No Intention of Dying (2 page)

“Or maybe we'll find a way to the ground,” he said.

Daphne turned to face him, propping herself on her elbow. “Can you keep a secret?”

He turned his eyes toward her. “I keep all your secrets.”

She considered this, and then she said, “I think my grandfather has been planning something. The way he talks sometimes, I think he'll get us to the ground someday.”

“He does like to rant,” Judas said.

“Yes, but this feels different. I asked him and he wouldn't tell me. I think he wants to keep me safe. He talks to Amy, though, ever since her incident. He says that our city failed her. It's failing everyone.”

Judas sat up, and he took her hands in his. She looked at them and then at him. He said, “I know you agree with him. Daphne, so do I. But you have to be more careful about what you say out loud. There are people who disappear for that kind of talk.”

“The king wants us to be afraid,” she said. “That's how things stay the way he wants them. And he'll prime his son to be the same exact kind of leader. People who aren't afraid of kings are the reason things change.”

“I just don't want you to get killed,” he said.

“I'm not afraid of that,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “It wouldn't be the end of the world, so long as something good came of it. Although I have no intention of dying, if that makes you feel any better at all.”

They lay back in the grass and looked up to where the sky went on forever, and it seemed that all the answers to their questions existed somewhere in the blue, waiting to be found.

also

by

Lauren

DeStefano

The Internment Chronicles

perfect ruin

burning kingdoms

The Chemical Garden Trilogy

wither

fever

sever

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