paz

thalassic series

book four

Liz Shipton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

PAZ

New Adult edition November 01, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Liz Shipton.

Written by Liz Shipton.

Cover Art made with Canva and TextStudio by Liz Shipton

Tyrannosaurus Yes Media

contents

Content Warning

Paz

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

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Acknowledgments

About the Author

content warning

This book contains scenes depicting explicit sexual activity, including a scene with borderline no consent.

paz

“NO HAY camino para la paz. La paz es el camino.”

“There is no road to peace. Peace is the road.”

― MAHATMA GHANDI*

* I think? I saw this quote graffitied on a wall on Isla Cedros, Mexico. The internet tells me it’s Ghandi - but the internet has been wrong before.

chapter

one

IN THE DREAM, there is a wall.

It rises like a slate black mountain from the earth—as sheer and brutal as a knife, buried to the hilt. The face of it is like the surface of the Salt under the moon: black and glittering, and ridged with sharp edges, where flakes of stone have come away. It’s as hard as diamond when you tap it with a fingernail. As cold as ice. You can fog it with a breath, but its surface is not reflective: it is as dense and light-absorbing as the sky.

I have never seen the top. I imagine up there, the wind is strong enough to knock you down. I have never tried to climb it; the rise is too steep, and the smooth, black stone offers little in the way of foot or handholds. Obsidian. I think it’s obsidian. At least, that’s the closest thing I can come up with.

In the dream, the wall is all there is. Its top an invisible boundary, too high to see; its length a never-ending blade, an ever-narrower point on the horizon. I can walk along it, and I do, for hours, examining crevices, pressing my palm to its smooth, cold surface. Pushing my fingernails into cracks. As far as I can tell, the wall is a single piece of stone. There are no bricks. No cement. No joins. It’s as though it were picked up and laid here by some monstrous hand, to serve its single, formidable purpose.

And what is that purpose? I can only guess that it’s the same purpose all walls serve. The only purpose a wall like this can serve. A wall like this exists for one reason, and for one reason only: to keep something behind it.

There is something behind that wall. I have no doubt about that.

chapter

two

ON THE HORIZON, there is a cloud.

Small, white, puffy; it stands out bright against the cyan sky. Harmless. Like a single rabbit in a vast green field. I assume. I’ve never seen a rabbit. Or a field.

We didn't use to get clouds in Brume: just fog. And the occasional day of low-hanging smog when the wind blew particulate up from Naze in the south. These clouds are something else. Something we’ve only started seeing in the eight months since Z-Day.

At first, the citizens of Brume were excited to see these clouds appearing like fluffy little alien creatures in the sky.

“Rain!” we thought. We were finally going to have rain in New California. Something other than the endless, smothering whiteness of the dense, gray fog. Something that would replenish our reservoirs more fully than the water from our fog traps and desalinators could.

Then the rain came. And it was so caustic it burned the skin from your hands. Ten people died during the first storm. Three of them were children.

Since that day, Zenith has issued a “stay-indoors” warning whenever one of these innocent-looking rabbits appears in the sky. They’ve also figured out how to collect and treat the water that falls from them to turn it into drinking water. Another in the long list of projects that our new leaders, Electra and Paradi Nation, co-CEOs of Zenith, have taken on since we ousted their mother, Axioma, and put them in charge of the world.

Halfway across the bay, a breeze crinkles the surface of the water. I touch behind my right ear to activate the radio in my biochip as it approaches.

“Wind is picking up, class. Time to raise those sails.”

Just ahead of the wind line, five little white triangles of canvas begin to climb the masts of five little white one-person sailboats. The sixth boat—the one currently piloted by eight-year-old Malick Dawson—doesn’t put up its sail. I touch behind my ear again.

“What’s up, Dawson?”

No reply.

“Something wrong?”

Another beat of silence, then the radio crackles to life in my ear.

“No, Mr. Sargo. No sir,” he squeaks. “Nothing wrong.”

“You don’t have to call me Mr. Sargo,” I remind him, for what must be the fiftieth time. “Sargo is my first name. You can just call me Sargo.”

“Sorry, Mr. Sargo,” he says.

I sigh and rub my stubble with one hand. “You’re sure everything’s okay? Why aren’t you putting up your sail?”

Silence.

I tap behind my ear again. “Dawson?”

“Dawson’s scared!” sneers another boy's voice down the line. “He thinks the wind will tip the boat over.”

“I’m not scared!” protests Dawson, his voice partly obscured by static.

“Scaredy cat, scaredy ca—”

“That’s enough, Murdock! Worry about your own sails. Dawson, why don’t you just put up half your sail if you’re worried about the wind being too strong?”

Silence again. The radio line crackles.

I tap behind my ear. “Dawson?”

“Okay, Mr. Sargo.”

The line goes quiet. I fold my arms and squint across the sparkling water at Dawson’s little boat, bobbing gently around in the waves. When five minutes have gone by and no sail has been hoisted, I tap behind my ear again. “Dawson?”

More silence. Then, “I can’t do it, Mr. Sargo.”

I blow out a long breath. “Okay, Dawson. Hang tight. I’m coming to bring you in.”

Hopping off the dock into the skiff, I flip on the electric motor and aim it for Dawson’s boat. When I reach him, I stand and toss him a line. “Tie that to your bow and I’ll tow you back to the dock.”

Dawson fumbles the line as he catches it and drops it in the water.

“No problem, buddy.” I force an upbeat note into my voice as I reel the line back in and prepare to throw it again. “Let’s try that one more time.”

Back at the dock, Dawson climbs out of his boat and sinks to a seat on the edge of the pier, resting his pale chin in his hands and scowling down into the water. When I’ve finished tying up the skiff and his boat, I sit down next to him.

“It’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Mm.” I nod. “Sorry, my mistake.”

“I’m gonna fail the assessment,” he mumbles.

“You’re not going to fail the assessment. You’re eight. You don’t take the assessment for another ten years. That’s more time than you’ve been alive. Can you even comprehend how much time that is?”

“I’m never going to get better.”

“Not with that attitude.”

He pulls a splinter out of the dock and flicks it into the water. “I hate sailing.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately it’s the law.”

“It’s a stupid law.”

I lean back on my hands, flexing my bare toes in the sun. We sit in silence for a few minutes watching the rest of the class tack back and forth across the bay like low-flying white birds. The breeze is warm. The sun feels good. We don’t get a lot of sunny days in Brume.

“Did you know,” I say, “that once upon a time, there was a lighthouse in Brume?”

He shakes his head, still staring down at the water.

“You want to know where it is now?”

He flicks another splinter at the water.

“Right there.” I point out past the breakwater. “Still in the same place. Only now, it’s underwater. That’s how much the Salt has risen since Brume was built. And it’s going to keep coming up. The Salt, I mean.”

He’s quiet for a long time.

“Did you also know,” I continue, “that when I was born—”

“You were born in a boat out on the Salt,” he sighs, with the world-weariness of an exasperated eight-year-old. “Everyone knows that.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Who’s everyone?”

“All the kids in class.”

“Okay. Do you know why I was born out there?”

He shrugs.

“I was born during the collapse. Twenty-one seventy-two, in the middle of the pandemic. Out there was the only safe place to be that year. We weren’t allowed to come ashore; we had to stay on our boats. And if something like that ever happens again, you’ll have to live out there too.”

“The last pandemic was like fifty years ago. It’s not going to happen again.”

“Fifty years? I’m sorry, how old do you think I am?”

He tilts his chin up to me and scrunches his face. “I don’t know. Fifty?”

“I’m twenty-two.” I put a hand on his shoulder to shake him out of his stupor. “Like it or not, this is your lot. Either the Salt is going to rise until all this is underwater, or another pandemic is going to push us back out there, but one way or another, you’re going to be a sailor, Bud. I’m afraid there’s no way around it.”

“Maybe I’ll run away,” he says. “Maybe I’ll go over the mountains and live on the Turf.”

“Dawson, behind those hills is nothing but rocks and sand and dirt and misery. No water—not even saltwater to make desal. Just hot, hot sun and tornadoes and smog and nothing. If you want to go somewhere other than Brume, your best bet is Alluvium.”

“How far is that?”

“Only a thousand or so miles south. But you have to sail there.”

He rolls his eyes and drops his chin into his hands again. I stand up and hold out my hand to pull him to his feet.

“Don’t worry about today. It’s just one day. You’re a smart kid. You have plenty of time to figure it out.”

Two hours later, after I’ve dismissed the last class and closed up for the weekend, I turn out of Brume harbor on Panga and head toward Naze, seventy miles south. To my left, the charred cliffs that burned for a century during Fire Season are obscured by the smog line. On the horizon to my right, the innocent white cloud has turned sinister and gray. It’s also gotten bigger and recruited backup. I consider messaging Bird, who is at work up at Zenith headquarters right now, to warn her about the cloud. But I’m sure she already knows. Zenith has a pretty good alarm system in place for them at this point.

I put my eyes back over the bow. “Okay, Shanny. Time to raise the sails.”

Shenanigans licks his nose and regards me from under his bushy black eyebrows. I flip on the autopilot to keep us steady and hop out of the cockpit and up to the bow to raise the mainsail.

Shenanigans follows me, wobbling his tail. He sticks his nose over the side to sniff the air while I haul the sail up hand over hand. It’s unusually hot for April, and I’m sweating by the time I’ve hoisted the translucent triangle of canvas to its full height. It curves against the sky like poetry—like one of a pair of young lungs filling to sing some ancient song—and I catch hold of the mast for balance as the wind fills it and Panga heels gently sideways. Good, steady wind, as I predicted, although it is rank with smog from the South. Shenanigans sneezes and rubs his wiry-haired nose on the side of his leg.

“It’s not perfect,” I agree. “But it’s good to be out here.”

It was Bird’s idea that I mark the anniversary of the day my moms died with a sailing trip. It would be a fitting way to honor them, she said, because they always dreamed of sailing this boat out of Brume together. It would be more fitting, I had replied, if we both honored them by taking a sailing trip together, since it’s almost exactly a year since Bird and I sailed out of Brume, fleeing the Anonymity. But as usual, she couldn’t get away from work.

Zenith headquarters on the Azimuth campus are receding into the patchwork of dark green fogwood trees on the hill behind me. I can almost feel Bird’s eyes, watching me through one of the glinting, sunlit windows.

Shenanigans yawns and stretches, shakes his fluffy black ears, and paws at my leg.

Hopping back into the cockpit, I pull out the headsail, then settle behind the helm with one bare foot on the bottom of the wheel, “Not so much steering the boat, as making sure the boat doesn’t stray too far off course,” as Mama Marlin used to say. The Salt stretches and ripples like bluegrass in the breeze. At least, I imagine it does. I’ve never seen bluegrass, except in history classes at Azimuth. The breeze is warm—unusually so for April—and I try to enjoy it rather than let it unsettle me.

I find myself doing that a lot these days—trying not to be unsettled by things. I was born on this water. I’ve been sailing it since I was less than a year old. I know this stretch of coast like the back of my hand. I know what the wind should feel like, what the Turf should smell like. I know when it’s supposed to be breezy and where the wind is supposed to come from. I know what time of year the water turns deep purple, and when it should be gray. I know how to read patterns in the sky.

I know when things are not right.

On the seat next to me is the coiled-up line I’ve been splicing to make soft shackles so I can replace the rusty blocks in Panga’s rigging, and I pick it up, turning the braided rope over in my hands. It’ll be over fifteen hours to Naze, and I can’t sit here contemplating the existential crises of the weather the entire time. I need a project. Something to keep my hands and mind busy.

Flipping open the bench seat next to me, I peer into the compartment underneath it for my knife. It isn’t there. Frowning, I gently remove Shanny’s chin from my knee and root through the compartment with both hands. Spare filters, hose clamps, bilge pump…no knife.

With a sigh, I get to my feet and swing myself down the companionway steps to the galley below deck. I pull open the top drawer by the stove and rummage through an assortment of mismatched silverware. Nothing. Slamming the drawer shut a little more sharply than I mean to, I pull open the next one, irritated, knowing before I even put my hand in that looking in it will be useless. I know I put that knife back under the cockpit seat last time I was done using it. Which means someone moved it. The same someone who consistently takes things without asking and forgets to put them back when she is done using them.

When the knife is, predictably, nowhere to be found, I bang the drawer shut and stab a finger behind my right ear to call Bird.

“Yes?” Her voice when she picks up is already exasperated. “I’m right in the middle of something.”

“Did you take the knife out of the bench seat in the cockpit?”

She mutters something I don’t catch to a colleague, then says, “What?”

“Did you take,” I repeat, slowly, “the knife out of the bench seat in the cockpit?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs, “I don’t think so? Why?”

“It isn’t there now.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Okay, so where is it?”

“How should I know?”

“Because you were the last person to use it! And you never put things back after you use them.”

“That is not true!”

“It is absolutely true.”

She’s stone silent, and I can practically hear her gritting her teeth. “Is this really important?” she says, finally. “I’m like, right in the middle of work.”

“Please, Bird,” I groan, “please just try to think. What did you use it for?”

“I don’t remember,” she repeats.

“Jesus Christ.” I fling open the top of the table at the nav station and start pulling things out of it. “This is like the fourth time this has happened this month. I can’t keep dealing with this.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll try to find it when you get back. Can you just use something else? For now?”

“That’s not the point!” I slam the top of the table closed and kneel to open a hatch in the floor. “I’m so tired of my stuff disappearing all the time! Can you please just try to remember—oh. Shit.”

I stare down into the bilge with one hand still holding the lid of the hatch open.

“What?” she says.

“The bilge is filling with water.”

“What?!”

“I said the bilge is filling—”

“Yeah, I heard you!” she snaps. “I meant ‘what the hell?’ You’re sinking?!”

“Uh, maybe—” I scramble to my feet.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s okay, just let me—”

“Oh my God!” Her voice rises. “Where’s Shenanigans? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. He’s sitting right here.”

“Oh my God. What the hell? Oh my God.”

“Calm down.” I drop to my knees and lift another hatch.

“Did you hit something?’

“No. I’m sure it’s fine. The water might not even be coming from outside the boat. I just need to trace it back to the source of the leak.”

“And then what?” Her voice does not indicate that she’s becoming calmer.

“And then fix it. Or come back to the dock if I can’t.”

“If you can’t?”

“Bird, seriously, calm down, it’s going to be—”

“Oh, forgive me!” she snaps. “Forgive me for being concerned that my boyfriend just interrupted my regularly scheduled programming to inform me that he, my dog, and my home are currently sinking into the Salt!”

“Okay.” I reach to touch behind my ear. “I’m hanging up. This is not helping.”

“No, don’t! Just…tell me what you’re doing.”

“I thought you were in the middle of something. I thought you were too busy to talk to me.”

“Not if you’re going to drown!”

“No one’s going to drown, Howsley.” I stick my head down through the hatch in the floor I just opened and tap my left temple to illuminate the space with my biochip. For a few quiet seconds, I peer around.

“What are you doing?” says her voice in my ear.

“Checking the bilge.” I lie on my stomach and hang my head into the hatch to look into the back corners. “I don’t understand why the high water alarm isn’t going off…”

“How are you so calm right now?” she says.

“Because if I don’t stay calm, Shenanigans and I will actually sink.”

“Can you see anything?”

“Not yet. But I can hear water.” I tap my left temple to illuminate the space with my biochip. “Let’s try some night vision.”

“Night vision?”

“Zenith gave me a prototype when we were in Grike last year. You don’t remember?”

“Oh right. You took me into that cave.”

I scoff. “You make it sound like some kind of dank hole in the ground. I literally lit up an underground wonderland with magic bugs for you. I thought that was a pretty slick move.”

“It was kind of cheesy.”

“Cheesy? If I recall correctly, Howsley, you were basically putty in my hands.”

“Well, if I recall correctly, you were too scared to actually do anything with that putty—”

“Be quiet for a second, I need to concentrate.”

In the far corner is a valve, through which water is gently trickling. So it is coming from outside the boat. Not fast enough to sink us immediately, but judging by the amount of water in the bilge, it must have been coming in for a while. The valve must not be closed all the way. I tap my temple again to turn off night vision and pull my head out of the hatch.

“Found it.”

“Where? What is it?”

“Someone left a valve open in the hull.”

“Someone?” Her voice takes on a decidedly crispy edge.

“Yeah, someone. Probably the same someone who always forgets to put my knife away when she’s done using it,” I reply.

“Excuse me?” The crispy edge turns burnt. “When would I have opened a valve in the hull?”

“I don’t know, Bird. Unfortunately, I’m not omniscient. If I was, maybe one of us would be able to account for all the insane shit you do.”

“I didn’t open that valve.”

“Well, then I guess it must have been Shenanigans. Because it wasn’t me.”

Her voice turns frosty. “So you found the leak?”

“Yes, I found the leak.”

“So you’re not going to drown?”

“No, I’m probably not going to drown.”

“Great,” she snips, and hangs up.

Sighing, I tap my temple to turn night vision back on and lie down on my stomach to reach under the hatch. The valve cover is stuck—turning it with my bare hand proves impossible, so I climb back into the cockpit to find a wrench, silently praying that Bird won’t also have hidden that from me. She hasn’t, thank gods: it’s lying in the compartment under the other bench seat. I take it back down to the hatch with me, position it around the cover of the valve, and give it one good, hard turn.

The valve cover breaks in half and comes off completely. The water starts coming in faster.

A small wave of panic rolls through me. Just a small one. I don’t like to panic. I like to remain calm at all times. But I can’t pretend that the boat is getting any less full of water. I am, technically, sinking. And my only way to stop the leak just broke off in my hand.

Examining the broken valve cover reveals that it is rusted to shit. I toss it aside and wipe my face on the back of my arm, doing a mental rundown of my situation. I have a pump to handle some of the incoming water, but I can’t make it all the way to Naze with a leak like this. The good news is I only just left the harbor, so I should be able to make it back to the dock before Panga sinks to the bottom of Jones’ locker. But it could be close.

I pull up Messenger and gesture in the air to compose a message to Bird.

>>> TURNING AROUND. CAN’T FIX IT OUT HERE.

Sending it with a flick of one finger, I jump to my feet and take the stairs back up to the cockpit in two giant steps.

Bird’s reply to my message pings in front of my eyes as I’m heaving on the wheel with one hand to bring us around, and shaking the main sheet loose with the other.

>>> I GUESS I WON’T STAY AT MY MOMS’ TONIGHT THEN. I’LL COME BACK TO PANGA. IF SHE’S STILL FLOATING.

Swiping the message closed without really reading it, I grab the jib sheet and heave on it to adjust the headsail. It snaps and cracks in the wind as it crosses the bow, and I lean back on the line with one foot up on the side of the cockpit to pull it into position. We bounce over a wave and spray shoots over the side, landing crisp on my face. Sighing, I wipe it away.

Another message from Bird comes through twenty minutes later, as I’m turning into our spot at the dock, sweating and swearing and listing badly to starboard.

>>> I’M SORRY I LEFT THAT VALVE OPEN AND RUINED YOUR TRIP.

____________________

Once I’ve pumped about half the water out of the bilge, I dig out a spare valve cover and close off the valve that’s causing the leak. Then I trace the pipe it’s connected to back to its source. Which turns out to be the desalinator. Which I now remember I was working on yesterday. A task which required me to open that valve in the hull. Which means it was also me who forgot to close it.

Which means it wasn’t Bird’s fault at all.

I’m actually pretty lucky the water came in as slowly as it did. Panga could have easily sunk at the dock overnight.

Shenanigans sits on the top step of the companionway, observing me reproachfully as I stare in disbelief at the undeniable evidence of my own fallibility. The thought occurs to me that I could just lie. I could pretend I have no idea how that valve got opened and let Bird think it was her fault. But Shenanigans is a witness. He saw the whole thing.

It takes me most of the afternoon to pump the rest of the water out of the bilge. By the time I finish cleaning everything up, I am soaked, filthy, and starving. The sun is setting as I climb out of Panga’s main hatch and down onto the dock to find some food. Dusky pink rays lay low across the harbor, and the first cold, sheer curtain of fog is creeping in from the bay.

Shenanigans trots ahead of me like a jaunty little black mop with legs. He’s springier than Malarkey ever was. I think he takes himself less seriously. He’s a little more even-keeled; a little more well-adjusted. I like him. I would never tell Bird this, but Malarkey never really felt like our dog. Malarkey was Bird’s. Shanny…might be mine. Technically, Bird found him—I have no idea where, she just came home with him after work one day—but I’ve noticed that he seems to prefer hanging out with me.

I pick up some veg from the stall on the corner of the main pier and manage to catch the fishmonger before she closes up for the night. Then, because today did not go as planned and Bird won’t be home for over an hour, I stop by Farley’s boat for a beer. I’m not a big drinker, and I especially try not to drink around Bird anymore—it doesn’t seem fair since she had to give it up—but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Farley hands me a bottle so cold it hurts my palm and I crack it open and gratefully chug down three big swigs.

“Howsley working late?”

“Always.”

He chuckles as I wipe my mouth on my sleeve, watching the last pink crescent of sun disappear into the fog on the horizon.

As that fog settles over Panga thirty minutes later, I light the stove and go about preparing dinner. I usually make dinner, for two reasons: one, I’m usually home earlier than Bird. Two, if I make it, there is less chance it will come out blackened to a crisp. Bird Howsley’s approach to cooking is the same as her approach to everything else: ‘Close enough for rock and roll!’ The Sargo Paz approach is different: I prefer my veg chopped precisely, and my food cooked, not burnt.

She climbs down the companionway steps as I set two plates of grilled fish and steamed veg on the tiny foldout table in the middle of the salon. Dropping her pack from her shoulder onto the floor, she sinks onto the long sofa on the starboard side of the cabin, rubbing her face. She looks tired.

I set a glass of water in front of her and kiss the top of her head. “Long day?”

“There was another protest on campus. The whole west quadrant is basically inaccessible now. Everyone at work is blipping in and out of headquarters. No one from Zenith feels safe walking on campus. Azimuth is considering canceling classes.”

For the last twenty or so years—since the pandemic wiped most of us out—all the kids in Brume, from preschool all the way up to college-aged kids, have been taught at a single institution: Azimuth All-Levels School. Zenith moved their headquarters into some of the unused campus buildings after the pandemic. The Exiters have been protesting on the campus since Z-Day—almost a year ago.

I pick up my fork. “That’s crazy. They’re just going to let them take over?”

She sighs, picking up a piece of fish with her fingers. “I don’t know. The Exiters are now claiming that what Zenith is doing is persecution. That they are a persecuted people. Like they’re on some kind of mission from God or whoever to save humanity from our tyranny. They have no idea. No idea. What we went through on Z-Day. What it will take to actually save humanity. Which is what we’re actually doing at Zenith. Paradi says they’re just getting louder but I think they’re getting bigger. They’re everywhere. They’re violent. A group of them beat up a student yesterday.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” She picks up a piece of veg and shoves it viciously into her mouth. We eat in silence for a few minutes.

Finally I say, “Maybe you should take a break?”

She shakes her head.

“We could go to Naze together. Leave early tomorrow. It would be good for you.”

“I have to go in tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday! ”

“I said I can’t.” She looks at me. “Please stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Pushing.”

“I’m not pushing.”

“You are. You’re doing that thing where you tell me what would be good for me.”

“I’m not telling you what to do. I’m asking you to spend time with me.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry. I know it’s your moms’ anniversary. But I really need to be here right now.”

“It’s not just that.” I eye her. “It’s also a year since the night we sailed out of Brume together. Two years since the day we met—”

“I know.” She picks up her fork. “And I’m sorry.”

I sigh and look down at my plate. “It’s probably not a great time to go, anyway. Looks like there’s a storm coming.”

“A storm? Are you sure? We didn’t hear anything.”

I keep my eyes on my plate and push my veg around with my fork. I wonder if I should also tell her that it’s too hot to be April in Brume. That the Salt is the wrong color for this time of year and the smell of the Turf is too dry. That deep down, so quietly I can almost pretend I don’t hear it, a voice is telling me that Zenith doesn’t know what they’re doing.

But we already had one fight today.

So instead, I say quietly, “I don’t need Zenith’s cloud guys to tell me what a cloud means.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right. The Wizard of Paz knows all.”

Two nights ago, we found an ancient vid stream on the Net. Since we watched it, Bird will not stop calling me ‘The Wizard of Paz’. She’s also taken to calling Shenanigans ‘Toto’. To be fair, he does look almost exactly like the dog in The Wizard of Oz.

I stand and pick up my empty plate. “Actually…it turns out that I may not know all…” I step into the galley, partly to wash up and partly to avoid having to look at her as I say, “I may have been wrong about the somebody that left that valve open in the hull.”

“Is that so?” She picks up her last piece of fish and sticks it triumphantly into her mouth, then stands, licking her fingers, and brings her plate into the galley. She sets it in the sink with mine, rinses her hands, then slides them around my waist. “So the Great and Powerful Paz made a mistake?”

I look down my nose at her. “It would appear so.”

“Did you think about pretending it wasn’t your fault?”

“I did. But Shenanigans wouldn’t have let me get away with that.”

“He is mercilessly uncompromising,” she agrees, “when it comes to law and order.”

“Joking aside…” I catch her hands as they begin to wander under the hem of my shirt. “I would really appreciate it if you could put my tools back when you’re done using them. I still haven’t found my knife.”

