Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,220

their awkward stances that they felt just as out of place as she did. For beneath the gauzy sleeves of the ball gowns and the crisp white tuxedo shirts, their Skins still glowed bright, just waiting to turn them from unassuming Ascension winners to vicious killers. At the touch of a button.

The thought made Chatine’s gut twist and her resolve strengthen. And suddenly she remembered why she was here.

For them. And for him. For Henri.

“Welcome, Ascension Winners!” The music lulled to a halt and the crowd hushed as an eager voice slipped into the air through the powerful speakers that were hidden among shrubs and flowerbeds.

“I am Georges Bissette, and I will be your master of cérémonies for the night. First and foremost, I would like to personally welcome you to the Grand Palais and, of course, congratulate you on your triumphant Ascension to the Second Estate!”

Cheers broke out across the Imperial Lawn. Chatine glanced toward the stage constructed in the center, where she could now see a man in a bright blue tailcoat who was addressing the crowd.

“You’ll be very pleased to hear,” Georges went on, “that the Patriarche and Matrone will be arriving shortly to officially kick off the festivities.”

Marcellus looked to Chatine, warmth and reassurance flickering in his eyes. “It’s time.”

She nodded, took another steeling breath, and squeezed the vial in her hand before slowly turning around.

“Good luck,” Marcellus whispered behind her.

“Wait.” She spun back, grabbed Marcellus by the sleeve, and guided him farther into the cluster of hedges, until they had entirely disappeared from the banquet and were surrounded by a cocoon of twinkling, glowing green. The tiny lights threading through the bushes seemed to make every leaf glimmer and dance.

“I …” She hastily searched for the right words. “Before we go through with this, there’s something I have to do.”

Marcellus stared back at her, those intense hazel eyes of his deep and boundless. She’d spent so many nights lying awake on Bastille thinking about those eyes, wondering if she’d ever see them again. Now here they were.

And she could not wait a second longer.

She pulled the long silk glove from her left hand and slowly slid the ring from her thumb.

For a moment, Marcellus just stared down at it, something indecipherable playing out on his face. Chatine couldn’t tell if it was anger, relief, surprise, or something else entirely. Something she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

He tried to speak, but the words came out choppy and stammering. “You … How …”

“I stole it from you. In the cruiseur on the way back from Montfer.”

“Montfer?” Marcellus spat, his mind clearly doing the mental calculations, counting back how long ago that had been. How much had happened since then.

An execution.

A riot.

An imprisonment.

An escape.

Countless deaths.

And now a banquet that could change the course of a planet.

Yet here it was. Safe and sound.

“I’m convinced it protected me,” Chatine said quietly. “On Bastille.”

Marcellus’s gaze snapped up to look at her. To collide with her. To crash into her and pull them both back to the roof of that fabrique. When she’d let down her hair and scrubbed the dirt from her face and shown him who she really was.

When she’d kissed him and he’d called her a traitor.

“But it doesn’t belong to me,” she whispered, as she took hold of Marcellus’s wrist, pried his fingers open, and dropped the silver band into his palm. “It never did.”

Then, without another word, she darted out from the hedges and faded into the crowd.

- CHAPTER 66 - ALOUETTE

ALOUETTE MOVED SWIFTLY DOWN THE hallways of the Ministère’s Cyborg and Technology labs. With every corner she turned and every stark, echoing hallway she crossed, her heart pounded harder.

“Turn left. Then another left. Do you see the door to your right? That’s the infirmerie.”

She was grateful for the audio patch behind her ear and Cerise’s steady voice to guide her. She could never have made it here on her own. Alouette approached the door to the infirmerie and reached for the screwdriver on her toolbelt.

“Wait!” Cerise called out, causing Alouette to recoil. “There’s a médicin coming out of there right now!”

Panicked, Alouette spun around, trying to figure out how to blend in in the middle of this bleak white hallway. Unfortunately, she’d left her cleaning cart back inside the server room. She grabbed for a cloth tucked into her tool belt and made a show of wiping down a nearby window.

“Stay calm,” Cerise warned. “Remember, cyborgs can sense elevated body temperatures and heart rates.”

Alouette took a