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  PRAISE FOR SARAH FINE “As a modern-day ‘Orpheus and Eurydice,’ Sanctum will be a hit with urban fantasy readers, who will love its top-notch world-building, page-turning action, and slow-developing romance.” —School Library Journal “In this well-developed concept of the afterlife, details are well-executed and the setting is described flawlessly. Without a doubt, readers will look forward to the next installment of the Guards of the Shadowlands series.” —Library Media Connection on Sanctum “This is one of my favorite books of this year! Smart and sexy.” —Reading Teen blog on Sanctum “Theology be damned, though: Lela and Malachi are both likable protagonists, and readers will be happy . . . this trilogy opener has a lot going for it.” —Kirkus Reviews on Sanctum “Fans of Rae Carson’s books and Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen will find much to love in Fine’s engrossing novel.” —VOYA on The Impostor Queen “Sarah Fine presents a fresh and fascinating magical world with its own rules and ritual

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  ALSO BY SARAH FINE Young Adult Fiction Guards of the Shadowlands Series Sanctum Fractured Chaos Captive: A Guard’s Tale from Malachi’s Perspective Vigilante: A Guard’s Tale from Ana’s Perspective Stories from the Shadowlands Of Metal and Wishes Of Dreams and Rust Of Shadows and Obsession: A Short Story Prequel to Of Metal and Wishes The Impostor Queen The Cursed Queen Scan (with Walter Jury) Burn (with Walter Jury) Adult Fiction The Reliquary Series Reliquary Splinter Mosaic Mayhem and Magic (Graphic Novel) Servants of Fate Series Marked Claimed Fated

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2017 by Sarah Fine All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Skyscape, New York www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781477823279 ISBN-10: 1477823271 Cover design by M. S. Corley

  To my mother, Julie, and my sisters, Cathryn and Robin, the ones who understand my love for Percy best, I simply must say: I had a devil of a time finding a suitable basket.

  CONTENTS Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter One Marguerite Have you stopped to consider what you’ve become? You might have started with good intentions and some actual ideals, but now? You’re just a pretty mouthpiece. The moment the words appear on the screen of my comband, heat blooms across my chest and I feel my pulse rising. I raise my head and stare out the windshield, swallowing the urge to fire back immediately. This troll is trying to bait me. Nothing would make him happier than a public tantrum. “Marguerite, your biostats have exceeded certain parameters. Are you in distress?” asks the car, Jenny. Back in Houston they didn’t have names—or talk. “Shall I lower the environmental temperature to increase your comfort?” “No, I’m fine.” The internal rotors whir as we rise into the sky. I yawn, and my ears pop. “Just . . . tired from everything yesterday,” I add, talking more to myself than to Jenny. And it’s true. Not only did I speak at the president’s inauguration—I got to go to the ball. That’s where I made the vid

  Chapter Two Marguerite As I walk, students gather on either side of the path, standing in crunchy brown grass. Every single one of them seems to have a Cerepin, the premier tech of the 1 percent, made right here in DC by Fortin Technology. These $10 million devices hit the market a few years ago—a breakthrough in intracranial computers. Small black nodules gleam on everyone’s right temple, and each of them wears special implanted lenses that allow streaming visual data and vid capture. Sensors thread into the user’s ear to manage audio. Chips implanted in their fingertips allow them to project or record themselves. A microscopically thin filament actually slides into the brain stem to enable health screening and the monitoring of vitals. All of it is tailored to the user’s biological profile and powered by the body’s own bioelectricity, so there’s no need to worry about parts degrading or a drained battery. Users are automatically sent emergency help when their biostats warrant it. The