“Yeah, but…” She frowns and tilts her head, freeing one hand so she can walk her fingers up one side of my chest. “If I had done that…you wouldn’t have been looking for it today, and you wouldn’t have opened that hatch, and you wouldn’t have discovered that the bilge was filling with water, and you would have sunk. So, actually…” She pops open the top button of my shirt and flicks the side of my neck, “I saved your life.”

“You didn’t save my life, Howsley. I would have been fine.”

Her fingers walk their way up to my shoulder, then trail down the back of my arm. “Maybe I should start hiding more of your tools. For emergency situations like that, where your life needs to be saved.”

“Please don’t.”

“Or maybe…” She hooks her finger into my waistband and tugs my hips toward her. “I should always be the one in charge of the tools.”

“I feel like you’re not listening to me.”

“I’m listening.” She toys with the button of my pants. Already my skin is getting warm and my head is going a little fuzzy. She smells so good—cinnamon orange tea and the faint tang of her sweat and the sweetness of her hair—and her hands are so soft. But at the same time, I am actually kind of annoyed with her. I slide my hands around her ass and squeeze it. Hard.

She yelps and glares at me.

“What am I going to have to do to get you to listen to me, Howsley?”

Her eyes go bright and mischievous. “I don’t know. What are you going to have to do?”

She slides her hands under the back of my shirt and traces her fingers over my ribs. I close my eyes, tingling, running my palms over the smooth curve of her ass. “I might have to do something drastic.”

“How drastic?”

“Very drastic, Howsley. Like tie-you-down-and-make-you-listen drastic.”

Her breath stills. I open my eyes, suddenly realizing that’s the first time I’ve said that particular fantasy out loud to her. Even though I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. We’ve never…explored anything like that before. We haven’t had any reason to. Exploring each other was enough. The air suddenly crackles with a new kind of anticipatory energy.

“Really?” she whispers.

“Maybe…”

“Is that…something you want to do?”

My heart is suddenly beating fast. This isn’t how I meant to bring this up with her. It just sort of slipped out.

“It might be. Would it be something…you wanted to do?”

Her cheeks turn bright pink and she looks away. It’s crazy to me that she still gets shy talking about sex. Crazy…and, if I’m honest, so hot. It’s all I can do to keep myself from pressing my tongue against her flushed skin.

Anyone who knew Bird Howsley would not think she was shy about anything. It’s kind of like a secret thing that only I get to see. She’ll make stupid jokes about sex, sure. Like saying she should be in charge of all the tools, but when it comes to actually telling me what she wants, she gets so nervous. Sometimes, getting it out of her is like maddening torture. Sometimes, I think she plays it up to make me crazy. It just makes me want to hear it all the more.

“I actually…had a dream about that once,” she mumbles, still playing with the button of my pants, not looking at me.

“You did?” I squeeze her again, pulling her hips against mine to feel her against me. “About being tied up?”

“Mhm. A long time ago. I haven’t had one since.”

“Was I in it?”

She skirts my eyes and I tilt my head with hers to follow her lips with mine. I can’t resist touching my mouth to the corner of hers as I say, “What were we doing?”

“You were kneeling over me. Like…pinning me to the bed. And you had my arms tied over my head.”

“Mhm…”

“And you told me to touch myself.”

“Mhm.”

“And I did.”

I grip her tighter, pressing the bulge at the front of my pants against her thigh. “How did you touch yourself if you were tied up?”

“Oh, you let me go. Or…you let me have one hand.”

“Mm.” I touch my lips under her ear and she shivers. “I don’t think that’s something I would do in real life.”

Her breath hitches. “No?”

“No. I would want you completely under my control.” Sliding my fingers through hers, I pin her arms at her sides as I walk her backward out of the galley. “Did you like it? When I told you to touch yourself?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“Did you like being tied up?”

“Yes.”

“Mm. That’s sexy, Howsley. That makes me very excited.”

The mischievous light flickers on in her eyes. She slips one hand free and slides it between us and I suck in a breath as she squeezes me. “Yes, I can see how excited you are.”

Another stupid joke. She’s deflecting. I’m in no mood for deflecting. I grab her hand and pin it to her side again, still walking her backward, aiming for the bed. “Do you think you would do more things that I told you to do?”

She blushes again. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think you would…let me do things to you?”

“What kind of things?”

I brush my lips against her ear. “Anything I wanted.”

“Anything you wanted?” I can feel the heat of her blushing skin against my lips as I drag them from her ear down the edge of her jaw. Although now I can’t be sure if it’s her shyness creating that heat, or if she’s as turned on by this conversation as I am. I did not think I would be so turned on just talking about this. My dick is so hard I can’t walk properly.

I step her backward into the sleeping cabin and we stop as her legs hit the bunk. Releasing her hands, I drag my palms to her breasts, where her nipples are so hard I can feel them through her shirt. Fuck, she is as turned on by this as I am. I pinch them and she moans, softly.

“I bet…” I murmur, sliding my hands under her shirt and slowly tugging it over her head, “that once I had you there, tied down, at my mercy…I bet you would let me do whatever I wanted.”

Underneath the shirt, she is naked, and I cup her breasts, brushing my thumbs over her nipples, feeling them tighten. She presses them toward me, goosebumps stippling her shoulders as I bend to brush my lips over the black, glassy slashes that Malarkey left across her heart last year. The shortness of her breath and the smell of her skin are making me dizzy.

“Oh you bet, do you?” she says as I undo the button of her pants, tug them open, and slip my hand inside. “What makes you so sure?”

I slide one finger into her. She’s so wet I swear out loud. “Because you’re already soaked, Howsley, and we haven’t even started yet.”

She lets me crawl her backward onto the bunk, her eyes locked with mine, my finger still inside her. I stroke her, slowly, and lower my mouth to one nipple, flicking it with my tongue.

Her head tips back. “Okay,” she gasps, “so what are you going to do to me?”

Gods, that question makes me ache. The things I could do to her. The sounds I could get her to make. If I had complete control. It’s too much to hold in my head at one time. Too much for my lust-addled brain to actually sort out in this moment. I just want to fuck her. My cock is throbbing and I’m desperate to be inside her.

“This time?” I stroke her again. “I’m going to make you come, Howsley.”

She lifts her head back up to meet my eyes. “That’s all?”

Again, I stroke her, feeling her pulse around my finger. She’s already so ready and I’m so hard. This could be over in less than a minute. I smile. “For now.”

Her eyes turn wary. “And…next time.”

“Next time…” I remove my hand from her pants and she utters a strangled little moan of disappointment. Sitting up, I start to unbuckle my belt. “Next time, Howsley, I’m going make you beg for it.”

chapter

three

WHEN I WAKE the next morning, Bird’s side of the bunk is empty. There’s an unread message notification on my biochip. I roll over and tap it open.

>>> HAD TO HEAD OUT EARLY. CAN YOU REACH OUT TO SAVAGE? HE MENTIONED HE WANTED TO TEACH ANOTHER NAVIGATION CLASS FOR YOUR KIDS WHILE THE KINGFISHER IS IN PORT.

I swipe in the air to close the message and rub my face with both hands. I have no intention of reaching out to Savage. He already taught one class for my students this week. That’s all the obligation I have to that asshole. I don’t care if he is a celestial navigation expert. He’s also a junkie scumbag who tries to sleep with teenagers. And what does she mean ‘he mentioned’? Mentioned to her? So he’s been messaging her?

He could have easily talked to me himself.

The beach is socked in with dense, gray fog, and littered with driftwood and debris when I take Shenanigans for his walk. That storm must have passed through last night. That’s good; people will have been inside. Shenanigans has a field day tearing up and down the sand while I sit on a damp log and sip brew. With the trip to Naze no longer happening, I suddenly find myself with nothing to do all weekend. I tap to open Messenger and send a message to Bird.

>>> YOU WORKING ALL DAY? WHAT TIME WILL YOU BE HOME?

>>> LATE.

A minute goes by and then she sends

>>> WHY? LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO DO?

>>> MAYBE. MAYBE I WAS THINKING ABOUT LAST NIGHT. MAYBE I WAS IMAGINING YOU TIED UP IN THE BUNK.

Bird types something, deletes it, types again.

>>> I PREFER TIED DOWN

I frown.

>>> WHAT?

>>> I THINK SAYING ‘TIED DOWN’ IS SEXIER THAN SAYING ‘TIED UP.’

A smile creeping around the edges of my frown, I send

>>> AND WHY IS THAT?

>>> BECAUSE ‘TIED UP’ IS LIKE…CUTESY. WHAT DO YOU TIE UP? A BOW. A PRESENT. LOOSE ENDS. SILLY THINGS. CUTE SHIT. YOU TIE SHIT UP WHEN YOU WANT IT TO LOOK PRETTY. ‘TIED DOWN’ IS LIKE…INDUSTRIAL. YOU TIE SHIT DOWN ON A BOAT WHEN YOU’RE GOING INTO ROUGH WEATHER. YOU TIE SHIT DOWN WHEN YOU’RE SERIOUS. WHEN YOU REALLY DON’T WANT IT GETTING AWAY.

I forgot that Bird is better at writing down her thoughts than saying them out loud. I’m not sure why. But we’ve gotten into some pretty hot message exchanges before.

>>> OKAY HOWSLEY. TIED DOWN IT IS. CERTAINLY DON’T WANT YOU GETTING AWAY.

>>> AND YOU’LL HAVE TO USE SOME PRETTY SERIOUS RESTRAINTS, she sends. BECAUSE I’M WILY.

>>> MM. ZIP TIES IT IS.

>>> ZIP TIES??? :O

>>> TOO MUCH?

>>> IDK…SOUNDS LIKE IT MIGHT HURT

>>> MAYBE THAT’S THE POINT

She types, deletes, stops. Then

>>> I MIGHT BE INTO THAT

My eyes go wide. I stare at the cursor blinking below her words for a long time before I send

>>> REALLY?

>>> I DON’T KNOW. MAYBE…

Blood is suddenly making its way to my crotch and my skin is buzzing. I didn’t expect her to say something like that; I was joking. But I can’t say it isn’t…turning me on. Is it turning me on?

She sends her next thoughts slowly, one line at a time.

>>> ANYWAY

>>> WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT I GUESS

>>> I SHOULD PROBABLY GO

I scramble to send something back

>>> AW DON’T. THIS JUST GOT INTERESTING

>>> I’M AT WORK, SARGO

>>> DON’T GO. AND DON’T CALL ME SARGO. WE’RE DOING SEXY TALK.

>>> FINE. I’M AT WORK, PAZ

>>> NO NO NO, HOWSLEY. THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEAN…

I can practically hear her rolling her eyes as she sends

>>> OMG. I’M AT WORK MR. SARGO

Smirking, I send

>>> BETTER

>>> OKAY, I REALLY HAVE TO GO NOW

>>> COME ON…I’M SO BORED. AND LONELY

>>> SORRY. I’M VERY BUSY AND IMPORTANT

>>> MAYBE I’LL KIDNAP YOU. BREAK INTO ZENITH HQ IN A MASK

>>> MMM OKAY. ARE YOU BRINGING THE ZIP TIES?

>>> OBVIOUSLY.

>>> HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET PAST SECURITY?

>>> I’LL JUST EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT MY GIRLFRIEND IS INSIDE AND I’M VERY HORNY.

>>> GENIUS.

>>> WORKS EVERY TIME.

Bird types something, deletes it, types again. Stops. I watch the cursor blinking against the white sky and slate-gray Salt. Finally, she sends

>>> MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO CHECK ON BLENNY?

I shut my eyes and sigh.

Blenny will be a mess today. He’s always a mess, but he’s more of a mess around this time, when the anniversary of his sister’s death rolls around. He’ll be drunker than usual and sad. I don’t want to deal with that right now. He’s an adult. He’s supposed to be able to take care of himself.

I send back

>>> MAYBE

Shenanigans tears out of the whiteout like a miniature wraith and skids to a halt in front of me. He shoves his nose into my empty cup, snorts, then takes off again, disappearing into the mist. Another message comes through from Bird.

>>> WHAT ABOUT KHALA?

Gods, Khala. I had completely forgotten about her. She was my other mom’s sister. I’ve never talked to her about their deaths. I wonder if this time of year is as tough for her as it is for Blenny.

I shoot Bird a reply then stand and whistle for Shanny. He bounds out of the fog and zooms straight past me, heading for home.

When we get back to Panga, I rustle up some more brew and breakfast and put away last night’s dishes, then close up the boat against the fog to keep out the damp. I drop Shanny off with Bird’s moms for the day. They both ask me how Savage’s class went with my students, and I bite my tongue and tell them ‘fine’.

Bird never told her moms everything that went down between her and Savage. She didn’t tell them a lot of what happened during those couple months before Z-Day last year, after we fled Brume. I guess that’s her prerogative. If my moms were still alive, would I have told them everything? It’s impossible to know.

In the street outside their house, I tap my right brow to pull up a map of Pocosín and double-check the location of the QMTP landing pad there—two blocks from Khala’s house. I’ve done the jump to Pocosín at least ten times since I got QMTP on my chip six months ago, but every time I do, this trips me out: it’s three thousand miles from here to Pocosín and then just two blocks to Khala’s house.

I worked it out last time: it takes me eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty times longer to walk the two blocks from the landing pad to Khala’s than it does to jump the three thousand miles from here to Pocosín. Unreal. I constantly have to remind myself that it’s not magic. Bird likes to say, “quantum mechanics, not pixie dust.”

Bird fought hard for me to get QMTP installed on my chip so I could go visit Khala. I think I’m the only person outside Zenith who has it. A perk of being the boyfriend of the world’s foremost teleportation expert. I had to take Bird’s class at Zenith before they would let me anywhere near a launch pad. It was fun, actually: getting to be her student for a change. She is not a very organized teacher. But then, she’s not a very organized anything.

The Brume QMTP launchpad is at Zenith headquarters on Azimuth campus, and as I near the main gate I see that the quad is swarming with people. Exiters. Some of them are holding signs with some kind of symbol drawn onto them. I recognize part of it—the Greek symbol Omega, like an upside-down horseshoe. Superimposed over the top of it is an upside-down triangle—a delta.

So they have a symbol now.

Some of them have nothing but packs on their backs and outrage on their faces. Some are clearly camped out, and probably have been for weeks. At the center of the quad, standing atop the crumbling, overgrown fountain that hasn’t seen water in over a century, a woman with thick shoulders and frizzy hair is speaking to the crowd. Shouting, really, her voice clipped and distorted, amplified by some hack to her biochip.

“...and our children’s children! Is this the legacy we want to leave them? Is this the world we want them to inherit?”

The crowd roars.

“I say enough!” she screams over them. “Enough deception! Enough persecution! Zenith is killing us. Hoarding this technology, and for what? They say they’re using it to find solutions to the climate crises, but what solutions have we seen? Nothing! Because there is no solution! Leaving is the solution. Zenith’s technology is the only thing that can save us and they are keeping it from us! We deserve access! We deserve the freedom to use that technology as we see fit! To save ourselves. Our families. Our children! What must be done, shall be done!”

The crowd picks up the chant.

“What must be done shall be done! What must be done shall be done!”

I hang back at the gate and peer at Zenith’s lobby on the other side of the quad. The QMTP launchpad is in that building, but I don’t fancy my chances fighting my way through this mob. If they mistake me for a Zenith employee—or worse, if they somehow figure out I have QMTP on my chip…

I tap my temple to message Bird again.

>>> I’M TRYING TO VISIT KHALA. BUT EXITERS ARE BLOCKING THE LAUNCHPAD. I CAN’T GET IN

>>> YOU’RE HERE NOW?

>>> YES

>>> SHIT, OKAY. SORRY, I ALWAYS FORGET YOU HAVE TO USE THE LAUNCHPADS

I sigh and send back

>>> EVERYONE HAS TO USE THEM, BIRD. YOU’RE LITERALLY THE ONLY PERSON THAT DOESN’T

Although many Zenith employees now have QMTP installed on their chips, Bird is the only person who can jump between two places completely unaided. No one’s really sure why that is. I think there might be an entire branch of Zenith dedicated to figuring it out. Everyone apart from Bird has to take off and land from these launchpads. There are two in Brume—one here at Zenith headquarters, and one that was recently installed in a hidden location somewhere in the city, so Zenith employees can jump to work without having to fight their way through Exiters. There’s also a launchpad in Grike, one in Pocosín, and one in Zhīliú.

Another message comes through.

>>> I’LL COME OUT. I CAN MEET YOU AND BLIP YOU INSIDE. WHERE ARE YOU?

Bird is also the only person on the planet who still calls it ‘blipping’.

I send back

>>> I’M BEHIND THE CROWD IN THE MAIN QUAD. WHERE THE BATSHIT INSANE WOMAN WITH THE BIG HAIR IS STANDING ON THE FOUNTAIN SCREAMING ABOUT CHILDREN.

>>> SHE’S IN RARE FORM TODAY.

>>> AND THEY HAVE A SYMBOL NOW?

>>> UGH, YEAH. THE NABLA OMEGA. IT’S NEW. IT HAS SOME MEANING…I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT IT IS. OKAY, ONE MINUTE, JUST NEED TO LET ELECTRA KNOW I’M GOING.

A minute later, she appears out of thin air in front of me. She grabs my elbow before I have time to even consider the possibility of collecting my wits, and vanishes us.

For a moment so brief I hardly register it, I become infinite.

Then we reappear inside the lobby of headquarters on the other side of the quad. As the atoms of my body reassemble and the ringing in my ears abates, I hear the crowd outside and the woman screaming over it, behind me now, and muffled by the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the front wall of the lobby.

“Okay?” Bird’s voice comes to me. Her hand is still tight around my elbow.

Jumping is an unpleasant experience. I have never gotten used to it. A vaguely sick feeling is seeping up my windpipe. I blink white spots out of my eyes and find my feet. “Fine.”

“You’re okay to get to Pocosín on your own?”

I shoot her a look. “I’m not a child.”

She removes her hand from my elbow. “I didn’t say you were. I just know you don’t like blipping.”

“I’ll be fine.” I lift my eyebrows at her. “Unless you want to come? Khala would love to see you…”

“You know I can’t.”

“They really need you to train people on a Saturday?”

“I’m not—” She huffs. “I’m not training people right now.”

I frown. “Then what are you doing?”

“It’s…” She chews her cheek and looks over my shoulder at the crowd outside. “It’s complicated. Can we talk about this later? I need to get back.”

“Wait…so you’re not training people? Did you start a new job?”

“It’s not a new job. It’s a project I’m helping out with.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m actually not supposed to talk about it. But I can tell you more later. I really do have to go.” She stands on tiptoe to kiss my cheek and the shadows under her eyes stand out under the gray light coming in the windows. “I’ll see you tonight. Tell Khala hi.”

And she’s gone.

Restraining a frustrated sigh, I make my way across the cavernous, echoing lobby to the doors that used to lead to the elevators. Twenty-five years ago, before the pandemic, this lobby would have been filled with university students. These days, even with Zenith’s entire operation running out of this building, I never see another person in here. That’s part of what makes the rally outside so unsettling: I’ve never seen a crowd in Brume before. You wouldn’t think we had enough people here for a separatist movement.

I put a hand on the palm scanner and the ancient metal doors slide open to reveal the old, now defunct elevator. Set in the center of the floor is a round, white disk, about two feet in diameter. It lights up as I step into the center of it and the doors creak shut behind me. I look at my reflection in the mirror on the back wall of the elevator and speak my full name and destination.

“Sargo Paz. Pocosín.”

For the second time that morning, I become infinite. And vaguely sick.

____________________

“Sobrino, nunca más te veo.” Khala sets an enormous plate of pupusas on the table in front of me. “¿Por qué no me visitas?”

Bright, chunky bracelets jangle around her wrists. The straight, black, asymmetric haircut that Bird was so impressed by when she first met my aunt bobs around her puffy, brown face. A face painted almost as expertly as the art that lines her walls.

“Lo siento, Tía. Trato de visitar más.”

“Trataré de visitar más,” she corrects me.

“Perdón. Trataré de visitar más.”

“Bueno. ¿Y tu novia? ¿Cómo está Bird?”

“Bird…”

I rub under my chin with the back of my hand. I’m doing my best to learn the language, but I don’t know how to say ‘Bird is driving me crazy and I think she may be keeping things from me’ yet. I sigh and tap the back of my head to turn on my translator.

“Sorry, Auntie, can we just use the chips? I don’t know how to say it.”

She smiles and taps behind her head. “Of course, mijo. So she’s okay? Birdie?”

“She’s…fine. Living with her is—a little difficult right now.”

She frowns, picking up a plate of coconut rice. “And why is that?”

“She just doesn’t communicate. And forgets things. I know it isn’t her fault. But I get tired of things being constantly lost and broken. Dishes not being cleaned. Clothes being left everywhere. Not telling me things.”

She frowns, scooping beans onto my plate. “She’s not telling you what?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“It sounds like it matters.”

I sigh. “I think she heard from a mutual acquaintance of ours and didn’t tell me about it. Which, I know, it doesn’t sound like anything, and maybe I’m being paranoid. But they have…a history, and he’s kind of a scumbag and I just don’t really trust him. And she apparently started some kind of new project at work that I only found out about today. I have no idea what she’s doing half the time.”

“It sounds like she’s very busy? Maybe she just forgot to tell you?”

“Yeah…”

“You told me before she has, like a thing? The A…H…H–”

“ADHD. Actually…Rav thinks it’s more likely autism.”

“Who is Rav?”

“Her therapist.”

“Mhm.” She sets down the rice and picks up a plate of patacones. “Well, maybe it’s not so easy for her to remember.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t feel like a reason to let it slide anymore. It feels like an excuse. Why should I have to change to accommodate her mess?”

“You sound like your Mama Marlin.”

“Do I?”

She nods. “My sister was very, how you say? Exact. She liked things to be done in a certain way. Brilliant, you know? Could fix anything. Anything. But rigid.”

“I’m not rigid.”

“I didn’t mean you were.” She piles patacones onto my plate. “But I think it’s not so easy for you to be okay with things when they aren’t…perfect.”

“Marlin wasn’t related to me by blood. Why would I be like her?”

“She raised you, didn’t she?”

“I suppose. Blenny did most of it.”

Her face tightens. She finishes loading up my plate in silence and sets the bowls aside. “And how is your uncle?” she says, finally. Curtly.

“I haven’t seen him.”

She nods slowly. “Maybe that is for the best.”

I say nothing.

She eyes me. “You think maybe you should?”

“I don’t know. He’s not my responsibility; I don’t live with him anymore. He should be able to take care of himself.”

“Sí, claro.”

“But…you know. He’s broken. And I don’t think I can fix him.”

“You shouldn’t have to. That’s not your job.” She watches me. “But I suppose maybe you feel like it is?” I shrug and she sighs, shaking her head. “You’re never going to find peace until you learn to accept the things you can’t fix, mijo. Como la Sal, por lo que el marinero.”

I frown in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“How do I know what?”

“‘As the Salt, so the sailor’. Mama Marlin used to say that to me. She used to say, ‘you can’t change the wind. You can’t change the waves. You can only change yourself and your boat.’”

“That’s exactly correct. Our father used to say it to us all the time.”

“But it’s a sailing thing. It doesn’t apply to people.”

“Of course it does! You can’t change the people you love, Sargo. You can only change the way you feel about them.”

She turns her attention to the enormous plate of food in front of her. I watch her eat in silence, then scoop rice and veg onto my patacón.

“I guess I’ll go see Blenny.”

A shout comes through the window from the street outside, followed by a roar that sounds like a crowd. Suddenly, a frenzy of noise is going by outside Khala’s front door. People chanting, air horns, the pounding of many pairs of feet. I frown at Khala.

“What the hell is that?”

She rolls her eyes. “Los ratos. The rats. They are out here every day now. Waving their banners.”

“The rats?”

“You know. The ones who want to leave. I don’t know, maybe you call them something else.”

“The Exiters?”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t know you had them here. How long have they been organizing?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Six months, maybe.”

“Do they ever harass you?”

She scoffs. “Of course not. I think they are harmless. They just want to be heard.”

I eye her across the table. “In Brume they’re getting violent. Bird said they beat up a student at Azimuth yesterday.”

She waves a hand. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Maybe it would be a good idea to stay inside when they’re out there.”

“Psh!” She scowls. “I’m not going to change my ways for a bunch of rats. They can change.”

“Didn’t you just tell me you can’t change other people, you can only change yourself?”

“I told you you can’t change the people you love. If I change for the rats, then the rats have won.”

The streets are packed as I make my way from Khala’s back to the jump pad later that afternoon. Exiters. Chanting, shouting. Swarming down side streets. I can’t help but think about what Khala called them. Rats.

Rats only leave a ship when it’s sinking.

____________________

Red-nosed, watery-eyed, in his tatty dressing gown and a pair of slippers full of holes, Blenny blinks at me through the assault of daylight coming through his front door and says, “Is that Sargo?”

“How have you been, Blenny?”

He shuffles back a few paces to give me space to step across the threshold. He smells like the sour reek of grog and the mustiness of an unwashed old man.

“It’s a hard time of year,” he mumbles, closing the door behind me. The house is dim, the curtains closed. I assess the state of the place from the corner of my eye as we walk through to the kitchen. A few bottles lying around, but nothing unseemly. No piles of garbage or food stains or living things, which is what I was afraid I would find. So he has at least been tidying up.

He topples into a chair at the kitchen table and picks up the open bottle from the center of it. I sit opposite him, clasping my hands.

“Have you been getting the coin I’m sending?”

He nods, swigging from the bottle, then holds it out to me.

“No. Thank you.”

