Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,150

with long, fuzzy ear flaps that nearly consumed his whole head, looked at Etienne for help. “Make her get down! I was supposed to sit there.”

Astra removed her fingers from her mouth long enough to yell, “No!” before resuming her sucking.

This caused a chorus of shouts and complaints until Etienne raised his hands up and said, “Whoa, whoa. Everyone calm down. There’s plenty of room at the table.”

“Nuh-uh,” said the boy in the hat. “Not with her there.”

“Hey,” Etienne said. “Perseus, that’s not very nice. That’s my new friend. Remember, the one I told you all about?”

Suddenly, every pair of eyes was on Chatine, any and all former disapproval instantly evaporating. Astra’s fingers slipped from her mouth.

“You’re a gridder?” Perseus asked. He was clearly the leader of this tiny gang.

“Uh,” Chatine stammered, looking at all the mesmerized faces that surrounded her. “Yes. I guess, I am.”

“And she was on Bastille,” Etienne added.

“Can we see your tattoo?” Perseus asked, his eyes alight with mischief.

Chatine rolled up her sleeve to reveal the five clusters of metallic bumps burned into her flesh. “There it is. Prisoner 51562.”

“Whoa,” said one of the girls who reached out and ran her fingertips over the raised surface of the tattoo.

“Did you ever live in one of those crashed ships in Vallonay?” Perseus asked.

“They didn’t crash,” Etienne said, as though this had been a point of contention for a while. “They landed safely 505 years ago.”

“Yes,” Chatine agreed, “They’re called the Frets. But they’re so old and crumbling, sometimes it feels like they crashed. Half of the stairs aren’t even there anymore.”

“Soop,” Perseus said, sliding into the chair next to Chatine.

“What’s it like to have a Skin?” another girl asked.

Chatine spun to answer the question but was immediately bombarded by three more from different directions.

“Have you ever eaten chou bread?”

“Did you ever have to sell your blood?”

“Did you win the Ascension?”

Chatine snorted with laughter at that one. “No. Definitely not.”

“What did I tell you?” Etienne leaned in to whisper. “Instant celebrity.”

“Do you do magic tricks like Fabian?” one of the boys asked.

“Who?” said Chatine.

“One of the other gridders,” Etienne reminded her. “Who arrived earlier this month.”

“Fabian does magic tricks,” Perseus explained. “He makes things disappear.”

“Oh,” Chatine said, turning back to the boy who’d originally asked the question. “No.”

“Do you dance like Gen?” another asked.

“That’s his wife,” Etienne said. “She makes up funny dances.”

“No.”

“Can you brew a potion that makes people see stars?” another girl asked.

Chatine looked to Etienne. “What?”

“Weed wine,” Etienne whispered with a wink. “Fabian told them it was a magic potion.”

“Can you count to a million?”

“Can you pull a shiny button from my ear?”

Chatine was getting dizzy from all the questions being flung at her from every direction. Who were these mysterious Fabian and Gen? “No. I can’t do any of those things.”

“What can you do?” This was Astra, the youngest. She had climbed into Etienne’s lap and was now staring at Chatine with her elbow propped on the table and her chin resting in her hand.

“I … uh … I can climb.” She glanced down at her still-bandaged leg. “I mean, I could when I was …” but she trailed off as she realized that none of the children were even looking at her anymore. They’d all wandered off to find chairs at the table and were starting to help themselves to breakfast. All of them except Astra, who was still staring at Chatine from Etienne’s lap. But in the place of her once fascinated expression, she now looked almost sorry for Chatine. She shrugged as if to say, You can’t do magic, what did you expect?

“Told you they’d be disappointed,” she whispered to Etienne.

Etienne chuckled. “Oh, this is normal. They have the attention spans of flies. You’ll be a celebrity again in another few minutes.” He lifted Astra and deposited her back into her chair. One of the other children had already filled her plate with food, and she began happily eating her breakfast.

Chatine warily eyed each of the tiny faces around the table, like she didn’t quite trust them.

“You don’t have a lot of experience with children, do you?” Etienne asked, and Chatine realized he’d been watching her.

“Um.” She pressed a fingertip against a bread crumb on her plate and brought it to her mouth. “Not really, no. Third Estaters don’t get to be children for very long. I mean, ever since I was five, I had to take care of—” An alarm bell went off in her head as she approached the