Elodie pressed her teeth against her bottom lip.“Want to know something?”she asked without listening for an answer.“I never stopped reading those banned books.”If she was going to be sent in front of the Council to have her life rewritten, she’d go without any secrets.At least, she’d go without any secretsshe owned.Other secrets—Eos secrets, Aiden secrets, even Fujimoto sister secrets—they weren’t hers totell.
Astrid’s quakes calmed, replaced by short,hiccup-ladensniffles.“I got one.My first one.”She peeked out above her hands.“My first bannedbook.”
Elodie’s breath stuck in her throat.Astrid’s rigidrule-followingwas why she’d run from the fair without giving Elodie a chance to explain.It was why they were sitting in amade-upversion of a real place that Elodie would never be able to visit.And not because her family couldn’t afford air travel.No, it was now because herrule-abiding“bestie” had condemned her to a life much more oppressed than the one she’d tried to escape.
Astrid pulled a silver square from her toolbelt and set it on the ground, where it morphed into a slim black bag.Astrid was aVR-codegenius.She pulled the bag onto her lap, dug through the outer pocket, and pulled out a book.Sinister clouds burned rusted orange against the cover of the worn paperback.“The image reminded me of the Zone Seven news reports.”
Elodie held out her hand and Astrid passed her the book.Its weight shocked her.It felt as real as any she owned.The VR tech improved all the time.She smoothed her fingers over the cottony pages, soft from decades of wear.The color had worn off the embossed title, but the font’s echo was still legible—Poison Princess.
Astrid inched closer.“It was my sister’s.Can you believe Thea had a bannedbook?”
A knowing grin tickled the corner of Elodie’s mouth as she slid her thumb down the book’sspine.
Astrid reached out and traced the cover with her fingertips.“There’s a sentence in there.Actually, it’s the first sentence I read when I opened the book to skim through it.Come, touch...but you’ll pay a price.It spoke to me in a way nothing has before.”Astrid balled her hands in her lap.“How could that be dangerous?”
If Aiden were there, he’d have a million things to say.But Elodie only had one.“It’snot.”
“If I were you, I’d be pissed at me.”Astrid didn’t look up as shespoke.
Elodie dropped the book onto Astrid’s bag.Her hands tightened into fists.Was the novel the reason Astrid had been so weird when they’d talked?Was this what her father was so angry about?
Elodie had nearly turned herself inside out the night before, agonizing over whether or not Astrid had told anyone about the kiss—and this is what Astrid had been dealing with?Abook?
“So you didn’t go to the Key and tell them about Aiden and me?”
“I did tell on you.”Astrid’s voice was tired and lost.“Both of you.That’s where I went when I ran from the fair.Straight to the Council.What you did, Elodie, was so, so—” She shook her head.“I never thought I’d see anything like that.”She stared down at her hands.“And I didn’t think that the Key would do anything truly bad...”
“You didn’t think they’d send me to Rehab?”
“I was busy thinking about Cerberus.”
Elodie dug her fingers into the pile of sand that had blown up against her shoe.“The Key isn’t telling the truth about that, you know?”
“Yeah, well.”Astrid’s voice trembled.“The Key isn’t telling the truth about a lot of things.”
Elodie blinked, her jaw bobbing as she gathered her thoughts.“You agree with me?”
Astrid’s eyes flooded and her neck corded with tension.“Council Leader Darby.”A sharp, ugly wail hacked its way out of her throat.“He sentenced you and Aiden.I knew last night, but I didn’t know how to tellyou.”
Elodie’s teeth ground together.“It’ll be okay,” she said, more to herself than to Astrid.“It’s Rehabilitation.Aiden and I will get through it.”She swallowed.“I’ll get through it.It’ll beokay.”
“Death, Elodie,”Astrid wailed.“Darby sentenced you todeath!”
A bleat of panicked laughter escaped Elodie’s chest.“No.He can’t.”She shook her head so vigorously her vision blurred.“The Council can’t do that.The Key saves people.”Tears leaked down her cheeks.“They won’t, Astrid.There hasn’t been a trial.”Elodie sniffed and swiped her fingertips under her eyes.“You must have heard wrong.They would never.That’s not an option.”
Or had she just convinced herself it wasn’t?
She and Aiden had brokentherule.The rule that the Key had used to maintain power.The rule that they’d said insured a row of tomorrows stretched on aftertoday.
No one had ever brokentherule.
Or maybe they had, and the Key had wiped them out of existence before anyone realized they were missing.
Astrid braced her hands against the street and leaned in conspiratorially.“I went back.When I heard the sentence, I tried to recant.”Her voice was hoarse, but she’d wrangled her sobs.“I even lied to my father and had him insist the Council needed to call an emergency meeting with me.I thought having him there would make them take what I had to say seriously.”She pressed back into a crumpled shell of herself.Her ponytail brushed her shoulders as she shook her head.“Darby wouldn’t listen.Wouldn’t let anyone listen.He said that my words weren’t my own and that I was being manipulated.”Astrid inhaled a shaky breath.“My father is furious.”She rubbed her puffy, red eyes.“The Key threatened his funding.”Tears dripped from the quivering end of her pointed chin.“They’re sending me to Rehabilitation.And when I come back, they’re matching me, Elodie.They’re matching me to a man.To create aproperfamily.”
Elodie’s heart melted into her veins.Her entire body pulsed with a rapid, deafening beat.Astrid was in front of her, all tears and pain and remorse and guilt.But to Elodie, she might as well have been another heap ofsand.
“The Key is supposed to listen,” Astrid said as she scrubbed the back of her hands across her cheeks.“They’re supposed to help.They’re supposed to be just!Why should I follow their rules if they won’t?”She stared off into the distance.Her long ponytail, carried by a sudden gust of wind, struck the air behindher.