“I never told you how proud I am of you,” he slurs, setting the bottle down between us. So we’ve already passed sloppy drunk and gone straight to maudlin. “I don’t know how you did it. It wasn’t anything to do with me, I can tell you that.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that.”

He chuckles and reaches for the bottle again, some joint—his shoulder, maybe—cracking. “Do you know what they did to me? Those faceless thugs who came after your mothers? I don’t think I ever told you.”

I watch him, silently. He has told me. Many times.

“They took my toe.” He bends, groaning, and reaches to pull off his shoe. But in his unbalanced state, he overshoots it and tips forward out of his seat. I lunge to catch him and set him upright, grog spilling into his lap. His shoulders are frail and tiny.

“They took my toe,” he gasps, “God dammit. They told me if I didn’t tell them where they were, where Marlin and Gnamma—” His face creases and turns red. “Oh God. Gnamma.”

I stare past him through the window while he sobs and sputters. I’ve heard this all before. I’ve heard it every year since I was eleven. And every year, he forgets he’s told me.

He clutches my hand with his frail, bony fingers. “I wanted to do better.”

“You did the best you could.”

“But look at you!” He reels, waving the bottle, spilling grog. “Look at you! I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how you became so accomplished.”

“I didn’t want my dead moms to be the only thing people remembered about me,” I tell him, for what feels like the hundredth time.

I sit with Blenny until he is so drunk he’s falling asleep at the table, then carry him upstairs and put him to bed.

On the street outside his house I pull the collar of my coat around my chin and tuck my hands into my pockets. The fog is cold and thick, obscuring the moon completely. I walk quickly through the grungy alleys between Blenny’s house and harbor, thinking about what Khala said. She’s right. I can’t fix him. But I don’t know if I can change the way I feel about him either. I don’t know if I can live with him broken.

Soft, yellow light spills onto the dock from Panga’s narrow portholes, and I stop to look at her for a few minutes before I go inside. A new coat of varnish gleams on the deck—it took me and Bird the whole of last weekend to finish. And inside, it’s probably warm and smells like whatever Bird made for dinner, and she and Shenanigans will be sitting on the sofa together. She’ll probably be wearing one of my shirts. And even though I’m still mad because I still don’t know where that godsdamn knife is, I’ll try to let it go and we’ll go to bed together and maybe when we wake up tomorrow, she won’t go to work, and we can take Shanny to the beach.

I hop over the rail into the cockpit and slide the main hatch open and Bird is sitting on the sofa.

With Savage.

chapter

four

BIRD SCOOTS SIDEWAYS. QUICKLY. “OH, HEY,” she says, “you’re back.”

Savage makes no effort to move. He’s sprawled in the corner with both arms stretched along the back of the sofa, his filthy, salt-flecked boots crossed on the edge of the foldout table. My table. He shoves greasy blonde hair out of his face and plucks a small, metal dart from between Bird’s fingers, drags on it, and tilts up his chin to fill the cabin with a thick, sickly sweet cloud of pineapple-scented smoke.

I stand perfectly still at the top of the companionway steps, staring down at them through the open hatch.

“What the hell is going on here, Bird?”

“What do you mean?” She shifts and frowns up at me.

“I mean ‘what the hell is he doing here?’”

“Nice to see you too, Son,” says Savage.

“It isn’t nice to see you,” I reply.

Bird rolls her eyes. “I invited him. He wants to talk to you about teaching.”

“I already told you I’m not interested in talking about that.”

Bird scoffs.

“And anyway,” I address Savage now, “if he really wanted to talk to me about it, he would have talked to me. Instead of secretly messaging you.”

“He didn’t secretly message me,” Bird says.

“Oh, no?” I narrow my eyes at him. “I thought he didn’t even know how to use his biochip.”

He shrugs. “I learned a bit.”

“A bit.” I fold my arms. “Just enough to pick up girls?”

He smirks. “Something like that.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” says Bird, and she stands up, banging her knee on the corner of the table. She swears and stumbles sideways, and something falls off the sofa where she was just sitting and bounces noisily onto the floor. I stare at it for a long, confusing moment, feeling like something in the world has just gone irredeemably sideways. It’s a small, silver grog flask.

“Are you drunk?”

“What?” Bird folds her arms and glares up at me. “No.”

Her eyes are glassy and unfocused. I stare down into them and say nothing.

Finally, she says, “I had some drinks.”

“Jesus Christ, Bird.”

“Oh my God, it’s not a big deal!”

Savage picks up the flask and unscrews the top. “The lady and I were just talking. Why don’t you—”

“You need to leave,” I snarl at him. “Right now.”

He smirks and holds up his hands, the open grog flask in one, his dart dangling between two fingers of the other. “Whatever you say, Son.”

“If you call me ‘Son’ one more time,” I ball my hands into fists and try to bring stillness to my furious, trembling limbs, “I’m going to break your flogging arm.”

“Alrighty.” He uncrosses his feet and languidly unfolds himself from the couch. Tucks the grog flask into his back pocket. Saunters across the cabin. Touches two fingers to his brow and smiles at Bird.

She glares up at me. “Are you serious right now? Are you seriously going to be an asshole about this?”

“Are you seriously going to tell me there’s nothing going on here?” I shoot back.

“You’re acting insane,” she says.

“Now, you two…” Savage steps past her, putting a hand on her shoulder as he does, and I shove down the sudden urge to leap down into the cabin and break all his fingers. “There’s no need for name-calling.”

He begins to climb the stairs. As he reaches the top, I step back to let him out through the hatch, but he stops chest-to-chest with me and leers into my face for a moment. “If the gentleman wants me off his boat, then off his boat I shall go.”

“You have four seconds,” I say.

He grins. “Generous.”

The blood pounds in my temples as I watch him swing himself over the rail and swagger away down the dock into the foggy night.

“That was rude,” says Bird from the bottom of the stairs.

I take a long, hard breath and close my eyes. In my head, I can hear Khala saying, “You can’t change the people you love, Sargo.”

“Whatever you think you just walked in on,” Bird continues, “I can promise you, you didn’t.”

I open my eyes. “I see. So you were just innocently getting drunk with the guy you tried to sleep with last year.”

“I wasn’t,” she says, fiercely, “getting drunk. I had a long week. I was blowing off steam.”

“You don’t get to blow off steam like this anymore, Bird! You’re a flogging alcoholic! Are you going to throw away years of sobriety every time Blondie McSailorTats comes around?”

“Are you going to keep telling me what’s best for me even when I’ve asked you repeatedly not to? Are you going to continue treating me like a child?”

“Are you going to continue acting like a child?”

Her mouth drops open. She glares at me, then snaps it shut. I break her gaze and look around the cabin, noticing for the first time that something is missing.

“Where’s Shenanigans?”

She frowns at me. “How should I know?”

“You didn’t even think to pick up the dog? He’s at your moms’.”

“Excuse me? You dropped him off. You didn’t think to pick him up either.”

“I just got done dealing with my shitfaced uncle on the anniversary of the day my moms died. Forgive me if I’m a little preoccupied.”

“We’re all dealing with stuff, Sargo!” she snaps. “You think I’m just over at Zenith dicking around all day?”

“Oh right, no, sorry, you’re too busy saving the world to pay attention to something as mundane as your day-to-day life and the people around you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means.”

“Actually, I’m pretty flogging lost, Sargo. Maybe you could explain it to me? You seem to really love explaining me to me.”

“It means I’m tired of you not pulling your weight! I’m tired of picking up after you! I’m tired of you constantly losing my shit. I’m tired of you ‘forgetting’ to tell me things. It means I’m tired of you treating me and my boat like—”

“Oh. Your boat.”

“It is my boat.”

She sets her mouth into a hard line. Then she spins on her heel and snatches her pack off the navigation table. “Okay,” she says, hauling it onto her shoulders, “then I guess I’m going to my moms’ to pick up my dog.”

“He’s not your dog.”

She stomps up the companionway steps and shoves past me.

“You know what, great!” I yell after her as she hops over the rail and storms down the dock. “Don’t come back.”

She sticks her middle finger up in the air and disappears into the fog.

I pound down the three steps into the cabin, still reeking of Savage’s disgusting, greasy dart smoke, to find an unwashed bowl and spoon on the counter and a pan on the stove with the remnants of whatever Bird ‘cooked’ for dinner burned onto it. I fling everything into the sink and turn on the water.

I’m elbow-deep in suds, still venomously scrubbing the pan ten minutes later when a message alert pings in front of my eyes. It’s from Electra. Frowning, I tap my temple with a soapy finger to open it.

>>> EMERGENCY. SOME KIND OF EXPLOSION AT THE GREEN. WE THINK EXITERS. PEACE FORCE ASSEMBLING TO ASSESS THE SITUATION. WE ARE ISSUING A FORMAL WARNING FOR EVERYONE TO STAY INDOORS. WANTED TO REACH OUT TO YOU AND HOWSLEY PERSONALLY. DON’T GO OUTSIDE UNTIL WE KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. WILL UPDATE YOU AS SOON AS I CAN.

I stare at the text, struggling to comprehend it. Finally, I send back

>>> EXPLOSION?

>>> PIPE BOMB MAYBE. WE DON’T KNOW MUCH YET. JUST STAY INSIDE.

My mind reels. A pipe bomb? On the Green?

This is way beyond picketing Zenith and waving banners in the streets. This is out of control. This—

The wind goes out of me. Bird was on her way to her moms’ house.

Her moms’ house is by the Green.

chapter

five

LIGHTS FROM PEACE force EVs flash haphazardly into the sky, lighting up the close, heavy fog hanging over the Green. People cry, yell at each other. The air is sharp with the faint but acrid smell of smoke.

I weave around dazed and frightened faces and duck past peace force officers in black tactical suits. Grabbing people by the shoulders to get a better look at them. Apologizing when they aren’t Bird. A steady, insistent thumping radiates outward from the center of my chest, all the way into my fingers and toes. I try not to feel it. I try to ignore the feeling of panic scrambling up my spine.

Two officers are stretching a rope along one side of the grass. On the other side of it, Electra and Paradi stand with their heads together, conferring. Electra’s normally smooth blonde hair is springing free from its ponytail. She’s listening to her older sister with tight lips and folded arms. As I make my way toward them, a hand on my shoulder stops me.

“Zenith officials only beyond this point.”

“I need to talk to Electra Nation. I’m a friend of hers. I’m looking for my girlfriend. Bird Howsley. She works for Zenith.”

“You need to take a step back,” says the stocky peace force officer, who I note is toting a small rifle. “Everyone here is dealing with the same situation.”

“She was walking! She was on the Green.”

“Lots of people were on the Green. I need you to take a breath. We are managing this situation and we need everyone to remain calm.”

“I am calm!” I yell, and even I can hear that that is a lie.

The shout draws Electra’s attention. Her face registers a look of fury as she spots me, her outrage at being disobeyed somehow exaggerating her sharp, pretty features. It’s a look I know well. She’s been making that face in some form or another since we were kids. She pushes through the assembled officers and ducks under the rope.

“What are you doing here?” she demands. “I told you to stay inside.”

“Bird was on the Green. She was going to her moms’ house. I can’t find her.”

Electra’s expression turns business-like. She turns to the officer who was obstructing my way. “I’ll deal with this. Go and check in with Higgins.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“I don’t know. Twenty minutes ago? She left to pick up Shenanigans. Your message came through ten minutes later. Jesus.” I drag a hand down my face.

Electra’s grip on my shoulder tightens. “Okay. Calm down. I’m sure she’s fine. So far we haven’t seen any casualties. A couple of burns and a broken arm from shrapnel, but the event was contained. It was small. We don’t think anyone’s in critical condition. Howsley is probably around. Have you tried to message her?”

I shake my head.

“Alright,” she says. “Well, I think that would be the first step. Have you checked with her moms?”

I shake my head again.

“Why don’t you do that, too?” Electra’s voice is unusually gentle and suddenly, I feel embarrassed. She’s talking to me like a child. Like a scared little boy. Because that’s what I’m acting like. I can’t believe I didn’t even think to message her. Just blindly ran out of the harbor in a total panic.

“Send Howsley a message,” Electra says, “and if you don’t hear back, go check in with her moms. I’ll have my guys ask around here and we’ll keep an eye out for her. Sound good?”

I nod, dumbly. Electra squeezes my shoulder and my embarrassment intensifies.

“Keep in touch, yeah?”

I nod again. She’s looking at me with an almost quizzical expression and I frown “What?”

“Nothing, just—since when do you say ‘Jesus’?”

“What?”

“You said ‘Jesus’. I’ve just never heard you say that before. You used to be so pedantic about referring to ‘the gods.’ About how ‘words matter’ and the Polytheistic Revolution was so important.”

I shake my head with my mouth open. “I don’t know, I guess—I started saying it? When the situation calls for it?”

She smiles knowingly. “Since you started dating Howsley.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Something about her smile is calming. I can feel my heart beginning to slow.

Still smiling, she squeezes my shoulder again and lets me go. “Go talk to Bird’s moms.”

I make my way around the roped-off area to the other side of the Green and turn down a side street that leads to Bird’s moms’. As the smell and flashing lights and clamor of voices dim behind me, irritation creeps in under my fading panic. Of course she’s at her moms’. There would be no reason for her to actually be on the Green. She could have taken any route.

I tap my temple and send

>>> WHERE ARE YOU?

My irritation builds as I walk for five minutes and she doesn’t respond. I turn onto her street and open the door to her building on the corner. Begin the long climb up to her moms’ apartment. Still no reply.

I bang on Jade and Kestrel’s door and Kestrel opens it. She clutches me in a bony hug before I have time to resist, smelling of leather and sweet tea. “Gods, what are you doing out?” she says. “Did you hear what happened at the Green?”

“I’m okay.” I gently detangle myself from her skinny arms and frizzy red hair. “I just came from the Green. Electra said no one was seriously hurt.”

Over her shoulder, I spot Shenanigans, bouncing down the corridor toward us.

“Is Bird here?”

She frowns, shaking her head. “She isn’t…with you?”

An icy sliver of panic fingers the back of my neck. I stand very still and say, “She told me she was coming here.”

Kestrel’s face turns ashen. A cold, hard silence stretches between us. “I haven’t seen her,” she whispers. “Not tonight.”

Shenanigans is pawing at my leg, his little tail wobbling back and forth so fast it’s a blur. He trots a circle around my feet, sniffing my shoes and snorting. Over Kestrel’s shoulder, Jade pokes her puffy pink face around the corner at the end of the hall.

“What’s up?”

Kestrel’s eyes are locked with mine. She opens her mouth but then shakes her head and says nothing.

“Have you seen Bird?” I ask Jade.

She steps around the corner. “Not for a couple of days.” She walks up behind Kestrel and lays a hand on her shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“I can’t…find her.” A breath cuts out in my throat. “She said she was coming here to pick up Shanny. I went to the Green to look for her, but she wasn’t there.”

“Well…that’s good,” Jade says slowly. “Right? If she wasn’t on the Green, she’s probably fine. Maybe she took the long way. Maybe she needed a walk. She could be here any minute.”

Both Jade and Kestrel’s eyes flick over my shoulder, as though expecting to see Bird walk up behind me. I’m compelled to turn around and look for her too. The stairway behind me is empty.

“Let’s not panic,” Jade says firmly. “Let’s be proactive, but let’s not panic. Sargo, why don’t you come in? You’re not supposed to be out.”

I meet Kestrel’s eyes again. They are wide and searching, like she knows already that something is wrong. Like her mind has already jumped to the worst possible scenario. An overactive imagination. Just like Bird’s. I need her to remain calm. Panic is contagious.

“Jade’s probably right,” I tell her. “She probably needed a walk. We…had an argument.”

Kestrel nods, silent, and chews her thumbnail. A nervous habit that Bird also shares. Kestrel isn’t Bird’s biological mother—she took over Bird’s care after her sister, Heron, died. But she and Bird are startlingly similar in many ways. I suppose for the same reasons Khala thinks Mama Marlin and I are similar. A knot lodges painfully in my throat. I was going to tell Bird about that.

“I’ll come in and wait,” I say, forcing the lump away. Now is not the time to overreact. Now is the time to stay calm. Staying calm will put Kestrel at ease. It will indicate that I think Jade is right that Bird will be here any minute. And what am I going to do if I don’t go in? Go back to the Green, where I already know Bird is not? Wander around Brume looking for her, with a stay-in-place order already issued and bombs going off?

Kestrel steps aside and pushes the door all the way open. “I’ll make some tea,” she says.

Ten minutes later, Bird is not there.

Kestrel perches on the arm of the couch, a stone-cold, untouched cup of tea clutched in her skull-white fingers. She bites her lips together so tightly I imagine they must be bloody on the inside. Jade paces back and forth by the window, stopping occasionally to peer down through it into the street. I send a message to Electra.

>>> ANY SIGN OF HOWSLEY?

>>> NOTHING YET.

I rub my face with one hand and stare through the window. Inside my head, the last words I said to Bird are clanging around and around like scrap metal in a cement mixer.

Don’t come back.

Kestrel chews on her nails. Jade checks the window again.

You’re too busy saving the world to pay attention to something as mundane as the people around you.

Shanny whines and paws at my leg. Jade checks the window. Kestrel chews her nails. In my head, Bird stalks down the dock and disappears into the fog.

“Okay, then I guess I’m going to my moms’ to pick up my dog.”

That wasn’t the last time I’ll ever see her. She’ll come back.

“Great! Don’t come back.”

I set my mug of tea on the floor and stand. “I’m going back to the Green.”

Kestrel shoots me a wide-eyed, wild animal stare.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” says Jade.

“I can’t—I’m sorry, I can’t just sit here.” I head for the door without waiting for a reply. Shanny trots behind me, wagging his tail.

“Please be careful,” says Jade as I throw the door open and bang it shut behind me. I take the stairs two at a time with Shanny at my heels and pop out into the blissfully cool, blissfully dark street. Shanny takes off ahead of me and I tuck my chin into my collar and walk fast, like the anxious, nagging dread that was seeping into every corner in that living room has followed me out here.

Bird is not dead. Bird will be somewhere. I’ll tell her I’m sorry I blew up about Savage and we’ll talk about our moms.

When I emerge onto the Green again, some semblance of order has returned. Peace officers have corralled the crowd into a single group around a large EV that stands parked with its massive doors open. Citizens sit on the ground with blankets around their shoulders, looking lost. The grass has been roped off and at the center of it is a charred, black spot where the trees and grass have clearly been burned by something. I spot Paradi and Electra on the other side of the grass just as Electra’s next message comes through.

>>> YOU SHOULD COME DOWN HERE.

I take off across the Green toward them at a flat-out sprint.

As I reach the rope, something crashes into me from the side. I go down on my face, the wind exploding from my lungs as I hit the ground.

“Don’t move!” someone screams in my ear. My cheek is hard against the dirt, a weight between my shoulder blades pinning me down. “I need backup!” the voice yells.

“I’m not—” I gasp, as my arms are wrenched behind me.

Black boots swarm in from every direction. In the corner of my eye I see Shanny yapping, diving impotently at people’s feet. He’s so tiny. So useless.

“I said don’t move!”

“I haven’t done anything! I’m a friend of Electra’s. I’m looking for Bird Howsley.”

“You’d better stay quiet,” says the voice, and I feel bracelets snapping around my wrists. The weight between my shoulders lifts. I’m yanked roughly to my feet to find myself surrounded by peace force officers, all of them with their weapons pointed at me. The officer who handcuffed me motions for a second officer to help him, and they each grab an arm and begin propelling me toward an EV.

I twist uselessly in their hands. “Electra!”

“Anything you say now is admissible as evidence if you are tried at a later time,” barks the officer.

Between the shoulders of the surrounding officers, I spot Electra’s blonde ponytail.

“Electra!” I scream it now. She and Paradi turn. Electra’s face creases, horrified, and she sprints for us, ducks under the rope, and shoulders her way through the wall of guns and body armor.

She catches the arresting officer by the arm. “What are you doing?”

“This man was caught sprinting for the barrier. I believe he had intent to harm.”

“No,” she says firmly. “This is a mistake. Let him go.”

Paradi appears at Electra’s shoulder. The spitting image of her mother, seven years older than Electra, with the same pale skin and narrow hazel eyes as her sister, but with a jet black bob rather than the blonde ponytail Electra wears. She surveys the scene and touches Electra’s shoulder.

“El,” she says in a low voice, “let these men do their jobs.”

“What?” cries Electra.

I gape. “Paradi, it’s me.”

“I am aware,” she says. “But we are in crisis. Any suspicious activity must be treated as such.”

“Electra told me to come here!”

“If you’ve done nothing wrong you’ll have nothing to worry about,” she says. “But I can’t make any exceptions.” She nods to the officer at my arm. “Carry on.”

The officer’s massive hand grabs the back of my head, shoves me into the back seat of the EV, and slams the door shut.

chapter

six

IN THE DREAM, there is a wall.

And in the wall, there is a door.

Set so subtly into the rock that I miss it at first. There is hardly any indication that a door is there at all—it is the same color as the wall, the same texture; there are no hinges or handle. All that gives it away is a single, tiny, perfectly straight crevice—a gap in the stone so small I can’t fit my fingernail into it. The gap rises straight up from the ground to a foot above my head, where it right angles, continues for three feet, then right angles again and continues back to the floor. A perfect rectangle, the exact size and shape of a door.

So I assume that’s what it is, although I suppose I can’t be sure.

What can you do with a door? Open it. Close it. Use it to pass from one place to another. Slam it in someone’s face. Lock it. Kick it down.

I trace the crack at the edge of the door with my thumb. A draught comes through the crevice—a lick of warm air from the other side of the wall. So it’s warm over there. That’s interesting. You don’t expect a draught to be warm.

I don’t know if it’s good or bad that the other side of the wall is warm. It’s not as though this side is particularly cold. At least, I’ve never noticed that it’s cold. I’ve never considered the temperature before. Perhaps I’ve just gotten used to it. Would it be better, or worse to be warmer than I am right now? I don’t know.

In any case, there isn’t a handle on the door. No way to open it. I couldn’t get to the other side even if I wanted to.

What can you do with a door with no handle? You can’t open it. Can’t use it to pass from one place to another. Maybe I could kick it down.

What else can you do with a door?

Knock. You can knock on it.

So I do.

And from the other side, someone knocks back.

chapter

seven

I WAKE IN THE DARK, and for a moment, I don’t know where I am.

As my eyes adjust, shapes appear. A single dim light recessed into the floor illuminates the tiny room. A cell. A door in the wall opposite me. No windows. I have no idea what time it is. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. I dreamed about the wall again. And in the wall, there was a door. I’ve been having that dream since I was eleven years old and I’ve never seen a door in the wall before.

Swinging my feet over the side of the cot, I stand up. My head nearly touches the ceiling. I could stretch out my arms and touch both walls. I stand in the middle of the room, at a loss. Why did I bother standing up? Where am I planning on going?

I sit on the cot again and try to think. The peace force brought me here after they arrested me at the Green yesterday. At least, I think it was yesterday. No one will tell me what’s going on. I still don’t know where Bird is.

The door to the cell beeps and clunks, then hisses open. Electra stands on the other side of it, flanked by two peace officers. She holds up a hand to keep them back as she steps across the threshold.

“I’m sorry about this,” she says.

“How long have I been in here? What time is it?”

“Nine in the morning. You’ve been here about twelve hours.”

“Where’s Shanny?”

“We took him back to Bird’s moms.”

“Am I getting out any time soon?”

She purses her lips and nods, tightly. “I’m working on it. Paradi wants to do everything by the book. This is—an unprecedented situation. The Exiters—”

“I’m not an Exiter.”

“I know. But it’s complicated. You were running flat out toward the bomb site.”

“Lots of people were panicking.”

“Right…” She darts her eyes away, chewing the inside of her cheek. “But…the officer thought you looked…suspicious.”

Rage plunges through me. “You mean he thought I looked brown.”

“Yes.” She quickly puts up her hands. “I know, I know. I’ve suspended him. But like I said, Paradi wants to do things by the book. She’s worried about optics.”

“Optics?”

“We’re under a lot of pressure right now—people were already upset about how brazen the Exiters are getting. We can’t look like we’re cutting any corners. A lot of people on the Green saw us take you into custody last night, so we need to follow through and process you according to procedure.”

I fold my arms and sit back against the wall. “And how long will that take?”

“Well…” Again she shifts. “That depends. Right now we don’t…actually have any proof that you weren’t at the scene before the bomb went off.”

My stomach drops. “Am I a suspect?”

She doesn’t look at me. “At the moment, yes.”

“I wasn’t there! I was at home. Can’t you just trace my biochip? Don’t you guys track everybody these days?”

She grimaces. “We tried, but—did you disable your tracking module?”

Shit. Fear seizes my chest. I did; before I set out for Naze on Friday. I tilt my head against the wall and sigh. “I went offline on Friday. I was going to go to Naze. I just wanted to be off-grid. I wanted to be…alone.”

She’s quiet. Then, “It was your moms’ anniversary.”

“Yes.”

“How did you even do that? You need a biochip interface for that.”

“Yeah…we have one on Panga. Bird snuck it out of headquarters about six months ago.”

Her eyes harden. “I see. You know you’re not supposed to have that.”

“I know.”

“You know it’s illegal to take your chip offline.”

“I know.”

She sighs heavily. “Okay. Well, without that, we can’t account for your movements last night. And it looks suspicious. Going offline right before it happened.”

I snap my eyes back to her. “You don’t think it was me.”

