Burning Kingdoms. Lauren DeStefano
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in, and though she makes no complaint, I can see by her heavy feet and her bleary eyes that she’s worse off for it.
“Morgan,” she says. “Did your father ever mention anything about the glasslands to you?”
“Why would he?” I say. I crane my neck to have a look at myself in the mirror, and what I see is enough to make me want to stay in bed.
“I just assumed that as a patrolman he might have been called there.”
“He didn’t discuss his work with me,” I say. The throbbing in my head steals my attention from the aching in my chest; she speaks so casually of my father, when her father is the reason he’s dead.
Celeste moves behind the changing screen, and moments later her nightgown has been flung upon its edge.
“Don’t suppose you’d know much about your father’s work there, Margaret,” she says.
“Never call me that,” Pen says from beneath her covers. “And what would you know about my father’s work?”
“I make it a point to know about the people of Internment,” Celeste answers pertly.
“Well, then,” Pen says. “You know I think you should take a running jump from that window there.”
“He works there, doesn’t he?” Celeste says, her condescending cheer undeterred by Pen’s tone. “Today I have an audience with the king, and I only thought, if either of you possessed knowledge His Majesty might find useful, I could invite you along. I’m a little too nervous, I admit, to go alone.”
Pen sits up. Her hair is an electrocuted blond animal atop her head. “The king? How did you manage that?”
Celeste emerges from behind the screen and reaches for the brush on her night table. “Despite your opinion of me, Pen”—she says her name pointedly—“I am the daughter of a king. And this is a war. I’m the only one to negotiate on my father’s behalf.”
Pen is all at once very sober. She throws back her blankets and stands. “You can’t really be saying you mean to involve Internment in this mess down here. You can’t think that’s what your father would want.”
Celeste laughs at the mirror. “I think I know my father much better than you. And I intend to convey his support to King Ingram. My brother, the prince, would back me up.” Her eyes linger on Pen. “But he isn’t here.”
Pen is clutching her collar, twisting the fabric in her fist. “This is not Internment’s war,” she says. “Thank goodness the people of the ground can’t reach Internment, or they’d destroy it.”
Celeste smiles. It is a daydreaming, hopeful smile. “Oh, but soon they will,” she says. “They have mechanical birds—planes, they call them—that can go nearly as high as Internment. And they’re learning more and building upon them every day. It’s only a matter of time.”
Pen looks as though she’ll be sick. She’s right. Internment would be very easy to destroy; it’s no match for the ground’s warfare.
What has my blood going cold is the thought that Celeste is right, too.
“So, Pen is clearly not interested,” Celeste says, turning to face me. “What about you, Morgan? I could use a fellow citizen from the magical floating island.” She can’t help giggling at the name they’ve given us. “And as the daughter of a patrolman, surely you know more than you give yourself credit for.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’d like to go. Thank you.”
Pen opens her mouth to speak, but then she closes it and stumbles from the room at a run. I wince at the sound of the water room’s door closing.
Celeste sets her hairbrush down. “See you at breakfast,” she says cheerily.
I find Pen sitting on the edge of the tub, red-faced and watery-eyed. I can smell that she’s just been sick. It isn’t just the tonic—she can hold that quite well—but the thought of losing her home for a second time.
“They can’t,” she whispers. “Tell me they can’t reach Internment.”
“I’ll find out all that I can,” I say, running a cloth under the cold water and then handing it to her. “Let’s not panic until I’ve seen the king.”
She stares at me, horror in her eyes.
“Pen? I’m going to find you something to wear, and we’re going to have breakfast, and we aren’t going to panic.”
She nods dazedly.
“Say it.”
“We aren’t going to panic,” she repeats.
After a deep breath, she’s ready to face the morning.
We find Basil and Thomas at the bottom of the stairs. “Morning,” I say, perhaps too brightly. I kiss Basil’s cheek.
I nudge Pen, which prompts her to give Thomas a flat, if troubled, stare. “Good morning,” she says. It puts her under his immediate scrutiny. I can see as much in his eyes.
Basil is looking at me the same way.
“Oh, all right,” I say. “Birdie showed us where the tonic was last night and we were up late in her room talking and sharing a bottle.”
I’m startled by how easily the lie comes. I’ve never lied to Basil. But while the people of the ground find magic in the floating island, they are perhaps too blind to see the magic that hides in this city, in silver screens and brass clubs and the beautiful thieves that live in the ocean, who carry stolen trinkets from the human world to depths beyond even the sunlight’s reach.
I feel an inexplicable need to protect that magic. Or to keep it for myself, buried in the blood that rushes around my beating heart.
Pen has no trouble with the lie. Secrets have always comforted her. “Don’t look at me that way,” she tells Thomas, and shows him the back of her ring hand. “I didn’t lose my virginity in a card game. I’m still your betrothed, no matter how far we both fall from the clouds.”
I’ve no idea why I find this so funny. Perhaps she said it to amuse me.
Thomas clears his throat and then looks between Pen and me. “Word is this morning that you’re going to meet King Ingram.”
“Morgan is,” Pen says. “I want nothing to do with all that whatnot. It makes me sick.”
That’s all she cares to say on the matter. She pushes between the boys and makes her way toward the dining room. That’s what they call it. So many rooms that there’s no need to eat in the kitchen, where the food is prepared.
Thomas frowns after her.
In the car, Celeste hooks her arm around mine and lets loose a squeak of excitement.
Two schoolgirls. What an audience we are for the king of more land than any one person should control.
Jack Piper drives while Nimble points out landmarks for us. He’s in high spirits, but all I see are more possibilities for bombings. There’s been minimal talk of the banks, and no talk at all of what casualties could have occurred.
“There’s our hospital,” Nimble says. “Saint Croix.”
If the hotel is the size of a city, the hospital is the size of ten. “Morgan,” Celeste says. “Your brother is a medic, isn’t he?”
I don’t like the liberties she’s taking by discussing my family this morning.
“He was,” I say. “Before he lost his sight.”
“The one who never comes out of his room?” Nimble says. “That’s your brother? Married to the redhead?”
“Yes,” I say, and then quickly, “How long has your hospital been here?”
“Went up the