Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,248

back to reveal a small hole just below the shoulder.

Something strange and chilling passed over Marcellus’s face as he stared at the spot where the doll’s little arm used to be. Then, as though moving in slow motion, he reached into his pocket and, with an unsteady breath, withdrew his hand and extended it toward Chatine.

She let out a tiny, uncontrolled gasp when she saw what was nestled in his palm. Like a long-lost remnant washed up at sea. A fragment of misplaced time.

“How?” she murmured, barely a whisper. “How do you have this?”

“I found it in your couchette.”

Chatine’s thoughts spun dizzily through her mind. He went to my couchette? He looked through my room? And of all the things he would have found there, this is what he took?

He let out a short laugh and shook his head. “When I think about all the times that I could have lost it, or forgotten it, or accidentally left it aboard the voyageur to be shattered into a million pieces, it almost seems impossible that I still have it.”

“B-b-but … ,” she stammered, still confused. “Why did you keep it?”

Silent and still, Marcellus stared down at the lonely little doll arm still resting in his palm. “I guess … ,” he began, the answer seeming to come to him in a rush of certainty. He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “For the same reason you kept my mother’s ring.”

Warmth instantly flooded the small room, cocooning Chatine the way she imagined these Refuge walls were designed to do. She didn’t speak as she delicately picked up the little piece of plastique from Marcellus’s hand and guided it into the empty slot just below the doll’s left shoulder. It made a quiet clicking sound as it slipped into place. And Chatine could swear she heard it echo for kilomètres. For years into the past. Back to when she was torn apart just like this doll, forced to face the world with a missing limb and a hole that seemed impossible to fill.

Until, one day, someone miraculously showed up and proved her wrong.

For a long time, she just sat there, staring into the doll’s tiny gray eyes, sharing silent stories and promises. She might even have stayed like that all night. They both might have. If it weren’t for Marcellus’s TéléCom.

He startled as something evidently pinged in his ear, prompting him to remove the device from his pocket and glance down at the screen. The blood drained instantly from his face.

“What is it?” Chatine asked, peering over his shoulder. She recognized the alert as an AirLink request, but the face flashing on the screen—a man with intense pale eyes, curly hair, and a high, pronounced brow—was unfamiliar to her.

Marcellus hastily reached to dismiss the request but Chatine placed a hand on his, stopping him. “Wait. Who is that?”

“He’s …” He breathed out an uneasy sigh as his gaze flickered anxiously to her. “His name is Jolras Epernay. And he’s part of the group responsible for your sister’s death.”

Chatine felt a sudden stab at the reminder of Azelle and the horrible way she died, but she swallowed and forced herself to ask, “Why is he AirLinking you?”

Marcellus shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s been doing it for days now. But I refuse to answer.”

He glanced down at the screen, where the face of this man—this Jolras—still flashed persistently.

“Maybe you should answer,” Chatine said quietly.

Marcellus flinched, clearly not expecting to hear that. “Why? This group is incredibly dangerous. They call themselves the Red Scar. Their leader is a mad woman who is unpredictable and disturbingly violent.”

“Isn’t that exactly why you should answer?”

Marcellus seemed to consider Chatine’s logic. After everything that had transpired tonight, it just might have been the only logic that made sense anymore.

He bit his lip and stared down at the TéléCom. The light from the flashing screen reflected ominously in his hazel eyes. Then, after sucking in a breath, Marcellus swiped on the screen and accepted the request.

- CHAPTER 78 - MARCELLUS

THE OLD FREIGHTSHIP WAS DARK and empty at first. But as they wove onward, through the hallway of Fret 7, Marcellus began to hear noises. Heavy footsteps rattling across the metal floors above. Distant shouts echoing and vibrating down the old rusting pipes that snaked along the walls. Even though it was the middle of the night and well past curfew, the whole Fret felt as if it were coming alive.

“This way,” Chatine said, leading him deftly through the corridors