“Of course not,” she says, quickly. But I see a tiny flicker in her eyes that betrays doubt.

I’ve known Electra Nation a long time. She was born on the Salt a year after me, while our families were quarantining out there. We grew up together. Her mom was friends with my moms. I respect her: she’s a strong sailor and smart, and the hardest-working person I know. But I know all her tells. I know when she’s lying.

“We talked to Jade and Kestrel, and they corroborated that you were at their place looking for Bird after the accident,” she says, “but—”

“Where is Bird?”

She seals her lips shut again. Takes a small breath through her nose. “I’m not sure telling you what we know at this point will do you any good. When you get out of here—”

“Please, just tell me.”

She sighs, indicating the cot next to me. “Can I sit?”

I move sideways to make space. She sits, crossing her ankles and smoothing her skirt, and motions to the two officers standing outside the door. “You can close that.”

The door hisses shut.

“We were questioning witnesses at the scene last night,” she says. “No one seems to know who planted the bomb. But one person said that after it went off, they saw a girl matching Bird’s description being put into an EV.”

“Put into an EV? What does that mean?”

“Just after the explosion—I mean, it was chaos, so we don’t know for sure that what this person saw is accurate—but they claim to have seen two men grab a girl who looked like Bird and drag her into an EV.”

“Drag her?”

She nods.

“What kind of EV?”

“Armored, double doors. Big tires.” She purses her lips.

“Okay.” That nagging, anxious feeling is crawling up my spine again. “So…what does that mean?”

“The witness we questioned thinks they saw an Exiters tattoo on one of the guy’s arms. But again, it’s not certain. It was smokey, they can’t be sure they saw it.”

I stare at her. “An Exiters tattoo.”

She nods. “The Nabla Omega symbol. If what this person saw is correct, we think it’s possible the Exiters may have taken Bird.”

____________________

Paradi comes to my cell later that day.

She doesn’t sit. She doesn’t prevent her flanking officers from entering the room with her. She clasps her hands at her waist and stands rigid, surveying me unhappily. I stare back, feeling wary and unbalanced. I was never really as friendly with Paradi, growing up. She’s six years older than me, and she always seemed strangely unreachable. Like she operated on another plane. Never got into sailing like Electra and I did. She was more of an indoor type. Computers. Reading a lot. And although she and Electra ostensibly share the duties of running Zenith since we ousted their mother, it’s Paradi who really holds the reins.

“You’re aware that taking your chip offline is a punishable offense,” she says.

“I am.”

“Just because you were part of the Z-Day team, and just because Howsley works here and you enjoy special privileges due to her talents, doesn’t mean you get to flout the rules.”

“I understand.”

“I authorized you to get QMTP installed on your chip because I thought you were a responsible, level-headed person. Tell me I didn’t make a mistake.”

“You didn’t.”

She eyes me a moment longer, then readjusts her position and says, “We found someone who was able to confirm your whereabouts last night.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Your friend Jameson Briggs-Savage.”

My teeth clench. “He’s not my friend.”

“Savage stated he was with you and Bird aboard Panga before the incident at the Green. Is that correct?”

Gritting my teeth, I nod.

She returns the nod and motions to the two officers. “Leave us for a moment.” As the door hisses shut behind them, she turns her gaze back to me.

“You’re lucky I’m not pressing charges for deactivating your tracking module,” she says. “But I understand why you did it. This is a difficult time of year for you.”

I blink, still feeling on-guard.

“And I am sorry about the way this happened,” she continues. “I did not at any point believe that you had done this. But I hope you understand that I need to follow protocol.”

Swallowing my anger, I nod. I get it. She’s under a lot of pressure. As her friend and someone who’s known her my entire life, I feel for her. But as the suspect she wrongfully took into custody because one of her peace officers didn’t like the way I looked, I feel pissed.

I spread my palms. “So am I free to go?”

She sighs and puts her palm on the scanner. Steps back as the door hisses open. “Yes. But we’re reactivating your tracking module. Electra is waiting for you in the main lab. These men will escort you.”

The peace officers step across the threshold.

I stay seated on my cot. “What about Bird?”

“We are working on determining her location. I promise you’ll know more as soon as we do.”

“Who’s working on it?”

“We have a task force who have been monitoring the Exiters for some time. They are doing everything they can.”

“So it was the Exiters?”

“We believe so.”

“Can I see them? This task force?”

“There’s nothing you can do,” she says, firmly. “I need you to trust me and let my people do their jobs.” She sweeps her arm to the door. “Would you like to leave the cell, now?”

I find Electra fiddling with a biochip interfacing unit in the main lab. The officers who escorted me stop just outside the door with their hands behind their backs like soldiers. Electra rolls her eyes at them as she puts her palm on the scanner to shut them out.

“I will literally never get used to the fact that I am now in charge of the peace force,” she says, gesturing to a chair.

“You’re in charge of everything,” I reply as I sit.

“I know,” she sighs. “It’s weird.”

From a long metal table in the center of the room, she picks up a mesh cap covered in diodes and fits it over my head, then taps on the black box of the interface. It beeps and a tiny blue light appears on the front edge. She taps her temple to pull something up on her own biochip and gestures in the air to start the procedure. A warm, tingly feeling begins to spread from the base of my scalp. She folds her arms and leans against the table. We wait in silence while the unit runs.

“Paradi told me you have people looking for Bird,” I say.

She nods. “Her chip has been taken offline. But we’ll find her. Don’t worry.”

“And I’m, what, supposed to just go home and wait?”

She presses her lips together and sighs through her nose.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“I know,” she says. “You want to fix it.”

“She was—” I swallow. “She was out there because of me. We had a fight and she stormed out.”

“Sargo, that’s not—”

“The last thing I said to her was ‘Don’t come back’.”

She sighs again. The unit beeps. She removes the mesh cap. “This isn’t your fault,” she says. “And it’s not your job to fix it. Go home. Get some sleep.”

“I can’t go home.”

“Go to Bird’s then.” Her voice turns sharp. “You want to be useful? Go sit with Jade and Kestrel. Go take care of your dog.”

I open my mouth to argue and shut it again.

She folds her arms and eyes me. “Okay?”

I glare at her. “Fine.”

In the street outside, I turn west, toward the harbor. I can’t go back to Jade and Kestrel’s. I can’t sit in that room with Kestrel’s wide, terrified eyes watching me. I’ll pick up Shanny later.

I walk to the end of the breakwater and sit, listening to the Salt slap and suck the rocks below my feet. The fog is so thick I can’t see the horizon. I lose track of how long I sit there, in the middle of that interminable gray void, consumed by my thoughts.

“Oh. Your boat.”

“It is my boat.”

“Okay. Well then I guess I’m going to my moms’ to pick up my dog.”

“Great! Don’t come back.”

A ping snaps me out of it. I tap my temple to pull up the message. It’s from Electra.

>>> WE FOUND HER.

My heart leaps. I gesture in the air with trembling fingers.

>>> WHERE?

>>> SOME KIND OF ABANDONED HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE CITY. WE DON’T HAVE HER YET. HER CHIP CAME BACK ONLINE AND WE WERE ABLE TO GET A LOCK. TASK FORCE IS ON THE WAY THERE NOW.

>>> I’M COMING IN

>>> YOU DON’T NEED TO DO THAT. STAY WHERE YOU ARE

>>> I’LL SEE YOU IN TEN MINUTES

>>> I’M SERIOUS SARGO JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR FROM ME

I arrive at Zenith HQ seven minutes later to find it crawling with Exiters. The same loud, angry woman is shouting from the top of the fountain. I hover at the back of the crowd and message Electra.

>>> EXITERS ARE BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE, I CAN’T GET IN

>>> GREAT, DON’T COME IN, I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME

Swiping Messenger closed with a frustrated sigh, I survey the crowd, spot a gap big enough to make my way through, and dive in. I wade through it, shouldering people aside and not bothering to apologize until I pop out in front of the massive lobby windows. Electra is on the other side of them, looking furious. She slams her hand on a palm scanner on the inside wall and I sprint through the door, the sound of the crowd muffling behind me as it closes.

“I said ‘don’t come’,” Electra snaps, turning on her heel and striding off down a corridor to our left.

“There was no way I was going to do that.”

“You didn’t use to be like this.”

I trip after her. “Like what?”

“Stupid. Howsley has made you stupid.” She stares straight ahead as we walk briskly side by side.

“Not stupid,” I counter. “Decisive.”

She shoots me a sideways look. “There’s decisive and then there’s reckless.”

We come to another door. She puts her palm on the scanner.

“Did you find her?” I ask. “Is she here?”

She pauses in the open doorway. “Just…come in and sit down.”

On the other side of the door is a small conference room which seems to be entirely made of windows. The view outside is whited out by fog, but from where we are, on a clear day, you’d be able to see all the way to where the Salt tumbles over the edge of the world.

In the center of the room is a round steel and glass table, and at the table Paradi is sitting with two people I don’t recognize: a young Black woman with cornrows partially dyed red, wearing a pair of red-rimmed spex that match her hair. The other person is a guy who looks like he’s from Zhīliú, with hooded eyes, hair so jet black it’s almost blue, and enough muscle under his tight white shirt that I almost do a double take. They both look about my age. Electra motions for me to sit. I hang back in the doorway.

“What is this? Where’s Bird?”

“Please sit,” says Paradi. She indicates the chair opposite her. I take it warily, eyeing the strangers. Paradi taps the back of her head. “Since you’re here,” she says, with undisguised exasperation, “you may as well be abreast of the situation. I’m going to drop you an update that will let you interface with the tech in this room. Okay?”

“O…kay.”

She taps the back of her head again. A wall of text cascades before my eyes, a blur that’s too fast to read. It’s gone in less than a second, replaced by a single sentence:

>>> UPDATE COMPLETE

I blink. “What did you just…?”

Paradi taps her temple, apparently not listening. “Everyone please sync your chips to channel sixteen.”

I look around as everyone at the table taps their left brow twice. I do the same.

A blast of blue-white light erupts in the center of the table. I jolt backward, closing my eyes, and when I open them again, a bright web of interconnected lines floats above the center of the table. The web is two-dimensional and roughly circular, and as I squint at the complex, criss-crossed paths that make it up, I realize I recognize the patterns that these lines make. They are as familiar as the lines on the back of my hand.

“It’s a map.”

“Yes.” Paradi twists her hand in the air to reorient the web. “This is Brume.”

“We can all see this?” I look around the table. “How is that possible?”

“It’s a visual sharing system that Zenith prototyped twenty-five years ago,” says Electra. “Before the pandemic. It was never released. Like your night vision. Like the voice chat beta you’ve been testing for us with Howsley. Lots of things that were prototyped back then never got made because the company just didn’t have the resources to test them after the collapse. But we still use a lot of it internally.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “Any other questions?”

I raise mine back. “Yeah. Where’s Bird?”

The guy from Zhīliú taps his left brow and a red dot appears at the far left edge of the map. “This is Howsley’s last known location. Her biochip went offline when she was taken last night at the Green. It came back on—very briefly, we’re talking less than a second—today at 1707. At that time, we deployed the task force to this location. A house in an abandoned residential neighborhood. That was,” he taps his temple and looks at his wrist, checking a watch I can’t see, “eleven minutes ago.”

He drags two fingers apart in the air and the map zooms in on the red dot, which I recognize now is a building near the Flats—the sketchy part of town.

“When they arrived, however,” he continues, “the place was empty. We believe Howsley was there—it’s impossible to fake a biochip geolocation ping, so for the brief moment that her chip was online, we know that this was her location. We just arrived too late.”

“Too late?” My voice sticks in my throat. “Too late for what?”

The Black girl in the red spex picks up. “It’s our belief that the Exiters have been using this building as a meeting point to organize their activities in the city. But we don’t think they ever intended to keep Howsley there. It was simply a temporary holding spot for them to launch to a more permanent, more covert, and protected location.”

“Okay.” I look back and forth between her and her male counterpart. “So where is that?”

She shoots Paradi a look. Paradi clasps her hands on the table.

“Somewhere we can’t easily follow them,” she says. “Somewhere they could take Howsley where only they could get to. Or rather, somewhere Howsley would have to take them.”

“She…took them?” I frown. “I don’t understand.”

The guy from Zhīliú clears the map from the center of the table with a swipe of his hand. “We think they’ve taken Howsley to a parallel dimension,” he says.

chapter

eight

“A PARALLEL DIMENSION?”

I stare around the table at the assembly of grim faces. Electra sits forward.

“How much do you know about the Parallels? Like, how much has Howsley told you?”

“Parallels?”

“Other dimensions.”

I scratch my eyebrow with my thumb. “I know she discovered another dimension by mistake when she was learning how to teleport last year. The Land of the Dead, or whatever she called it. Hell. Ending up in another dimension was like…a by-product of teleportation, I think? Because of…how light works? Or something?”

Electra gives me a small nod.

“And I guess that’s all I know.”

“Oh boy,” the Black girl rubs her eyes behind her spex. “This is gonna take, like, a while.”

“Since Z-Day,” says Paradi, “Zenith has discovered more dimensions. We call them Parallels. Some of them are very similar to ours. Similar enough that they’re either also facing some kind of collapse, or were facing collapse and managed to avoid it. We’ve been sending our scientists to those Parallels to try and learn from them. Figure out how to fix things here.”

Electra picks up. “As you probably know, Howsley’s work here has primarily been training our scientists to use QMTP so they can jump between Parallels. Oh, about the light thing, in case you’re curious—” She swipes in the air to pull up a schematic. “Quantum Matter Transfer Protocol works by turning the human body into light, then transferring data from the light photons to a set of new photons in a different location. That location doesn’t necessarily have to be in another dimension—you can just jump between here and Pocosín, for example. But according to Fermat’s Principle, light always takes the shortest route to get to its destination, and sometimes the shortest route passes through other dimensions. Howsley ended up in one by mistake, but my mother always suspected there were parallel dimensions out there. That’s why she built QMTP in the first place.”

“Axioma Nation’s plan for QMTP was to send humanity to another dimension to escape the climate crisis here,” says the guy from Zhīliú.

I shoot him a look. “Yeah, I’m aware. I was part of the team that stopped her on Z-Day. And you don’t quite have your facts straight. She planned to send some of humanity.”

“Yes,” Electra concedes, “well, we don’t need to start unpacking my mom’s questionable moral compass here.”

“As you probably know,” the girl in the spex picks up, clearing Electra’s schematic with a wave of her hand, “Howsley can do things with QMTP that the rest of us can’t. She’s the only person who can jump between places or dimensions without the aid of a launchpad.”

I nod.

“Over the last few months,” the girl continues, “we’ve been working on a prototype that will replicate Howsley’s capabilities and give everyone who uses QMTP the same freedom that Howsley has. This will open up a lot more avenues for us in terms of research, as we’ll no longer have to wait for Howsley to find a new Parallel for us before we send people to it. All of our scientists will be able to conduct their own exploration.”

“Hold on…” I frown. “Are you telling me that Bird is discovering new dimensions for you? I thought she was just training your scientists to use QMTP.”

“She does both,” says Paradi. “Recently, Dominie,” she indicates the girl with the red spex, “has taken over some of the training, so Bird has been doing less of that.”

I stare at Paradi, my mouth ajar. So that’s the new project that Bird was talking about. “Isn’t that pretty dangerous? You’re just—blindly sending her into parallel dimensions with no idea what might be there?”

Paradi smooths the table with her palms. “We are adhering to strict safety protocols. We’ve developed a testing procedure that allows us to predict whether or not a Parallel will support human life before she jumps. Ninety-eight percent of the time it’s perfectly safe.”

“And the other two percent?”

The guy from Zhīliú sits forward. “We’re getting off track here. Can we get back to the matter at hand?”

Before I can say anything else, Electra picks up.

“Last week, an unauthorized copy of the code for the new prototype was transferred out of our repositories. We haven’t been able to trace where it went, who initiated it, or even the exact time that it happened. But we suspect it was the Exiters.”

I frown. “They stole your code?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We believe they plan to use the prototype to begin their own explorations. As you are probably aware, they believe the climate crisis is unsolvable and they want to leave this dimension, as my mother did.”

My eyebrows lift. “Can they do that?”

Electra glances at Paradi. “We don’t know yet exactly what they’re capable of. The attack on the Green shows their activities are escalating. And their ranks are growing. We can no longer brush them off as a fringe movement. The Nabla Omega is a clear indication that they are becoming more organized. More centralized.”

“What’s the Nabla Omega?”

“Nabla and Omega are two letters from the Greek alphabet,” says Dominie. She taps the back of her head and the map at the center of the table is replaced by the glowing red symbol I’ve seen painted on Exiters’ signs: an upside-down horseshoe with an upside-down triangle laid over the top of it.

“It’s difficult to say for sure what the Exiters are trying to communicate with these symbols,” Dominie continues, “because they represent many different things in mathematics, physics, philosophy…Our current guess is that the Omega—the horseshoe—represents resistance. One of the things it stands for is the symbol for the ohm—the electrical unit of resistance.”

I frown. “So it’s a pun? Resistance?”

“Possibly.”

“And the upside down triangle? The…Nabla?”

“In the eighteen forties, journalists started using a particular prose structure that shifted away from the ornate style of the time and toward a more concise format. It was all about delivering crucial information up front. The symbol for this structure was an upside down pyramid: the Nabla. We think this is what the Exiters are trying to communicate with this symbol: information up front. A demand for facts.”

I nod slowly. “Those don’t seem like terrible tenets.”

“They aren’t,” says Electra. “Unfortunately, their definition of ‘facts’ differs from ours. They think it’s an irrefutable fact that this planet can’t be saved.”

Dominie tilts her hand to turn the symbol in the air. “Some people also speculate…” She hesitates, glancing at the guy from Zhīliú. “Some people think the shape of the symbol may have been derived from the Starbird.”

The guy rolls his eyes. “Not this again. No one wants to hear your Star Wars theories, nerd.”

Dominie looks impatient, but I sense this is a friendly argument. One they’ve had many times. “What’s the Starbird?” I ask.

“The Starbird was the symbol for the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars.”

“What’s Star Wars?”

Dominie’s incredulous mouth drops open. “What’s Star Wars?”

I glance uncertainly at Electra, who shakes her head.

“Star Wars is an old vid stream,” says Dominie. “Ancient. From the nineteen seventies, a little over two hundred years ago. It was—”

“We really don’t have time to get into what Star Wars was,” says Paradi.

Dominie huffs. “Well anyway, the vids were hugely influential. And the Starbird became an important symbol in the century afterward. Many factions of resistance during the Gas Wars adopted it or utilized a version of it.”

“And it doesn’t look anything like the Nabla Omega,” says her colleague.

“Yes it does!” Dominie retorts. “If you turn it upside down.”

“Okay—” Electra pinches the bridge of her nose. “We’re getting off-track here. Suffice it to say that what the Nabla Omega means to us is that the Exiters are growing, centralizing, and becoming more dangerous.”

I become aware that throughout this conversation, my eyebrows have crept into my hairline. I smooth them down with my palm. “Okay. So…what do they want with Bird?”

“Our guess,” says the guy from Zhīliú, “is that they need her to teach them how to use the prototype. QMTP is almost impossible to control without training and practice. We assume they’ll hide out in whatever Parallel they’ve made Howsley take them to while they get her to train them.”

“Bird wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t help them.”

“She would if they tortured her,” he replies, matter-of-factly.

Silence drops into the room like lead. I stare past Paradi’s shoulder through the window, into the blank-white void of fog outside. I feel like the things I didn’t know about Bird, about Zenith, about QMTP, are multiplying at breakneck speed. Questions are piling up around me like stacks of unwashed dishes.

“Why not just release QMTP to the public?” I ask, finally, because it’s the only thing I can ask that doesn’t require me to think about Bird being tortured. “Why not let people decide for themselves what to do with it? Wouldn’t that make this whole problem go away?”

Paradi sucks in a sharp breath and eyes me. “You know we can’t do that.”

“Without proper training,” says Dominie, “QMTP is dangerously unpredictable.”

“You know that, Sargo.” Electra says. “That’s what Z-Day was about, remember? If we were just going to push QMTP out to everyone’s biochips, we might as well have let my mom do that a year ago.”

“Without training and safeguards in place,” says Paradi, “a person cannot control the jumps. And we just don’t have the resources to train everyone. That’s why we haven’t released a worldwide update.”

“We’re deviating from the subject again,” says the guy from Zhīliú. “The priority now is making sure Howsley doesn’t share any information about QMTP with the Exiters.”

I round on him. “The priority now is getting Bird home.”

“That’s your priority.” He turns to Electra. “We should also be considering the possibility that they will try to turn her.”

“Turn her?” I stare at him.

“The Exiters indoctrinate people who are vulnerable. Howsley will be vulnerable.”

“Bird wouldn’t do that!”

“Okay—” Electra puts a hand on my arm. “Sargo, obviously our priority is getting Bird home.” She turns to the guy from Zhīliú. “Johnny, can we maybe try a little more tact, please? Sargo is a civilian. He’s absorbing a lot right now.”

“Johnny?” I fold my arms and sit back in my chair, eyeing the guy from Zhīliú. “What kind of a name is Johnny?”

“I don’t know Sargo,” he shoots back, “why don’t you tell me? Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I’m the guy who carried Bird out of here on Z-Day after she nearly died taking down Axioma Nation,” I fire back. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the guy who spent Z-Day hacking into Zenith’s servers,” he says, “blocking the QMTP launch so dangerous untested software didn’t get forced onto thousands of innocent citizens’ chips. I was doing the actual work. Your little kiddie crew was a distraction.”

My mouth sticks open. The room goes dead quiet as pieces of understanding slot into place inside my head. “You’re Anonymity,” I say, finally.

He tilts his chin up. “Former Anonymity.”

A sick, angry feeling rises in the back of my throat. I take a long, hard breath through my nose.

He smirks. “You have a problem with that?”

“The Anonymity killed my moms and turned my uncle into a drunk,” I reply. “So yeah, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a fan.”

“Sargo…” Electra touches my arm again. “We have a lot of former Anonymity members working here now. They’re not the enemy. The enemy was my mother, right? The enemy was the old guard at Zenith.”

“I’d like to remind you that I’m former Anonymity,” says Paradi coldly from the other side of the table. “We weren’t all haar dealers and murderers. Some of us were planning the revolution.”

I glare at Johnny, scarcely hearing Electra and Paradi over the ringing in my ears.

Yes, we all ‘came together’ on Z-Day to take down Axioma Nation—me and Bird, Electra, the Anonymity, Savage and his crew of Reckoners, Yote and the Neozapas. But no one ever asked me how I felt about it. No one ever thought to ask how I felt about working side by side with the organization that destroyed my family. With the skeevy junkie pirate who took advantage of Bird. I went along with it. Of course I did—what else was I going to do? But that doesn’t mean I have to sit here and take shit from some smarmy hacker.

“Johnny is head of our Exiters task force,” says Electra. “He’s been tracking their movements and he’s putting together a team to go after her.”

Johnny returns my glare. For a long moment, the room is very still. Then he taps his temple and turns his attention back to the center of the table. “We’re working under the assumption that the Exiters would have forced Howsley to jump them to a new Parallel.”

“Why would they do that?” I ask.

“Another dimension would be a good place to hide. But none of them have QMTP installed on their chips, so they would need her to take them. We’ve narrowed down a list of potential Parallels Howsley could have taken them to,” he says, as another blue-white web of lines appears in front of us, “based on the signal her biochip gave off when it briefly came back online today.”

“We think her chip reconnected to our trackers at the moment she jumped,” explains Dominie, glancing at me nervously, as though half-expecting me to start accusing her of murdering my family too. “We were able to analyze the wavefronts that the QMTP module put out just before she disappeared.”

I peel my angry glare off Johnny and put it on Electra. “Wavefronts?”

“Another component of Fermat’s Principle,” she says. “Like I said—light always takes the fastest path to get where it’s going. How does it know what the fastest path will be? It sends out wavefronts to test various routes. Just before a body makes a jump, it sends out…feelers, if you like. We can examine these wavefronts to see what possible paths that body is about to take.”

Johnny gestures in the air to reorient the web of blue-white lines. I squint at the glowing squiggles of light. “You did all this in ten minutes?”

“I’m good at my job.”

I shoot him a sideways glance. “If you were good at your job,” I want to say, “the Exiters wouldn’t even have Bird right now.”

“These are the potential paths that her body could have taken when she made that jump,” he says.” And these—” He highlights three pathways and clears the rest with a swipe of his hand, “are the ones we think Howsley is most likely to have chosen.”

“How do you figure that?”

“We think,” says Electra, “that she would go somewhere she’s been before. We hope she may even have gone somewhere that Zenith already has a landing pad installed. If she did, we can follow her.”

“That wouldn’t be a very good hiding place for the Exiters,” I say.

“Right, but they don’t know that. Remember, the Exiters have never used QMTP. They have no real understanding of what we’ve done with it yet. They don’t know where Bird has already been, or what dimensions we’ve already made contact with. Our hope is that Bird would have thought of that, and taken them to a dimension where they think they’re unreachable, but that we can actually get to because we’ve already made contact and installed a landing pad.”

I blow air through my cheeks. “That’s putting a lot of confidence in Bird. Have you met her? She’s not a great planner.”

“No, but she is a quick thinker,” says Electra. “I think it’s reasonable to hope she would have had the same thought process that we did.”

“Besides,” Johnny swipes away the three paths of light, “what else do we have to go on?”

