"Why not?" Persis asked, honestly curious this time.

Noemi looked grave as she put the pieces together. "He's saying the problem is connected to how the cure works, Persis. The reason Reduction was so insidious for all those centuries is that it couldn't be gengineered out of our genetic code. No matter what people tried, the genes would mutate right back into place in the developing embryo."

"Right, but Persistence did something different." Everyone knew that.

"Yes," said Noemi. "The Helo Cure didn't seek to fix the flawed code. It merely bypa.s.sed the architecture of Reduction, changing the way the brain developed in the womb. And that changes the way it functions. A natural reg, whose genetic code mutated the flaw of Reduction out, has a brain more like an aristo's. But a Helo Cured reg has ana"Well, I don't want to call it an artificial boost. But it's a different kind of brain from other humans."

Justen gave Persis a curious look. "Does this really interest you?"

"How my brain might work?" Persis snapped. "A little." Let him think she cared on behalf of her mother. That she was still thinking about DAR. He could allow Persis Blake to be serious about that, at least.

"All right. Imagine a road that's perpetually flooded," Justen said. "That's Reduction. The road exists, but it's useless. With aristos and natural regs, the road's built on higher ground. It doesn't get flooded. With the Helo Cure, we built a bridge. However, the flooded road is still there. The flaw that causes Reduction still exists in the reg's genetic code, but there's a workaround now. That's what Persistence Helo did. She gengineered an early end to the Reduction."

Before Persistence Helo and her cure, only one in twenty Reduced births resulted in a naturally reg offspring. If they waited around for generations, Reduction would have died out eventually. But Persistence Helo, like Persis, didn't have that kind of patience. She fixed the entire population in one fell swoop.

Even though that meant side effects.

"There are some," Justen said, "who argue that DAR is more common in genetic lines that were farther away from producing natural regs. But there's no way to know now."

"And that's not relevant to this case," Noemi added, practical and focused as always. This is why Persis had wanted her so badly for the League. She was older than most of her other confidants, and she rolled her eyes at many of Persis's ideas, but her heart was true. Like everyone in the League of the Wild Poppy, Noemi Dorric cared only that Galateans were being tortured, and that was wrong. She wasn't political; she wasn't sn.o.bby. She just wanted to stop people from being hurt.

And now it looked like that was a lot harder than anyone had imagined.

"So the damage being done to the reg refugees is connected to the way their brains work?" Persis asked.

Justen nodded. "We'd know for sure if the Poppy comes across a Reduced prisoner who's a natural reg. And they're much rarer."

If the Wild Poppy had her way, she'd start rescuing Galateans long before they became victims of this terrible drug.

Justen was still studying the lab results, his gaze intense, almost manic. Persis knew that looka"it's the one she wore when the Wild Poppy was in charge. It was the one where everything fell away except a singular focus on her quest. There was no chance of taking him on a splashy public outing this evening, no matter what Isla wanted. Tonight, people needed him.

It was a glory to behold, actually. She'd agreed to host Justen the way she'd support anyone who wished to take refuge from the revolution, but she hadn't expected what she'd find in him. His medical skills might be a boon to her mother and now a boon to these poor Galateans, too. But even more than that, Justen had taught her the truth about the revolution.

All the other refugees she'd talked to after their detox so far had been real enemies of the revolution. Their feelings about it were purely negative, which was understandable, given their experiences. Upon meeting Justen, she saw a different side entirely, a side that she might have sympathized with before everything had gone so terribly wrong. Persis never would have understood Remy's mind-set has she not seen it in her brother first.

These were the true revolutionaries, these Helos, these citizens who believed that things in Galatea were bad, that they had to changea"but were horrified at the way Citizen Aldred had perverted their desires into cruelty, revenge, and torture. And the fact that Justen and Remy could hold these feelings while being raised in Aldred's housea"it was a testament to their inner strength.

There must be others in Galatea who thought the same way but were too frightened to act, given Citizen Aldred's swift and severe punishments. Unlike the Helos, they didn't have the protection of their names. But if others could be reached, if people who thought like Justen and Remy could be marshaled to pose a challenge to the reign of terror, then maybe they could find a way to stop all of it, and then no one would need asylum.

Or the Wild Poppy.

Could she ever be satisfied with merely running the estate and being a dutiful daughter to her parents after these months of adventures? Persis didn't know. But once the Galateans were no longer in danger, there would be no need for her alter ego, or for the mask she wore when playacting as Persis Blake. Maybe then she could finally talk to Justen as an equal.

Or maybe even sooner than that. After all, he was already helping the League of the Wild Poppy by a.s.sisting the refugees. And even his sister was taking part in the operations.

