Sky Without Stars Read online

  - CHAPTER 41 -

  ALOUETTE

  ALOUETTE HAD NEVER SEEN SO many people all at once. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of bodies filled the giant space in front of her, all of them scurrying, shoving, talking in hurried voices. Some even shouted amid the mishmash of stalls.

  It didn’t take long for Alouette to figure out she was in the Marsh, the large open-air marketplace in the center of the Frets. Although, she had no idea how she’d gotten here. Her plan had been to leave from the back of Fret 7 and avoid the marketplace altogether, but somehow she must have gotten turned around.

  Alouette wondered if the Marsh was always so raucous, so frenetic. So fraught. Like soup on her father’s stove, the crowd seemed to be simmering and waiting, itching to boil over.

  She’d been here for only a few minutes and already she felt overwhelmed. Alouette couldn’t believe her eyes, or her ears. Even her nose was having a hard time taking in the heady smell of sewage, trash, and rotting vegetables.

  Alouette gripped her fist tighter around her hand-drawn map, trying to summon strength from it. This small piece of paper was supposed to lead her straight to the Forest Verdure. Straight to her father’s secret past. Straight to the answers to all her burning questions. She hadn’t dared keep it in her pocket. She was too afraid it would fall out and get lost.

  Besides, the deep pockets on her tunic were full of other important items: A flashlight that she’d swiped from Sister Denise’s workbench. A small bottle of fresh water, because she knew from the Chronicles that the drinking water up here wasn’t always safe. And in her right pocket, she’d managed to also stow her favorite screwdriver. She wasn’t even sure what she might need it for, but she felt more prepared having the tool with her.

  Alouette unfolded the map and peered down at it, trying to figure out how she’d gotten so turned around. It appeared that if she could just find her way to Fret 15, she would be back on track. She could walk straight south to the lake that bordered the Forest Verdure. From there, all she had to do was follow the stream that would take her to the clearing where she’d seen the blinking red dot on the hologram.

  “Okay,” she murmured under her breath. “You can do this. Find Fret 15.”

  She had only a few hours until Assemblée was over, which wasn’t long. If she was going to get out to the forest and back before the sisters came out of Quiet Contemplation, she needed to get moving. Alouette touched the front of her tunic, feeling her devotion beads lying cold against her chest, and finally took a tentative step out from the cover of the darkened hallway and into the Marsh.

  And that’s when she felt it. The tiniest drop of moisture on her nose. As light as a feather. Alouette stopped again and looked up. The roof of the old freightship that used to cover the market had rusted and crumbled away, revealing big patches of sky.

  The real sky!

  Her mouth tweaked into a smile.

  For as long as she could remember, she’d only seen bedrock above her head. But now, here it was. The gray Laterrian sky. It seemed so much higher, so much more vast, than she’d ever pictured in her mind.

  As she marveled at the thick clouds, she felt another two drops, this time on her forehead and cheek.

  And she just couldn’t help it.

  She opened her mouth to catch a raindrop on her tongue, as she’d always imagined doing when she was a kid. It tasted salty and almost sharp.

  “Bonjour, ma chérie, you got some chou bread for me?” Alouette jumped as a rough hand grabbed her wrist. She whirled around to see a large man with drooping eyes staring at her with a crooked, snarling smile. “I haven’t eaten in days.”

  Alouette fumbled for words. “Oh my Sols! I didn’t bring any food with me. I’m so sorry. I should have brought something.”

  How could she not have thought about all the starving people up here? She’d been so preoccupied with her plan to get out to the forest, she’d completely forgotten to bring any food with her.

  “Come on, lovely,” said the man as his hand tightened around Alouette’s wrist. “You got that clean skin and pretty curls. You must be pocketing something good.”

  His face was too close to hers, and Alouette could see something dark and sinister in his eyes. She tried to pull away, but his long black fingernails dug into her flesh through her tunic.

  “Give Old Gonesse something to eat, yeah?” The man’s breath smelled of sour milk and old onions.

