“I thought The Reestablishment wanted to get rid of all the languages,” Juliette says. “I thought you were working toward a single, universal language—”
“Sí, Madam Supreme,” Valentina says. (I know the wordsí.It means yes. I’m not a complete idiot.) “That’s true,” she says. “But first we had to be able to speak with each other, no?”
And then—
I don’t know why, but something about Valentina’s response breaks something open in Juliette. She looks almost like herself again. Her face loses its tension. Her eyes are wide—almost sad.
“Where are you from?” she says quietly, and her voice is so unguarded it gives me hope—hope that the real J is still in there, somewhere. “Before the world was remapped,” she says, “what were the names of your countries?”
“We were born in Argentina,” the twins say.
“My family is from Kenya,” Stephan says.
“And you’ve visited each other?” Juliette turns, scans their faces. “You travel to each other’s continents?”
They nod.
“Wow,” she says. “That must be incredible.”
“You must come visit us, too, Madam Supreme,” Stephan says, smiling. “We’d love to have you stay with us. After all,” he says, “you are one of us now.”
And just like that, Juliette’s smile is gone.
Her face closes off. Shutters shut. She reverts back to the cold shell of a person she was when she walked in, and her voice is severe when she says, “Warner, Castle, Kenji?”
I clear my throat. “Yeah?”
I hear Castle say, “Yes, Ms. Ferrars?”
I glance over at Warner, but he doesn’t say a word. Heonly stares at her.
“If we’re done here, I’d like to speak with the three of you alone, please.”
I look from Warner to Castle, waiting for someone to say something, but no one does.
“Uh, yeah,” I say quickly. “No, uh, no problem.” I shoot Castle a look, like,What the hell?And he jumps in with a “Certainly.”
Warner is still staring at her. He says nothing.
I almost slap him.
Juliette seems to agree with my line of thinking, because she stalks off, looking extremely pissed off as she goes, and I start following her out the door when I feel a hand on my shoulder. A heavy hand.
I look up directly into Warner’s eyes, and, I’m not going to lie—it’s a disorienting experience. That dude has some wild eyes. Pale, ice green. It’s a little unnerving.
“Give me a minute with her,” he says.
I nod. Take a step back. “Yeah, whatever you need.”
And he’s gone. I hear him call after her, and I stand there awkwardly, watching the open door and ignoring the other kids in the room. I cross my arms. Clear my throat.
“So it’s true, then,” Stephan says.
I turn, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“They really love each other.” He nods toward the open door. “Those two.”
“Yeah,” I say, confused. “It’s true.”
