where they are,” Marcellus said desperately. “The general has a secret facility somewhere. He’s never told me much about it. I just know that every so often prisoners—high-profile ones—will disappear from the Precinct and come back days or weeks later, completely broken. Or they don’t come back at all.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said Mabelle. “This is helpful information. We will try to root out their location, but in the meantime, we need someone to track down this weapon.” Mabelle caught Marcellus’s gaze with a meaningful look.
The realization sank into the pit of his stomach. “That’s what you want me to do. You want me to find out what he’s working on.”
“What he’s working on. Where he’s working on it. Who he’s working with. When it will be ready. Whatever you can find. We have exhausted countless resources on this, and we have still uncovered nothing.”
Marcellus felt the weight of impossibility bearing down on him. He pressed his fingertips into his temples. “If the Vangarde can’t find anything, what makes you think I can?”
A knowing smile tweaked at Mabelle’s lips. “Because I raised you, ma chéri. I know you. I believe in you.”
Marcellus began to pace the length of the tiny hut. “But the general already suspects me of working with you. He even hired a girl from the Frets to spy on me. He’s already distrustful.”
“Then you’ll have to work extra hard to convince him of your loyalty.”
Marcellus let out a growl of frustration. “He’s the greatest military strategist this planet has ever seen! If he finds out I’m spying on him, he … he …” A shudder worked its way down his spine. “All of you would be in danger.” For the first time since he’d left the Palais that night, Marcellus felt hopelessness settle over him. An entire ocean of it.
“This is the only way to stop him,” Mabelle said, and Marcellus caught the air of finality in her voice. It reminded him of when he was little, and he would try to negotiate for five more minutes before bed.
But this was so different. They weren’t negotiating for extra hours of playtime. They were negotiating for his life.
“What about the captured operative?” he asked desperately. “The one who knows how to contact the source working with the general. If I can dig around and find out where my grandfather is holding her—”
“Then, yes, of course, we will organize an extraction team,” Mabelle said, “but that will take time, and we’re running out of it. We need to find that weapon now.”
Marcellus’s eyes narrowed. “An extraction team? You mean to break them out?”
“Yes.”
“Like you’re planning to break out Citizen Rousseau?”
Mabelle fell quiet, her expression as placid as a lake.
It was no secret around the Ministère what those two operatives had been trying to do when they were captured in the warden’s office. They had been attempting to infiltrate Bastille’s security system so they could rescue their infamous incarcerated leader, Citizen Rousseau, the woman who had rallied thousands of people to her cause in the Rebellion of 488. The operatives had failed, but the general was certain that the Vangarde would try again.
But if Mabelle knew anything about another attempt to break into Bastille, she was not letting on.
“Isn’t that what you’re ultimately planning?” Marcellus pressed. “To bring back Rousseau so you can launch a full-scale revolution?”
“I’m afraid I cannot divulge that.”
Marcellus felt a small flicker of indignation. “Why not?”
“You have to understand, Marcellus,” Mabelle said gently. “You are still new to our cause. You are not yet trained to keep our secrets.”
That silenced him. He knew exactly what she was saying. If he was caught, if he was tortured, he couldn’t be trusted not to talk. He dug his fingernails into his palms. “Will you just tell me one thing?”
Mabelle’s lips quirked into a ghost of a smile. “Depends on what it is.”
Marcellus clenched his eyes shut, taking himself back to that night, two weeks ago, in the hallway of Fret 7. The last time he’d ever seen the girl named Alouette Taureau. He could still picture her vanishing form as she darted away from him. He could still picture her dark eyes, wide with shock and disbelief, as he’d told her the truth.
That she’d been unknowingly living with the Vangarde.
“There was a girl,” he whispered before remembering the code name that was written on a metal tag that hung around her neck on a string of beads. “Little Lark.” Marcellus opened his eyes. “What is her