Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,109

I don’t even know where that is. I’m not entirely sure I have a home. I just …” She dropped her gaze back to the floor. “I just feel so … lost.”

Marcellus’s brain squeezed as he tried to make sense of all this. But it was like trying to look at a picture through broken plastique. The edges were blurry, the image was warped, and nothing seemed to fit together.

The pounding of footsteps jolted Marcellus out of his thoughts, and he turned toward the flight bridge door just as Cerise barreled through it, clutching a TéléCom in her hand.

Panic instantly spiraled through him. Had their mission failed already?

“Marcellus!” she said, winded. “You need to hear this.”

“Hear what?”

“I was just working on your TéléCom, to check that the tracking capabilities were still deactivated, and I found”—she paused and put a hand to her heaving chest, trying to catch her breath—“a signal.”

“What kind of signal?” he asked.

“An open AirLink signal. It’s encrypted but it’s coming straight from the south wing of the Grand Palais.”

Comprehension flooded Marcellus, and he exhaled a sigh of relief. “That’s an auditeur. I planted it in the general’s office before I left.”

Cerise scoffed. “I know. I figured that part out on my own. Merci for telling me, by the way. It nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought the general was tracking us.”

Marcellus cringed. “Sorry. There’s been a lot going on. And I honestly didn’t think the signal would reach out here.”

“The signal does. But I had to amplify it to be able to hear what was being said.” Cerise hastily tapped on the TéléCom. “I think you should hear this. It’s about the Vangarde.”

Alouette flinched and looked to Marcellus with wide, fearful eyes. He nodded to Cerise. “Play it through the speakers.”

Cerise tapped on the screen and Marcellus felt Alouette’s hand slip shakily into his. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“When I recognized my father’s voice,” Cerise explained, “I immediately started logging the transmission.”

“Your father?” Marcellus had rarely known Directeur Chevalier to come to the general’s private study in the Palais. They normally met in the Ministère’s Cyborg and Technology Labs.

Cerise nodded gravely and Marcellus recognized the regret that flashed in her dark eyes. As though she really despised being the one to convey whatever they were about to hear.

“What’s all the commotion?” Gabriel appeared in the doorway, rubbing at his eyes. “I was trying to sleep.”

“Shh,” Cerise urged him and pressed play on the TéléCom.

At first there was nothing but a low hum through the speakers. Then, with a sharp click, Directeur Chevalier’s voice began speaking, midsentence. “… the results of the analysis you requested for the devices found on the captured Vangarde operatives.”

Devices?

It took Marcellus a moment to connect the dots in his mind. He remembered something his grandfather had said during their last hunting trip with the Patriarche. He’d told the Patriarche that Directeur Chevalier’s team was analyzing the necklaces that had been found on Jacqui and Denise when they were arrested.

Necklaces just like the one still peeking out from Alouette’s sac.

“As we suspected,” the directeur went on, “they are not just decorative. The two devices we analyzed are part of a larger communication network that the Vangarde have been using.”

Alouette turned to Marcellus with desperate, searching eyes. “What is he talking about?”

Marcellus drew in a heavy breath and nodded toward Alouette’s bag. “He’s talking about the beads.”

Alouette’s whole body went rigid. “The sisters’ beads?”

“What can you tell me about this network?” the general’s voice boomed out from the TéléCom, causing Marcellus to flinch.

“The devices were still active when we apprehended the operatives,” the directeur said, “so we were able to trace the signal back to a server. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to discern the location yet. But what we did discover is that there are eleven devices total, all connecting through the same network.”

“Eleven?” the general repeated gruffly. “What is the significance of that?”

“There’s no way to know for sure,” the directeur replied. “But our working hypothesis is that the eleven necklaces belong to current leaders of the Vangarde. The highest-ranking members of their organization.”

Dazedly, slowly, Alouette reached into her sac and withdrew her string of metallic beads. Cerise jabbed the TéléCom to pause the playback and stared openmouthed at the necklace now dangling from Alouette’s fingertip, the little metal tag glinting in the console lights.

“Wait a minute. You’re Vangarde too?” Gabriel, who up until this moment had been lingering in the back of the flight bridge, suddenly pushed his way into