  Chapter Three Marguerite I sit in the cubicle and put on the goggles, already feeling queasy. With unsteady hands, I slip in the two earpods, and the noise from the learning room—thirty voices all having one-sided conversations—cuts off abruptly. It’s been a year since I was in school. When El came to Houston and invited me and Mom to join the campaign and travel around the country with them, he made sure to tell her that they would provide a tutor for me. He also made sure to specify that the tutor would be human, not virtual. There were reasons. I wipe my clammy palms on my pant legs. I was fine during the homeroom discussion—there, we sat in a circle and Mr. Cordoza said everyone had to turn their Cerepins to “blank.” He walked us through a discussion of AI accountability in light of a few recent incidents in which cannies committed crimes after being infected with malware. Most of the kids in the room ignored me, looking away whenever I spoke, but Anna and one other girl, Kyla, kep

  Chapter Four Marguerite I’ve just gotten into Jenny for my second week of school when she alerts me that I have a com. From the president of the United States. My voice is shaky as I say, “Yes, I’m available!” President Wynn Sallese’s face appears above the control panel. “Good morning,” he says with a smile. His blue eyes twinkle with pride and fondness. He has thick, graying auburn hair and a smile that suggests everything’s going to be just fine. It instantly dissolves some of the dread that has been sitting so heavy in my stomach at the thought of going back to school this morning. “Before they left for their tour of the Department of AIR this morning, El and Colette let me know that your first week of school was a little rocky.” “And you’re comming me with a pep talk? Don’t you have . . . I don’t know, briefings? Or meetings with important people?” “You are important, Marguerite. I didn’t bring you here to Washington to be miserable, but I also know you can take on anything you se

  Chapter Five Percy The user has logged off. Well, I’ve had my fun. Worked off a bit of the savagery I try to keep in check most of the time. Now I have to sit here and think about what’s happened. I kick off my shoes—they’re not as comfortable as I’d like, but they look damn good—and start to pace. “Your heart rate is rising, Percy,” says Sophia, the voice of the house. “Are you in distress?” Lovely. My aunt has increased Sophia’s empathy and intervention settings again. But it’s good I’m finding this out now instead of tonight. “I know what my heart rate is, Sophia.” I always know. “I am here for you if you would like to talk.” I lean over my desk and press my knuckles to the polished surface. “I’m not distressed, darling.” “Distressed” is a silly and entirely inadequate word for what I am. “Bianca on vid,” says another voice, this time emanating from beneath my knuckles. I look down to see Bianca’s pretty face in the center of the display. I waggle my eyebrows, answering the com, all

  Chapter Six Percy At ten to eleven, I shimmy out the window undetected. I redirected the beams of Sophia’s sensors, and my Mainstream feed is set to a channel that mimics bio-sounds, including breathing and heartbeats
. It even farts from time to time. It’s not perfect, but it’s easy enough to elude the embassy AI. It hasn’t been upgraded since I moved in two years ago, and I’ve spent all that time studying the system in order to win myself a little freedom to indulge my . . . hobby? No, my quest. The canny guards and building-mounted surveillance scanners are a bit trickier, but I am still prepared. Truly, all one has to do is stay one step ahead, and all one needs for that is the Mainstream and an untraceable funding source. Check and check. The prisms on the top of my head and on my shoulders, thighs, and back project a visual and audio mirror of whatever I’m walking past. I am invisible to cannies until I reach the edge of embassy property, when I have to remove these rather gaudy p

  Chapter Seven Marguerite My eyes pop open when I hear footsteps thumping down the hall past my door, and for a moment I’m not sure where I am. I take in the soft glow coming from the gray-blue walls, simulating dawn in the windowless room. The sheets are white and soft beneath my fingers, too soft for me to be in my bed in the apartment in Houston. Oh. I’m in a secret bunker with the president of the United States, and DC is in flames. The night comes back all at once. I was up past one interacting with my followers, talking about what I knew of the bombing, trying to stay somewhere in that perfect zone between authentic supporter of the president and actual spokesperson. I’ve learned the power of words in the last year. Right now, it would be disastrous to be anything but sad and angry on behalf of people like Kyla and her family, even though what I want to do is point the finger at the technocrats responsible. There were no terrorist attacks on the Department of AIR when they were in