Maybe it was time to tell Justen who she really was. This latest development should kill any remaining loyalty he had left for the twisted travesty his revolution had become. Justen, who held so much respect for his grandmother's work, who had dedicated his life to fixing every flaw in her great achievementa"he couldn't stand by and watch his leaders take it apart. Couldn't let them threaten his fellow citizens like that.

His fellow citizens, but not himself. Justen was a natural reg, she remembered with a sudden chill. He was natural, and she, though an aristo, might have a Helo-cured brain. If either of them were ever captured by the Galateans and dosed with this drug, Justen would recover, while Persisa"

She might learn what it was like to Darken a few decades early.

Thirteen.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, PERSIS and Justen were still at the sanitarium, with no sign of departure on the horizon. Justen and Noemi had tested the regs in the facility and learned that Justen's hypothesis was correcta"every one of them was descended from those who'd received the Helo Cure. The next step was seeing if there was a way to counteract or bypa.s.s the effects. To pa.s.s the time, Persis was playing chess on the floor with a few of the other patients. But she wasn't paying careful enough attention. She kept accidentally winning.

She'd also fired off a few flutternotes whenever she was sure no one was watching. She fluttered Isla that a problem at the refugee base was keeping her from fulfilling Isla's public relations quest, but that she and Justen were working on it together. She fluttered Andrine to get an update on Remy's transport back to Galatea. Andrine had been charged with giving the girl some very explicit instructions as to what she was to do when she arrived home, since Persis didn't want to place Justen's sister in the path of danger. Remy was to gather information, not hunt it down.

Finally, she fluttered her parentsa"on a frangipani flutter, naturallya"saying she and Justen would be late for supper.

And she thought. Was it possible that the Galateans were not aware of what they were doing to their people with this drug? They'd begun by using it solely on aristos, a symbolic punishment meant to enslave the upper cla.s.s as the aristos had once enslaved the ma.s.ses. The revolutionaries' first victim had been the old Queen Gala, followed by her entourage. It was only recently that they'd expanded to punishing regs who ran afoul of the revolution in this manner. Did they mean the sentences to be for life?

"Excuse me, Lady Blake?"

Persis looked up from her most recent game to see Lord Lacan standing there, his face grave. Lord Lacan was the first aristo she'd rescued who was aware of her true ident.i.ty, thanks to Remy's unmasking her during the man's rescue. The other aristos in his party, thankfully, had been out of sight when Remy had knocked off her cap. Though every new person who knew her secret was one more node of danger, she was glad it had been someone like Lacan and not someone like Lord or Lady Seri.

She excused herself from the boarda"a good thing, too, as she was two moves away from another checkmatea"and retreated with him into a quiet corner.

"Rumors have been flying around the facility like your little spun-sugar flower messages," the old man said to her. "There is a problem, I understand, with the reg refugees?"

"It's not of concern to you or your family, sira""

"You're wrong," Lacan replied. "The regs you rescued along with me are my friends. Anything that hurts my countrymen hurts me as well. May I see them?"

Persis blinked, surprised by the vehemence in his voice. Then again, even Reduced, Lacan had a presence about him. He'd been one of the most powerful voices for reform before the revolution, which is why she was so mystified that Aldred made him a target for imprisonment and Reduction. Even Remy Helo seemed to have been curious. Lord Lacan was responsible for changing at least one Galatean reg's mind about the revolutiona"and one who'd been raised to believe in it more strongly than anyone. Maybe that's why Aldred found him so dangerous. He was one of the only proreg forces out there who could challenge Aldred's despotic rule. Lacan was an aristo, but not the kind the revolution was meant to challenge.

Persis led him into the next chamber. There were seven refugees here, all regs. Lacan observed them for a moment, their sullen, confused faces, their clumsy movements and mumbled groans.

"This is an abomination," he said at last. "We must tell my countrymen what is being done to them, what they truly risk the longer they allow Citizen Aldred to control the island. Everything I fought for, the integrity of the Helo Cure itselfa"" The old man's voice broke on the words, and he shook his head.

"I know." Persis put a hand on his arm.

He looked at her hand, at the yellow leather wristlock covering her palmport. "You are a very young person to be taking this on all on your own."

"I'm not on my own," she replied in defense. "I have helpers, and Noemi, and the support of the princessa""

He cut her off, his tone contemplative, as if he hadn't even heard her. "This is what I've been thinking ever since I came back to myself. How young you are. How young you and that little soldier girl looked as you grappled on the ground in Galatea. How young Princess Isla is." The Lord Lacan looked down at his wrinkled hands, at the bandage covering his thumb. "I was ten years old when I took over my family estate. Twelve when Persistence Helo came to me and told me about her cure, when I decided to give it to every Reduced person on my land. My neighbors, all those people older and wiser than I, they all told me how foolish it was to listen to some reg who managed to get herself a medic's training. Said even if it did work, I'd have a lot harder time managing an estate full of regs than I would if they were Reduced."

