I walk for what feels like an hour through this neighborhood of spacious mansions, my feet crunching on the gravel footpath. The Oasis burns in the distance. In the dark, it’s hard to tell if that’s a high-rise building on fire or the vertical gardens King Arias commissioned when he was the crown prince.
A vehicle approaches from the distance, and I raise my hands into the air, hoping its driver can see I’m unarmed. Cricket’s gun is in my backpack, along with the faraday silk I took from Master Thymel’s workshop and the Harvester uniforms Georgette stuffed into the back.
Whoever’s inside decides to slow and pulls up at my side. I crouch down to see who’s inside. A curly-haired young man in his twenties lowers the window with a whirr. “What are you doing wandering the—”
His face goes slack. “Zea-Mays Calico?”
I gulp. “Yes?”
For the next several seconds, he stares at me as though I’m an apparition. With his hollow cheeks and sun-damaged skin, he has the look of a Harvester, but he could easily be a Foundling.
“Could you take me to the palace, please?” I ask.
“You won’t be welcome there.”
I step toward him and place a hand on the passenger-side door. “Will you take me?”
He shrugs.
The man introduces himself as Giro and says he’s a deliverer from Bos. We drive through the park, passing abandoned mansions, upturned vehicles, cars crashed into trees, and the occasional unmoving body.
Giro tells me that he and hundreds of others infiltrated the Oasis via the goods trains that connect the aerodrome to the Oasis. From there, they travelled in trucks and waited for Fort Sweetwater to fall before storming the palace.
“Why didn’t anyone notice?” I ask.
“Guards don’t look too closely at anything related to the juvenation hospitals,” he says, confirming that the Amstraad Republic was behind the revolution.
At the end of the park, the vehicle travels into a boulevard of tall trees with pink and purple flowers. It’s deserted, save for troops of rebels in Harvester uniforms, holding automatic weapons. It looks like everyone has either fled the Oasis, or they’re all afraid of Carolina’s curfew.
The smoke is thicker in this part of the capital, even though I can no longer see the source of the fire past the seven-story buildings recessed into the road. Explosion marks mar some of their stone exteriors, and a few of the doors lie in splinters on the sidewalk. They probably hid Carolina’s oppressors.
Drones fly overhead, the whump and whirr of their propellers filling the silence. The machines point guns down to the street, which probably answers my question of why no one is on the roads.
We pass the boulevard of restaurants where Nobles used to dine outside, served by people in purple uniforms. Chairs and tables lie strewn across the street, looking like people scattered in a hurry.
“Are you sure about this?” Giro asks as his vehicle drives us along the line of fountains that used to adorn the palace’s road.
Incandescent flames rise from tall stacks of wood that burn down the length of the driveway. Plumes of smoke billow past the palace’s domed roof and into the indigo sky. My eyes linger at the base of the fire, on discarded boots and helmets and other personal effects.
Realization punches me in the gut. I snatch my gaze away from the pyre.
“Carolina knows I’m not an Echelon traitor,” I say.
Giro doesn’t reply.
Tanks obscure the palace’s front steps, and Giro flashes his headlights. He steps out with his hands above his head and urges me to do the same.
Smoke fills my nostrils, burns the back of my throat, and heat assaults one side of my body. The crackle and pop of the flames fill my ears, its heat sears my skin, and its glare makes me cringe. Beneath the fire has to be the crowd of guards and protestors who stormed the palace steps.
A bright beam shines in my face, making me squint. “Identify yourself.”
“Zea-Mays Calico, from Rugosa,” I shout. “Carolina Wintergreen has been waiting for my report.”
Someone emerges from behind the tank. A slender figure about my height, wearing padded body armor. It’s hard to tell if they’re male or female, but he or she beckons me close.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Giro mutters.
A shiver of anticipation skitters down my spine. I remind myself that Carolina won’t kill me. At least not right away. “Thanks for the ride.”
The armored rebel grabs my arm and marches me around the palace’s front and around its side, past a lawn littered with broken statues, and toward a side door.
Drones fly low, some the size of the passenger aircraft that recalled us in the Gloria National Park, others the size of pigeons. They all carry some kind of automatic weapon. We reach a part of the building close to the kitchen garden where Vitelotte gathered fruit and vegetables for her cornucopia. A quartet of armored guards lower their weapons, step aside, and let us inside.
We walk through a maze of hallways in silence, making me wonder how the person holding my arm can navigate the palace after a day of occupying it. Either they have memorized its plan or this is one of the servants who has turned rebel. Neither option would surprise me.
“Kneel with the others.” He pushes open a heavy, wooden door.
It leads to the ballroom, which seems impossibly huge without the grand chandeliers and without the hundreds of Nobles occupying the surrounding tables and its upper floor. Up on the podium is a single throne, and a pair of Harvesters on their hands and knees.
I inch toward them and glance over my shoulder. The armored rebel shoos me forward, snapping at me to get in place.
As soon as I’m on my hands and knees, the door clicks shut.
“I’m here for not shooting some Noble children for protecting their mother,” says a gray-haired Harvester woman on my left. She doesn’t raise her head. “What did you do?”
“Queen Damascena forced me to give a speech that increased the work quotas and condemned every criminal and their family to the Barrens,” I mutter.
The woman turns to me, her mouth slack. “You’re Zea-Mays.”
I nod. Every single Harvester must have seen that speech in their domes.
She scoots toward me but before she can pepper me with questions, the doors slam open from behind, and heavy footsteps approach. I twist around to find Carolina strolling in with Mouse and a pair of Harvesters.
A sharp breath hisses through my teeth. Mouse and the ambassador assured me that Mom, Dad, and the twins would be safe at their embassy. The Amstraad Republic handed them over to Queen Damascena’s people to be slaughtered. Mouse meets my gaze, for once not smiling.
I place a palm on the marble floor, trying to rise to my feet.
“Stay where you are.” Carolina holds out her hand.
She and her entourage walk around us and ascend the stairs. As she takes a seat, Mouse and the others stand at the sides of her throne. I clench my teeth. For someone who has fought for Harvester equality, it’s ironic that she positions herself like Queen Damascena.
“Zea-Mays Calico,” she says in the same tone of voice she used when we met in her underground headquarters. “You have a lot of nerve to show your face in the middle of my revolution.”
I clear my throat. “Actually, I came to—”