  Chapter Eight Marguerite When I walk out of the classroom, Anna is leaning on the wall just outside. My heart races as I wonder whether she heard any of my conversation with El. But she simply looks at me with solemn concern. “I told Mr. Cordoza you needed a mental health break. He said I could come make sure you’re okay.” She pushes herself off the wall. “And if it helps at all, the vid is obviously fake.” “I wish that mattered more than it does.” “I guess you would know.” I can’t tell how she means that, but I let it go, too tired to fight. “Yeah. So. Is it viral yet?” Anna taps her Cerepin. “It’s gotten about three thousand views so far. Lots of shares. But plenty of megavirals die quickly, and this one . . . it’s probably going to get content restricted. I’ve already reported it.” “Thanks, but all that means is that it’s harder to search.” “I had to try. That was a pretty classless move, even for Bianca.” “What’s her deal?” Anna presses her lips together and lifts one shoulder, a h

  Chapter Nine Percy I walk back into the school and find students milling anxiously, waiting for their rides home. I heard the canny get its marching orders and knew what was happening when I was with Marguerite, of course, but I’m used to pretending I can’t hear anything and everything. Today, that has come in handy. Bianca stomps down the steps and narrows her eyes when she sees me. My efforts on Marguerite’s behalf appear to have caused a rift. “Another free afternoon,” I say to her. “We have all the luck.” “You’re a jerk,” she says, glancing around. But she moves in closer, rift apparently healed. She continues talking but more quietly, her lips barely moving. “Everyone’s freaking out. Dad totally called it—he said that they’d find a way to hunt us down and lock us up. We’ve got a chalet in Switzerland. We’re out of here.” “How patriotic.” I said it to provoke her, but she looks genuinely hurt. “You have no idea what this feels like.” Oh, how many times I’ve wanted to say that to he

  Chapter Ten Marguerite Alone in the apartment with my Secret Service detail outside, I start to drive myself crazy. I com Orianna, but the only thing she wants to talk about is that awful scandal vid Bianca made and posted to the Mainstream this morning. When I tell her who Bianca is, her face turns sour. “I ever see that bitch, I’m gonna pull her stupid head knob right outta her stupid skull.” I laugh. “I think I said the same thing earlier.” Orianna nods, her fingers rising to the nape of her neck, to where her neurostim device is implanted. She got her first one about six months ago, and it’s helped her mood a lot. “Great minds. We’re from Houston. We don’t mess around.” If she were in the same room with me, I would hug her. We chat a little more about what’s going on here, but I think it’s so hard for her to really understand the vibe, what it’s really like in DC. Then she says she has “stuff to get done,” and I let her go. I try to com Kyla, but she’s still not online. I try Anna,

  Chapter Eleven Percy Aunt Rosalie is in the sitting room with an open bottle of white Bordeaux and two glasses when I join her. “Shall we?” she asks, pouring. “Lord have mercy, Auntie. We’re starting already?” She waves her hand, and a projection appears over the table. It’s the Seal of the President of the United States. “Sallese is scheduled to address this great nation, and I hoped you might watch with me.” I sit next to her and cross one leg over the other. “You sound so very enthusiastic.” She chuckles and takes a deep pull from her glass. “Sometimes I feel too old for this job, my boy.” My chest tightens. “But you do it so well.” “Percy, I am thinking of retiring.” There’s that twist of pain again. “You’re a lady of vigor and action, though, my dear. Retirement would absolutely bore you.” She smiles down at the bottle of wine. “My apartment in Paris is really very nice, you know. I’m sure you would love it there. There is a magnifique patisserie only a minute’s walk from the buil