"And you were right, in the end."

He chuckled. "Yes, I was. At twelve years old, I was young and idealistic and lucky that I happened to be right. So that's why I know it's foolish to tell you how dangerous this whole Wild Poppy business is and utterly pointless to say you're too young to pull it off. Because I know from experience that sometimes it's only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world."

VANIA SCOWLED AS SHE scrolled through the files on her oblet. General Gawnt's new strategy of beefing up the security at the work camps meant far more administrative work than Vania liked. He was doing this to annoy her, of that she was certain. Now, instead of being at the front lines of the Ford siege, waiting for the moment she could watch the final barriers fall, she was stuck in an office in the Halahou royal palace, reviewing files on troop movements.

Annoyed, she flipped back to his memo. His fat face looked like little more than a smear in the oblet display.

"With these new measures in place, we feel certain that the menace of the Wild Poppy will soon be apprehended."

What nonsense. The Wild Poppy was not intimidated by guards. He'd waltzed into a heavily armed estate and tricked an officer and all his soldiers into releasing Lord Lacan and his family. She'd reviewed all the witness interviews there.

Well, all except the missing guard's. The young one who'd apparently showed up out of nowhere then disappeared along with the Poppy. A plant? A spy? Her records were obviously faked and led nowhere. And it seemed the Poppy had done something to the surveillance records when he showed up, as the entire block of time had been erased.

Vania wasn't giving up, though. While Gawnt attempted to unmask the Poppy with brute force, she would do it with finesse, and she would start by tracking down every person who'd ever interacted with the spya"even if that meant detoxing the idiot nanny who'd let the Ford children slip through her fingers.

"Captain Aldred?" came the voice of her a.s.sistant. "You have a visitor. It's Citizen Helo." As always, there was a reverent hitch in the woman's voice as she p.r.o.nounced the name. Helo. Vania wondered if her own name would hold such importance to future generations.

Also: finally! Justen hadn't been answering her messages for a week. She knew he was devoted to his research, but his was ridiculous. "Send him in," she called.

But the figure who came through the door wasn't Justen It was Remy.

"Oh." Vania pasted a smile on her face to hide the disappointment. "You're back from your school trip at last?"

Remy's eyes widened and her hand went to her smooth cap of dark hair. "Yes. Glad you didn't miss me too much."

Vania chuckled. "Of course I missed you, squirt. Especially at dinner. You wouldn't believe how boring it gets without you or your brother to distract from General Gawnt's speeches."

"You haven't seen Justen, either?" Remy said. "He's not at the lab, you know."

"Oh?" Vania said, distracted. "Well, you know Justen. He's probably sequestered in some sanitarium somewhere, mopping the brows of pathetic Darkened."

"I don't know. We a haven't spoke in a while," Remy pressed. "We had a fight before I left. And he hasn't answered my message to talk in person."

"Probably forgot his oblet somewhere." Vania shrugged. "If ever someone needed a palmport, it's your brother."

Remy nodded. "He never would, though."

Vania made a sour face. "For good reason. They're disgusting and decadent a and dangerous."

Though the combination of nanotechnology and gengineering was all the rage in Albion and was starting to catch on even among aristos in Galatea before the revolution, Citizen Aldred had held the practice up as an example of the needless, wasteful indulgences that characterized the upper cla.s.s, then outlawed the technology before it became popular among regs. Vania remembered how Justen had helped her father prepare tracts that railed against the unknown ravages palmports might be doing to the body's systems as it drained resources to power itself.

Vania had only ever seen them, dead and useless, on the palms of Reduced prisoners, but she'd watched videos of palmports in actiona"marvelous, spun-sugar flutternotes that carried encoded messages and applications that would generate small items, toys, or even chemicals if you'd taken the proper supplements.

Sometimes, when she ran out of neurotoxin p.r.i.c.kers in her weapons bracelet, she wondered if some enterprising gengineer might write a palmport application for them. You know, if it wasn't illegal. Imagine not having to carry poisons around. Imagine just being poisonous, at the press of a b.u.t.ton and the downing of the supplement a "Vania!" Remy waved her hand before Vania's eyes. "Are you even listening to me?"

She looked up at her little foster sister. Upa"when had Remy gotten so tall? She was no longer the child who'd always tagged along behind Vania and Justen, begging to be parta"any parta"of their activities.

"Sorry, squirt," she said. "I've just had my hands so full with the Ford siege, and now Gawnt's got me trying to track down the Wild Poppy a"

"Really?" Remy said, her eyes alight with interest. "What have you found so far?"

Vania bit back a sigh. She really didn't have time to explain this to a little girl. "Not much, but more than I'll be reporting to General Gawnt, that's for sure. If anyone is going to catch the Poppy, it'll be me."

