His fingers caught her elbow. Pru bore it tense muscled. She was getting really sick of members of the Park family manhandling her when all she wanted was to storm off in a properly self-pitying huff. “Alex isn’t trying to be unkind,” said Jay. “No one in their right mind would expect a kid test-piloting a sentient mech for the first time to do a perfect job. He’s just protective of—”
“Liberty. Democracy. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the speeches.”
Jay shot her a funny look that reminded Pru uncomfortably of Anabel’s more judgmental expressions. “Cat,” he said. “Alex is protective of Cat. They’ve been through a lot together, you understand? We know this arrangement isn’t easy on you, but it’s not easy on them either. This,” he dropped her elbow to gesture expansively at the dragon, “was their dream for a long time before you came into the picture.”
Pru folded her hands behind her back, abruptly uncomfortable. Cat had been an Incorporated citizen once upon a time, she remembered. “How did it happen?” she asked Jay. “I mean, I got Cat’s whole spiel about her old life back in the UCC. But how does a formerly Incorporated refugee cross paths with a Lamarque? Why would she and Alex . . .”
She trailed off at the sight of Jay’s foxlike Park-bred smile. Slowly, he shook his head, thoughtful amusement written across his features. “That’s not my story to give away. You really want to know, you go to the proper source.”
Pru stared at him, aghast. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“My word, how is it that all of my young cousin’s friends are simultaneously so clever, yet so remarkably thick-headed?” Jay knocked his knuckles lightly against Rebelwing’s chrome-scaled flank. “Alexandre tells me that Rebelwing sought you out herself. Found you. Chose you. Cat may not be overly fond of you—or, well, anyone—but I won’t fault that girl’s engineering skill. If the beast she specifically designed to imprint on Alexandre Lamarque imprinted instead on you, well.” He gave a low whistle. “Our Rebelwing must have good reason.”
“If you’re trying to tell me that Alex and I have anything remotely in common, you’re crazier than your cousin,” said Pru flatly.
“Thick-headed, the lot of you,” Jay repeated mournfully. His long dark eyes gleamed at her. “Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, you don’t know everything there is to know about a boy you’ve interacted with for all of, what, four hours total? Anabel tells me you didn’t even realize Alex was Gabriel Lamarque’s nephew when you first met.”
“I did so recognize him!” lied Pru, cheeks heating. “It just . . . wasn’t immediate, okay? Not everyone follows the digital society pages on the holo-networks every hour of every day!”
“You might consider the society pages, for a start, at least,” said Jay. “You could learn something valuable about the boy whose mech you’re meant to pilot.”
“Like what, his favorite color? His dating life?”
Anabel’s cousin was already shaking his head, turning to walk across the field. “Six weeks until your first combat assessment, Prudence! Don’t forget, if you can’t fly, you can’t spar!”
“His secret identity as a problematic yet charismatic vigilante?” yelled Pru. “His tormented history with his childhood music teacher?”
Hands in his trouser pockets, Jay tossed a wink over his shoulder. “All yours to discover, dear girl. Meanwhile, do try and convince Rebelwing not to kill you, or more importantly, everyone in your vicinity. Haven’t you heard? Liberty itself is at stake.”
With a frustrated huff, Pru rounded on the dragon. Alex’s emergency remote brake had put Rebelwing back in sleep mode, the lights in the eyes dulled, like a faded memory. Feeling silly and helpless, Pru lifted her fingers to its dormant snout, as if stroking a live animal. “What’s going on with you, girl?” she whispered. “You’re the one who picked me. What am I missing here?” She swallowed a nonsensical lump in her throat. “Why . . . why am I not enough?”
The cool metal beneath her fingers remained silent, hiding the unknowable.
8
A FAMILY PORTRAIT
Pru hated few things more than she hated chronically awkward social encounters. It got under her skin, the tension pulled sharp by all the words tied up unspoken on people’s tongues. Now, that knotted-up feeling infected her biweekly training sessions. Rebelwing would misbehave beneath the touch of Pru’s mind while Cat made cutting remarks. Jay Park was no better, alternately sighing and yawning over her earpiece. He probably wished Pru and her dragon were a fusion restaurant or high-end speakeasy bar instead of the Coalition’s dubious new protector of democracy.
Alex hadn’t said so much as a word since that first lesson. He’d bowed out halfway through the second lesson with some flimsy excuse about a makeup exam in physics, and now, for the third, he’d vanished entirely. It made something itch angry beneath Pru’s skin every time she thought about it.
She’d made the mistake of beginning to read more news. Just headline alerts at first, but now she couldn’t seem to stop herself from thumbing over every piece of clickbait that so much as teased a mention of wyverns. Every op-ed on Incorporated weapons tech development and eyewitness account of winged shadows on sunny days dug further and further under her skin, until she wanted to crawl out of her own body. Like a scab that demanded to be picked at, more and more wyvern stories scrolled in bold, ominous text across the holographic displays on Pru’s phone, and she couldn’t quit making herself bleed.
War’s coming, war’s coming, taunted the anxious buzz growing inside her brain, this Jellicoe guy is going to sell something terrible to the Executive General at his demo, and it’s gonna be your fault the whole continent falls under a reign of corporate fascism, all because this one dumb mechanical lizard got stuck with a lug like you for its pilot instead of Amazing Alex.
“None of you ever bother explaining it to me, you know,” Pru complained loudly to the sky during Flying-Slash-Disaster Lesson Number Four, as she hauled herself out of Rebelwing’s cockpit after her fourth not-quite-crash landing one afternoon. Her assignment had sounded as easy as ever: demonstrate basic steering principles by flying one clean lap, but Rebelwing clearly had other ideas. The final hour of training was winding down, and she’d barely made more progress than she had when she nearly ran Jay over in her first week. “It’s all ‘feel the connection with your mech, Pru,’ and ‘trust your imprint, Pru,’ but neither you nor Cat tell me how that’s supposed to translate to steering the godforsaken thing!”
Someone chuckled dryly on the other end of the earpiece. With a start, Pru recognized Hakeem Bishop’s voice as he said, “A surprisingly useful point, Miss Wu.”