Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,126

end for her.

Alouette’s heart pounded faster as she turned eagerly to the next report.

Date: Month 6, Day 3, 488

Operative: Mabelle Dubois

Location: Grand Palais

The Patriarche and the general have been locking themselves in the general’s private study for hours on end. This change of protocol is clearly indicative of …

Alouette glanced up from the book and stared incredulously at Marcellus. “That’s it?” She hastily flipped to the next page and scanned the lines of handwritten words for another mention of her mother’s name. But there was nothing. The next page contained a reconnaissance report from the delegation meetings, followed by five separate reports on a new TéléSkin update that the Ministère was working on. Alouette kept flipping, desperation filling her with every turn of the page, until she was quite certain she would rip the paper clean out of the spine.

“Hey.” Marcellus’s gentle tone broke into her thoughts, and his warm fingers stopped her hand. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” she cried, feeling the crushing blow of disappointment. “I’m so tired of all these dead ends! All of this, just to discover that my mother was a Palais servant and a criminal? Just like Hugo?”

“Maybe there’s more to it than that?” Marcellus suggested.

“What more would there be? She wasn’t special. She wasn’t this long-lost secret that I’ve been destined to find. She was just a common thief.”

Suddenly, Alouette remembered the words Madame Blanchard had said to her back at the bordel.

Your maman was a croc. Obviously, she conned us both.… She’s a good liar, that Lisole.

Furiously, Alouette closed the book with a snap and tossed it onto the bed. A deep and guttural scream was building up inside of her, threatening to shake the walls of the couchette and echo out into the deepest depths of space.

But it never released. Because someone else beat her to it. “Nooooooo!” A piercing wail echoed from the upper deck. Alouette and Marcellus shared a panicked look before barreling out of the couchette and back up the stairs to the viewing lounge.

The Regiments game had been abandoned. Cerise was standing in the middle of the room, gripping her TéléCom, a look of sheer dread on her face.

“What’s wrong?” Marcellus asked, slightly winded.

“Our cloaking code,” Cerise replied in a shaky voice without lifting her eyes from the TéléCom. “It’s been … overridden.”

“Overridden?” Marcellus echoed. “What does that mean?”

But before Cerise could respond, the ship began to rumble, the floors beneath their feet juddering so forcefully, Alouette had to grab on to a nearby chaise to steady herself.

Gabriel yelped. “Oh Sols! What’s happening? Are we dying? Is the ship exploding?”

“No,” said Marcellus, sounding confused. “It’s just the stabilizeurs. We’re decelerating.”

“Why?” Alouette asked, glancing at the hologram map. “We still have over seventeen hours of flight time left.”

“I know,” said Marcellus. His tone did little to comfort Alouette.

Then, suddenly, Cerise was on the move, crossing the viewing lounge and marching into the flight bridge with quick, purposeful strides. Alouette darted after her with Marcellus and Gabriel close behind.

“Why is it slowing down now?” Gabriel asked breathlessly.

They all looked to Cerise, but her eyes were trained out the window of the bridge, her face gaunt. “Because of that.”

Alouette turned, and all the blood in her veins drained instantly to her feet. Outside the window loomed something so vast, so colossal, it blocked out every star and every centimètre of space, overshadowing their tiny voyageur like a behemoth to a gnat. Wider than the Terrain Perdu, sleeker and steelier than the exoskeleton of a droid, it moved like a great block of ice in a waveless ocean.

Silent and slow and deadly.

“What is that?” Gabriel asked, his voice strained.

It took Alouette a moment to match the gargantuan ship to the sketches she’d studied in the Chronicles, but once the connection was made, she knew their journey was over. “It’s a Trafalgar 4000,” she whispered.

“A what?” Gabriel asked.

But it was Marcellus who answered, his voice as brittle as aged paper. “Albion’s most powerful warship.”

- CHAPTER 37 - MARCELLUS

MARCELLUS COULDN’T BREATHE. THE TRAFALGAR 4000 hung above the voyageur, vast and menacing and hungry, looking like it might swallow them whole. In one gulping second, they would be gone. Consumed, chewed, and digested inside the gigantic warship. Marcellus had learned about these types of Albion spacecraft during his training at the Ministère. He knew of their might and their power. And now, as he stared up at the beast of a warship, it felt as though every molecule of oxygen in the flight bridge was