"Can I help?"

"Maybe in a few years."

Remy blinked, hurt, and now Vania did sigh. Justen was much better at putting his little sister off than she'd ever been. That was probably why he was working his bedside manner in a sanitarium and she was interrogating royalists as part of the military police.

"All right, squirt," she conceded. "Here's a way you can help. There's this story coming out of the Lacan estate about a missing soldiera"some young recruit who apparently ran off with the Poppy. But no one seems to know where she came from. I've got tons of military recruit records to go through. Maybe you can help track this girl down." She handed Remy the oblet.

"Trina Delmar," Remy read on the display. "Yes, I think this is something I can handle."

Good. That would keep her busy, and it was doubtful Remy could cause much trouble combing through some static records. It was odd that Remy and Justen hadn't been in contacta"though sometimes Justen and Vania spent weeks without talking, Remy and her brother were much closer. At least, Vania thought they were.

Maybe she'd missed a message from him explaining his extended absence? She checked again. Nothing from Justen, but in her queue was a message from a former cla.s.smate. She clicked on it and her oblet sparked up a video from a popular gossip source.

Justen Helo, hero to the revolution, spotted getting cozy with an Albian aristo? Oh, Helo, say it isn't so!

Jaw hanging like a fish, Vania played the video over and over in disbelief. The gossip sweeping Halahou was that Justen Helo was over in Albion romancing one of the most ridiculous aristocrats around.

The girl's name was Persis Blake, and according to the story, she was one of the richest, prettiest, and stupidest girls on the whole island. Her father, who probably also had pumice for brains, had defied Albian tradition to name her his heir, which made her one of the most eligible bachelorettes in New Pacifica.

Vania didn't understand. This had to be some sort of misunderstanding. Or maybe a vicious lie perpetrated by Galatean loyalists. Justen wouldn't run off to Albion without telling them first. And he certainly, certainly wouldn't fall in love with someone as shallow as this Blake girl was.

Justen had always been uninterested in romance. Too much work to do. Hadn't they had the conversation a hundred times, while their silly cla.s.smates got tied up in unproductive and melodramatic relationships that burned quickly and left nothing but anger and hurt feelings in their wakes? Vania had used these hurt feelings in her missionsa"one old cla.s.smate had been more than ready to reveal to Vania that an ex-lover was attending royalist meetings. Poor boy had been two months in his work camp, thanks in part to the bitterness born of a failed romance. Those sorts of feelings were beneath people like Justen and Vania. At least, that's what Vania had always thought.

But even if Justen decided at last to take notice of something other than his precious research, he would never have taken up with an aristo, even if she was obviously named for his famous grandmother. Not an aristo. Not her Justen. No matter how beautiful or charming or rich this girl was. Justen didn't care about that stuff.

If he had been sighted in Albiona"well, Vania was sure there was an explanation. Sometimes Justen got so caught up with his research that he grew absentminded. Maybe he was collecting data at a sanitarium in Albion, thinking he'd only be gone on a day trip. That would explain the lack of messages. Justen would go to the moon if he thought it might help him in his research. And maybe he'd found the trip so fruitful, he'd extended it and neglected to message them. And maybe this aristo was a Well, Vania couldn't quite imagine what an aristo would have to do with a sanitarium. None of the aristos in Galatea ever got their hands dirty with the reg disease.

And she couldn't imagine where someone might have gotten the idea that Justen would ever fall for an aristo, no matter how pretty she was. He'd have to be Reduced to be that stupid.

Or maybe Vania was the one acting Reduced. After all, aristos lived to be charming and flattering and seductive. Maybe Justen wasn't too smart to fall for their ways at all. Maybe, because he'd always been too busy to get involved with anyone before, he was completely blindsided by this Albian aristo's seduction techniques.

And of course the Albian aristos would want him on their side, if they could get him. He was far too valuable to the revolution to leave in their hands. Even Vania's father would agree with that. Hadn't he often said that Justen was one of their best a.s.sets?

This took precedent over any silly record combing. Vania needed to find out where Justen was and what he was doing. She'd message him, and if there was no reasonable response to these ridiculous rumors, if he didn't have a good answer for why he needed to stay on that aristo-infested island of Albion a moment longer than absolutely necessary, well then, she'd just go and bring him home herself.

And she could look for the Wild Poppy on the way.

Fourteen.

AS SO OFTEN HAPPENED to him in the labs at home, it was a persistent rumbling in his stomach that finally distracted Justen from his work. He looked up from the latest data stream to find rays of sunlight penetrating the skylights of Noemi's subterranean office. He exited into the residence room of the facility to discover the patients all gone to lunch and Persis nowhere to be found.