. I shake my head. This has to be fake.
Each hour of the journey, the bus stops to allow one girl to board and another to spend time with Prince Kevon. It’s a fair distribution as he alternates between Phanglorian and Amstraadi, and each Noble girl returns elated with her time spent with the prince.
The screen plays Prince Kevon’s date with Sabre. They sit side-by-side on a leather sofa, looking into a computer tablet. Based on their conversation, she’s showing him pictures of Phangloria-style growing domes set up within the Amstraad Republic. We can’t see the images Sabre shares with the prince, but his furrowed brow tells me that their efforts don’t match anything in the Botanical Gardens.
Later, one of the girls gets to eat lunch with Prince Kevon, and even later, Byron selects another Noble to share dinner with him.
Emmera and I exchange irritated glances over a meal of steak Diane served with mini roast potatoes cooked in rosemary and butter. Byron is not even trying to hide his bias toward the Nobles.
After the dinner date, a production assistant collects our trays, and I slip the steak knife in my pocket. A blonde-haired Amstraadi girl visits the prince next. When