  Chapter Twelve Marguerite The mood in El’s office, just off the Oval Office, is totally upbeat. We got to watch Uncle Wynn’s speech live, and we know he nailed it. I can already tell from the hits and comments on the White House channel but also by general traffic and trends on the Mainstream. The number one search term from the past hour is “Gia Fortin terrorist” or something related, El announces. “That’s kind of a fun unintended consequence,” he says with a chuckle. “How is it ‘fun,’ exactly?” asks Audrey Savedra, our joyless veep. She’s leaning against the wall, holding what appears to be a cup of coffee, looking sharp and pinched in her pantsuit. I’m assuming it is not by choice she’s here tonight but instead that it’s a matter of optics. “We aren’t in favor of mob justice.” She arches an eyebrow as she looks over me and El. “Unless I missed an important policy meeting.” “No, only the one where we had our humor chips upgraded,” says El, walking over to her and offering her a glass

  Chapter Thirteen Percy I replay my conversation with Marguerite as Yves slides his way through the sky over Anacostia. My heart rate is still over a hundred beats per minute when I think of the way she looked at me . . . I force myself to halt the replay. They’ve just reopened air traffic in this zone, and I can see the deep hole in the earth where the Department of AIR once stood. It feels blasphemous to be fantasizing about kissing a girl while flying over a mass grave. Chen coms me via Yves’s secure connection, his words slightly slurred. “I feel compelled to warn you of the risk you’re taking.” “Ukaiah reminded me that my parents were more than willing to take such risks.” “Yeah. Okay. She was right. But—” Now I am fully in this moment, which only sends my heart rate higher. “I thought about this all last night. I think you and Ukaiah are right—the noose is tightening. I can’t sit and watch it happen. I haven’t been able to reach my friend Bianca since yesterday. She and her family

  Chapter Fourteen Marguerite I’m staring at the ceiling, listening to a crowdsourced channel speculating on what happened last night. A lot of people are trying to verify who was actually caught and whether they were really terrorists—or whether this was Uncle Wynn’s administration taking out its enemies. The charge is so ridiculous, yet . . . it’s stuck in my brain like a splinter. “Marguerite, Elwood Seidel is at the door for you,” says Helen, the voice of this brownstone. A sudden chill runs through me. “Tell him I’ll meet him in the living room.” I rise from my bed as I hear the door open, and find El in the hallway, just past the entrance to the living room, as if he was headed somewhere else. “Mom’s sleeping,” I say. “It’s kind of late.” He glances at
her door. “I didn’t come here to see her.” I go into the living room and drop into a chair. All casual. “What’s up?” “We have to talk.” He’s making that face he makes when things aren’t going right. Brows low, jaw clenched. “I though

  Chapter Fifteen Percy The FBI agents arrive at the embassy early, as Auntie and I are at breakfast. She is imperious as she tells our butler to seat them in the parlor. “They say one of our diplomatic fleet was engaged in suspicious activity last night,” she says as she accepts a third demitasse of espresso. I bow my head and laugh. “Percy?” “You did tell me I could have the use of a car to go visit mon amour.” “You believe it is you they would like to talk to?” I fan my face as if embarrassed. “Must I explain my romantic rendezvous to the United States government? How gauche.” “Indeed. But you can’t be too careful at this time, mon petit chou. Sallese and his minions have embarked upon their own reign of terror. If he would talk to me, I would remind him of how history has treated such misadventures. The French understand such things.” “I’ll be more careful.” She frowns as she hears footsteps in the entryway. “Perhaps you should find other ways to meet with your lovely lady, Percy.” I

  Chapter Sixteen Marguerite But I don’t close my eyes. Instead I stare down at the ruby flower fastening his elaborate French cuffs. I can’t figure him out. For a second, I thought he might help me. He lives at one of the embassies, after all. He could find out information. Then I’m reminded of what he really cares about: presence, not politics. “Those are pretty,” I say, nodding at the cuff link. “A family heirloom on my father’s side. That’s a kind of English primrose, from the old family crest.” A family crest? “I sort of wish I could step into your world for a while,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “You know what they say about grass,” he says with a charming smile, releasing my hand. “Shall we head to homeroom?” He is remote and polite as we head up the stairs, which is a better reaction than I get from most. I should feel better that at least one person is being nice to me, but in some ways, this is worse, because even though he’s standing next to me, he seems miles away. I