As the sun set over the edge of the western cliff and a lavender light descended on the lawn and the terrace, Torin asked Persis to go turn on the lights. She excused herself from the table and headed inside to find the controls, and there her father intercepted her.
“Where did you really find your new friend, young lady?” She turned to find him standing at the threshold to the terrace, arms crossed over his chest. His face was in shadow, and she couldn’t tell from his voice exactly how angry he was. “And exactly how did you ‘take ill’ on your yacht?”
She mentally upgraded her assessment of her father’s state of mind from moderately annoyed to highly disappointed. “Seasickness.”
“I think not. You’ve been sailing since before you could walk, and I doubt a Galatean medic just happened to overtake you on the high seas.”
“Papa—”
“What did I say about going to Galatea? Do you have any idea what’s happening to aristos down there?”
“Yes, I do,” Persis said. She had a better idea than almost anyone else in Albion. “But, Papa, the revolutionary government has given immunity to all Albians, and the princess would never let anything happen to me—”
“Something already happened to you, to hear Justen Helo’s version of events. And you’ll forgive me if I’m not willing to trust the announced promises of a man like Damos Aldred, a rebel leader who is torturing and killing his own people, when it comes to the relative safety of my daughter.”
“Princess Isla—”
But her father cut her off. “I think we’ve done quite enough for Princess Isla around here, Persis. I know how much you love her, but you’ve already left school to become part of her official entourage or whatever nonsense you two girls are calling it. I’ll not have you risking your life or your brain to get her a few yards of silk on top of that.”
It was miracle enough that her father had let her quit school. But his mind was too full of care for her mother, and though she hadn’t made it part of her argument, she’d let him believe that her mind was too full of it, too.
The excuse Persis had made at the time was that Isla needed her, that it was her patriotic duty to help her best friend as she recovered after her father’s death and adjusted to life as the unexpected and very young ruler of Albion. The court was beautiful, but if the revolution in the south had proved anything, it was that it could be as deadly as a pod of mini-orcas to a young and inexperienced monarch. Isla needed to make sure there was at least one courtier she could trust completely.
“But you’ve been doing so well in school,” her father had said back then. “I don’t want you to lose yourself in the kind of idle pursuits that characterize most of the ladies at court.” He’d never been much for Albian courtiers. Back when every young aristo girl in Albion had been throwing themselves at his feet, he’d fallen instead for a reg who could gut a fish as easily as read a sonnet. Together, he and Heloise had made history. Persis had no intention of letting the legacy die with her generation. “Gossip and court intrigue? Darling, you’re the smartest girl on the island, not simply Isla’s spy.”
If only he knew that Persis’s activities at court were the very smallest part of her spying. However, Persis would take each argument one at a time.
“Papa, there’s a long tradition of such things. Look at that old story, where the student Horatio left school with Prince Hamlet after his father died and Hamlet needed help—”
“And how did that story turn out again? Maybe you should stay in school.”
Well, Horatio had survived, even if Prince Hamlet hadn’t. And anyway, Persis wouldn’t be swayed. She had more important things to deal with than school—school where they taught her that the Reduction was over, that war was a thing of the past. School, where they argued these things even as Galateans were being Reduced by the score in a war her government refused to do anything about. She couldn’t sit in a classroom while this was going on. She couldn’t.
And she wasn’t going to let a little bout of genetemps sickness stop her now, either.
“I can put a geographical lock on your boat, you know. You won’t be able to sail beyond Remembrance Island without my say-so.”
“Papa! You wouldn’t!”
“I would, and what’s more, I’m going to. I’ve never had to restrict you in this way before, Persis. You’ve always been so responsible. But I can’t have you in Galatea. Listen to Justen Helo if you don’t believe me. He has every reason in the world to be happy with the revolution and even he thinks it’s unsafe there right now. If you get on someone’s bad side down there, they won’t care that your mother is a reg. They won’t have any respect for the fact that you’re a close personal friend of the princess. In fact, that might get you into even more trouble.”
She started to protest but he cut her off.
“I don’t care what Citizen Aldred’s official policy is. You could get caught up by a mob and no policy in the world will help you. I don’t want you in Galatea. Period.”
Well, that was a nonstarter. Period. The Wild Poppy would just have to find alternative transport. The spy’s missions had been doubly complicated by the day’s events. Not only would she have to find a place to stow her new Galatean charge, now she’d have to find another way to cross the sea.
“Persis? Are we clear?”
She nodded. “Yes, Papa.”
He smiled. “Good. Now that this is settled, let’s discuss the rules about bringing strange young men into the house while we’re not around. You’re sixteen. I don’t know what kind of nonsense is going on at court, but this is my home.”
Persis rolled her eyes. “Ask the servants. Justen is a perfect gentleman.”
Torin relinquished a smile. “I knew he would be. A Helo and all.”
Her parents were both starstruck, Persis realized with a laugh and a shake of her head. Even if Justen hadn’t been a perfect gentleman, she couldn’t imagine her father getting too enraged. And that was a good thing, since the two of them were about to embark on their little cooked-up romance. Maybe it would serve as a distraction for her parents—the idea that she’d fallen for a Helo.
They desperately needed a distraction these days.
As they emerged back on the terrace, Persis was gripped by a moment of fear. They’d left Justen alone with her mother. But as soon as she saw them at the table, she relaxed. Justen was talking animatedly, and Heloise Blake was laughing, a light, musical sound that wasn’t heard often enough around Scintillans these days. For a moment, Persis indulged herself with the vision of what this night might have been had everything been different. Maybe Justen Helo was the one from her fantasies: a young, talented medic she’d met on a trip to Galatea, a place where there wasn’t a war. Maybe she was simply a schoolgirl studying politics, and she and Justen could be real friends. Maybe they were all having a nice family dinner, and her mother was well, and her father was happy, and all was right in New Pacifica.
Right. And maybe they weren’t the only living land left on Earth. Fantasies were nothing more than that, and she wasted her time imagining otherwise. So instead she pasted her most enchanting smile on her face, poured herself a glass of kiwine, and joined them at the table for another round of being pretty and giggly and useless. Justen kept up his end of the conversation, and both her parents were utterly charmed.
“I do support gengineering,” Justen said at one point, “but unlike your friend Tero who builds games and pets, I prefer to focus on its more therapeutic aspects—”