Sky Without Stars Read online

  But then another part of her knew she couldn’t hold it in any longer. Everything inside of her, all the secrets she’d been keeping, all the lies she’d been telling, were like seedlings in Sister Laurel’s propagation room. Now that they’d sprouted from the soil, there was no stopping them growing up into the light.

  She had to tell Jacqui the truth. It might be the only way to keep them all safe.

  “It started when the boy got hurt,” she began, her voice still shaky and hurried. “I was trying to fix the old security monitor, and that’s when I saw him. He was injured and bleeding. I couldn’t just stand there and watch. I knew what to do to help him. I knew I needed to apply pressure and clean his wound and . . .” She took a deep breath. “And so I went outside. I left. Without telling anyone.”

  Alouette stopped and glanced at Jacqui from the corner of her eye. Her cheeks burned with guilt. She steeled herself for the shock. The look of betrayal. The harsh words. But Jacqui simply nodded her head, indicating for Alouette to go on.

  Alouette took another deep breath and kept talking. She told Jacqui about leaving the Refuge and finding Marcellus and cleaning up his bleeding head with the old shirt. She told the sister about the terrifying droids and the convict with the bumps on his arm.

  “They were just like Papa’s,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” Jacqui said, rubbing Alouette’s back like she used to do when Alouette was little and she couldn’t sleep.

  Alouette swallowed and continued her story. She was careful not to leave anything out. She told Jacqui about finding the candlestick and the hologram map in her father’s room, hacking the library’s security alarm so she could get to the Chronicles after everyone had gone to sleep, and then sneaking out again when the sisters were in Assemblée the next day. She choked down a sob as she relayed the part about the horrible execution, but she smiled a little as she told the sister about the ride on Marcellus’s moto and the mysterious camp in the forest with its fire pit and little circle of huts.

  All the while, Jacqui never reacted. She just nodded and listened. As though Alouette were simply telling her a story about scrubbing the Refuge floors.

  “And then . . . ,” Alouette said, bracing herself for the worst of it. “And then, I found out who Marcellus really was. I was so stupide not to have read the signs before. I put everyone in danger. He’s . . . he’s . . .” She swallowed. “He’s the general’s grandson. And an officer of the Ministère.”

  Jacqui glanced down at her lap, and Alouette couldn’t tell if she was angry or surprised or something else.

  “I’m sorry,” Alouette rushed to continue. “I’m so, so sorry! I feel horrible. Because it turned out to be nothing. I put the Refuge in danger. I put the library in danger. For nothing. The flashing dot just marked some old grave site. I think maybe it’s where my mother is buried.”

  Jacqui made a clucking noise with her tongue, pulling Alouette out of her spiral of panic. The sister appeared to be struggling with what she was going to say next.

  “What?” Alouette asked curiously. “What is it? Tell me.”

  “Little Lark, your mother is not buried. Her dust was scattered in Montfer, where she died. Your father told me.”

  Suddenly, it felt like everything was vanishing in front of Alouette.

  First her father.

  And now her mother, too.

  Pieces were beginning to fall out of place. The story she’d crafted in her mind about the camp and the graves and the candlestick wasn’t making sense anymore. If her mother wasn’t buried in that clearing, then why did her father have a hologram map leading there?

  Would she ever find out?

  Would her father’s secrets be buried forever?

  Would she even see her father again?

  “Oh my Sols, Jacqui, I was so horrible to him! He came to get me from the Frets. He dragged me back here, and I said the most terrible things. I called him a criminal.” She gasped for breath, and hot tears sprang to her eyes. “That’s why he left, isn’t it? Because of me. Because I hurt him. I pushed him away, and now he’s gone! He’s . . .”

  The sobs took over. They heaved up through every muscle and fiber of Alouette like waves. She couldn’t control them. She couldn’t stop them. Until she looked up and saw the person standing in the doorway. And suddenly, they stopped on their own.