I stare at the spot above the table where the paths of light just disappeared. A faint afterimage of the lines remains burned into my retinas. I blink hard and rub my eyes. Suddenly, I feel exhausted.

“Okay. So what’s next?”

“For you?” Electra says. “Nothing. Go home and get some sleep. Johnny’s team will make the jump to the first Parallel tomorrow morning. We’ll search all the places we think Bird is likely to be. If we don’t find her there, we move on to the next one.”

“And if she isn’t in any of them?”

Electra spreads her palms. “Then we come back here and plan the next move.”

I send my gaze back past Paradi’s shoulder, into the blank white fog through the window. Dominie taps her temple and gestures in the air to make some notes on her biochip. Johnny sits back in his chair and folds his arms. The room is very quiet.

“I’ll go with you,” I say at last.

Johnny scoffs. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m going with you. Tomorrow.”

“You most definitely are not.”

I turn to Electra. “Put me on the team.”

She tilts her head with a look halfway between sympathy and impatience and says, “Sargo, you know I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a liability,” says Johnny. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“You need someone who knows Bird,” I reply. “If you’re banking on her having gone somewhere she thinks you’ll find her, then you need someone who knows how she thinks.”

“We need people who know how to handle a weapon, who have been trained to use QMTP, and who have experience operating in parallel dimensions,” says Johnny.

“I have been trained to use QMTP.”

His eyebrows lift. He turns to Electra. “You authorized a civilian?”

“I did,” she sighs. “He has an aunt in Pocosín. He was authorized to use it expressly for the purpose of visiting her, and under the strict understanding,” she fixes me with a hard stare, “that he wouldn’t make me regret it.”

“No one’s going to regret anything,” I say, evenly. “I’m not useless.”

She huffs. “No one said you were. But Johnny’s right. You don’t know anything about this.”

“What’s to know? Go to another dimension, look for Bird. Seems pretty cut and dry.”

Johnny snorts. “Aren’t you a sailing teacher? How is that going to help us when we’re exchanging fire with Exiters? You gonna bore them to death with a lesson on storm tactics?”

“I know Bird,” I repeat, ignoring Johnny and keeping my eyes firmly on Electra’s. “Better than anyone in this room.”

She purses her lips and glares back at me. The air in the room is close and uncomfortable. Finally, Paradi sighs.

“Let him go.”

I blink in surprise and look at her.

“He’s right,” she says. “Having someone on the team who knows how Howsley thinks could be useful. And,” she tilts her head toward Electra, “he’s a good sailor. That could be useful in Brume Three.”

I frown. “Brume Three?”

Johnny exhales noisily through thin nostrils. “He could jeopardize the entire mission.”

“I don’t think he will,” says Paradi, surveying me with shrewd eyes. “We know him pretty well, El. He’s not an idiot.”

I meet Paradi’s gaze and try to see through it, to what she’s actually thinking. I have a strong suspicion that she might be feeling bad for wrongly imprisoning me yesterday, and is trying to make up for it. But as long as she’s on my side, I’m not going to question her motives too deeply.

Johnny shakes his head. “This is insane. I’m not going to let you put an untrained civilian on my team.”

Paradi braces her palms on the table and stands. She turns her gaze to Johnny. “I don’t pull rank very often, but when I do, I expect people to fall in line. Sargo will go with you tomorrow morning. You will equip him with whatever he needs to protect himself, and give him the information he needs to be an asset to the mission. Is that clear?”

Johnny glares at her, working his jaw, then nods once, tightly.

She turns to me. “And you will follow Johnny’s orders to the letter, and do your best not to die. Understand?”

I nod.

“Great,” she says. “We’ll regroup here tomorrow at 0500.”

____________________

I stop by Bird’s moms’ house on the way home to check on Shanny and try to explain to them what’s happening.

Bird left a lot of things out when she told her moms what happened during the events leading up to Z-Day last year. She never told them, for example, that the only reason she found out she had QMTP installed in her biochip was because she was drinking. A lot. When QMTP started making her black out and wake up in unexpected places, she at first blamed it on the grog. I’m never sure how much I can tell Jade and Kestrel without telling them things Bird didn’t want them to hear.

As Electra pointed out, though, this is an unprecedented situation. So I guess Bird will just have to be okay with people finding things out about her. I’ve certainly learned more about what she does at Zenith in the last twenty-four hours than she ever told me in the past year. Which is…irritating. I try not to let that irritation cloud my worry about her. I try not to think about Savage and the reason for the argument we had that drove her out. I try to focus on finding her. Not on how mad a tiny part of me is, deep inside, for her behavior.

Kestrel absorbs the news about the Exiters taking Bird with pale, rigid sturdiness, balanced on the arm of the couch with Jade’s big pink hands around her shoulders. She seems determined not to let any hint of emotion cross her face, while Jade is openly weeping and dabbing at her eyes with a soggy, yellow bandana. Shanny sits on the floor between us, gazing up at Kestrel and frantically vibrating his tail.

“Why don’t you spend the night?” Kestrel whispers at last, and I get the feeling this would be more for her benefit than mine. “Go back to Panga and get your things, and then you can come here and we’ll make you dinner. You should eat a good dinner before you go.”

“I…” I hesitate with my mouth open and scratch behind my neck, looking between Kestrel’s wide, stare-y eyes and Jade’s red, watery ones. I shrug weakly, and nod. “Sure. Okay.”

At Panga, I put some things into a pack: my great-great grandfather’s nox, a length of good, sturdy rope, my slate, a few cans of food. I dig out the marlin spike that was Mama Marlin’s namesake—a long, curved spike that sailors use to help them untie knots—and toss it in as well. What else does one take on a rescue mission to a parallel dimension?

I hunt for my good knife but can’t find it, and refrain from cursing Bird. Instead, I dig an old one out of a drawer in the galley. It’s dull and rusty, so I tuck a whetstone into the pack with it. This will at least give me something to do with my hands while I’m sitting with Bird’s moms tonight, absorbing their worry.

With everything packed, I shut Panga up and grab some of Shanny’s food to leave with Jade and Kestrel. Obviously, Shanny can’t come with me, as much as I would like him to. I try not to think about Malarkey, and how useful she would have been on a mission like this one.

By the time I get back to Jade and Kestrel’s, it’s dark and the fog has rolled over the city like a thick wool blanket. We eat dinner in silence and then sit in the living room, Kestrel chewing her nails, Jade pacing, me sharpening my knife. Shanny curls up in the top of my open pack—which I’ve noticed lately appears to be his new favorite spot for sleeping.

Eventually, when the knife is sharp enough to cut a single hair and I can’t take the pacing and the nail-biting one minute longer, I get up and go to bed.

I lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling for a long, long time, vibrating with unspent, anxious energy. Closing my eyes, I try to focus on something calming. Something other than the carousel of images going round in my head.

Bird, storming out. Being grabbed on the Green. Dragged into an EV. Held against her will.

Bird, blushing, with her eyes on the floor, telling me about a dirty dream she had once.

My eyes snap open. No, come on. That is not appropriate right now.

But I can already feel the blood surging to my crotch.

Flog’s sake.

I take a deep breath through my nose and close my eyes again. But the image is in there now. Bird, watching me with heavy eyes as I pulled off her shirt and put my hands on her. Crawling backward onto the bunk with my finger inside her. Cradling my hips with her thighs. Moaning my name. Shuddering, with my hand over her mouth, her eyes somewhere in the back of her skull.

I reach into my shorts to free my rapidly hardening dick.

Ten minutes later, I am sound asleep.

chapter

nine

BEHIND THE DOOR, there is a person.

I guess I can’t be sure that it’s a person. It knocked. So I assume it has knuckles, at least.

chapter

ten

I TIP Shanny out of my pack the next morning at 0400 and stumble around the spare bedroom at Jade and Kestrel’s, struggling into my clothes. When I get to headquarters at the top of the hill behind the bay, it’s still dark, damp, and freezing. I’m early—it’s only 0430 and no one else is here yet, so I sit on the fountain between Zenith’s lobby and the main hall at Azimuth and stare out over Brume. The curve of the bay just beyond is a black, glittering wasteland under the red moon. Bird used to blip up to the top of Azimuth Hall all the time to think. I can see why.

Electra steps out of the darkness. “Mind if I join you?”

“What are you doing up?”

“I’m always up,” she sighs, perching next to me and smoothing her skirt. “I’m running the world.” She folds her hands in her lap and looks out across the bay for a long time before she says, “Are you sure this is a good idea? You don’t know what you’re doing. Like, at all.”

“I have to go. I can’t just sit here and wait.”

“Right. I know.” She lapses into silence again. Then, “You told me you and Howsley had a fight that night.”

I nod.

“So…” She tilts her head and hesitates, like she’s not sure she should say what she’s about to say.

“So what?”

“So, I know you, Sargo. You may know Howsley better than anyone, but I know you.”

I frown. “Okay…”

“So are you going after her because you care about her, or because you can’t stand for a thing to be broken, and you have to make it right?”

“What kind of question is that? I’m going because I love her. And why does it matter why I’m going?”

She shrugs and looks across the water again. After a minute she says, “Do you remember that party you came to at my house when we were like…nine?”

“I came to a lot of parties at your house.”

“Right, but I’m talking about the one where someone moved my mom’s favorite vase and broke it. And then you spent the entire rest of the evening guarding all the knick-knacks so it wouldn’t happen again.”

“Yeah, I remember that. I was eleven, not nine.”

“People thought you were insane.”

“Actually, they thought I was polite.”

“Well, I thought you were insane.” She sighs. “Sometimes, I worry you haven’t changed. You have this thing, where you can’t stand for things to be out of place. Like everything has to fit into this neat little box for you. Sometimes…I think you just have to accept that things don’t always fit into neat little boxes.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t try to rescue my girlfriend because it’s messy?”

“I’m saying you should let other people handle it because you can’t fix everything.”

I stare across the Salt, now a milky gray in the pre-dawn light. “Do you remember why you had that party?”

She shrugs.

“It wasn’t a party. It was my moms’ memorial. You guys hosted it because Blenny’s house was too small.”

“Oh…shit. I didn’t remember that.”

“People were talking about me. Thinking I couldn’t hear.”

I can feel her staring at the side of my head. “What were they saying?”

“About my moms being dead, and what a shame it was. About Blenny, and what a shame that was. And about how I was—well the way I look. That it was unusual in Brume. About how I had so many things stacked against me. About how I was such a polite young man in spite of it all. Guarding the knick-knacks.”

“They were talking about you being from Pocosín?”

I nod. “Those people at that party didn’t expect much from me. You know? They figured I was already a lost cause, and wasn’t it such a shame. And I realized, that night, that they were right. I did have a lot stacked against me. I realized I was going to have to work harder than other people if I didn’t want to be a lost cause. So I did.”

She watches me carefully. “Well, it’s admirable. You’ve done really well.”

“All the stuff about having everything in a neat little box…I mean, you’re right. I think I just didn’t want to let anything derail me. I just had to stay focused, and work hard, and be perfect, and not let anything break.”

She nudges me with her shoulder. “So is that why you never had a girlfriend?”

“I had girlfriends.” She eyes me incredulously and I huff. “I didn’t have time to mess around.”

“Until you met Howsley.”

“Howsley and I aren’t messing around.”

She sighs again and turns her gaze back out to where the solar panels of Midtown are slowly creeping into the light. “Can I be honest?” she says. “I never really understood you guys together. You’re so different.”

“Maybe that’s why it works.”

“Or maybe,” she stands and brushes dust from the seat of her skirt, “that’s why the last things you said to each other were so hurtful.”

I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. I frown and close it again.

“I’m sorry about the people at that party,” she says. “They were mostly my mom’s friends, I think.”

“The same people who came in from Zīhliú and priced all my people out of Brume.”

“Assholes.”

The sound of boots coming up behind us turns my head. Johnny emerges from the fog with a pack slung over one shoulder.

“Well, you’re on time, at least,” he growls as he stalks past me toward the doors of the main building.

Electra raises an eyebrow at me, then turns and follows him inside.

The rest of Johnny’s team trickles in over the next few minutes. Four of us, in total. I recognize Dominie, the girl from the meeting yesterday. She’s decked out in a tight-fitting tactical suit like the peace force wears, and her cornrows are pulled into a ponytail, the alternating red and black braids weaving over and under each other. A small pistol is holstered around her thigh. Johnny is wearing a leather jacket over a tight-fitting black t-shirt and a bulletproof vest. When he moves, the jacket opens and I glimpse a pair of guns holstered on either side of his ribs. I also note a ribbon of black ink snaking out of his collar and up the side of his neck, and another coming out of his sleeve, wrapping around his thumb. Some kind of tattoo.

The other guy is new to me: a short, well-muscled White guy, with brown hair buzzed on the sides. He’s wearing the same black tactical gear as Dominie, with a pair of knives strapped across his chest.

We assemble by the elevator. Johnny shoves a bundle into my chest.

“Go put this on.”

I scowl around the lobby. “Where?”

“I don’t care, Paz.” He pushes past me and puts his hand on the elevator palm scanner. The doors slide open to reveal the white circle of the launchpad set into the floor. “Just make it quick.”

Electra, who has been observing us quietly from her stance against the wall, tilts her head at me. “There’s a bathroom on the other side of the lobby.”

The suit is tight and uncomfortable. There is a knife holster sewn into the ribs. I pull my newly sharpened blade out of the front pocket of my pack and am surprised when it slips easily into the slot and stays put. I lace up the heavy boots and wiggle my toes unhappily. I hate shoes.

When I emerge from the bathroom, suited up, my pack on both shoulders, Johnny looks me up and down and smirks.

“Suits you.”

Electra grins. “Maybe you should join the peace force.”

“No thank you.”

Johnny taps his temple. “Do you have anything installed into the free gesture space on your biochip?”

He’s talking about the back-of-the-head tap, which is a gesture by default not assigned to any biochip functionality, but which is available for you to program with whatever you like. Right now, I’m using it to activate my translator so I can chat with Khala.

I nod. “Uh, yeah. A translator.”

“Clear it,” he says. “I’m dropping you an update.”

I tap the back of my head to pull up the translator, and delete it from my chip. Johnny taps his temple and another wall of text cascades before my eyes. I reel, blinking, and it’s gone.

>>> UPDATE COMPLETE.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Anonymizing mask,” says Johnny. He taps the back of his head and his face disappears.

A pixelated, pale blur smears his features away, leaving large, gaping brown smudges where eyes and a mouth should be. It’s as though his face was a painting and someone dragged their hand through it before it dried. When he turns, the illusion glitches and flickers, and the grotesque eyes and mouth stay facing me, no matter which way his body points.

A cold, black tide of disgust begins to rise around my chest. I know this tech. When Bird and I sailed out of Brume last year, we were fleeing guys with faces like these. The Anonymity. The same people who killed my moms.

I swallow. “This is Anonymity tech. This is malware.”

Johnny snorts. “You’re going to have to get used to using some unorthodox methods if you want to have a hope in hell of finding your girl, Princess.”

“I don’t want this shit on my biochip.”

“Too bad, Sweetheart,” he replies. “You either wanna be on the team or you don’t.”

I look at Electra for help, but she just shrugs and says, “You’re supposed to follow his orders.”

Gritting my teeth and sighing in the back of my throat, I tighten my pack across my shoulders and glare at Johnny. “Anything else you need to equip me with before we get this shitshow on the road?”

He taps the back of his head and the nauseating pale blur dissolves, revealing his face. “You have a weapon?”

I pull the knife out of the sheath on my ribcage. Johnny’s eyebrows lift.

“Okay, Sailor. So you’re not totally unprepared.” He holds out his hand and I place the knife in his palm. He lifts it to the light and examines it. “Pretty shit knife, though, isn’t it?” Handing it back to me, he swings his pack off one shoulder, digs into a side pocket, and produces a sleek, shiny, silver bullet of a blade with a black rubber handle. He flips it deftly over in one hand and hands it to me, handle first.

I take it warily. “Figured you were going to give me a gun.”

He scoffs. “And what would you have done with that?”

Scowling, I slip the new knife into the sheath in my suit and tuck my knife back into my pack.

Johnny lifts a finger to keep me back as he turns to Dominie and the other two.

“I need to talk to my team.”

“I thought I was on the team.”

“I need to talk to the rest of my team.” He turns his back.

I glare at the back of his head, then stalk over to where Electra is still leaning against the wall with her arms folded. She smirks as I approach.

“You two seem to be getting on like a house on fire.”

“I don’t like this guy.” I lean against the wall next to her and watch the other three conferring in low voices. “Are you sure you can trust him?”

She shoots me a look. “He comes highly vetted by Paradi. She worked with him in Alluvium and she personally recruited him for Z-Day. Yes, he’s Anonymity, but he knows his stuff. Without him, honestly, we may not have gotten through the firewalls to Zenith’s servers on Z-Day. He’s brilliant.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“That doesn’t preclude him from being brilliant.” She pushes off the wall and turns to face me. “I have something for you.” She digs into a pocket on her skirt and produces a small, silver button. She clutches it in her fist for a second, her face suddenly flushing pink. “Maybe I shouldn’t…”

I lift my eyebrows. “Are you embarrassed? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you embarrassed.”

“Shut up!” She shoves the thing at me, rolling her eyes.

I take it and hold it up to the light. It’s a pin with a tiny compass rose etched into it, the letters for north, east, south, and west around the edges. I frown at her. “What is this?”

“I don’t know.” She waves a hand, her face still pink. “It’s stupid. It’s just a—good luck charm, I guess.”

I turn it over and press the pad of my thumb to the point. She flicks my hands away with a tsk, and takes it from me.

“Let me do it.”

The smell of her soft, blonde hair is overwhelmingly floral as she steps up to me and fiddles with my collar. I put my eyes on the wall behind her, suddenly feeling very warm. She smooths the shoulders of my suit with two hands and steps back. Our eyes meet and she goes bright pink again and looks away.

I quickly turn my gaze down to where she attached the pin. “Why a compass?”

“It’s silly. It’s so you can find your way home,” she mumbles to the floor.

“Thanks.”

She clears her throat and stands up straight. “Okay, well…I guess I’m going to hug you goodbye now.”

“Okay.”

She steps up again and puts her arms around me. Again, her hair is right against my nose, and things inside me move in a way they haven’t ever moved when I’ve hugged her before. Nerves, I guess. I’ve never hugged her right before I teleported to another dimension to go on a rescue mission I wasn’t qualified for before.

“Okay, Princess.” Johnny’s voice echoes across the lobby. “Time to go.”

Electra steps back, her narrow, hazel eyes suddenly bright with worry. “Be careful,” she whispers.

I nod, but the way she says it pulls something tight in my chest. “I will.”

Johnny claps his hands. “Let’s go!”

Electra gives me a grim, determined smile and I turn and head for the elevator. Johnny sweeps his hand toward the open door, where my two other teammates are already assembled. “This is Stavra.” The White guy nods. “Dominie you know.”

I lift a hand in salutation and squeeze in next to Dominie. Johnny steps in behind me and the doors slide closed. We all stand shoulder to shoulder on the launchpad and I stare at my reflection in the full-length mirror on the elevator wall, unrecognizable in head-to-toe black. My stomach writhes with sudden dread.

Jesus, what the hell am I doing?

I don’t have time to ponder the question for long before I am shattered into light and disappear.

chapter

eleven

WHEN I COME BACK TOGETHER, I’m still standing on the launchpad.

I put a hand on the mirror in front of me, swallowing hard against vomit.

“Alright there, Princess?”

I nod with my eyes closed.

“Is he seriously jumpsick?” says Stavra.

“I’m fine,” I croak. “Just give me a second.”

The doors slide open behind me and Dominie and Stavra push past me. I stand with my eyes closed and my hand on the mirror.

A barrage of sunlight assaults me as I turn around and step out of the elevator. We’re still in the lobby at Zenith HQ. Through the windows, the sky is blue. Early morning sunlight streams through them. It reflects off a floor so shiny it could be a mirror. I squint my eyes closed.

“We’re still at Zenith.”

“It’s not Zenith,” says Dominie. “It’s a university. But you’re right—it is the same location.”

“But are we…there?” I carefully open my eyes, blinking away tears.

“Obviously,” says Johnny. “We just jumped, didn’t we? Unless you’re sick for no reason at all.” He looks me up and down. “Which would be really pathetic.”

“So it’s just…the same?”

“We’re in a parallel dimension, not on another planet.” He taps his temple and gestures in the air, checking something on his biochip. “It’s similar. But it’s not exactly the same. You ever stand next to someone and look at their face in a mirror? It’s kind of like that.”

“So this is Brume?”

He taps his temple. “We call this dimension Brume Two. I think the people who live here call the city Frisco.”

Behind him, Stavra is adjusting the knives across his chest, and I notice a tattoo on the back of his hand. It snakes out from under his sleeve and winds around his thumb. The same as Johnny’s. Some kind of unit they were both in together? Stavra looks as though he has military training. He seems like muscle. I glance at Dominie, who has pulled her red-rimmed spex out of a back pocket and put them on. Her role? Hard to say. Johnny’s number two, I guess.

Johnny taps his temple and flicks his hand to the others and we step into the lobby. It’s busy. Well-dressed people pass briskly back and forth, their footsteps echoing off the polished floor and high walls. People my age, carrying packs. Only people my age—no kids. So I guess this isn’t an “all-levels” school like Azimuth. It’s a legit university. Not a nearly empty campus half-covered by a tech corporation’s headquarters.

I follow Johnny across the lobby, weaving between people. “Where are we going?”

“High Council.” Johnny reaches the big double doors at the front of the building and throws them open. No palm scanner. We step into a clear, beautiful spring day. Almost immediately, I notice the air. It’s clean. So clean it stops me dead in my tracks. I suck in a big lungful of it almost without thinking.

“Good, right?” Domine smiles over her shoulder as she passes me.

I blow out my breath in a rush. I feel like I didn’t know what air was until now.

“Keep moving,” says Johnny over his shoulder. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Tripping after him, I stare around the quad in front of the lobby. It’s nothing like the crumbling main quad we have at home, where roots are tearing up the concrete and vines and creepers are slowly reclaiming the walls. The fountain at the center of this square is intact and gleaming. There’s water in it. I gape at it as we pass.

“There’s water in the fountain.”

“Yup. There’s water everywhere,” says Dominie.

“Is it fresh? How is that possible?”

“It’s recycled. Graywater. They wouldn’t waste drinking water on something like that.”

A tall, slender man with a neatly trimmed ruddy beard bumps into me as I tear my gaze away from the fountain.

“Watch where you’re going!”

I put my eyes forward and scurry after Dominie. Ahead of us, Johnny and Stavra are walking side by side.

I turn to Dominie. “So is this dimension, like…fixed? They don’t have a climate problem? No collapse?”

“They narrowly avoided it. Two centuries ago, around nineteen seventy five, their scientists predicted a similar situation to the one we’re currently experiencing: rising Salt levels, climate disasters. They just…chose to heed the advice and make changes.”

“And the pandemics?” I look around. “There’s a lot of people here.”

“They have disease.” She bobs around a group of girls carrying school packs. “But because their climate situation is relatively in hand, outbreaks here don’t have nearly the disastrous effect that our last pandemic did. People here are able to isolate effectively—they aren’t all stacked on top of each other in climate refugee camps.”

“Settlements,” I correct her.

She shoots me a look. “Sure. The last outbreak that happened here was around the same time as ours—about twenty years ago. But where ours killed ninety-nine percent of the population and triggered the collapse of society, theirs was more like a bad flu season.”

We make our way down a wide flight of steps at the front of campus. In front of us, the bay of Brume sparkles crystal blue in the sunlight. Stretched across its narrowest point is a long, red-orange suspension bridge. I frown at it.

“The bay is the wrong shape.”

“The Salt hasn’t risen here,” says Dominie. “The coastline is roughly the same as it was two hundred years ago. There’s a lot more habitable land in this dimension.”

We reach the bottom of the steps and turn right, onto a busy street. I do a double take as I recognize the turn that I would take to get to my uncle’s house. An abrupt thought stops me.

“Is my uncle here?”

Dominie hasn’t noticed that I’m not walking next to her, and disappears behind the shoulders of some people crossing the street. I hurry to catch up and repeat my question.

She laughs. “No. This Parallel is similar to ours, but not completely the same. No two Parallels are exactly the same. As far as we can tell, they exist on a spectrum. Some are very similar, some are very different. So far, none that we’ve found have been similar enough to be populated by the same people. So don’t worry,” she smiles, “you’re not going to run into yourself or anything.”

I turn sideways to let a small, white-haired old woman pass me. “The people here don’t seem to be fazed by us walking around in tactical gear.”

“Zenith made contact with this dimension just after Z-Day,” says Dominie. “It was one of the first that Howsley discovered for us. Since then, our scientists have been coming here pretty regularly. We have an established presence.”

“Do you always wear the suits? And carry weapons? These people don’t seem dangerous.”

She rolls her eyes. “Johnny’s got a real thing about uniformity on the team. I think it might be a holdover from his Anonymity days.”

“Am I even going to need this knife? The mask?”

She shrugs. “Better safe than sorry.”

As we wind down the busy streets, I begin to notice details that remind me of home. Veg patches in people’s front yards. Solar panels. Some houses even have rows of small, white-bladed windmills attached to their roofs. When I glimpse the bay between rows of houses, I spot the white triangles of sailboats flitting around out there.

“They still sail?”

Dominie nods. “For sport.”

“And they grow their own food?”

