The Sun Dwellers

Halfway down the hall I cut to the right, past a set of double doors, behind which is a lounge room with large flat-screen teleboxes on all the walls, and dozens of plush lounge chairs around the edges. It’s where my brother and I used to spend our evenings sometimes, watching the best entertainment the Sun Realm has to offer. Those days are long past.

Although I think the route I’ve chosen is the safest path, we’re completely exposed now, with nowhere to hide if a servant or guard happens to turn the corner at one of the many cross hallways that intersect the long hall we’re making our way down. Or they could suddenly exit one of the many carved-oak doors that flash by on either side. As luck would have it, we make it to the end unseen, having worked our way to the northernmost point of the east wing. And it’s here where I do the unexpected.

I take the stairs to the second floor.

“Dude, is the throne room on the next level?” Trevor asks, taking the steps two at a time to catch me from behind.

“No,” I say.

“Then what are we—”

“I grew up here,” I say, cutting him off. “Just trust me, it’s the safest route.”

I can tell he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, falling back to cover the rear again. When I reach the top, I freeze, right away wishing I could take back the words I said to Trevor. For striding toward me are two of the biggest palace guards I’ve ever seen.

Chapter Twenty-One

Adele

The palace gardens feel so unreal that it’s weird when we emerge from them to find the largest collection of buildings I’ve ever seen. I half-expected the palace to be a really giant tree, complete with windows and doors cut into the sides of the trunk, balconies propped delicately on the branches.

Instead the palace is a series of interco

In front of us is a grandly overstated entrance, framed by a half-dozen black pillars, cut from what appears to be marble, shiny and lustrous under the shine of the brightest yellow evening lamps I’ve ever seen. Although the lights seek to illuminate anything and everything within their bounds, for us, who remain outside of their perimeter, they have the opposite effect, shrouding us under a healthy cloak of shadow.

The entranceway is a buzz of activity, as party invitees arrive in cars of shiny pink, purple, yellow, and every other bright color imaginable. Each car pulls up, the occupants exit the vehicle wearing the gaudiest clothing I’ve ever seen, and then a white-, or dark-, or brown-ski

We watch for a while, me because I’m in awe of the strange world I find myself in, and Roc because he’s probably scoping things out to decide the best way to infiltrate the palace. Although my attention should be sufficiently held by the extravagance of the sun dwellers—there goes a woman wearing a hot-pink dress that resembles a wagging tongue, a curved flap rising high above her head and casting a soft gray shadow across her face; her shoes are blood red and have four-inch heels—I find myself thinking about Tristan’s revelation from earlier. People inhabiting the surface? A huge cover-up by the Nailin family, sans Tristan and his mother, who have vowed to tell the world? A giant-bubble-covered city where sun dwellers live and moon and star dwellers serve? If Tristan hadn’t looked so serious and scared the whole time he was telling us, I might’ve thought it was all a lot of exaggeration or even an outright lie. But I believe him, and now that the thought is in my head—earth dwellers for goodness’ sake!—I can’t seem to eradicate it.

“We’ll head west through a servants’ entrance in the side,” Roc says, interrupting my thoughts.

“I’m right behind you,” I say, gawking at a man with a blue-capped, yellow-brimmed hat so tall it’s nearly knocked off by the ten-foot-high door frame.

Following Roc’s lead, I creep along the edge of the gardens, resisting the urge to stop to touch, smell, and feel the beautiful flowers and bushes that slip past with nearly every step. Another time, perhaps. We’re soon out of sight of the crowded entrance, as both the gardens and the buildings curve to the right.

“We have to cross the driveway to get over to the buildings,” Roc points out, “but it should be easy—there are always large gaps between the cars.”

So we wait for our opportunity. A gorgeous white car with gold trim slips past, rounds the bend, and disappears from view, its red and yellow rear lights the last to fade away. Our chance. We run, knees bent, shoulders hunched, arms flapping u

When we’re almost halfway across, headlights hit us like a spotlight. There’s nowhere to hide; there’s no time to hide. For some odd reason I feel the instinct to freeze but know that makes no sense whatsoever. Stopping in the middle of the road—particularly when a two-ton vehicle is bearing down upon you—rarely makes sense. I charge ahead, get out of the light and off the road, turn to find Roc.

He’s standing in the middle of the road, his arm out, palm facing forward. Halt! his body language urges the car. I start to run back, prepare myself to tackle him out of the way before the car flattens him into human goo on the road, but then pull up when the car slows, slows, slows, and finally stops mere inches from Roc’s determined form.

“What are you doing?” I hiss.

Roc’s head turns slowly, almost lazily, as if he’s in a daze. I guess watching a car roar toward you, wondering if it will stop will do that to a person. “We’ve already been seen. We have no choice. He’ll sound the alarm if we don’t stop him.”

By him he means the guy behind the wheel, one of the many servants responsible for parking the guests’ cars. Through the glass windshield is a perplexed man, with wrinkles on his forehead that are curled in much the same ma

I stride over to the passenger door, trying not to look threatening, open it. The whites of the guy’s eyes are huge and shiny against the dark interior of the car. “Who are you?” he says.

“A friend of the President’s,” I say. “We need to borrow your car.”

Without waiting for his response, I grab the top of the car and swing in feet first, slamming both heels into his jaw, rocking him back against the inside of his door, hearing a sickening crunch when his head hits the window. He slumps forward and for a frightening second or two, his forehead lays on the horn, blaring the loudest, most obnoxious sound across the palace grounds. I’m sprawled out awkwardly on the seat, my head and arms hanging out the door. But then Roc opens the other door and pulls him away from the wheel, stopping the ruckus.