  Sister Denise was dressed in a long gray jacket with a stiff, high collar, just like the ones Jacqui and Laurel always wore when they went on supply runs.

  How long had she been there? How much had she heard?

  “Are you ready, Jacqui?” Denise asked in her familiar and composed monotone. “It’s time.”

  “Okay,” Jacqui replied, squeezing Alouette’s hand before releasing it.

  Alouette’s gaze spun back to Jacqui, and for the first time since she’d entered the room, she noticed that Jacqui, too, was wearing her above-world coat. Alouette peered down at the floor and realized the bag Jacqui had dropped when she’d first come in was the same bag the sister always took up to the Frets.

  “Are you going on a supply run?” Alouette asked, confused.

  It wasn’t the right day for a supply run. And why was Denise going too? She never went up to the Frets. It was always Sister Jacqui and Sister Laurel.

  “Not today,” Jacqui said as she pushed herself up from the bed and began buttoning her coat.

  “So where are you going?” Alouette asked.

  A look flitted between the two sisters before Jacqui finally said, “There’s something Denise and I have to do. You will understand soon.”

  Panic surged through Alouette. They couldn’t leave too. Alouette couldn’t stand to see another empty room in the Refuge today.

  “Are you going to find my father?” As soon as the thought crashed into Alouette’s mind, the ache in her chest began to ease. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re going to find him?”

  But Sister Jacqui shook her head. “We aren’t going to find Hugo. Your father has his own path. You will see him again, though, I am sure of it.”

  The sister crossed the room and retrieved a large book from one of her shelves. She flipped through the pages and pulled out a loose leaf of paper. Then she crossed back over to Alouette and held it out.

  “I never agreed with the decision to keep this from you. But it’s what he wanted.”

  Alouette let the doll and the titan box drop into her lap as she reached for the yellowed paper. It took her a moment to figure out what it was, but finally she recognized the familiar, loopy handwriting of Sister Bethany, the first sister to compose and compile the Chronicles. Then Alouette’s eyes fell on the words: “Bastille,” “convicts,” “metallic tattoos.”

  “The missing page?” Alouette whispered, utterly stunned. “From the Chronicles? You had it all along?”

  She shot an accusing look at Sister Jacqui.

  “He was ashamed, Alouette,” Jacqui explained. “And he wanted to protect you. That’s all he ever wanted.”

  Then Sister Jacqui leaned over, picked up her supply sac from the floor, and pulled it onto her shoulder.

  Alouette momentarily forgot the page in her hand as her fear and confusion came charging back. “I don’t understand,” she cried out. “Where are you going? Does this have anything to do with what I did? Or Marcellus Bonnefaçon?”

  Jacqui smiled. “Not exactly. And I wouldn’t worry too much about Marcellus Bonnefaçon. He’s no danger to us.”

  Alouette’s brow furrowed. “What? How do you know? And what do you have to go do?”

  Sister Jacqui sighed. “That, I’m afraid, I’m not allowed to tell you.” She shared another inscrutable look with Sister Denise. “Remember everything we’ve taught you. And remember”—she reached forward and tapped the beads hanging from Alouette’s neck—“you’re one of us now and you’re strong, Little Lark.”

  Then, before Alouette could reply, Jacqui turned and followed Sister Denise out the door.

  For a few moments, Aloue
tte was left stunned, openmouthed, gawking at the empty doorway. Then, suddenly, something shifted inside her. A feeling that something was escaping her. Everything was slipping through her fingers.

  “Wait!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet.

  Alouette charged after the two sisters. But by the time she was halfway down the hallway, she could hear the Refuge’s PermaSteel door clanging shut.

  They were gone.

  Just like her father.

  Alouette looked around the empty hallway, at the low ceilings and the thick, rugged walls. The ache in her chest had returned full force.

  Somehow everything had changed, and yet, at the same time, nothing had changed at all.

  She was right back at the beginning.

  Back in the darkness where she’d always been.

