He turned back to her. “Does Isla really think she’s impressing the regs of Albion by setting off on a yachting trip with a bunch of aristos and a few token court regs? Is that what she thinks is going to keep the populace happy? Wouldn’t they be much happier to know that we’ve found a way to protect the regs in Galatea?”
“Shh!” she hissed. “Lower your voice.” The last thing she needed was for the Finches to find out the real reason she’d drugged Andrine. She leaned up against the rail and drew Justen against her. “People are watching.”
“So?” He leaned his body toward hers. “We’re supposed to be arguing.”
She draped her arms about his shoulders and arched her back. Behind her, the sea spray frosted her skin, but heat radiated from Justen’s body. The last time she’d held him this close had been in the star cove. It seemed like a world away. Then, she’d let down her guard, acted almost like herself, imagined that Justen was the sort of person she could tell things to. It had been her most serious lapse in judgment in a week that seemed full of them.
“Well, now we’re making up. Isla hasn’t authorized any fights.” More’s the pity. How she’d like to have it out with him here and now. How she’d like to pitch him over the side of the Daydream and sail away, no matter what secrets he might discover in his grandmother’s files to help her mother. If Justen could find a cure in them, someone else could, too.
“I don’t care what she’s authorized,” he whispered. “All I care about is my countrymen. I can’t stand by and watch them suffer.”
“You were happy enough to do so before.” The words slipped out, unfiltered. He began to jerk away from her but she held him tight. “When you were in Galatea, there were citizens being Reduced all around you. Why was that all right?”
“It wasn’t,” he replied. “And there was very little I could do in Galatea with my uncle breathing down my neck. Here I can help the refugees in that sanitarium.”
Persis was sure that was a great comfort to those regs already damaged by Justen’s pinks. She lifted her hand and caressed his cheek, when what she’d rather do was smack it.
“Oh, lovebirds,” called Lady Blocking, “are you going to rejoin the party or find someplace more private?”
He looked into her eyes, pain furrowing his brow. “You sound angry with me, Persis. If I’ve done something to hurt you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry Vania came to your house. I didn’t invite her, believe me. I respect your family’s privacy.”
“And what about the princess’s good opinion?” Persis said. “Entertaining her enemies—”
“Don’t worry about Vania. All she cares about is the Wild Poppy.”
That was plenty to start with.
“I thought,” he said, “that we were becoming friends. In the star cove—”
“I made it clear what we’re doing here,” she finished. “At least, I thought I had. If there was any confusion . . .” She shrugged. “This is a role, Justen. Play it.”
He glared at her, his jaw set, his dark eyes burning. And then he kissed her.
She couldn’t pull away, not with half the party watching and the other half judging. And after a second, she didn’t want to. There was something desperate and wild about the kiss, about Justen himself. In the star cove, he’d touched her gently, tentatively. Now he cupped her face in one hand, tangling his fingers in the windswept strands of her hair, while he slipped the other around the small of her back, pulling her up from the rails and holding her against his body.
This was not the Galatean medic she knew, cautious and serious and sarcastic. The petals of her skirt whipped in the wind, molding about his hips as tightly as her arms wrapped around his back. He moved his mouth over hers, hot and hard and hungry for understanding or absolution or something else entirely unexpected.
And then, just as suddenly, he lifted his head, and there was no pleasure in his face. “There,” he said. “Satisfied?”
Not even a little. Persis caught her breath before speaking, afraid of how she might sound otherwise. “It’s . . . a definite improvement.”
Down on the main deck, Princess Isla pointed at the sky and screamed.
Twenty-one
EVERYTHING DISSOLVED INTO CHAOS. Persis vanished from his side, hurrying to her princess. Justen tried to focus, taking in the situation. Moments ago, he’d been kissing Persis Blake like his life depended on it. Now, everyone was pointing up into the sky, gasping and chattering.
“What is it!” cried Lady Blocking. “What is it?”
Justen shielded his eyes and peered into the cloudless blue. It took a moment, but he found it, a tiny, golden glitter in the sky. At first, he thought it was a flutternote, but its movements were too measured for that. Flutters moved in lazy floating motions only to a certain height, and then they zipped off at maximum speed to their intended recipients. This . . . thing, whatever it was, was circling. Also, he got the sense that it was a lot larger, and a lot higher up, than any flutter ever went.
Persis reappeared in front of him. “Do you know anything about this?” she spat at him. “Is this one of Citizen Aldred’s new tricks? Attack the princess regent of Albion from the air?”
Justen shook his head, baffled.
“I thought,” Isla said, her voice faint and a little lost, “I thought it was just a flutternote gone astray. But it’s not. It’s high, and big . . .”
Tero took the princess by the arm. “Your Highness, we must go below for your safety.”
“Um,” said Lord Blocking, “maybe we should all go below. We’re the perfect targets out here.”
Andrine was staring up at the object hanging in the sky. “For a sniper, I suppose. But if they wish to bomb us, we’re as much in danger in the cabin as we would be on the deck.”
“No one is bombing anyone,” Isla insisted. “Not even Citizen Aldred would dare such a move.”
“And if he did?” said Lord Blocking. “What would be your response?”
Princess Isla shot the aristo a poisonous glare and went below. Persis was still on deck, staring at the thing as if she could bring it down by will alone. Justen couldn’t decide what was more unusuaclass="underline" Persis or the object that held her transfixed. All the other women had gone below, but she remained, in her silly green dress, like some ancient sea nymph defying the sky.
Flying machines. He’d read about them, of course, and seen the images. In the last war, unmanned flying machines had been the ones to carry the explosives that had torn apart the world. It was his ancestors who’d done that—his and all the other regs’. Safe and secure in their own, giant flying machine, they’d sat far above the Earth and destroyed the rest of it.
When the creators landed on the pristine soil of New Pacifica, they’d made a pact: no more flying machines. Even skimmers hovered less than a meter above the surface. Never again would mankind be able to destroy the world from a distance. It was inconvenient for travel but worth it for the preservation of the scraps of humanity who remained alive.
What if Uncle Damos had broken the creators’ pact? After all, he could argue that it was a limitation set by the aristos, and the revolutionaries were not bound to follow it.
“Whatever it is,” Persis said, still staring upward, “it’s leaving.” Her tone was clipped and businesslike, nothing at all like the husky, breathless whisper she’d graced him with after their last kiss.
They were the only two left on deck. She strode to the side, dipped her head over and called out, “Slipstream, up!” The mink came scrambling up the hull and onto the deck. He shook himself until his sleek fur stood out in all directions in damp spikes, chattered once at Persis, then rolled over.