  Alouette’s pulse began to race. She gave her arm another tug, but the old man held tight.

  “I really am sorry, but I don’t have—”

  The next words evaporated off her tongue, because suddenly, all around her, the world seemed to halt. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared down at the glowing rectangles implanted in their arms. Even the old man with the crooked smile let go of Alouette’s wrist and was now gazing down at his Skin.

  Then, in eerie unison, every single gaze lifted and focused on something in the distance.

  Something Alouette couldn’t see.

  Or understand.

  “It’s starting,” the old man hissed before disappearing into the crowd.

  Then, in a flash, the marketplace exploded with noise and movement and energy. It was as if a stopper had been released, and suddenly people flowed and gushed around her, shoving from every direction. In every direction.

  As Alouette tried desperately to fight her way out, her feet tripped and staggered until she felt herself falling. Fear bloomed in her chest. A cry for help rose up in her throat. Her feet were nearly off the ground when she felt someone grab her sleeve and yank her out of the swarm.

  It was a boy.

  “This way,” he shouted.

  He tugged again on Alouette’s sleeve, compelling her forward. She continued to stumble slightly as he pulled her past stalls and through tightly packed walkways, but he held fast to her tunic until they’d reached a quiet spot in the middle of a nest of booths selling old kitchenware.

  “What’s going on?” Alouette asked, struggling to catch her breath.

  But the boy didn’t answer. He seemed distracted, anxiously glancing over Alouette’s shoulder as though searching for someone.

  Even with his big black hood and ratty clothes, Alouette could tell the boy was small and skinny. Underfed, most likely. But there was also something familiar about him. Oddly familiar.

  “What’s happening?” Alouette tried again.

  The boy blinked and focused on her, his expression incredulous. “The execution.”

  Alouette’s eyes widened. “The what?”

  The boy said nothing; he only looked out over the sea of heads. Alouette followed his gaze and spotted a platform in the center of the marketplace. The area was surrounded by a team of droids, their metal skulls and gleaming eyes looming over everyone in the Marsh. Alouette’s blood froze at the very sight of them. But the restless crowd seemed to be moving right toward them, and now Alouette could see why. Up on the platform, three droids slowly began rolling out some type of machine. It was a huge, terrifying device that looked to be made entirely of PermaSteel. Two rectangular columns stretched four or five mètres into the air, joined near the bottom by a flat rectangle jutting out to one side. The whole apparatus looked almost like a bed, with posts way too tall for its frame.

  Alouette shivered as she stared at the device. This thing—this curious, unfathomable contraption—was going to execute someone? Kill someone? It didn’t seem possible. She’d read of such things happening on the First World. But never here.

  The porridge she’d eaten for breakfast rose up in Alouette’s stomach as her mind raced through everything she’d learned about Laterre. “But the Ministère doesn’t execute people,” she said quietly to the boy.

  “Exactly. That’s why everyone’s all riled up.” The boy rolled his eyes.

  “Who are they executing?” Alouette asked.

  The boy shot her a look of disbelief. “Have you been living under a rock?”

  “A rock?
Well, not exactly, but—”

  “Haven’t you been getting the alerts?” The boy glanced at her sleeve, but then seemed to remember something and sneered. “Oh, right, your kind doesn’t get alerts.”

  “My kind?”

  The boy shook his head. “It’s the governess. Nadette Epernay. She murdered the Premier Enfant. At least that’s what they’re telling us.”

  “The Premier Enfant is dead?!”

  The boy pushed back his hood a little farther and stared up at Alouette. “Are you telling me you really didn’t know?”

  But Alouette didn’t get a chance to answer because at that moment, a fresh surge of people barreled toward them, and she and the boy were flung apart. Alouette stood on her tiptoes and searched desperately for a sign of him.

  Just as she spotted the boy’s hood, she was suddenly knocked backward when a woman slammed into her. Alouette stumbled, trying to find her footing. But by the time she regained her balance, the boy’s black hood was gone.

