Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,208

loading door hissed open in a plume of warm steam and glowing light.

“Didn’t I just put you on a voyageur?” said a voice from inside.

Blinking against the brightness, Chatine could just make out a slender-framed man with neatly parted hair who had swiveled around in his seat to grin broadly at Cerise.

“Grantaire!” Cerise said, looking relieved. “You are seriously the hero of the hour.”

“The hero of the week,” he corrected. “This is the second time I’ve bailed you out, Chevalier.”

“I know, I know. I owe you one now. But listen, we really need a ride back to Vallonay.”

He let out a deep belly laugh and rubbed his hands over the vehicle’s contrôleur. “Of course you do.” He peered out at their desolate surroundings. “So, are you going to tell me what you’re doing out here freezing in the middle of the Terrain Perdu?”

Cerise glanced at Marcellus, and Chatine immediately recognized the distrust in his eyes.

“Um, probably not. No,” Cerise said. “But I will regale you with all the details of how I once hacked Papa’s TéléCom to play his AirLink messages backward.”

Grantaire snorted. “Then, you’d owe me two favors.”

The smile suddenly slid from Cerise’s face. “Look, you know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

Grantaire’s gaze drifted from Cerise to Marcellus to Alouette to Chatine before finally settling back on Cerise. Then he exhaled a heavy sigh. “It’s a good thing I have no life. Get in already. You’re letting all the cold air in.”

Cerise clambered into the transporteur and beckoned for the rest of them to follow. Alouette climbed aboard next, while Marcellus turned toward Brigitte and reached out his hands for her to take.

“Merci,” he said. “For saving him. For keeping him safe here. And for helping us.”

Brigitte nodded. “You’re welcome. Good luck.”

Marcellus released her hands with a squeeze and boarded the transporteur. As Chatine watched him disappear inside the hovering vehicle, she felt a hotness under her collar. A burning in her cheeks. Her gaze snapped to the left to see that Etienne was watching her. Glaring at her. Those huge dark eyes of his boring into her like a médecin’s laser.

She opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Cerise, who suddenly came tumbling back out of the transporteur.

“Brigitte! Wait.” She ran back to Etienne’s mother and fidgeted awkwardly with her hands. “Watch out for Gabriel, okay?”

“Of course. I will take good care of him.”

Cerise cracked a smile. “No, I mean, you watch out. He’s a criminal mastermind, you know. A good one. And he can be extremely disagreeable.”

Brigitte chuckled. “Merci for the warning.”

As Cerise watched Brigitte turn and head back to Etienne’s ship, tears began to pool in her eyes. She seemed frozen to the ground until Alouette re-emerged from the transporteur and guided Cerise back inside.

And then, Chatine was alone with Etienne.

But with the distance between them, she may as well have been out here all by herself. He was standing a few mètres from her, but he felt oceans away. From the moment she’d defied him and landed his ship in the Terrain Perdu, he’d been acting so strange. So different. His playful, jesting nature was gone, consumed by a darkness that had settled around his whole body, dimming his eyes.

Etienne was the first to speak, and his words felt like daggers through her heart. “You don’t want to get involved in this, Chatine. This is exactly the kind of trouble you should stay away from.”

Chatine dropped her gaze to the ground, feeling hot tears of frustration prick her eyes. “I have to do this. Did you not hear what Marcellus said?”

“I heard everything he said,” Etienne muttered and then under his breath added, “and didn’t say.”

Chatine wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, but she brushed past it. “The general is going to turn the Third Estate into an army. An army only he can control. Do you know how many are going to be killed if we don’t try to stop him?”

“You?” he fired back. “Why do you need to do anything about this? This doesn’t concern you. We don’t get involved in matters of the Regime, remember?”

“That’s right,” Chatine snapped. “Because you only look out for your own, right? You only protect your own people. Well, these are my people. You can take away my Skin and hide me out here in the middle of nowhere, but I am still Third Estate. I am still one of them. And I will not let the general use