“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 role in all of this? Please tell me she’s not going to be involved in … in anything dangerous.”
Mabelle’s reaction made Marcellus’s stomach clench. “Little Lark is …” She paused, lowering her gaze. “Little Lark is no longer with the Vangarde.”
Marcellus felt all the blood drain from his head. “What? What do you mean? I thought she—”
“She left.”
“Left?” Marcellus repeated. “Left where?”
“This is not something you need to concern yourself with,” Mabelle said calmly, assuredly. “She will be fine. We will make sure of it.”
Marcellus was breathing heavily now, the gravity of everything seeming to crash down on him at once. “But—” he began to say.
“We all have our role to play in the story of this planet, Marcellus. And right now, if you join us, your role is to find that weapon.” Mabelle slowly extended her foot and dragged it across the floor of the hut, cutting an angled line through the dirt. “By accepting this assignment, you are swearing to pledge your life to our purpose. You are swearing your commitment to a better Laterre and your loyalty to that future planet.”
Marcellus stared numbly down at the line that Mabelle had drawn on the floor, eventually recognizing what it represented.
It was one half of the same symbol that had been marked on the door of this hut.
One half of a letter.
Just waiting for him to make it complete.
Marcellus began to sweat inside his exploit coat. When he finally spoke again, his voice was quiet, resigned. “The general is always three moves ahead of everyone.”
“Which is why you must do this. So we can stay ahead of him. So he can’t hurt anyone else.”
Marcellus placed a hand to the side of his rib cage, feeling the fading bruise where his grandfather’s boot had driven into him over and over and over. He winced at the memory of lying on that cold marble floor of his grandfather’s study. Beaten. Humiliated. Defeated.
“Look at you! You are pathetic. You can’t even fight back.”
Suddenly, the embers inside of him caught light again. The flames roared. The thought of returning to the Palais, donning that scratchy white uniform, and seeing his grandfather’s face was enough to make Marcellus’s heart race, but he knew he couldn’t just stand idly by and watch his grandfather tear this planet apart.
After all, he was no longer that scared, helpless boy lying on the floor. That Marcellus Bonnefaçon was gone. Incinerated instantly in the smoldering remains of his grandfather’s lies.
Marcellus had been reborn that day. When he rose up from that cold hard floor to discover the truth about his father, his past, and his grandfather’s deceptive games, he became someone else. Someone stronger. Someone angrier.
Someone who fought back.
Outside the cracked windows of the hut, light began to push its way through the dark, dark night. The three Sols were rising, turning Laterre’s vast blanket of clouds into a glowing patchwork of gold, orange, and gray.
Mabelle stepped closer to Marcellus, her brown eyes sparkling in the dawn light. “Do you swear?”
Marcellus stood up straighter and—with one swift, decisive motion—swiped his foot across the dirty floor at a sharp angle. “I swear.”
They both looked down at the now-complete letter V that blazed between them. Like it was on fire. Like it had been branded right into the ground. It was a letter that had lost its meaning on Laterre hundreds of years ago. But now, it suddenly had the power to tilt the planet on its axis. Realign the stars around the entire System Divine.
Mabelle smiled a mysterious little smile. “Welcome to the Vangarde.”
Marcellus exhaled a breath that he swore he’d been holding for eighteen years. Joining the Vangarde might not bring his father back, but, in that moment, Marcellus had never felt closer to Julien Bonnefaçon.
- CHAPTER 2 - MARCELLUS
IN THE CENTER OF LEDÔME, the Grand Boulevard bustled with Second Estaters, promenading and shopping, gossiping with friends and flaunting their latest fashions. Cruiseurs and motos flitted up and down the street, delivering passengers to the hundreds of shops and restaurants lining the sidewalk.
Marcellus steered his moto past the Opéra and the Musée of the First World before pulling to a stop near a large roundabout where the Grand Boulevard ended and other smaller avenues jutted out like spokes on an old-fashioned wheel. He tugged at the collar of his stiff officer uniform, feeling like it was already cutting off the circulation to his brain.