  Meanwhile, her father was probably already aboard a voyageur bound for Reichenstat, speeding across the System Divine, moving farther and farther away from her with each passing second.

  Alouette glanced down at the page in her hands and ran her fingertips across the ripped edge. She remembered learning about voyageurs from Volume 11 of the Chronicles. How they were used to transport goods and people to the other planets in the System Divine. She remembered studying drawings of their long bodies, massive thrusters, and Y-shaped wings. Their powerful engines allowed them to travel from one planet to the next, when in supervoyage mode, or even as far as distant galaxies, when in hypervoyage mode.

  But passages were so expensive, it was only the First and Second Estates who could ever afford to take those trips.

  “I should have enough funds to get us there. . . .”

  When her father had said this to her yesterday, Alouette had thought he was just rambling, possibly not in his right mind. But now she was wondering if what he’d said was true.

  But how did he have the funds?

  Alouette suddenly felt incredibly stupide. She closed her eyes, letting the shame of the moment wash over her.

  Of course.

  Her father was a criminal.

  An escaped prisoner.

  The funds were undoubtedly stolen.

  But Alouette had searched his entire room the other day, and she hadn’t found anything that looked like it might be stolen except the . . .

  The yellowed page dropped from Alouette’s hand and fluttered to the ground as she felt the world shift ever so slightly.

  The candlestick.

  The hologram map.

  It wasn’t leading to anyone’s grave. It was leading to her father’s hiding place. He’d buried something out there in the woods. Something he didn’t want found by anyone but him. Which meant he couldn’t secure passage on a ship to Reichenstat until he’d uncovered it.

  Alouette’s heart was suddenly alight with hope and the promise of redemption.

  She knew how long it took to get to that clearing. She’d ridden there on the back of Marcellus’s moto, but her father would most likely be on foot.

  Alouette might still have time.

  Time to stop him. Time to apologize for all the things she’d said to him. But most of all, time to tell her father that she would travel to the farthest planet of the System Divine if it meant she could still be with him.

  - CHAPTER 57 -

  CHATINE

  LARK?

  Chatine sat in interrogation room 2 across from Roche, who had just finished scribbling nonsense on Officer Bonnefaçon’s TéléCom and was now pushing it toward her with an I-told-you-so expression on his face.

  And it was nonsense, wasn’t it?

  No one still wrote or read the Forgotten Word. It had become a lost language. A cryptic code of their ancestors. A useless device.

  When Roche had first started dragging his fingertip across the surface of the screen, Chatine had been absolutely, 100 percent sure it would be utter gibberish that came out. He was just playing around. Refusing to give up the farce.

  But now she wasn’t so sure.

  She’d heard Marcellus’s voice through her audio chip after Roche had finished. She’d heard the tremor in his tone.

  “It says ‘Lark.’ ”

  What on Laterre did “Lark” mean?

  She glared at Roche. “Where did you learn this word?”

  Roche shrugged. “I told you. It’s been in the messages. A lot.”

  Chatine was losing her patience. This kind of talk was surely going to get him sent to the moon. She was supposed to be directing suspicion away from him, but from the evident shift she’d heard in the officer’s voice, it was clear that her questions—and Roche’s stupide answers—had been doing just the opposite.

  She leaned in close to Roche and locked eyes with him, trying to convey the direness of the situation in a single glance. “Look,” she whispered hoarsely, even though she knew everyone could hear. Marcellus Bonnefaçon and probably half of the Policier force were watching her right now. She suddenly wished she had the capacity to disable that TéléCom for real. “You need to stop lying to me. You need to stop right now. This is serious. We could both get—”

  Just then the door to the interrogation room was flung open and a figure in white rushed inside. The person was moving so swiftly and with such ferocity, Chatine could barely register his face.

  That is, until he slowed down.

  Until he grabbed Roche by the collar and ripped him out of his seat.

  “Where did you learn that word? Where have you been delivering messages? Where are the Vangarde hiding?”

