Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest by John Connolly, Jennifer Ridyard

from the minor detail of saving their lives, those boys had done them another favor too, Syl knew, for she and Ani would surely have been picked up by their own people and charged with being outside the castle walls without authorization if they hadn’t been led away to safety. The best they could have hoped for was to be dragged before her father, who would have forced them to explain just what they’d been doing wandering round Edinburgh while bombs were going off. She’d have been grounded until she turned twenty-one!
    Illyri under the age of eighteen were not allowed beyond the castle walls, or designated Illyri areas of control, without permission, although most took this to mean that they shouldn’t be caught outside certain areas without permission. Syl wasn’t the only one who routinely made illicit excursions; life would have been very dull otherwise. While many of the Military guards took a liberal view of such escapes, just as long as their officers weren’t around, the Securitats were less forgiving, and particularly so in the case of children of the Military: they never passed up a chance to make life awkward for soldiers and their families. The Securitats would have been overjoyed to discover that they had the daughter of Lord Andrus in their hands, along with one of her little friends. They’d probably have kept them overnight in a cell, just to make her father sweat, before parading them before him in order to make him look foolish. After all, if the governor could not keep his own child under control, how could he be expected to rule nations? It was as much for her father’s sake as her own that Syl wanted to return safely to the castle.
    They were lucky too, for just as they neared the castle, a pair of Military trucks emerged, and behind them Syl glimpsed Corporal Laris, who was the closest she had to a friend in the castle guards. She had saved Laris from serious punishment earlier in the year, when he had fallen asleep at his post on a still, humid, summer’s night. Only the fact that Syl had been wandering the courtyard, unable to sleep, had kept him from being court-martialed, for she had woken him seconds before the captain of the castle guard made his rounds.
    Laris stared as Syl and Ani removed their hats and glasses, and seemed about to say something to them, but the pleading look that Syl gave him made him hold his tongue, and he waved them into the safety of the castle without a word. But Syl noticed that a figure in black and gold on the other side of the street seemed on the verge of approaching them before a convoy blocked her from view. Even hidden by her helmet, Syl was sure that she recognized Vena, the most senior Securitat in Scotland—perhaps even the whole island. Vena had no love for Syl, and her proximity was even more reason to get out of the courtyard and into the relative safety of their quarters.
    They scurried through the castle to the little bathroom. The corridors were unusually devoid of activity, and Syl noticed that there were no humans to be seen. In the aftermath of the explosion, the castle’s human staff would have been surrounded and taken away to a secure location beside the New Barracks. It was standard procedure. There they would remain until it was clear that the threat had passed, and none of them had been involved in any way in the explosions.
    Syl and Ani changed their clothes in the bathroom and made themselves look as respectable as they could, then hurried to Syl’s rooms. Once the door was shut safely behind them they stared at each other for a moment before bursting into relieved, hysterical giggles.
    “Wow,” said Syl. She hugged her friend. “What a crazy day. What the hell just happened?”
    “Well, we were almost blown up, but two boys saved our lives,” said Ani. “We then had tea with them. Then, most shockingly of all, there was the small matter of you flirting with an actual H-U-M-A-N.”
    “I did not!” shot back Syl.
    “Oh, you