“Some of it. But they started doing it by choice, not out of necessity like we did. It was one of the measures that was encouraged two centuries ago as a way to mitigate carbon emissions. Same with the solar and windmills.”

We catch up to Stavra and Johnny, standing on a corner. Johnny folds his arms and drums his fingers on his bicep as we approach, looking me up and down impatiently.

“Try to keep up, Sweetheart.”

Dominie taps her left brow. “We’re coming to the Green. Johnny, how do you want to handle this?”

“We keep it pleasant,” he says. “You do the talking, since you have a rapport with the Chairman.”

I frown at Dominie. “Who are these people, exactly?”

“The High Council is like the government,” says Dominie. “They’ve been involved in the logistical side of allowing Zenith to come in and work with their scientists. Mostly they just get in the way. But we have to go through them for everything.”

“So Zenith isn’t in charge here?”

Dominie shakes her head. “Zenith doesn’t exist here.”

Johnny snaps his fingers. “Enough chit-chat. Dominie, do you know what you’re gonna say?”

“Bird Howsley is missing. We think she may be here. I’m just going to ask them to put out feelers and loop in the police.”

“Wait—” I put up my hand. “All we’re doing is asking them to keep an eye out? I thought…I mean, the suits and weapons. I figured we would be sneaking around, infiltrating places.”

Stavra snorts and Johnny rolls his eyes. “Alerting the authorities and involving their police force is going to be the most effective thing we can do here. They know the place better than we do, and they have good, functioning systems and infrastructure. But if you’d rather crawl around in the mud acting like a hero,” he smirks, “be my guest.”

I stare at him. This isn’t what I came here to do. This is just…more waiting. This is just handing off the problem to someone else.

“If all we’re doing is talking to them, then what the hell am I wearing this suit for?” I say through clenched teeth. “Why the hell am I carrying this knife?”

“Cohesion and uniformity are crucial components of an effectively functioning team,” says Stavra, as though reciting from some handbook.

“Plus,” Johnny winks at me, “you just look so damn cute in it.”

Frustration boils over into fury and I step toward him.

“Alright!” Dominie wedges herself between us, planting her palm firmly in the center of my chest. “That’s enough.”

“You think this is a joke?” I snarl over her shoulder. “I’m not here to parade around in a monkey suit. I’m here to find Bird.”

“We’re all here to find Bird,” Johnny replies. “And we don’t need you to tell us how to do it. You’re auxiliary to this mission, remember? I don’t need you chiming in with your suggestions.” He turns to Stavra. “Stay close to him. Make sure he doesn’t run his mouth in there.”

Stavra nods.

Dominie eyes me sternly, her palm still hard on my chest. “Are we ready?”

I keep my eyes on Johnny and nod.

“Great.” She releases her hand. “Let’s go.”

As we turn the corner, my mouth falls open.

In front of us is a massive steel and glass dome, at least four stories high, made of interconnected hexagons and glinting like a crystal in the sun. It takes up the entire block and is surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn of bright green grass, around which is cut a large moat bisected by a marble bridge. Fogwood trees shooting up around the dome are dwarfed by its height. Inside the dome, more trees and splotches of brightly colored flowers create a multicolored patchwork against the glass.

“They have fogwoods here,” is all I can think to say.

“They call them redwoods,” says Dominie.

“Let’s go, Sailor Boy!” Johnny is already halfway across the bridge. Cursing under my breath, I jog after him.

We enter an atrium through a wide, arched doorway, which is sealed until Dominie taps a code directly into its glass surface. The air inside the dome is warm and humid; as the glass door whispers shut behind us, I find myself immediately wishing I wasn’t wearing a near-skintight armored bodysuit. An earthy, grassy smell reaches me, and all around us vines heavy with round, red fruit, climb trellises, their bright green leaves like stained glass in the sunlight. I tug one toward me and put it to my nose.

“Are these tomatoes?”

“Don’t touch!” Dominie slaps my hand away. “And yes. They call this building the Greenhouse. It’s where they grow most of their food. It’s also the political and social center of the city.”

On the other side of the atrium is another arched glass door, and on the other side of that, the air is decidedly cooler. I wipe my face on the back of my arm.

“The building is laid out like a big donut,” says Dominie as we walk down a dimly lit corridor. “The interior rooms—in the donut hole—are shaded from the sun by the plants growing in the exterior rooms. Natural climate control. The room we’re heading for is the Council Chambers, in the heart of the building.”

It takes us five minutes of winding down corridors lit only by the light coming in through the high glass ceiling, to reach the Chambers. We see few other people, and the space has an almost reverent quietude to it. I find myself whispering my questions to Dominie as we make our way through rooms filled with planter boxes, fruit trees, and hydroponic watering systems.

Another wide, arched doorway announces the Council Chambers to us, and Dominie taps another code into the glass to open it. On the other side is a room so dark it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. At first view, the room appears to be empty: just a vast, round hall with a ceiling so high I can’t see it. But as we step through the door I make out a raised platform in the middle of the room, and in the center of that platform, a single chair. As we near the platform, I see that the chair is occupied by an old man, who sits hunched over some kind of slate and doesn’t appear to have heard us come in.

“What is this?” I mutter to Dominie. “Like a throne room?”

“No, it’s not a throne room. Every member of the City Council volunteers four hours a day to sit here and be available for citizens. It’s like an open forum for people to bring up civic issues—stuff that needs fixing, that kind of thing.”

“So it’s a throne room.”

She tuts and rolls her eyes. “Sure, if you like. Today is Councilman Jasper’s day and I happen to get along with him.”

“Why don’t they just put that stuff on the Net?”

“They don’t have a Net.”

“They don’t have the Net?”

She shrugs. “They did for a while. But they decided that having everyone in the world connected was just breeding more problems than it was solving.”

I stare at her. If this was Brume, this room would be packed with people lodging complaints, despite our minuscule population. It would be impossible to get your issue heard. Zenith would have automated the process and put everything online years ago.

“Why is there no one in here?” I mutter to Dominie.

“I think they just don’t have very many problems,” she says.

At the sound of Dominie’s voice, the old man’s head pops up. “Oh,” he says, his thin, reedy voice echoing through the empty space. “Welcome. Who’s this?”

“It’s Dominie.” Dominie halts in front of the platform. “From Brume One. And these are my colleagues. You know Johnny. This is Stavra Kïnd and Sargo Paz.”

“Ah, yes. Hello Dominie.” The old man tucks his slate into a pocket and stands. He’s dressed in a simple, dark gray suit with a cornflower blue tie, and his gray hair is cut close to the sides of his head. He steps off the platform and offers Dominie a slender, pale hand. “Are you here to talk about cloud seeding?”

“Not today. We’re hoping we might be able to enlist some of your police officers to help us with something.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Bird Howsley is missing,” says Dominie. “We believe she may be here.”

“Missing?” His white eyebrows arch. “When?”

“Her biochip emitted a signal at 1707 yesterday afternoon, just before she made a jump to an unknown dimension. We narrowed down a list of possible landing sites and we think this is the most likely one,” says Johnny.

“I see.” The man strokes his silver goatee, looking troubled. “And what was the reason for this jump? I assume it was unauthorized?”

Dominie glances at Johnny. “Yes. It was unauthorized. We don’t know what her reason for coming here was.”

My eyebrows pull together. Don’t know the reason? She was kidnapped! Dominie’s making it sound like Bird went AWOL and did something wrong. I open my mouth to argue and feel Stavra’s elbow dig into my ribs. When I jerk my head around to look at him, he keeps his eyes straight ahead as though nothing happened.

“I see,” repeats the man, surveying us with pursed lips. “Well, I shall have to bring this before the Council. Allocating police resources to an inter-dimensional matter isn’t something I’m able to just sanction on my own, I’m afraid. And it may be that the police are not sufficient. We may need to involve higher authorities.”

“How long will that take?” I blurt.

The man’s eyes alight on me for the first time. “Not long. I can call an emergency quorum this afternoon.”

I can feel Johnny’s angry glare on the side of my face. “That’s fine,” he says. “We’ll come back then.”

____________________

“Why are we not telling them about the Exiters?” I demand as soon as we’re out of earshot in the corridor outside the Chamber.

Dominie raises her eyebrows at Johnny.

“That’s not something you need to worry about,” says Johnny, pushing past me and heading back the way we came.

“How is it not something I need to worry about?”

I grab him hard by the elbow, and he whips around, coming to an abrupt halt. We stand chest-to-chest in the narrow hallway. His eyes, I notice for the first time, are gray. I had assumed, since he’s from Zhīliú, that they were hazel, like Electra’s.

“Remove your hand from my arm, Sailor,” he says.

I stare at him hard for a long moment before I do it.

“You don’t need to worry about it because I told you not to worry about it. Because you are not a member of my team and therefore not privileged to that information. Is that clear?”

I shake my head. “If you need me to be an asset to this mission, you had better give me all the information.”

“I don’t need you to be an asset to this mission,” he growls. “I don’t want you on this mission. Your job is to stand in the back and keep quiet so that when we get home, the Nation girls will be sufficiently pleased that I did what they asked and let their little friend come along. Is that clear?”

I can feel a muscle in the side of my jaw ticking. The one that usually only ticks when Bird and I are arguing. I think he’s the only person I’ve ever met who frustrates me as much as she does.

I take a breath through my nose. “It’s clear.”

He eyes me a moment longer, then turns and stalks away toward the atrium. I look at Dominie, hoping the rapport we’ve built so far this morning might curry me some favor with her. But she just purses her lips and follows Johnny.

Stavra touches my shoulder as he steps around me, and says in a surprisingly gentle voice, “He’s an asshole. But he’s in charge.”

chapter

twelve

THAT AFTERNOON we stand in the cool, dark cavern of the Council Chambers again, facing the throne that isn’t a throne. There are now six people assembled on it: Jasper, two other men, and three women in tailored skirts and suit jackets. They are all seated and holding devices that look like slates in their hands, though I notice that they don’t appear to be interfacing with biochips. They just…read from the devices. As though the information is inside them.

“I’d like to call this quorum to order,” says Jasper. “We’re here to discuss the potential allocation of police resources to the Zenith delegates from Brume One to assist them in their search for Bird Howsley, who made an unauthorized jump into our dimension sometime yesterday afternoon. Is that about the shape of things, Dominie?”

Dominie, standing shoulder to shoulder with Johnny just in front of me and Stavra, nods.

“This is a highly sensitive matter,” says Jasper. “As you are aware, we have strict laws against unauthorized inter-dimensional travel. If this were not Bird Howsley we were talking about, this would have already been brought before the UD.”

I clasp my hands in front of me to keep from balling them into fists. Johnny told me to keep quiet and stand in the back, but they’re still talking about Bird like she’s a criminal. Like she’s done something wrong.

“Yes,” Dominie says. “We appreciate your willingness to handle this without involving them. We’re hoping for a speedy mobilization.”

“Can you explain to us why Miss Howsley made this jump?” says one of the women, tapping something into her device while she speaks.

“We’re not sure,” says Johnny. “Our guess is she just needed a break, wanted to hide out for a little.”

Hide out? I stare at the back of his head in disbelief.

“And her reason for this would be what?” says the woman.

Johnny shrugs. “Burnout. She’s been working hard.”

Keep quiet and stand in the back, says a voice in the back of my head. Follow Johnny’s orders to the letter. That’s what Paradi told me to do. I don’t want to screw up my first day and get booted off the team.

The woman nods and turns her attention back to her device. “Miss Howsley has a history that indicates she might be prone to this sort of unpredictable behavior, doesn’t she?” says one of the other men. “Impulsivity. Mental instability. Substance abuse.”

“Yes,” says Dominie. “But recently she’s maintained better control over her mental state.”

“Do you have reason to believe her mental state may be fragile at this time?” says the woman.

“It’s possible,” says Johnny. I restrain an incredulous noise. The woman nods and taps something into her device.

“Miss Howsley’s brother was a known insurrectionist in your dimension, wasn’t he?” says one of the men. “He was part of an underground terrorist faction.”

Johnny shifts his feet. “Yes…” he says, slowly. “But the faction he led has been rebalanced since his death.”

I can’t help my mouth falling open a little as I stare at him. Bird’s brother was Anonymity. And kind of a deranged psychopath. But what does that have to do with anything?

“Shale Howsley was unhinged,” continues Johnny. “But he was also not related to Bird by blood. They were adopted separately by Bird’s aunt after the pandemic killed their biological parents. I have no reason to believe that Bird shares any of Shale’s psychological issues.”

The man surveys Johnny with narrow eyes for a long moment. “But she has psychological issues of her own.”

“We all have psychological issues of our own,” I interject. Johnny’s head angles ever so slightly back at me, as though he is refraining from turning around to glare at me.

“You’re correct that Bird Howsley has a history of hasty decision-making,” says Dominie. Her voice is formal. Careful. “But I’m failing to see how that’s relevant to what we’re discussing here. Yes, her decision to make an unauthorized leap into this dimension could be seen as reckless, but that shouldn’t have any bearing on how quickly we mobilize to find her.”

“We’re simply trying to ascertain,” says Jasper, “whether or not Miss Howsley poses any threat to our citizens.”

Threat to their citizens? I stare at Jasper, then at the back of Johnny’s head. I don’t feel like I can ‘keep quiet and stand in the back’ much longer.

“We don’t believe she does,” says Johnny.

“That’s unfortunately not for you to decide,” says Jasper.

“Bird is not dangerous!” I blurt.

Dominie’s head snaps around this time. She flares her eyes at me.

“That may very well be the case,” says one of the other men, “but the fact is that you have just informed us that a rogue agent with a history of mental instability and known ties to a terrorist organization is making unauthorized inter-dimensional jumps. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“She’s not a terrorist!” I look from Dominie to Johnny, then desperately to Stavra. “This is ridiculous. She’s been kidnapped. She needs help.”

The room goes still. For a few seconds, it’s quiet enough to hear my own heartbeat. Then one of the women clears her throat and adjusts her position in her chair.

“Kidnapped?”

Johnny and Dominie are both staring at me with hard eyes.

“Kidnapped by who?” says Jasper.

Johnny turns slowly. He draws a long breath and addresses the Council.

“Zenith is dealing with a group of separatists whose demonstrations have recently…escalated. They’re a small but vocal coalition that disagrees with Zenith’s policies. We have reason to suspect that a wing of this coalition may have been involved in Howsley’s disappearance.”

“May have been—?” I interject.

Johnny continues over me, raising his voice. “It’s possible they brought her here. But we don’t believe your citizens have anything to fear from them. They’re not well organized and we don’t think they’re capable of much beyond stirring up trouble and causing a scene.”

My mouth opens to argue again—they blew up the Green! They beat up a student—but another silent glare from Dominie closes it.

The Council members look at each other. The woman nearest Jasper leans over to mutter something in his ear. He nods and turns back to us.

“And this is a different group to the one Howsley’s brother was involved in?”

“It’s possible some of the same organizers may still be involved,” says Johnny. “Howsley’s brother was part of a group called the Anonymity. We call these separatists Exiters.”

“How long have they been organizing?” says the woman.

“A little less than a year,” says Dominie. “But as we said—”

“And now you’re saying they’ve come here?”

The other Council members’ faces light with alarm, and a few begin leaning into each other, murmuring. A sliver of understanding trickles down my spine. This is why Johnny didn’t want to mention the Exiters. Panic.

“Yes, but we don’t believe they intend to infiltrate or cause trouble here,” says Johnny quickly. “We think they may be using this dimension as a way to hide from Zenith.”

“And what do they want with Miss Howsley?” says Jasper.

“She has information that we think they will find valuable,” Johnny replies.

“Information?” Jasper raises a single eyebrow.

“I’m afraid I’m not authorized to disclose any more than that.”

“I see.” Jasper’s eyebrow twitches higher. He turns to the woman on his right and the two confer for a moment. When he turns back to us, he says, “A separatist movement is concerning. It’s worrisome that you’re unable to control your people.”

Dominie frowns. “Forgive me, but we’re not a monolith. People have differences of opinion, as I’m sure they do here. These demonstrators are a nuisance, yes, but ultimately, we think reason will prevail. The majority of our citizens still support Zenith.”

“These rebels—” says one of the women, but Johnny cuts her off.

“‘Rebels’ is a strong word. We never said rebels.”

“These separatists,” amends the woman, “have they somehow gained access to your teleportation technology? How were they able to make the jump to this dimension?”

“We think they used Bird to jump here,” says Dominie. “But…” She glances at Johnny. “It’s possible they may have also gained access to QMTP.”

The remaining Council members mutter to each other, their voices a low rumble in the quiet, chasmal space. Finally, the woman turns to us again. She looks at Dominie and Johnny for a long, hard minute, clasping her hands in her lap before she speaks.

“This Council takes matters of inter-dimensional conflict seriously,” she says. “Something as concerning as inter-dimensional terrorism needs to be brought to the UD—”

“We don’t need to involve the UD,” says Johnny.

“I’m afraid this is out of my hands,” the woman says. “I’m aware that your dimension is new to the United Dimensions, but your leaders are well aware of our edicts and governing principles.”

A man on the far left side suddenly pipes up. “How do we know we can trust you? How do we know you are members of Zenith, and not part of this separatist movement?”

Dominie’s mouth falls open. “Johnny and I have been before this council many times. I have been working with your scientists for nearly eight months.” She turns to Jasper. “You know us.”

“I know you,” says one of the women, “but these men are new to me.” She indicates me and Stavra. Stavra glances at Johnny.

“These men have been vetted,” says Johnny. “I assure you, you can trust them.”

I have the sudden and overwhelming feeling that the room is getting smaller. Something smothering and paranoid has crept in and closed everything around us. I find myself looking over my shoulder at the door, and notice that Stavra is also looking around, as though seeking out more exits.

“Unauthorized inter-dimensional travel is a serious matter,” says the woman. “And your attempt to mislead this Council is alarming. You say we can trust you, and yet you act in a manner that indicates the opposite.”

“We’re just here to find Bird Howsley,” says Johnny.

“How can we be sure?” says the man on the left. “How can we be sure you aren’t here diverting the Council’s attention while your insurgent group attempts to gain control of our government?”

“That’s…” Dominie shakes her head, looking helpless and perplexed. “As we’ve told you before—”

“Whatever you told us before,” interrupts Jasper, his voice turning frighteningly cold, “has been rendered moot by your actions here today.” He observes Dominie with hard, disappointed eyes. “You have lied to this Council and endangered our citizens. Zenith is aware of our policies against those attempting unauthorized entry. This dimension is not open to refugees.”

Dominie just turns to Johnny with her mouth open.

“We’re not seeking asylum,” says Johnny, but Jasper doesn’t appear to be listening. He leans over to the woman next to him and mutters a single word under his breath.

The woman picks up her slate-like device, taps it, then holds it to her ear. “Security. To the Chamber, please.”

The door behind me slides open almost immediately, and five more doors appear as if from thin air in the walls all around us. A complete, three hundred and sixty-degree circle of them. As they slide open, armed guards march into the room, the sound of their boots multiplied to thousands in the echoing space. Stavra reaches for his knife, but Johnny throws a hand across his chest.

“We’ll go quietly. Don’t make a scene.”

I step backward as the guards form a black, impenetrable wall around us, overwhelmed by a nauseating sense of deja vu. “What is happening right now?”

“What does it look like, Genius?” Johnny mutters. “We’re being arrested.”

chapter

thirteen

JOHNNY and I are thrust into a stark, white cell. The guards rip the pack from my shoulders and pat me down, removing the knife from the sheath at my ribs. They take Johnny’s guns and his pack then disappear through a heavy, frosted glass door. I see Stavra and Dominie being hauled off down the corridor outside as it slides shut between us.

The silence is so immediate it’s almost deafening. All I hear is the pounding of my own heart and Johnny’s breathing behind me. I spin around.

“What the hell is going on?”

Johnny draws one long breath through his nose, and blows it back out through his nose.

“Congratulations, Princess.” He steps around me and goes to the door. Spreads his fingers wide and presses both hands against it, as though testing its strength. “You just got my whole team arrested.”

My jaw unhinges. “I’m sorry, I did what?”

“When I told you to stay quiet and stand in the back,” he demands, wheeling away from the door so fast I take an involuntary step backward, “what part of that was confusing?”

“I guess the part where you lied about Bird and made her sound like a criminal.”

He advances on me with flashing eyes, and I’m suddenly very aware of the width of his shoulders. The size of his knuckles and the angular cut of his jaw. He’s bigger than me. Not much. But big enough.

“I didn’t lie to a government in a different dimension,” I say, squaring up. “That was you. What the hell was the point of not telling them about the Exiters? We need them to know what’s going on.”

“You have no idea what we need them to know,” he spits, getting right up in my face, so close I can smell his cologne. Some kind of woody, citrusy smell. He stalks past me and strides to the opposite side of the small room, then spins, shoving both hands through his hair.

“We are dealing with very fragile politics here. These guys are the most powerful dimension in the UD. They’re big. Really big. And they’re paranoid. They have the only stable climate of any of the Parallels we’ve made contact with so far. And they are serious about keeping it that way.”

“I don’t understand.” Frustration is beginning to simmer in the center of my chest. “What does any of that have to do with us finding Bird?”

“Because if they think we’re sending insurgents into their territory, we will be in for a litany of woe. You think the Exiters are the only separatist group trying to escape their own dimension? All the Parallels are falling apart. This Council, these guys running this…utopia—they’re fending off Exiters from some dimension or another all the time. And the only reason they’ve been open to working with us until now is because they think we aren’t a threat. Because we don’t have fringe groups that might try to infiltrate their world and flog things up for them.”

I stand with my mouth open, struggling to absorb this information. “They don’t actually want to help us?”

He sets his mouth into a grim line. “They do because it will keep us out of their world. But it’s a tenuous relationship. Other Parallels have been blocked completely. They just cut them off like a festering toe. You heard that guy: they don’t accept inter-dimensional refugees. They don’t even welcome inter-dimensional travelers.”

He sinks onto a white bench that is molded into the wall.

“If it was just Howsley, they would have been less spooked. Yes, they were asking questions, but ultimately, they know her and they trust her. At least, they did. If I could have passed it off as one of her…you know,” he waves his hand, “blips, we would have been fine. A burned-out employee who made a poor decision. Now, the flogging UD is involved and we’re all going to have to explain to the Nation girls why their new science buddies decided to cut us loose.”

“Wait…” I frown at him. “What do you mean ‘one of her blips’?”

“Howsley’s? You know. How she’ll just go rogue and disappear for a day or two. Electra tried to rein her in when she first started working with us, but you can’t control Howsley. She does what she wants. And Zenith lets her because she’s so valuable to the research.”

I stare at him. In the last year, I have never once been aware of Bird ‘going rogue’. She’s at home every night, burning dinner and tripping over Shenanigans. So…she just hasn’t been showing up for work? Why? Where has she been going?

I purse my lips shut and nod, deciding that now isn’t the time to reveal to this guy that I apparently know even less about Bird’s actions than he does. I’m only on the team because I told them I know how Bird thinks…

“So now what?” I ask.

He scoffs and rubs the top of his head. “That’s anyone’s guess. They may want to question us. Drag us before the UD. It’s a pretty grim situation, Paz. So thank you for that.”

“Well maybe next time you should just give me all the information upfront like I asked you to.”

“Maybe next time,” he snaps, “you should obey a direct order when one is given to you.”

The door behind me slides open. I turn as two armed guards step through, with one of the Council members between them.

“Sargo Paz?” she says.

My heart leaps into my throat. “Yes.”

“Come with us.”

She turns and walks back through the door as the two guards flank me and grab me by the arms. One holds me in place while the other fits heavy, white, hexagonal bracelets over my wrists. I look over my shoulder at Johnny, whose face is unreadable.

“What do I do?”

He shrugs, shaking his head. “Try not to say anything that will get us on an inter-dimensional watch list.”

I see no sign of Stavra or Dominie as the guards march me back along the corridor to the Council Chambers. They stand me in front of the Council, still seated on their chairs, some of them consulting their devices. The woman who retrieved me from my cell takes up her place next to Jasper. I can feel the guards behind me like shadows.

“Sargo…Paz, is it?” Jasper consults his device. “I’ve not seen you here before.”

I swallow and nod, unsure if he’s looking for an answer.

“What’s your position with Zenith?” he says.

“I don’t have a position at Zenith. I’m a sailing instructor.”

His eyebrows furrow. “May I ask…what you’re doing here?”

“Bird Howsley is my girlfr— my partner.” Partner sounds better, right? More legitimate?

His brows unfurrow and his face lights. “I see! Well, that is interesting. You’re worried about her, no doubt?”

My chest unclenches. “Yes.”

He consults the woman next to him and enters something into his device, then looks up at me again. “Are you aware of the United Dimensions’ principles governing travel between Parallels?”

I shake my head. “Sir, until about thirty minutes ago, I didn’t know there was a United Dimensions.”

“You’re just here to find Bird,” he muses, stroking his goatee.

“That’s right.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Miss Howsley,” says the woman to Jasper’s left. “Since you’re here. She seems so important to your dimension’s efforts with QMTP, and she is so difficult to pin down.”

“Yeah, I’m learning that,” I mutter.

“What was that?”

“I said ‘Sure, what do you want to know?’”

“Miss Howsley was instrumental to the development of QMTP, was she not?”

I nod. “She was the first person to ever successfully use it. It was her…specific mental wiring that triggered it to work. Something to do with her ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. I don’t know if anyone fully understands it. But the only way Zenith was able to get the module to function in other people’s biochips was by replicating her brainwave patterns.”

