It was amazing, all the thoughts that oozed out as soon as a single crack appeared in the surface of your beliefs. How long had Uncle Damos been planning the revolution? Had he known ten years ago, when he first agreed to take custody of the orphaned Helo children, how much goodwill he’d earn from the regs of Galatea?
He couldn’t have guessed that it was Justen who would hand him the weapon he needed to overthrow the government. Even Justen hadn’t known that when he’d done it.
“Guardian,” Isla said now. “Not that far from ‘guard.’”
Justen nodded in relief. So she did understand. “Right now, that’s the measure of it. We’re valuable to the revolution as symbols of the cure.”
“You’d be valuable to us as the same,” said Isla. “I take it you don’t wish to trade one gilded cage for another?”
“I’m not a symbol,” said Justen sourly. “And I’m certainly not a symbol of this revolution.”
“I like you better already,” Isla said. The bamboo blinds separating the antechamber from the court rustled. “Persis, darling, go see who it is bothering us.”
There was a man there, stuffed into yet another garish outfit and looking annoyed. “Who is that Galatean?” he hissed at Persis. “What is the princess doing with him?”
Persis pressed her hand to her chest. “Why, Council-man, a lady never tells.”
“Then what are you doing in there?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” And she shut the blinds again. “That won’t hold him for long.”
“Of course,” said Isla. “Councilman Shift can’t stand the possibility that something, somewhere, is happening without his permission.” She sighed. “So far, this conversation has annoyed the chair of the Council and done damage to my reputation. I hope it’s worth it, Citizen.” She turned back to Justen, her skirts swirling around her, and fixed him with a queenly look.
He shocked himself by feeling the urge to step back, or bow, or sink to his knees. How did they do that, these aristos? He knew they weren’t born with such superiority, no matter what aristos claimed. Rather, both aristos and the people from the lower class had been indoctrinated since birth in their roles as master and underling. He thought he’d been taught to resist it, that the revolution had leeched it out of him, but the instinct obviously ran deep.
“Tell me, sir, if you please, what excuse you plan to use to your countrymen and your sister as to why you remain in Albion at my court. Surely you cannot prefer our aristocratic ways to the revolutionary ideals of Galatea?”
“I—hadn’t thought that through, yet.” He’d been too focused on getting out of Galatea before his grandmother’s work could do any more damage. Before he could. Escape was the priority. Excuses—and apologies—could come later.
Isla clucked her tongue and turned to her friend. “Persis, dear, wherever do you pick up these people?”
Persis was studying Justen with an appraising eye, as if he were a bolt of silk or a particularly fine hat. “This one picked me up, actually. As in, off the ground. He rescued me from the docks in Galatea.”
“Rescued?”
“Yes,” Persis admitted sheepishly. “I was suffering from genetemps sickness.”
Isla frowned. “I told you that would happen.” She stamped her foot. Royally, Justen noted. The way these two talked—they were real friends. A clearly clever princess and the half-aristo idiot socialite whose idea of a good time was to troll the slums of Halahou for genetemps and cheap silks.
Justen might be out of his depth here in Albion.
The princess returned her attention to him. “Why are you fleeing your country if you’re in such good graces with Citizen Aldred? You’re in no danger there.”
“But I am,” he said. As soon as reports came back from the Lacan estate, Uncle Damos’s suspicions would be verified. And, of course, Justen would be the prime suspect. “I no longer agree with the actions of my countrymen. I cannot support the revolution now that they’ve turned to”—he took a deep breath—“petty revenge and violence against innocents. Social justice is worth fighting for. A reign of terror is not.”
“So,” Isla said, “if you don’t act like the good little revolutionary, Aldred will make an example out of you?”
“Exactly.” Of course she knew how it worked. She was probably well versed in such methods of despotic rule. He’d been taught about its dangers by Uncle Damos himself, long before the revolution. How had it come to this—Justen Helo standing in the Albian throne room and casting his lot with a monarch?
“But you’re a Helo,” said Isla. “Aldred is not so foolish to do anything publicly.”
“Perhaps not,” he admitted, “but I’ve seen him in private.”
Persis’s mouth made a little round O. “You mean you think he would give you or your sister that Reduction drug I keep hearing about?”
Justen was hoping not, though it would be a fitting punishment for Justen’s disobedience, and Aldred knew it. There was nothing his uncle liked more than poetic justice. That’s why he’d pounced on the pinks.
Justen couldn’t decide if he was angrier with Remy or himself. A few days before he left, he’d confessed everything to her—all his doubts about the revolution, even how he’d sabotaged an entire batch of pinks ready for shipment to a prisoner estate out east. He expected shock but also support. Instead, his fourteen-year-old sister started brainstorming ideas on how to backtrack from the mess he’d made, as if he could. He’d already been barred from the labs. Uncle Damos suspected . . . something.
Remy didn’t get it. He wouldn’t take his actions back, even if it were possible. They’d exchanged some harsh words. She called him an idiot. He called her a child. And then she’d run off somewhere, likely to sulk, and wouldn’t answer his messages. He waited as long as he could, but figured Remy would be safe if he left. After all, she was still a model revolutionary citizen.
Isla began another circuit. “I can’t retrieve your sister for you.”
“Ooh,” said Persis, popping up from her focus on her palmport. “You know who might be great at that? The Wild Poppy.”
Justen snorted. “Right. Does he take requests?”
Isla paused. “What makes you think I have any control over what the Wild Poppy does or doesn’t do?” Another turn, another flick of her cape. “Me? Control one of my own subjects? Hilarious, right, Persis?”
“Yes, Princess,” said Persis obediently, and returned to her device.
“And pointless at any rate,” Justen said. “Unc— Citizen Aldred is a dangerous man, Your Highness. I don’t think anyone in Galatea truly understands what he’s capable of.”
Isla whirled around and faced him. “I believe, Citizen Helo, that I can name several Galatean aristos who do.”
With a flare of embarrassment, Justen looked away from Isla and from Persis, whose attention was on him again. Was she entertained by watching him implode in front of her princess? Her expression, however, was one of kindly warning, and Justen remembered that though she was an aristocrat, she was of lower status than her royal friend. She had more experience than Justen did dealing with her. And how had Persis been treating the princess? Always carefully and with deference.
He supposed he could learn something from her after all.
“What I meant,” he said, more quietly this time, “is that the royal palace in Halahou isn’t some work camp at an old estate.”
“It’s a good thing the Wild Poppy can’t hear you speak that way,” Isla said to Justen. “Judging from the spy’s behavior thus far, he’d see it as a challenge.”