Persis looked up at him, her expression unreadable.
Silly aristo. “DAR is a sickness of regs,” he explained, frustrated. “No one in power in Galatea cared what happened to them.” He regarded her carefully. “Can you honestly say it’s any different in Albion?”
“We have very nice sanitariums—” Persis began halfheartedly.
“Let me guess. Beautiful gardens, impeccable grounds, bars on every window?” he scoffed. “Don’t tell me what they’re like. I trained in one. And you know very well it’s the same here. There’s a reason your family wants your mother’s condition kept secret.”
Persis said nothing, just stared at him with a defiantly raised chin.
“Your Princess Isla talks about avoiding a revolution,” he said. “Perhaps she should start by admitting things in her country aren’t as different from those in Galatea as she wants everyone to believe.”
She pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t know much about that,” was all she said. “And I don’t really care, either.”
“Then what do you care about?” he practically shouted.
Persis was silent again. “I care about my mother’s future. I know someone who works at the west coast sanitarium. Noemi Dorric. She’s a brilliant medic,” she added, though Justen wasn’t sure he should take Persis’s word on the matter. Still . . . “If you’re serious about this, I can arrange to have you installed in a laboratory there as soon as tomorrow.”
He looked at Persis. “You can do that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Justen, I’m one of those aristos whose crushing power you’re always deriding. We can work it for good, too.”
“True,” he allowed with a chagrined smirk.
She lifted her shoulders. “Besides, even if that weren’t the case, you’re a Helo and under the protection of Princess Isla. Your only challenge will be finding time to turn down all the invitations you’re about to get for your medic services.”
“True again. Shall I rely on you to be my social secretary, then?”
At that, the aristo graced him again with one of her dazzling smiles. “You couldn’t have chosen better if you tried.”
Ten
FOR A LONG TIME, the soldier called Trina Delmar floated—weightless, senseless, like she used to at the bottom of the tide pools in the cove where she and her brother played when she was younger. Back then, she used to dream she was a fish, and wished she had the money to get a gengineered sea pony like the aristo girl up the bay had. But then the revolution had come and the aristo girl and her parents had disappeared and one day, Trina had seen the pony washed up on the shore, its marvelous coral flippers ragged and torn, its big, faceted golden eyes lifeless and swarming with blackflies.
The revolution. It was supposed to save them all. But then her brother had told her of impossible treasons and she’d tried to help him, only to be confronted with bleeding old men and guards who didn’t seem to care as much for equality as for making people pay and a cliff top where the last person she’d expected to voiced the same fears as her brother had—fears she didn’t even want to admit were possible.
Senses began to intrude on her solitude. The muffled sound of people talking, far, far away. A light, white and creamy, soft and blurry. The smell of orchids in the air. A soft, melodic tinkle that sounded almost like water in a fountain, but was far too musical for that. And, most of all, the ropes binding her ankles and her arms.
Her eyes shot open to see a bright dome above her head, framed at the edges by palm fronds strung with orchid leis. She sat up, and a wave of dizziness overtook her, but she tensed her muscles and blinked her eyes until her vision cleared.
“Hello, Citizen Delmar,” said the woman—or rather, the girl—seated on the dais before her. She was all white from the tips of her high-piled hair to the sculpted white eyebrows against her golden-brown skin to her long cape and shimmering gown. At her feet knelt two handmaidens, both swathed in hooded robes of silvery gray. The princess regent of Albion, Isla. A royal, an aristo, and an enemy of the revolution. “Welcome to my kingdom.”
In a rush, the memories flooded back. The Wild Poppy. She’d been captured by the Wild Poppy. She looked desperately around the room for an escape route, for a weapon of some sort. The white cushions and rugs wouldn’t help her. The enormous planters would be too heavy to lift, even if she could break free. She tested the bonds and they tightened further.
“Trina,” the princess admonished, in a tone that meant she’d probably said the word a few times already. Right. Her name. So they didn’t know. That could be useful. “Don’t waste your time, dear. You can’t escape from nanothread ropes.”
“What do you want?” Trina asked. Her voice trembled on the words, which was not ideal behavior for a revolutionary soldier, but it’s not as if she’d had much training in that area. She might have skills with a gun, but she was no Vania Aldred.
“To talk to you,” said the princess serenely. “Though, to be honest, I personally don’t see the value in it. You were captured by a sea mink. You’re hardly a crack soldier.”
Just a child, echoed her brother’s voice in her head. You can’t possibly help. She’d hoped to prove him wrong, and now . . .
“But the Wild Poppy assures me you have potential, and his is an opinion I trust.”
“Hers,” Trina corrected before she could stop herself. “I saw her. She’s a girl.”
The princess regarded Trina, her eyes half-lowered, as if she was bored by the whole proceeding. “Nothing wrong with her memory, I see.”
Trina felt the urge to cower. It must be that she was effectively at this woman’s mercy, bound and imprisoned. After all, she’d not been raised to feel inferior to aristos, to bow her head before royalty.
“This is a waste of time,” Princess Isla said now, her tone almost thoughtful. “Let’s just kill her where she lies. I have some gengineered neuroeels in my dungeon I’ve been dying to put to use.”
Trina’s blood ran cold. She’d seen neuroeels once, while diving for abalone with her brother down at the cove. A whole flock of them had descended upon a manta ray nearby. Her brother had held tightly to her arm as they watched the fight in horror. Not that it had been much of a fight. The ray was big enough to ride on, yet a few seconds into the attack the eels’ neurotoxin sent its muscles into spasms. The ray had bolted toward the surface, its massive, seizing wings churning the sea into a froth. Shudders had run the length of the manta ray’s body, making its smooth gray skin look like ripples on a pond. The neuroeels clung fast to its white underside, little more than deadly black strings on the wings of a dying angel.
They’d never known what triggered the attack. Her brother had explained that neuroeels generally didn’t go for large prey, despite the strength of their poison. He’d wondered, later, if they hadn’t been escaped guard beasts, trained to torture people. One never knew what the queen had kept in her dungeons. At least, not until the revolution.
“Please . . .” she whispered. “Please don’t.” If she died here, her brother would never even know what had happened to her. No one would. Even if there was a record of “Trina Delmar” being captured by the Poppy, she’d still disappear without a trace.
And then her brother would be truly alone in the world.
The princess blew out a breath of air through her nostrils. “And you think this girl would make a good spy? Please. What will happen the first time Citizen Aldred threatens her with a Reduction pill?”