“And she is able to use QMTP in a way that others in your dimension are not, is that right?”

“Yes. She has more freedom.”

“Do you believe this contributed to her becoming a target of these kidnappers?”

I hesitate. I have no idea how much I’m supposed to be telling these people. How much can I say without ending up on some—as Johnny put it—inter-dimensional watch list? Lying only seemed to get us in trouble.

I opt for the truth. “We think the Exiters plan to use her abilities to find another dimension to move to.”

A murmur of alarmed chatter rises from the assembly. Jasper lifts a hand to quiet them and addresses me.

“Is there any possibility, Mr. Paz, that Miss Howsley is, in fact, working with these Exiters?”

“Working with them?” I stare at him and shake my head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She wouldn’t do that.”

Jasper taps some notes into his slate.

“In your experience, is Miss Howsley trustworthy?” says the woman to his left.

“Trustworthy? Yes. I mean…she makes mistakes. But we all make mistakes.”

“Of course. And we are aware of her tendency toward unreliability. But she doesn’t lie or mislead you?”

“I—” My mouth sticks open. Because, yes, apparently, she does. A lot, as it turns out.

The woman notes my hesitation before I can think to shut my mouth. She arches an eyebrow as she makes a note on her device.

“So when you say there is ‘absolutely’ no way she’s working with these insurgents, you could be wrong,” she says.

“I…no. I don’t think so.”

“It could, in fact, have been her idea to bring them to this dimension—if this is indeed where they are.”

I shake my head slowly, feeling like this conversation is being steered into dark, dangerous waters. “No,” I repeat, firmly. “She wouldn’t do that. Zenith is working hard to stop the Exiters. Bird is working hard to stop them. We want the same thing you want. We don’t want to leave our world. We don’t want them to leave our world. We want to fix things. We want to save ourselves.”

“And yet you have risked losing your most promising lifeline by coming in here and lying to this Council today.”

“I didn’t lie. I didn’t have all the facts.”

“Who does have all the facts?”

I shake my head. “I—I guess…Johnny?”

She makes another note in her device. “How well do you know Mr. Abomination?”

A totally inappropriate laugh snorts out of me. “I’m sorry. Mr. Who?”

“Johnny Abomination. How well do you know him?”

“His name is Johnny Abomination? Is that his real name?”

“So you don’t know him well, then?” She lifts her brows.

I pull myself together and shake my head. “No. Obviously not.”

“When did you meet?”

“Two days ago when I joined this team.”

“And do you believe he is trustworthy?”

“Not in the slightest,” I want to say. But something tells me that if I say that, I’ll only be getting us further into trouble. So I set my jaw and say, “Yes.”

His name is Johnny Abomination. That can’t possibly be true.

The woman looks at me for a long moment before turning her gaze down and returning to her device. Jasper motions to the guards behind me.

“Okay, Mr. Paz. I think we have everything we need from you.” She turns to the guards. “Bring in the other one we don’t know. Stavra…what was it? Kïnd?”

The strong hands of the guards close around my biceps. “What happens next?” I ask.

“That will be up to the rest of your team,” says Jasper. “As long as our questions are answered and all of your stories can be corroborated, you should have nothing to worry about. The case will be brought before the UD, of course, so you’ll be held until that time.”

“How long will that be?”

The guards are already steering me toward the door.

My head spins as they march me back down the long corridor toward the cell, the tromp of our boots echoing off the walls like the thoughts ricocheting off the inside of my skull. How long am I going to be trapped here? How long until we can start looking for Bird? How long do we have until the Exiters start using whatever methods they plan to use to get information out of her? What if they’ve already started?

I shut my eyes to block the thoughts.

When I open them again, a dark shape has appeared at the other end of the corridor. Something is coming this way—a trio of people, it looks like. As it draws nearer, I can see it’s two guards and a prisoner, like me.

As I watch, the prisoner lunges sideways. They twist out of the reach of the guards and begin bolting toward us down the corridor, hands still secured in front of them by white bracelets. A shout goes up and the guards behind me seize me by the shoulders and pull me to a halt. A sharp crack rips through the narrow hallway. The prisoner stumbles forward like they’ve tripped over something and goes down hard on their face, not even breaking their fall with their hands.

I stand paralyzed, totally at a loss as to what’s happening. What to do. The guards behind me hold me firmly in place while the two other guards hurry toward the prisoner from the other end of the hall. When they reach the figure, prostrate on the floor, one of them draws a weapon and fires two shots into its back.

I feel those shots inside me like they went into my own chest. The second guard looks up and motions to the men behind me. Again, they seize me by the arms and begin steering me down the corridor.

A rapidly expanding pool of scarlet blood is etched in high contrast against the clean white floor of the corridor. The back of the prisoner’s black jumpsuit is slick and shiny under the light coming in through the ceiling. I try to keep my eyes up, to look at the walls, the door at the end of this tunnel, my shoes—anything that isn’t the grisly mess lying face down on the floor in front of me. But I can’t seem to look away. And as we draw nearer, I note more details. A head of neatly-shaved brown hair. Pale hands. A tattoo snaking out of his shirtsleeve and onto the back of one of them, winding around his thumb.

Stavra.

chapter

fourteen

JOHNNY LOOKS up as I trip across the threshold back into our cell, stupefied, stumbling, blinking against the harsh light and sudden silence. The door slides shut behind me. The guards didn’t even remove my bracelets.

“How was i—gods.” His brow knits. “What happened?”

“They…they—shot. Stavra—they shot Stavra.”

“What?” He’s on his feet.

“Stavra. They shot—”

“I heard you.” His eyes are wide. “What do you mean they shot him?”

“They shot him!” My voice rises. Cracks. “Here. There.” I turn, lifting both cuffed hands to point at the door. “Outside. Right there. You didn’t hear it?”

“I heard…something.” He pushes past me and goes to the door, puts his fingers against it like he might somehow be able to open it. When he can’t, he spins, drawing one hand down his face. He looks nauseous. “They shot him?”

“Yes!”

“Who?”

I’m shaking my head. “Guards. The…guards. I don’t know. He was outside in the corridor—” The room tunnels.

When it comes back, I’m on the floor. Johnny is pulling me to my feet.

“Stand up! You’re okay. Stand up.” He drags me by my elbow to the bench on the other side of the room and throws me onto it.

The room is spinning. I feel sicker than I did on the launchpad this morning. I drop my head between my knees and close my eyes. I can hear Johnny pacing.

“I need you to tell me everything that just happened,” he says, and the tremor in his voice sends a bolt of fear through me. Something about Johnny being shaken makes the whole situation even more frightening.

“I don’t know—he was…coming down the tunnel toward me. There were two guards with him. I think they were taking him to the Chambers? For questioning? Maybe? And he just…ran. Tried to run.”

“He ran?” Johnny continues pacing. I open my eyes. His feet pass mine to the left. Then to the right.

“One of the guards shot him in the back. I didn’t see it was him until—I had to walk past it. It was his tattoo—”

Johnny’s face has turned white. He tugs his shirtsleeve down over his own tattoo, an involuntary movement. “Why would he do that?” he mutters. His voice is still shaking. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Why would they shoot him?”

He stares through me. For a moment, he is so lost that I am legitimately terrified.

“Johnny!”

He shakes his head and continues pacing. For what feels like a weird stretch of eternity the only sound in the room is his boots. I take small breaths until I can take big ones again. Then another beep splits the silence and the door slides open.

Johnny wheels around like a startled animal, reaching for his chest—I assume for the gun he would usually be carrying there, but the guards took everything off us when they dragged us in here. He steps backward as two armed and suited men march into the room. One grabs him under the arms and the other makes for me.

“What is this?” Johnny demands as they drag us back through the door. “What the hell is going on?”

When we get back into the corridor, there is no evidence that Stavra was shot anywhere in sight. It is spotless and eerily empty. If not for the faint smell of bleach I would have to work hard to convince myself that anything had happened at all. How did they clean that up so quickly?

The guards are silent as they steer us down the narrow, high-ceilinged tunnel. Johnny’s furious protestations fill the space. “You shot our teammate? Did you shoot one of us?”

At the end of the corridor is another door. It hisses open as the guard to my right keys a code into the frosted glass, and Johnny and I are again shoved into a small, stark, creepily spotless room. Momentarily blind, blinking against the overhead lights, I stand perfectly still as the door slides shut behind us. I’m still handcuffed. Behind me, Johnny is breathing hard.

“What the hell,” he says. “What the hell is this?”

“Temporary holding cell,” says a thin voice from the other side of the room. I jolt and turn around. A young man is sitting against the wall with his knees pulled up and his elbows resting on them. He looks underfed. His eyes are shadowed and his dark hair is long and greasy.

Johnny stares at him. “Temporary holding cell.”

The young man nods.

“Holding for what?”

He shrugs. “Depends what you did.”

“We didn’t do anything,” says Johnny. He wheels around, stalks to the door, and begins pounding on it with his fists. “Hey! Hey! What the hell is this? Hello?!”

I manage to get my legs to cooperate enough to get me to the wall. I put my back against it and slide to a seat. Johnny’s assault on the door intensifies. He attacks it now with his feet and shoulders. I close my eyes and press the back of my head to the wall. A scarlet pool of blood with Stavra’s tattooed hand lying in it is burned into the backs of my eyelids.

“They don’t like it when you make a fuss,” says the underfed man in the corner. Johnny doesn’t appear to hear him. I’m not sure he could, given the racket he’s making.

When I open my eyes, the man is watching me out of his gaunt, sunken face. He looks away.

The door suddenly beeps and slides open again and Johnny stumbles through it into the corridor outside. Moments later he is thrown back across the threshold. Two men follow him into the room and deliver a couple of swift kicks to his ribs while he is on the floor. He makes an appalling sound as they do it, and puts up his hands.

“Okay!” He gasps. “Okay! Message received.”

The guards retreat to the corridor, and the door shuts behind them. Johnny rolls onto his back and gasps at the ceiling, clutching his ribs.

“I told you they don’t like a fuss,” says the man.

“I got it. Thanks.”

Silence descends. Johnny curses and rubs his ribs. The young man in the corner watches us with hollow eyes.

“How do you know what they don’t like?” I croak.

“Been here a while.”

“How long?”

“No idea. I stopped counting.”

“So not such a ‘temporary’ holding cell then,” says Johnny to the ceiling.

“I think they’re trying to work out what to do with me,” says the man.

“Why’s that?” I ask. “What did you do?”

He shakes his head. “Siphoning water from the municipal supply.”

“For what?”

“A little extra for my garden.”

Johnny looks at him again. “That’s it?”

“It’s a capital offense.”

“A capital offense?”

The man nods. “Most things are.”

Johnny rolls to a seat, groaning, clutching his side. He crawls to sit against the wall next to me and stares at the man. “You’re telling me you can be put to death for watering plants?”

“Oh yeah.” The man nods. “If you water them too much.”

Silence settles again. Finally, Johnny says, “Most things are a capital offense? What does that mean?”

The man purses his lips and studies Johnny for a long moment. Then he says, “You’re not from here, are you?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant, but no,” says Johnny.

“And where you’re from, it’s falling apart, I assume?”

Johnny narrows his eyes and says nothing.

The man chuckles. “Of course it is. They all are. Except for this one.” He lifts his brows. “Any idea why?”

I shake my head.

“We have good policies. That’s all.”

Johnny shifts. “Policies.”

The man nods. “Very strict, very tightly controlled…policies. And the High Council isn’t timid about enforcing them.”

The cold chill of understanding creeps across me like a shadow.

“To keep things together, you have to keep them under control,” says the man. “Keep the order. Keep the peace. There is no room for dissent.”

“They just kill anyone who doesn’t fall in line?” I whisper.

He shrugs, a barely perceptible inclination of his shoulders. “It seems to work. And it keeps the population down.”

The floor seems to go out from under me. Suddenly, I’m finding it very difficult to completely fill my lungs. I exchange a panicked look with Johnny.

“But they haven’t killed you,” says Johnny.

The man holds out his palms to us, as though to prove he is still alive.

“Why not?” I ask.

He flicks his eyes to mine again, then back to the floor. “I’m the son of one of the Councilmen.”

My eyes go wide. “Someone in there is going to execute their own son?”

“Hopefully not,” he says.

“Holy gods,” says Johnny. “Holy gods.”

“What did you do?” The man eyes each of us in turn.

“Nothing!” Johnny grabs at the wall and pulls himself to his feet. “We did nothing!”

“Not according to them!” I point out, scrambling after him, my hands still braceleted together in front of me, using my shoulder against the wall. “According to them we lied to the Council and brought inter-dimensional terrorists here!”

“Mm.” The man nods from his seat on the floor. “That’s a big one.”

The door beeps and slides open, sending my heart hurtling into the back of my throat. Two guards step across the threshold and stop just inside the door.

“Derby Theroux?”

The underfed young man’s head snaps up.

The guard motions to him. “Come with us.”

Derby glances between Johnny and me with a sudden panic-stricken look. He licks his lips, swallows, and gets slowly to his feet. “Any word from my father?” he asks. The guard makes no indication that he’s heard the question.

Derby nods, straightening his shirt. He walks between us and stops in front of the guards, holding out his hands for the bracelets. As they snap them on him, he addresses Johnny over his shoulder. “It’s the hope that kills you, you know.”

The guard snaps the cuffs closed and they shove him through the door.

I stare after them as the door slides shut, willing my brain to process what’s happening and finding that it can’t.

“He just…went with them.”

“What was he going to do?” says Johnny. “Resist?”

The room starts to tunnel again. I bend forward to put my hands on my knees, but I can’t because I’m still handcuffed.

Johnny begins pacing. I close my eyes and take long, hard breaths through my nose. When I open my eyes, Johnny is contemplating the door with one hand pressed to his mouth and the other wrapped around his elbow. His eyes are narrow.

I follow his gaze to the door. “What? You’re not seriously thinking we can get through that?”

He shakes his head. “We can’t. Obviously not.” He lapses into silence again, rubbing his chin. Something about the way he’s studying that door reminds me, weirdly, of Bird. He’s planning something. I can see the wheels turning.

Finally, he looks at me. He lowers his voice until I can barely hear him and says, “Have you ever done, ‘help, help’?”

“...what?”

“Help, help,” he repeats under his breath. “Have you ever done it?”

“I don’t know…what you’re talking about.”

“Help, help!” His voice rises. “You’ve never heard of ‘help, help’?”

“It doesn’t matter how many times you say ‘help, help’!” I snap. “I’m not going to know what you’re talking about! And why are we whispering?”

He stares at the door a moment longer, then turns to me with abrupt decisiveness.

“We’re doing ‘help, help’.”

“I still don’t know what you’re—”

Striding past me, he puts his ear to the door, holding up a hand to silence me. I grit my teeth and glare at him. “They can hear us in here,” he says, almost to himself.

“So?”

“So…” He turns away from the door and keeps his voice low. “So that means we can make a fuss and get them to come in here.”

“And how will that help us?”

“They only ever send two at a time,” he mutters, pacing again, rubbing the top of his head with one hand. “Have you noticed that? Two of them are nothing if we’re ready for them.” He turns his gaze up and squints at the four corners of the ceiling.

“What are you looking for?”

“Cameras.” He lifts his eyebrows at the corner behind me. “There’s one.”

I begin to turn and follow his gaze.

“Don’t look. Just go and sit back down by the wall. And keep your voice down, and I’m going to tell you the plan.”

Something about his tone is so convincing that I just do it. He drops to a seat next me and talks very quickly, keeping his eyes forward, in a voice so low I can barely hear him.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to create a reason for them to come in here. And when they do, we’re going to overpower them.”

“That sounds…really sketchy.”

“It is.” He nods. “We have to get it right or we’re flogged.”

He sizes me up for a moment, as though he’s deciding whether or not I can get it right.

“You will lie on the floor.” He tilts his head to a spot in the middle of the room. “Like you collapsed or something. I will beat on the door and yell for help until a guard comes—hence the name ‘help, help.’ When the guard—or guards—come, I’ll get them all the way into the room by asking them to help me figure out what’s wrong with you. As soon as they’re close enough for both of us to reach, we overpower them.”

“You keep saying ‘overpower’ like it’s something that just happens—”

“Because it will!” His voice tips into impatience. “Have you never overpowered a guard before?”

“No, Johnny, I’ve never overpowered a guard before. When would I have done that?”

“Just…” He sighs in exasperation and sits back against the wall. “It’s not going to be hard, okay?”

His confidence is mind-boggling. He must have been trained to give orders at some point, because he has this strangely powerful aura. Like the fact that he believes in this might actually make it work.

I sigh. “Okay. Let’s say I go along with your insane plan and we overpower the guards. Then what? Then we’re just in here with two unconscious guards.”

“Then we take their clothes, idiot.” He taps the front of his head. “Right?”

“Are you serious? Are you seriously suggesting we pull some kind of hijinx? This is like something out of a vid stream off the Net!”

“Of course it is! It’s a classic. And it’s a classic for a reason.” He shifts his gaze back to the door again.

“How am I supposed to change my clothes with my flogging hands cuffed?”

He pauses, rubbing his chin, contemplating the cuffs around my wrists, then holds out his hand. “Let me see them?”

I extend my hands toward him and he leans in to inspect the cuffs, turning my hands over in his. His fingers are unexpectedly soft. I prickle, suddenly nervous about being so close to him. He could literally snap my finger in half if he wanted to. Finally, he lets go, shrugging.

“I don’t know. You’re just going to have to figure it out.”

I shake my head in disbelief. Of all the short-sighted, reckless, totally insane plans Bird ever came up with, none was as short-sighted, reckless, or totally insane as this. Gods, I would give anything for a hair-brained Bird Howsley scheme right about now.

“Are you listening?” Johnny demands, and I realize he’s been talking.

I blink. “No.”

“Flog’s sake, Paz.” He drags both hands down his face. “I’m saying that there’s a camera in here, so when you go down, you need to make it look convincing.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“If they’re watching us, they need to think there’s actually something wrong with you. You have to make it look like you’re in distress. Like something’s really wrong.”

“What am I, a flogging actor now?”

He tilts his eyebrow, smirking. “You’re certainly pretty enough.”

My jaw locks and I have to fight hard not to reach across the gap between us, grab him by the back of the head, and slam his smug face into the wall.

“Is this fun for you? Are you, like, getting off on this? We’re in a—” He lifts his eyebrows and I drop my voice to a hiss. “We’re in a flogging inter-dimensional prison. We’re facing execution.”

He shrugs. “It beats accounting.”

I stare at him. His eyes are bright with some kind of near-manic light. His concern for Stavra seems to have disappeared entirely. Did he even care about Stavra at all?

He checks over his shoulder, eyeing the camera again. I spot it now too, a tiny, black, mirrored hemisphere set into the ceiling.

I frown. “Wait…if there’s a camera in here, aren’t they going to see us ‘overpowering the guards’? They’re going to send more people in as soon as they spot that.”

Johnny nods his head, once, tightly. “Yes. But it’ll be fine. We just have to be quick. Once we get them down, we’ll have one minute, tops, maybe less, to get dressed and get out of this room before anyone gets here. Once you’re in the uniform and you’re outside that door, you’re clear. Just act like you’re going somewhere in a hurry and that you’re meant to be there. ”

“That’s…” I shake my head. “Really sketchy.”

“It is. So we have to get it right.”

“Couldn’t we just…take out the camera? That would make them come in here and then we could—”

He’s already shaking his head. “No. I like where your head’s at, but no. If we take out the camera, they’ll know something’s up. They’ll come in already wary and prepared. We need to take them by surprise.”

“How do we know they’ll even come? They’re holding us here to execute us. What do they care if one of us suddenly drops dead?”

He sighs again and shakes his head. “Just…they will, okay? Just trust me.”

“Trust you? You lied to—”

“I’m aware of what I did. I’m trying to get us out of this. Are you always this resistant to good ideas?”

“I just like to consider all the sides.”

“Oh, like you did before you opened your mouth and got us into this mess in the first place? Ah, shit!” He claps a hand to his forehead. “Dominie.”

“Oh…Jesus. Right.”

“Shit shit shit. Okay. Well, we’ll just have to get her out too.”

“What?”

“Once we’re in those uniforms and we’re through that door, we can do whatever we like. We’ll figure out which cell she’s in and get her out.” He leans back against the wall, spreading his palms. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready, Romeo.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to walk out into the middle of this room and just…fake a heart attack?”

“Or ideally something that doesn’t require you to be eighty years old in order to look convincing.”

I stare at him. The words inter-dimensional terrorist and execution keep finding their way to the front of my head, and they are making it impossible to think about anything else. Johnny snaps his fingers.

“Paz? Hello? Go! Now.”

chapter

fifteen

“HELP!”

Johnny’s shout is a harsh rasp as he beats on the door with two fists and one foot. “Help! Somebody help!”

From where I lie in the middle of the floor, I can hear the distant echo of footsteps somewhere along the corridor.

“We need help in here!”

The footsteps stop. There is a moment of quiet, and then they start up again. They draw gradually closer. I keep my eyes closed and try not to breathe as they stop outside the door.

“What’s going on in there?” says a voice.

“We need help!” Johnny yells. “My partner collapsed!”

A long beat of silence ensues, during which I silently pray to whatever gods might be floating around up there—do they even have them in this dimension?—that my life doesn’t end in the next three minutes.

Finally, the voice says, “Stand back.”

I hear Johnny’s footsteps retreat. The door beeps and slides open. Footsteps step across the threshold. I try to count the steps. Is it one guard? Two? More?

Johnny walks to the middle of the room, where I’m still on my back with my eyes closed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He just went down. Please, you have to check on him.”

The footsteps follow Johnny.

“He just went down?” says the guard, and I can’t tell if I hear a note of disbelief in his voice, or if it’s my own internal panic making me think I do.

“Yes!” says Johnny.

The footsteps stop beside my head. I hear the rustle of clothing as the guard, I assume, kneels to look at me. I feel his fingers on my neck.

“Still has a pulse,” says the guard, “I think—”

A dull thud, and the guard utters a grunt.

“Paz!” yells Johnny. “Up!”

I blink open my eyes. The guard is crawling away on all fours. Johnny lunges after him as I roll to my knees and look around. There is no one else in the room; the guard must have come in alone. Johnny grabs at the guard’s jacket as he makes it to his feet.

“Paz!” he yells again. “For flog’s sake!”

Staggering to my feet, I lurch after Johnny, who has the guard by the jacket now and heaves him backward. The guard trips and stumbles in a circle around Johnny, and I bring my cuffed hands up between us as he collides with my chest. We topple to the floor and I get a knee into his groin, and he buckles around it, gasping. Johnny appears at my side, grabs the guard by the hair, and delivers a single, swift blow to his face. The guard groans and goes limp. Johnny lets go of his hair and I shove him sideways. He sags to the floor, blood seeping from his nose.

Johnny, breathing hard, braces his hands on his knees and looks at me. “See?” His eyes are wild, bright, and round. “Easy peasy.” He shakes out his knuckles, drops to his knees next to the guard, and begins tugging open the man’s jacket.

“What am I supposed to do?” I demand. “There’s only one of them.”

“No, this is perfect,” Johnny pants, not looking at me as he gets the jacket off and swings it around his own shoulders. “With your cuffs, I mean. You’re a prisoner. I’m taking you somewhere. It’s classic! You were never gonna get the jacket on anyway.” He yanks open the zipper on the man’s pants. “Help me get his pants off.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” I shove my cuffed hands in his face. “I have no hands, remember?”

He just shakes his head in disgust, waves me off, wrangles the man’s shoes off, and begins undoing his own zipper. He looks at me and I realize I’m staring at his crotch.

“Are you enjoying the show?” he demands. “Do something useful! Put your head around the door and see if anyone else is coming!”

Biting back a retort, I sprint to the door and flatten myself to the wall beside it. I poke my head around the corner and look up and down the corridor.

“Nothing yet.”

“Amazing!” Johnny sounds giddy with excitement, and when I look back at him, he is rolling on his back with his legs in the air, struggling into the guard’s pants. “This is going better than I thought it would.”

“You are enjoying this.”

“Enjoying? I wouldn’t say that. Appreciating. I’m appreciating how well this is going.” He gets the pants buttoned, rolls onto his side, and then staggers to his feet; hops on one foot and then the other to pull on his shoes, then straightens and looks at me. “Ready?”

I put my head around the corner again. The corridor is still empty. “I guess so.”

His firm grip clamps around my elbow, and before I can resist, he shoves me through the door and into the corridor. As we walk briskly along it, a group of three guards runs around the corner at the end. My heart spikes and cold panic floods me, but they don’t even look at us as they run by. I swallow what feels like a knot of pure adrenaline and mutter out of the side of my mouth, “Where are we going?”

“I’m not sure,” Johnny mutters back as he steers me around the corner at the end of the corridor. The hallway we’re in T’s into another, and Johnny stops. “We need to find Dominie. I’m guessing she was in the same cell as—” His face pales. “Stavra.” He swallows. “Where did Stav come from? When you saw him?”

“Uh…” I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, struggling to remember. “That way.” I tilt my chin to the right. Johnny nods, clearing his face, then redoubles his grip around my arm and pushes me ahead of him. “Do you really need to be holding me?” I mutter. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“This is more convincing,” he says. Another group of guards comes around the corner and we both fall silent until they pass. “Besides,” he mutters, “I still don’t know if I can trust you not to do something stupid.”

