Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,242

they found their way down a back set of stairs and into another garden dotted with ornate ponds and marble statues. “How do we get out of here?” Chatine asked.

Marcellus pointed up ahead at the glimmering fence that marked the edge of the Palais grounds. “The loophole is just up there.” He seemed to struggle with his speech, as though each word required effort to pronounce.

Chatine nodded and took a step toward the fence but glanced back just in time to see Marcellus teetering on his feet. His eyes rolled back into his head and he started to go down. “Marcellus!” Chatine dove to catch him, but he was too heavy. She felt her knees buckling under his weight. A second later, another figure emerged, darting out from a nearby hedge. It was a woman in a dark Policier uniform. A sergent.

Chatine’s hopes plummeted. Marcellus would be recognized for sure. He had lost his hat and Sol-glasses somewhere in the battle, and the dirt and blood on his face did little to disguise him.

The woman rushed over to Chatine and helped lower Marcellus onto the ground. “What happened to him?” she asked, speaking in hushed, urgent tones.

Chatine tried to respond, but nothing came out. She stared at the woman in confusion as she gently slapped Marcellus’s cheeks, trying to rouse him. Why wasn’t she arresting him?

Marcellus’s eyes dragged open and his gaze settled on the sergent’s face. But instead of reacting in fear, as Chatine had, his face twisted in what looked like recognition. “You’re that woman I saw fighting … ,” he started to say, but his words were garbled and eventually died completely.

“It’s okay,” she said, reaching down the front of her uniform and pulling out a long string of what looked like metal beads. On the end hung a small rectangular tag, which she showed to Marcellus as though it was supposed to mean something to him. “I’m on your side. My name is Sister Laurel. I’m going to help you.”

“Sister?” Marcellus’s forehead crumpled weakly. “But the general said … We thought you were all …”

“Shh,” Laurel whispered. “Don’t try to speak. Just relax.”

With delicate fingers, she peeled back what was left of Marcellus’s tuxedo jacket and shirt. He winced sharply at her touch and looked like he might lose consciousness again. “Was this from a lethal pulse?” she asked Chatine.

“I-I don’t know,” Chatine finally managed to stammer out. “What if it was?”

“Then it needs to be tended to immediately.” Laurel reached into the pocket of her sergent’s uniform and pulled out a small vial. She uncorked it and ran it under Marcellus’s nose. Chatine had no idea what was in that vial, but Marcellus jerked violently awake at the smell of it. Like he’d been doused with ice cold water. Laurel helped him back to his feet before turning to Chatine. “That should help a little with the pain and keep him conscious, but you need to take him back to the Refuge. There are motos parked just outside the fence, near the entrance to the hunting grounds.”

The Refuge. The word clattered noisily around Chatine’s mind. Wasn’t that what Alouette had called the Vangarde’s secret base? Chatine looked at the woman in the uniform again, suddenly seeing her with new eyes.

She was one of them.

“No,” Marcellus said, shaking his head. He seemed clearer now. More lucid. “I can’t go back. I have to find Alouette.”

“You have to get medical attention,” Laurel said sternly. “Let me worry about Alouette. I have a team of operatives here. And we know where she is.”

“Where—” Marcellus started to ask but was cut off by a noise behind them. The rustle of footsteps on grass.

Laurel gave Chatine a pointed look. “Go. Now.”

* * *

Chatine guided the moto through the darkened Vallonay landscape. Marcellus clung to her waist as she steered toward the cluster of rusting, crooked edifices in the distance.

Another place she never thought she’d return to.

The Frets were exactly as Chatine had remembered them. Two weeks on Bastille and nearly another two in the Terrain Perdu, and nothing had changed. The Marsh still smelled like rotting seaweed. The ground around the shuttered market stalls was still littered with the scraps of mangy vegetables. And the clang and whir of patrolling droids was still deafening. But for some reason, Chatine felt immune to it all. She observed the stacks of trash and dank, grimy passageways with a distant curiosity. Almost as though she were a visitor from another planet. A foreign