There must be others in Galatea who thought the same way but were too frightened to act, given Citizen Aldred’s swift and severe punishments. Unlike the Helos, they didn’t have the protection of their names. But if others could be reached, if people who thought like Justen and Remy could be marshaled to pose a challenge to the reign of terror, then maybe they could find a way to stop all of it, and then no one would need asylum.
Or the Wild Poppy.
Could she ever be satisfied with merely running the estate and being a dutiful daughter to her parents after these months of adventures? Persis didn’t know. But once the Galateans were no longer in danger, there would be no need for her alter ego, or for the mask she wore when playacting as Persis Blake. Maybe then she could finally talk to Justen as an equal.
Or maybe even sooner than that. After all, he was already helping the League of the Wild Poppy by assisting the refugees. And even his sister was taking part in the operations.
Maybe it was time to tell Justen who she really was. This latest development should kill any remaining loyalty he had left for the twisted travesty his revolution had become. Justen, who held so much respect for his grandmother’s work, who had dedicated his life to fixing every flaw in her great achievement—he couldn’t stand by and watch his leaders take it apart. Couldn’t let them threaten his fellow citizens like that.
His fellow citizens, but not himself. Justen was a natural reg, she remembered with a sudden chill. He was natural, and she, though an aristo, might have a Helo-Cured brain. If either of them were ever captured by the Galateans and dosed with this drug, Justen would recover, while Persis—
She might learn what it was like to Darken a few decades early.
Thirteen
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, PERSIS and Justen were still at the sanitarium, with no sign of departure on the horizon. Justen and Noemi had tested the regs in the facility and learned that Justen’s hypothesis was correct—every one of them was descended from those who’d received the Helo Cure. The next step was seeing if there was a way to counteract or overcome the effects. To pass the time, Persis was playing chess on the floor with a few of the recovering patients. But she wasn’t paying careful enough attention. She kept accidentally winning.
She’d also fired off a few flutternotes whenever she was sure no one was watching. She fluttered Isla that a problem at the refugee base was keeping her from fulfilling the princess’s public relations quest, but that she and Justen were working on it together. She fluttered Andrine to get an update on Remy’s transport back to Galatea. Andrine had been charged with giving the girl some very explicit instructions as to what she was to do when she arrived home, since Persis didn’t want to place Justen’s sister in the path of danger. Remy was to gather information, not hunt it down.
Finally, she fluttered her parents—on a frangipani flutter, naturally—saying she and Justen would be late for supper.
And she thought. Was it possible that the Galateans were not aware of what they were doing to their people with this drug? They’d begun by using it solely on aristos, a symbolic punishment meant to enslave the upper class as the aristos had once enslaved the masses. The revolutionaries’ first victim had been the old Queen Gala, followed by her entourage. It was only recently that they’d expanded to punishing regs who ran afoul of the revolution in this manner. Did they mean the sentences to be for life?
“Excuse me, Lady Blake?”
Persis looked up from her most recent game to see Lord Lacan standing there, his face grave. Lord Lacan was the first aristo she’d rescued who was aware of her true identity, thanks to Remy’s unmasking her during the man’s rescue. The other aristos in his party, thankfully, had been out of sight when Remy had knocked off her cap. Though every new person who knew her secret was one more node of danger, she was glad it had been Lacan and not someone like Lord or Lady Seri.
She excused herself from the board—a good thing, too, as she was two moves away from another checkmate—and retreated with him into a quiet corner.
“Rumors have been flying around the facility like your little spun-sugar flower messages,” the old man said to her. “There’s a problem, I understand, with the reg refugees?”
“It’s not of concern to you or your family, sir—”
“You’re wrong,” Lacan replied. “The regs you rescued along with me are my friends. Anything that hurts my countrymen hurts me as well. May I see them?”
Persis blinked, surprised by the vehemence in his voice. Then again, even Reduced, Lacan had a presence about him. He’d been one of the most powerful voices for reform before the revolution, which is why she was so mystified that Aldred made him a target for imprisonment and Reduction. Even Remy Helo seemed to have been curious. Lord Lacan was responsible for changing at least one Galatean reg’s mind about the revolution—and one who’d been raised to believe in it more strongly than anyone. Maybe that’s why Aldred found him so dangerous. He was one of the only pro-reg forces out there who could challenge Aldred’s despotic rule. Lacan was an aristo, but not the kind the revolution was meant to challenge.
Persis led him into the next chamber. There were seven refugees here, all regs. Lacan observed them for a moment, their sullen, confused faces, their clumsy movements and mumbled groans.
“This is an abomination,” he said at last. “We must tell my countrymen what is being done to them, what they truly risk the longer they allow Aldred to control the island. Everything I fought for, the integrity of the Helo Cure itself—” The old man’s voice broke on the words, and he shook his head.
“I know.” Persis put a hand on his arm.
He looked at her hand, at the yellow leather wristlock covering her palmport. “You are a very young person to be taking this on all on your own.”
“I’m not on my own,” she replied in defense. “I have helpers, and Noemi, and the support of the princess—”
He cut her off, his tone contemplative, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “This is what I’ve been thinking ever since I came back to myself. How young you are. How young you and that little soldier girl looked as you grappled on the ground in Galatea. How young Princess Isla is.” The Lord Lacan looked down at his wrinkled hands, at the bandage covering his thumb. “I was ten years old when I took over my family estate. Twelve when Persistence Helo came to me and told me about her cure, when I decided to give it to every Reduced person on my land. My neighbors, all those people older and wiser than I, they all told me how foolish it was to listen to some reg who managed to get herself a medic’s training. Said even if it did work, I’d have a lot harder time managing an estate full of regs than I would if they were Reduced.”
“And you were right, in the end.”
He chuckled. “Yes, I was. At twelve years old, I was young and idealistic and lucky that I happened to be right. So that’s why I know it’s foolish to tell you how dangerous this whole Wild Poppy business is and utterly pointless to say you’re too young to pull it off. Because I know from experience that sometimes it’s only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world.”
VANIA SCOWLED AS SHE scrolled through the files on her oblet. General Gawnt’s new strategy of beefing up the security at the work camps meant far more administrative work than Vania liked. He was doing this to annoy her, of that she was certain. Now, instead of being at the front lines of the Ford siege, waiting for the moment she could watch the final barriers fall, she was stuck in an office in the Halahou royal palace, reviewing files on troop movements.
Annoyed, she flipped back to his memo. His fat face looked like little more than a smear in the oblet display.