  She opened her mouth to call to him, but no sound came out. She didn’t know his name. And even if she did, there was no way her voice would carry in all this commotion. Everywhere she turned, people were shouting.

  “Look, look. Here she is!”

  “That’s her! The monster!”

  “She’s not a monster. She’s just a baby.”

  Alouette spun in a frantic circle until her gaze landed on a young woman standing on the platform, shivering in a flimsy blue shirt and pants. Two droids gripped her with huge metal fists, squeezing her arms so tight, the color drained from the woman’s skin. The terror and rain that splashed across her face made her look ghostly and disfigured.

  This was the murderer of the Premier Enfant?

  A girl who couldn’t have been much older than Alouette?

  Alouette had barely had time to take in the news that the child had been killed, and now this woman, this girl, was going to be executed for the crime? Alouette’s stomach clenched and her legs felt wobbly beneath her.

  “Get on with it! Just kill her!” someone in the crowd shouted.

  “Yeah, give us our Ascension back!”

  There was some laughter followed by more angry shouts.

  “Arrête! She’s innocent.”

  “Yes, look at her! There’s no way she did it!”

  “Of course, she did it! Kill her!”

  More outcries and peals of laughter swirled around and buffeted Alouette. The noise, the commotion, the shouting, the girl’s wide, petrified eyes. It was all too much.

  Alouette suddenly wished she were back in her warm bed, inside the Refuge’s tight, safe walls. She wished her father were there to take her into his strong arms, shield her from this terrible place, and tell her it was going to be okay. She wished she’d never come out here.

  She squeezed her hand tightly around the map. As though it had the power to stop all of this.

  “Shut up!” someone shouted right next to Alouette, startling her. “She’s saying something.”

  More calls for quiet echoed around Alouette, and she looked back toward the platform. The two droids pushed the girl facedown onto the flat steel bed of the device. But she was resisting, and with her head thrust upward, she was shouting.

  “I didn’t do it! I swear I’m innocent! Please. Please! Help me!”

  The droids thrust her down harder, forcing her head onto the block as four clamps suddenly protruded from the PermaSteel surface. They rose up like metallic creatures, encircling her wrists and ankles before squeezing shut. The governess let out a terrified shriek.

  “I loved her!” she shouted, the sound muffled by tears and her face being pressed into the metal slab. “I . . . I loved that little girl like she was my own.”

  Alouette leaned forward, trying to hear what the young woman was saying.

  “We . . . we played. Every morning, we played. I was the Fairy Queen and she was the Princess.” The governess was sobbing now, stuttering and fumbling over her words. “We lived in a . . . a magic castle. There was a dragon. It was Marie’s dragon. Poor little Marie. We looked after it. We fed it magic turnip juice and . . .”

  Alouette swallowed a lump in her throat as she remembered her own games from when she was little. Her own magic castles and imaginary dragons.

  Suddenly, a somberness seemed to descend on the Marsh, shifting the energy in the crowd. There were no more shouts, only mutterings and whispers.

  “I don’t think she did it.”

  “She looks just like my daughter.”

  “The poor thing.”

  “Oh my Sols, please save her. Spare her!”

  Alouette could hear the girl’s shuddering sobs punctuated by sparse, halting words: “Innocent.” “Please.” “Dragon.”

  Then, a strange, high-pitched buzzing noise permeated the air, growing louder and louder. The crowd fell nearly silent, and Alouette watched in horror as the top of the contraption flickered, like it was waking up from a long slumber. A blinding flash and a thin beam of light ignited between the two PermaSteel columns. The beam was bright blue and vibrating. Restless.

  The crowd sucked in a collective breath.

  “It looks like a blade,” Alouette heard someone whisper. It sounded like a child.

  The beam—the blade—started to glide slowly downward between the columns, sizzling and flashing as it moved, sending small blue sparks into the thick, wet air.

  Alouette’s gaze flitted back to the young girl lying beneath it. Her face was now hidden by her cascading auburn hair, but her slim neck was exposed.

  And it lay right in the path of the beam.