  If Chatine hadn’t been staring straight at him, she would never have believed that this angry beast of a man—this white gust of wind—was Marcellus. He shook Roche, causing the kid’s oversized goggles to pop off his head and clatter to the floor.

  “Where are they?!”

  “Stop!” Chatine begged, pulling on his arm. “He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know anything.”

  Marcellus blinked and focused on her. For just a shiver of a moment, Chatine could swear that he saw her. Really saw her. His gaze seemed to cloud over. His expression softened. His brow furrowed like he was piecing it all together. As clearly as if she had let down her hood, scrubbed her face clean, and revealed herself to him.

  Then the moment was over, and Marcellus turned back to Roche. He set him back down on the ground. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  But Chatine barely had time to register the apology, because just then Roche charged at her. The top of his head smashed into her stomach, and she staggered back, hitting the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of her.

  “You mouchard!” he screamed. “You lying, cheating, sniveling snitch!”

  Roche backed up and started to come at her again, but this time Marcellus hooked his elbow around Roche’s chest and held him back. The kid fought. He squirmed. He kicked. He yelled. “You betrayed me! You betrayed your entire estate!”

  Suddenly, another uniformed figure burst through the door. It was Chacal. Chatine watched in horror as the sergent didn’t even bother trying to help Marcellus restrain Roche. He just pulled out the long metal baton from his belt and aimed it at the boy’s right knee.

  Roche yelped and went down hard. But that did nothing to stop the tirade pouring from his lips. “You are a good-for-nothing, lowlife traitor. I can’t believe you work with them. I can’t believe you would sell me out to these flics!”

  Chatine felt the insults in every bone of her body. The pain in her stomach from the impact of Roche’s head was nothing compared to the agony she was feeling now. This boy—this one of her own—was right. She was a lowlife, sniveling traitor. She was a mouchard.

  And not just in here. Not just in this room with him. For the past week she’d been doing something she swore she’d never do. She’d been spying for the Ministère. For the general no less.

  All so she could fulfill her own selfish desires.

  All so she could leave them behind.

  Chatine was born into the Third Estate of the Regime. The bottom. The underbelly of the planet. The scu
m of Laterre. And yet, she’d never felt lower than she did right now.

  She’d never cared about any of them. She’d never been loyal to her own kind. But there was something about Roche—something about his eyes and his dirt-stained face and his clever talk—that triggered a sensation deep within Chatine. A feeling she hadn’t felt in years.

  Empathy.

  Chacal wrapped a hand around Roche’s scrawny arm and began to drag him from the room. Chatine knew exactly where they were taking him.

  There was only one place you got dragged to in this building.

  Roche was going to a holding cell to await transport to Bastille.

  “No!” Chatine exploded, pushing herself off the wall and diving toward Chacal. “Arrête!” Her hands were balled into fists. Her teeth were bared. She felt as though she could have easily torn that flic apart.

  If she had been able to get to him.

  Marcellus stepped in front of her, blocking her path. She feigned left, then spun right, but the officer was ready for her. As though he was anticipating her movements.

  “You can’t take him!” Chatine screamed at Chacal over Marcellus’s shoulder. “He’s just a kid! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s making it all up.”

  She tried to ram Marcellus with her shoulder, fighting to get to Roche, but Marcellus grabbed her by the arms, holding her back, his nails digging into her skin through her coat.

  “Bonnefaçon,” Chacal said as he dragged Roche out the door. “Control your déchet friend.”

  Chatine felt Marcellus’s body tense at the word, but he held his ground. His grip didn’t loosen.

  She thrashed. She punched. She flailed.

  But she was too weak. She might have had the brains and the Fret smarts, but she didn’t have the strength. She didn’t have enough food to have the strength. She was no match for the strapping, well-fed Bonnefaçon protégé.

  The door to the interrogation room closed with Chatine on one side and Roche on the other. And she had a sickening feeling it would be like that forever. She would never see him again. He would be shipped off to Bastille, and it was all her fault.