Broken Crowns. Lauren DeStefano

father isn’t exactly happy with me these days.”

      “But you were gone all day,” Pen says. “What were you doing?”

      Nim smirks. “I was speaking with a few of the king’s men. You remember how I said they were unhappy with things since the harbor? One of the men is assigned to guard King Ingram’s special guest, come down from Internment. My contact is escorting the guest to a meeting spot for us, but we have to go right now.”

      “Him?” I say, trying to keep myself from hoping that the guest from home could possibly be my father. The disappointment would be unbearable if I were wrong.

      “I think you’ll love this,” Nim says. “Hurry on and get dressed. I’ll meet you outside.”

      I’m on my feet as soon as he’s closed the door. I’m finished changing before Pen. “I have to get Basil,” I say. “He’ll want to come.”

      Pen sighs theatrically. “Must you?”

      I stare at her flatly. “He’s my betrothed.”

      “So?”

      “You said you were fine with my telling him about all this. He’s coming.”

      “Fine. But if you wake Thomas, I’ll strangle you.”

      “Noted.”

      I turn the knob to the boys’ room very slowly, wincing as I push the door away from the frame. I tread lightly past Judas’s and Thomas’s beds.

      “Basil,” I whisper, as quiet as breathing.

      He murmurs something, tries to embrace me when I lean in. It’s my breathy laugh that wakes him. “Morgan?”

      I put my finger to his lips, nod my head at the door in gesture.

      He climbs out of bed and follows me out to the hallway. In whispers I tell him that Nim is taking us to see King Ingram’s guest from Internment.

      “‘Hostage’ may be more accurate,” Basil whispers.

      “Perhaps, yes.” There are many people on Internment who secretly dream of life beyond the edge of the city, but most would be too terrified to ever leave. Especially now that King Ingram and his men have likely taken over the city.

      We meet on the front steps, and Pen shivers excitedly. She has been carrying this information about Internment sinking in her head for months, and now finally she will be able to put her knowledge to use.

      “Are you going to tell us who this mystery guest is?” she asks as we start walking.

      “I don’t think you’d believe me if I did,” Nim says. “I’m not sure I’ll believe it myself until I see him.”

      “How trustworthy are the men at the castle you’ve been speaking with?” Basil asks, the most practical of us all.

      “Extremely. I’ve grown up in and out of the castle walls. I know which men are good and which are bad news.”

      “How can you tell which are good and which are bad?” Basil asks.

      “The bad ones are friends of my father’s.”

      Despite the grim sentiment, Nim is the most upbeat he’s been in months. After the bombings and after Celeste’s departure, he became despondent. I’ve been worried about him, but Pen’s theory and the hope it brings has put light back into his eyes.

      We can’t fail. I run the words in my head over and over as we walk through the darkness and into the woods. We can’t fail.

      We walk for miles in fields and wooded areas off the main road. We must be near the city, because I can taste the burnt metallic quality to the air and I’m sure it’s from one of the fuel refineries. Whatever King Ingram is doing with that phosane, it can’t be right. I have never been inside the glasslands, but I have been near them, and there was never any smoke, never any horrid fumes.

      Pen’s father works in the glasslands. He’s one of their top engineers. But Pen has not brought him up since our fight several months ago, when I found her request paper and she reluctantly confessed that he had hurt her in some way she wouldn’t share with me. I have wondered in silence since then, hoping for and dreading her confidence in the matter. But Pen cannot be pushed. She cannot even be coaxed. I know this.

      I walk between her and Basil, and for the next several paces it almost feels as though we’re still back home, returning late from a play at the theater. We’re just ordinary schoolchildren and our world is intact.

      I have yet to see the outside of Havalais. Annette and Marjorie go into Birdie’s room sometimes, and one afternoon they found a shoebox under her bed filled with all the postcards their mother had sent from the farthest reaches of this world. Watercolor paintings of sprawling cities and barren deserts and long slender boats coasting over still waters. There is still so much to see, and confined as we are by King Ingram and his rules, I wonder at whether I’ll ever have the chance.

      Nimble leads us into the thick of some woods. We move guided only by the moonlight through the trees, and I can’t help asking, “How do you know where we are?”

      “Birds and I used to play here,” he says. “The castle is less than a mile away. In the summer our father would send us outside so he could convene with the king. I know all the trees and roots by heart.”

      “Morgan and I used to have a spot in the woods,” Pen says. “There was a cavern.”

      “It’s still there,” I say.

      “Maybe.”

      “It is,” I say. It is important to me that she believes this. That she believes there is still a safe place for us in our own world, hidden from all the warfare.

      A whistle pierces the air. Something rustles in the brambles ahead of us, and Basil advances protectively at my side.

      Nim is unconcerned. “This way,” he says, and leads us toward the sound.

      The trees are very tall here, blocking out most of the moonlight. But I can make out the dark silhouettes of two men standing side by side. I know it’s unlikely. Unrealistic. But I hope that one of those men is my father. In this darkness they could be anyone.

      “You’re on time, but we won’t have long,” one of the men says. “The king is an insomniac since his return. He got up several times last night to wander the halls. No telling if he’ll want to check in on our guest.”

      This guest, whoever he may be, doesn’t say a word, leaving me to agonize.

      “Is this him?” Nimble says.

      “I’m standing right here,” the other man says. “You could just ask me yourself.”

      My blood goes cold. Pen is in a dead silence beside me. I think she’s stopped breathing. We know that voice, and it doesn’t belong to my father.

      Nimble reaches into his pocket for his matchbook, and then he strikes a match and brings the flame to a lantern the first man is carrying. And I see the face of King Ingram’s guest. Prince Azure.

      “May I present our honored guest,” the man says, rather unenthusiastically, as though he must appease some imaginary court, “Prince Azure of the magical floating city.”

      “Internment,” Prince Azure corrects. “There’s nothing magical about it. We aren’t a bedtime story.”

      “Prince Azure of Internment, then,” the man corrects.

      Nimble is frozen in place for a moment. Here in the lantern light, Azure bears a striking resemblance to his sister. He has the same clear, sparkling eyes, the rounded cheeks, the gold hair.

      Nim snaps out of it after a few seconds and falls into a bow. “Your Highness,” he says. “I’m—”

      “Yes, I know who you are,” the prince says with impatience. He grabs the lantern from the