  Suddenly, everything became horribly and terrifyingly clear to Alouette.

  “No! No!” The words rushed from her mouth. “No! No! No!”

  The beam kept lowering, making its fatal descent between the twin columns. The girl’s limbs went rigid, as if she could sense what was coming next.

  Alouette’s stomach rolled and heaved, and her legs began to shake. “No!” she cried again, but this time the word was lost in a shudder.

  The beam hovered just centimètres above the girl’s unblemished neck. There wasn’t so much as a breath in the entire crowd. Alouette tried to steel herself, wondering if she might faint. She heard a soft sizzle and then suddenly someone grabbed her from behind, clamping a hand over her eyes.

  “Don’t watch,” a deep voice whispered close to her ear.

  She knew the voice.

  There was only one person it could be.

  He’d saved her.

  Saved her from the awful sight.

  Saved her from witnessing the horror of the Ministère’s heartless sentence.

  But he couldn’t save her from the girl’s screams.

  Or the smell of burning flesh.

  - CHAPTER 42 -

  MARCELLUS

  MARCELLUS WISHED HE’D LOOKED AWAY too.

  He wished he could stop staring.

  But, as he shielded the girl’s eyes, he couldn’t seem to pull his own eyes away from what was happening on the platform. They were transfixed by the horror. The blue beam didn’t drop fast. It moved slowly, painstakingly, with tiny blinding sparks whirling and disappearing into the air like miniature fireworks. When the laser finally reached Nadette’s neck, there wasn’t a sound in the Marsh. It seemed like even the droids held their nonexistent breath.

  There was no blood. The burning-hot laser cauterized her flesh too quickly for blood to spill. But the smell was enough to turn even the strongest stomachs. Marcellus felt himself gag and cough. He was barely able to keep himself from being sick. The sight of the young girl’s head thumping into a metal can beneath the device, Marcellus knew, would never be erased from his memory.

  Not ever.

  Marcellus’s breathing was coming in heavy, sharp gasps. He tried to remind himself of little Marie and the painful way she’d died too. But that just made him feel worse. Marie’s little face. Nadette’s kind smile. The way they used to call out to each ot
her through the long corridors of the Palais as they played. The same way he had done with Mabelle.

  The memories cycled in his mind, blurring into one another. Nadette and Marie. Mabelle and Marcellus. Two Palais governesses accused of being Vangarde. Two convicted.

  One now dead.

  A low, pained groan shook Marcellus from his thoughts. He turned toward the girl next to him. The girl who called herself Alouette.

  He had found her again.

  He’d doubted he ever would.

  And yet, as he’d been patrolling the crowds, surveying for signs of hostility, there she’d been. Staring up at Nadette, her face aghast, desperately shouting something he couldn’t hear. As soon as he’d laid eyes on her, Marcellus had leapt into action. He knew he had to protect her from what was about to happen. He had to shield her from the horror. The girl had seemed so innocent to him in the Fret hallway. She’d panicked at the sight of a few droids. He couldn’t imagine what she might do if she’d seen this.

  But now she was standing there, gaping at the platform, where the droids were dragging away what was left of Nadette’s body. Marcellus hadn’t even noticed he’d dropped his hand from her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Marcellus asked. He raised a hand to comfort her but soon realized he didn’t know where to put it. On her shoulder? On her arm? Over her eyes again?

  He let it fall back to his side.

  The girl was mumbling something incoherent. Marcellus wondered if it was even coherent to her. It sounded like babble. Her eyes were glassy, and her breaths were rapid and shallow.

  Was she going into shock?

  She was still staring at the platform. The body was gone. All that was left was that gruesome machine. A Reichenstat invention, his grandfather had said. Made more efficient by Ministère cyborg scientists. All Marcellus could see now was a horrible contraption he wanted loaded onto the next voyageur and launched into deep space.

  “Officer Bonnefaçon?” Inspecteur Limier’s clipped voice reverberated through Marcellus’s audio patch, pulling his attention away from the girl and the contraption. “Are you there?”