The corridor is lined with doors and as we pass each one, I grow increasingly nervous. Johnny has fallen silent, and I sense that he is thinking the same thing I am: we have no idea which door Dominie may be behind, and even if we did, I don’t know how we would get it open. Johnny stops again, pulling me to a halt. He drops my elbow and begins rifling through the pockets of the jacket he took off the guard.

“What are you looking for?”

“A key,” he mutters. “There must be a key or something.”

“The doors all operate by code,” I remind him.

“Even if they do, there’s gotta be some kind of override. Aha!” His face lights up and he removes his hand from the front breast pocket of the jacket with a small, slender card between his fingers. He waves it in my face. “God, I’m good at this.”

“Okay, great. So now what? We still have no idea where she is.”

He doesn’t respond, and we walk in silence for a few steps. Then he abruptly stops again.

I turn. “What?”

He fixes me with a hard stare, as though contemplating something, then cups his hands around his mouth, tips his head back, and screams, “Dominie!”

“Jesus Christ!” I jolt backward, looking frantically up and down the corridor. “What are you doing?!”

He ignores me, cupping his hands around his mouth again. “Dominie?!”

“Are you out of your mind?”

I grab his shoulder with my cuffed hands, but he throws me off and puts a finger in my face to silence me. I glare at him as he listens to the echo of his own voice bouncing down the corridor.

Then, faintly, muffled, from the far end of the hallway, I hear, “Johnny?”

Johnny shoots me a grin and wiggles his eyebrows, and sprints off in the direction of the voice.

“Flog’s sake.”

We arrive, panting, at the next corner, and Johnny doubles over with his hands on his knees before tipping his head back and yelling for Dominie again. The voice that answers him is closer this time, and we track it to a door in the next hallway. Johnny fits the key card into a slot next to it and the door slides open.

Dominie is pale-faced and panicked behind it.

“Oh my gods!” She grabs Johnny in a breathless, one-armed hug, then pushes him away, frowning. “What are you wearing?”

Johnny grins. “We did ‘help help’.”

Dominie’s eyes flick to my cuffed hands. A shout issues from somewhere down another corridor.

“That’ll be them,” says Johnny.

I glance nervously over my shoulder. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“Where’s Stavra?” says Dominie.

Johnny’s face pales again. He shakes his head grimly.

Dominie’s brow knits. “What?”

Johnny swallows and turns away, scanning the corridor. “Ask him.”

Her eyes shoot to mine. I shrug helplessly. This is Johnny’s job to explain, not mine. But he seems weirdly shaken by Stavra’s death in a way I wouldn’t have expected.

“What?” she demands.

“Shot.”

“What?!”

I nod. She covers her mouth with her hand.

Footsteps sound in the other corridor, drawing closer. I look nervously at the other two faces. “Does anyone remember the way out?”

“Of course I remember the way out.” Johnny snaps. He turns back to us and puts both hands on Dominie’s shoulders. “Are you going to keep it together?”

She glares at him with eyes rimmed with tears. “Are you?”

Something passes across Johnny’s face that I haven’t seen there before. If I thought he was capable of it, I might call it a moment of real fragility. He squeezes and releases her shoulders, then shoves past me, and takes off down the corridor in the opposite direction from the footsteps. “Let’s go!” He doesn’t bother to look back as he rounds the corner and disappears. Dominie sprints after him.

When I turn the corner I see the two of them ahead of me and a clear shot to the door at the end of the hallway. By the time I’m halfway to the door, Johnny has reached it and shoved the key card into a reader. Behind me, footsteps come around the corner. A shot cracks down the corridor and Johnny shouts and stumbles, clutching his shoulder. Dominie catches him under the arm and when I reach them, she is hauling him through the open door. Spinning around, I see three guards running flat out toward us.

“Paz!” Johnny shoves the key card into my hand. “Get the door!”

I slam the card into the reader and a bullet whangs into the door as it closes between us and the guards.

In the abrupt silence, Johnny hisses through his teeth and doubles over, clutching his shoulder. Blood is seeping from the back of it.

“We need to keep going,” says Dominie.

Johnny somehow sprints down the next corridor, despite having been winged, but drops of blood are beginning to dot the floor in his wake. As we round the next corner, I hear the door open behind us. A bullet zings off the wall next to me, spraying the side of my face with dust and plaster. Ahead of us is another door, and on the other side of it, the wide atrium through which we entered the building. Sunlight and green grass are just beyond the dome’s massive exterior glass wall, and we shove startled people out of the way, leaping over planters of veg and boxes of flowers as we sprint to the main entrance.

Behind us, a guard yells “Stop!” but no more shots are fired; it’s crowded in here. Innocent bystanders. Plus the walls are literally made of glass. We make it to the door and I toss the key card as we dive through it to the outside. The sun is hot and bright and the air is clear as we sprint across the vast lawn, over the bridge, and onto the street.

“Back to the launchpad!” Johnny yells as we round a corner and begin wading through a crowd three-deep. “We need to get back to Brume and disable the launchpad.”

“Can we do that?” I pant.

“Yes.” Dominie ducks around a man in a suit. “Any of the launchpads can be disabled from either end. We can stop them jumping after us.”

“And then what?” I gasp, dodging an old woman’s elbow. “Will they come after us? Can they?”

“I don’t know,” Dominie yells over her shoulder. “But I’d say our relations with them are shot. My guess is they’ll disable the launchpad from their end too, to stop us coming back.”

I almost stop short. “We can’t come back? What if Bird is still here?”

Dominie doesn’t answer. Looking back I see five guards weaving through the crowd behind us. To say our relations with these people are ‘shot’ seems like a massive understatement.

We make it to the bottom of the wide steps that lead up to the university campus. My lungs are burning and my legs are shaking by the time we reach the top, and I’m honestly impressed that Johnny is still standing. He seems to be running on pure adrenaline. But we’ve lost speed—the first of the guards reaches the bottom of the stairs as we step off the top. We skid across the quad and around the fountain, and as I reach the door that leads to the main lobby where the launchpad is, I feel a hand around my arm.

“Domin—”

I try to yell as the hand yanks me backward. I sprawl on my back, one of the guards’ knees landing hard in the middle of my chest. Over his shoulder, Dominie turns, her face lighting with alarm. She lunges at the guard, throws an elbow against the side of his head, and I get my hands onto his shoulders and push him off me. Dominie reaches down a hand to pull me to my feet, and behind her Johnny heaves open the door to the lobby and waves us through.

We sprint to the elevator where Dominie slams her hand against the button. The ancient, metal doors are almost comically slow to open and I glance over my shoulder again at the two guards outside. One is picking himself up off the ground as the other opens the door to the lobby. The other three have caught up and are pulling weapons from their belts. A shot rings into the air and people scream and run in all directions. I duck and throw my arms over my head.

“Gods, these doors!” screams Dominie, kicking one side of them as they wheeze open. The gap between them grows just large enough for her to slip through and she turns sideways and shoves her shoulders between them. Johnny and I trip through behind her and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the launchpad. The doors are still opening, and we are now completely exposed, standing in this little box like sitting ducks. In the mirrored wall in front of me, I see a guard raise his weapon over my shoulder.

Dominie taps her temple and recites all of our names in a panicked, breathless stream and then yells, “Brume One.”

As she utters the last syllable, the guard pulls the trigger.

The feeling of QMTP prickles the underside of my skin and time seems to slow. In the mirror, the air around the gun ripples as the bullet explodes out of the barrel. The sound of the bullet is strange—deep and warped, as though I’m hearing it underwater or from the other side of the universe. It streams through the air toward me, leaving a rippling, silver trail behind it, and as it reaches its mark—right between my eyes—the world splinters into light and I disappear.

____________________

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Paradi stands with her hands on her hips at the entrance to the medic station on Zenith’s ground floor. Even from where I sit, on a gurney across the room, I sense she is vibrating with fury. A medic is checking my vitals with his fingers on the side of my neck.

Johnny lies face down and shirtless on a gurney across the room from me, and I can see the rest of his tattoo now—a dragon winding around his neck and left shoulder, down his arm, and onto the back of his hand. Underneath it is an impressive set of muscles. The bullet, already dislodged, lies in a little metal bowl on a counter against the wall.

Johnny winces as a medic dabs at his bloody shoulder with some kind of astringent ointment that I can smell from all the way across the room. He glares at Paradi. “You’re the one who sent Wonder Boy here on a mission he wasn’t qualified for.”

“Regardless,” snaps Paradi. “As team leader, you’re responsible for the outcome. It’s up to you to make sure each member of your team has what they need to be successful.”

“And it’s up to you,” Johnny growls, “to provide me with team members who aren’t going to jeopardize the mission. Stavra is dead because of him.”

“Stavra is dead because he panicked,” says Paradi, flatly.

I can feel my eyebrows lift. Johnny stares at Paradi.

“Stav was a good operative. He knew how to handle himself. Everything would have been fine if Paz hadn’t—”

“When we assigned Sargo to your team, I told you to equip him with whatever he needed to be successful. We were under the impression that you would brief him.”

The medic taps Johnny on the shoulder and he sits up, lifting his arm so the medic can begin winding a bandage around his wound. I become aware that I’m staring at Johnny’s torso and put my eyes on the ground. He is impressively built: broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, without a shred of fat on him. I don’t know where he gets off calling me pretty—he looks like some kind of carefully-sculpted marble statue.

“We’ve been in contact with the High Council from Brume Two,” says Paradi. “They’ve agreed not to come after you themselves, but they’re taking this to the UD and eventually there will be a hearing of some kind.”

“They’re putting us on trial?” Johnny demands. “Does the UD even know what they’re doing over there? They killed one of us.”

“I am aware. It will be brought to the hearing. But the UD has no say in how dimensions govern themselves. Brume Two may operate in a way that we don’t understand or agree with, but unfortunately, it’s not up to us to arbitrate. What happened with Stavra…” She sighs. “I agree, to us it’s unthinkable. Inexcusable. But it’s not up to us.”

“So the UD—”

“Brume Two is the most powerful dimension in the UD,” Paradi says. “It’s very unlikely that they’ll receive more than a slap on the wrist. The silver lining is that their secret is out now, and I imagine the rest of the UD will be pretty reticent to engage with them anymore.”

“Which would probably suit the High Council fine,” Johnny mutters.

Paradi nods grimly. “Honestly, I think you’re right. They’ve made it very clear that they won’t take inter-dimensional refugees. They were extremely reluctant to even open communication with us. My guess is Brume Two will withdraw from the UD completely and sever all ties to any other dimension. They’ve already disabled our launchpad from their end and are barring us from ever coming back.”

My stomach drops. “But…if Bird is still there—”

“I will raise our concerns about Bird at the hearing,” Paradi says. “For now, we’ll continue our search as planned in the other Parallels that Johnny identified.” She turns to the medic tending to Johnny’s shoulder. “Will he be in reasonable shape to jump tomorrow?”

“I’ll be fine,” says Johnny. The medic shoots Paradi a look.

Paradi purses her lips. “Let’s take some time to recuperate. Electra is procuring you a replacement team member anyway. It may take her a day or so.”

Johnny glares at her. “I’d rather choose my own reports.”

“You chose Stavra,” Paradi replies. “And he performed poorly. You’ll be taking Electra’s replacement, and you’ll be taking Paz again.”

Johnny glares at me. “Why?”

“Because the next location you’ll be jumping to will see you benefiting greatly from his unique skill set.”

I frown at her. “What unique—”

“This is bullshit,” says Johnny. “I’ve been to that Parallel and never needed Paz before.”

“Regardless,” says Paradi, “we have him now and we may as well put him to use.”

The medic taps Johnny on the shoulder and he snatches up his shirt and begins pulling it on, glaring at me. “Paz needs to step back and let the grownups handle this.”

I glare back. “Nothing that happened in Brume Two was my fault.”

He scoffs and turns to Paradi. “I need you to trust that I know how to do my job.”

“And I need you to perform your job to a standard that I can trust!”

Johnny’s face goes rigid. He hops down from the gurney, stalks across the room, and Paradi steps aside as he reaches the door.

“Sargo will bring value to your team,” she says.

Johnny pauses in the doorway. “What value would that be? I think I’m good with just the one bullet in my shoulder, thanks.”

He walks out, and Paradi sighs and nods to the two medics, who follow him. She watches me over their shoulders as they pass. When we’re alone, she says, “You’re not off the hook. I thought I could count on you to obey a direct order when you’re given one.”

I grit my teeth. “You can.”

“Are you sure about that? Because you used to be so reasonable. Now I don’t know if I can trust you not to do something stupid.”

I narrow my eyes. “I’m still reasonable.”

She looks at me for a long time, then shakes her head. “Go home. We’ll regroup tomorrow.”

I pick up Shanny from Jade and Kestrel’s and head back to Panga. The docks are wreathed in fog and the air is heavy and cold. Panga’s main cabin is musty from being shut up for a couple of days so I throw open the hatches to air her out and put the kettle on to warm the place up. Shanny sits on the top step of the companionway looking down at me as I lean against the counter in the galley with my arms folded, frowning at the floor.

It wasn’t my fault things went south in Brume Two. Johnny should have told me what was going on. Just because he’s built like a marble statue and has the infuriating over-confidence of a peace force sergeant he thinks it gives him the right to treat people badly? He didn’t even seem to care that Stavra died. Just went right into that ‘help help’ nonsense, talking about how ‘it beats accounting’ and having a grand old time ‘overpowering the guard.’ Flogging adrenaline junkie. Stupid dragon tattoo.

The kettle whistles. I snatch it off the heat and scoop some tea into the pot, seething. The scent of cinnamon and oranges fills the cabin as I pour the boiling water over the leaves, and it hits me so squarely in the gut that I have to set the kettle down. It smells just like Bird.

I stand for a long time with my hands on the countertop and my head down, breathing in that smell, until Shanny’s cold, wet nose comes whiffling into my ear.

“Snap out of it, man,” he seems to say as I look up at him.

I nod and squeeze his ears with one hand. “We’re gonna find her, Buddy.”

He pokes my shoulder with his nose. “Sure, Buddy.”

Dinner is perfectly cooked, stress-free, and lonely. Bed is cold.

chapter

sixteen

BANG BANG BANG.

The thing behind the door is knocking again.

It knocks continuously now. Three loud bangs in quick succession, then silence. A minute or so passes. Then it does it again. Heavy knocks. Like someone pounding on the door with their fist. Whatever it is must be strong to be able to make that noise.

Really strong.

I stand back from the wall, maybe ten feet or so away. I don’t want to get any closer. Whatever that thing is, I have a feeling it’s going to find a way through that door. And I don’t know why, but I really, really don’t want it to.

I tilt my head back to contemplate the top of the wall, so far above me that it’s lost in cloud. Could the thing behind the wall climb over it? I’m not sure. If it could, I suppose it would have already. So perhaps I don’t need to worry about that.

Bang bang bang.

“What’s that?”

I jump and turn around. Bird is standing behind me, frowning at the wall over my shoulder. She looks fuzzy around the edges, like a misremembered painting. Small details not rendered. I reach out and touch her cheek. Her skin is soft and warm. Real. Or perhaps I’m as insubstantial as she is. My fingers are fuzzy around the edges too.

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

“Sounds like someone’s trying to get in.” Our voices are thin and vast in the endless space. I’ve never spoken here before.

“Mhm.”

“What’s on the other side?”

“I don’t know.”

She frowns at me. “You’ve never been over there?”

I shake my head.

“Why not?”

“There isn’t any way through.”

She rolls her eyes and removes my hand from her cheek, taking it in hers. “Sounds like you haven’t been trying very hard.”

She steps around me, dragging me toward the door.

“Bird…I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Come on. Aren’t you curious?”

“Honestly? No, not really.”

“Why not?”

Bang bang bang.

I stop, pulling her to a halt.

She eyes the door. “It does sound…big.”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” She takes a decisive breath and redoubles her grip around my hand. “I want to know what it is.”

I resist as she tries to pull me to the door again. With a frustrated huff she drops my hand and strides up to the door on her own, presses her palms flat to it, and pushes on it. Johnny’s face flashes through my head. The way he tested the door in that prison cell.

“It’s heavy,” she says.

“Yup.” I fold my arms.

She walks her hands to the crevice that runs around the edge of the door and presses her fingertips to it. “There’s warm air coming through.”

“Uh-huh.”

Bang bang bang.

She turns to look at me over her shoulder. “Are you really not curious? It’s warm over there!”

“It’s fine over here.”

She rolls her eyes again and turns back to the door. “I bet, if we could wedge something in here…” She traces her fingers down the crack.

“Bird, seriously, I don’t want to open it.”

She isn’t listening. I can tell she isn’t listening. She kneels now, closing one eye and putting the other right up against the tiny gap. “I wonder if we could see through…”

“Bird!”

She tuts and scowls at me. “What?”

“You’re not listening to me! I told you I don’t want to open it.”

“Ugh!” She waves a hand and turns back to the crevice. “You’re being ridiculous.”

A spark of frustration ignites in my gut. I grab her under the arm and pull her to her feet. “Stop!”

“Ow! That hurts.”

We glare at each other. I draw and release a long, hard breath and let go. “Sorry.”

Rubbing her arm, she looks at me for a long moment. Then something in her gaze shifts. “It’s fine. Maybe I liked it.”

My stomach flips over. “What?”

“Maybe I liked it. Hurting a little.”

“No you didn’t.”

She shrugs. “Maybe I like you telling me what to do. Getting angry.”

My blood heats. I take a step toward her and she shrinks, her eyes flaring. “You don’t like me telling you what to do, Howsley. You don’t like anyone telling you what to do.”

She lets me advance until I have her flat against the wall. Until our chests are flush and my hips are pinning her there. A chunk of hair falls across her eyes and I gently brush it back, tucking it behind her ear.

“But you like telling me what to do,” she whispers, looking up at me. “Don’t you?”

“Maybe.” I let my fingers graze the side of her face. “Maybe I would like it more if I thought you would actually listen.”

She tilts her mouth. “I don’t think you would. I think that would be too easy. Isn’t that part of the fun?”

I slide one hand into her hair and grip a handful of it. She gasps, and the sound makes my pulse spike. I can’t help but think that she’s right: fighting her is part of the fun.

Pulling her head back, I lower my mouth to hers. “You should be careful, Howsley. You don’t want to make things too difficult for me.”

Her eyes glint. She slips her hand between our hips and feels for me through my pants. “But I do want to it just hard enough…”

“Mm…” I press my lips to the corner of her mouth, kiss along her jaw. “Stupid jokes, Howsley. I’m tired of your stupid jokes.”

I nip her earlobe and she yelps, lifting a hand to my chest to push me away, but I snatch it by the wrist and pin it to the wall by her head. Her eyes go wide as I shove her thighs open with my knee and grind into the heat between them.

“Are you going to do what I say?” I hiss against her neck.

“I don’t know,” she gasps. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stop making stupid jokes.”

“Okay.” Her voice is breathless. “What else?”

Pulling back, I look down at her. Her lips are parted and her eyes bright, watching me. My dick throbs against her.

“What else…” I reach for her other hand and pin it to the wall by her head as well. I roll my hips against her again and watch her writhe. The thought that I could tell her to do whatever I wanted—and that she might actually do it—makes my head swim with need.

Releasing her wrists, I step back. “Get on your knees.”

The words come out hoarse, and her chest rises sharply. She doesn’t move. The air between us is so filled with crackling heat that I feel like I might ignite.

“Get on your knees, Howsley,” I repeat.

She swallows and then, very slowly, keeping her eyes on mine, she does it. I can feel my blood rising as she sinks before me, until I’m so hard it feels like I might burst through the front of my pants. She blinks up at me, feigning innocence, and says, “Now what?”

I tug open my belt and reach inside, groaning with relief as my straining cock is freed, then I slide my other hand into her hair and pull her head back again. Her breath hitches.

“Aren’t you going to tie me down?” she whispers.

“Is that what you want?”

Breathlessly, she nods.

I widen my stance, using my hand to slip my tip into her mouth. “Well, if you’re good, and do this right, maybe I’ll do that next time.”

Her eyes darken as I slip all the way in, my breath disappearing at the feel of her warm, wet mouth closing around me. She doesn’t take her eyes from mine as she sucks me down, swirling her tongue down the length of my shaft, and I grip her hair tighter, bracing my other hand against the wall.

“Shit, Howsley.”

She hums, and the sound vibrates through my balls. I hit the back of her throat, and she starts to pull back, but I grab the back of her head to keep her there, pushing harder, pressing my forehead to the wall as I look down into her eyes. She tries to pull back again, but I don’t let her. I can’t. It feels so good. Something about this is different. It’s not like she’s never done this before, but this feeling of control—of having her like this…

Filthy words are surging into my head like boiling water. The kinds of things I’ve never said to her before. I feel like I can’t stop them from coming out of me.

“Good girl,” I growl. “You fucking take it.”

Her eyes go wide. I pull out and slide into her again before she can catch a breath, slower, harder, forcing myself even further down her throat, until she whimpers and I feel her panicked hand tapping the back of my thigh.

When I pull out and let go of her hair, she gasps and chokes. Anxiety pierces the cloud of lust fogging my brain. I reach down to cup her face and turn it up to mine. “Are you okay?”

Her chest rises and falls hard as she blinks back at me. Then she nods.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She wipes the corner of her mouth, and smiles. “Do it again.”

My blood rages and I feel my legs quiver. “You like it.”

She nods, tucking her bottom lip between her teeth. My hand is in her hair before I even know what I’m doing, but as I start to thrust into her again, she pulls back.

“Are you going to do what I want?”

I blink, feeling foggy. “Of course. Anything.”

“You’re going to tie me down?” Her lips brush the tip of my shaft. “Next time?”

“Fuck. Yes.”

She kisses me. “And make me beg for it?”

“Howsley, I’m going to make you fucking sob for it.”

She smiles, parting her lips, and I cram myself into her, groaning.

“I’m going to make it so good for you Howsley. I’m going to make it so fucking good for you.”

She moans around me, another mind-bending vibration that goes straight to my balls. I pull out and sink into her again, faster.

“I’ll make you scream for me. I’ll make you come so hard people hear you in fucking Alluvium. People are going to fucking worry about you, Howsley.”

With every insane thing that comes out of my mouth, I bury myself in the back of her throat, faster, and harder, and deeper, until the pressure in my balls is unbearable; until we’re both soaked with spit and I’m so close I can’t think anymore, and all can I do is gasp through the blazing inferno in my head,

“I’m gonna come. Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”

I find her eyes, staring back up at me. The sight of her with my cock sunk deep in her mouth, watching me, hungry, undoes me. Release blows through me like a bomb going off. I clutch the back of her head and hold her against me as it courses out of me, wave after wave of sweet, blissful relief pumping through me into her.

By the time I swim out of the flood and back into myself, I’m crumpled against the wall, struggling to stand.

“Jesus, Howsley,” I gasp, “Jesus…”

I open my eyes and blink at the empty space on the ground before me.

Howsley is gone.

chapter

seventeen

I WAKE with Bird’s voice in my head.

“Do it again.”

My heart is beating through my chest and my dick is swelling painfully against my shorts. I try to take deep breaths to clear my head. But I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t see straight. I’ve never seen Bird in that dream before. I’ve never had a dream like that before.

“I’m going to make it so good for you, Howsley. I’m going to make it so fucking good for you.”

What was I even saying? Something about people being worried about her? That’s nonsense.

I have to finish myself twice before I can even think about doing anything productive like getting out of bed. Afterward I sprawl on my back on the bunk, gasping, as sane thoughts start to find their way back into my head. I stare at the ceiling and try to remember what I’m supposed to do today.

Zenith. Go to Zenith and jump to Brume Three. Find Bird. Bring her home.

Make her come so hard people worry about her.

Eventually. Let’s focus on the other things first.

Struggling up, I pull on my clothes, then hunt around for my spare pack, since my favorite one was confiscated in Brume Two. I find it under the bunk with a large amount of Shanny hair stuck around the top of it. I lift my eyebrows at him.

“Sleeping in my pack again?”

He tilts his head and wobbles his tail.

With my clothes on and my pack rid of as much hair as possible, I do a pass through Panga, stuffing a few things into it—yet another knife, rope, spare marlin spike. With a pang, I remember that my great-great grandfather’s nox were in the pack that got taken in Brume Two. I’ll probably never see those again.

Shanny follows me anxiously, wagging his tail and trying to sniff everything I grab. I don’t even know what time it is. All I know is that it’s early, and I want to get to Zenith and make my presence known before anyone changes their mind about having me on the team for the next jump. I throw open the main hatch and climb up the companionway steps to the deck.

“Let’s go!”

Shanny scampers up next to me and I lock the hatch and hop over the rail onto the dock. The air is cold enough to see my breath, and the light is dim and gray.

I jog through the empty streets and take the steps up to Kestrel and Jade’s place two at a time. Jade answers the door looking puffy-eyed, her hair frizzy. She squints at me, then at Shanny.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s really early. I need you to watch him again.”

She rubs her face with both hands, then nods and steps back, wordlessly opening the door.

“I can’t stay.” I drop to one knee and squeeze Shanny’s ears. “Be good, okay, Buddy? I love you. I’ll be right back.”

When I stand, Jade is frowning at me. She croaks something that isn’t quite a word and clears her throat.

“We haven’t found anything yet,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. I have to go. He’s okay here?”

She rubs her face again and nods. I hug her with one arm and take off down the stairs.

Zenith headquarters are quiet—must be too early for protestors. I jog through the lobby and down the corridor that I know leads to the main lab, and as I round a corner I run headlong into Electra coming the other way.

She takes me in with her usual impatience. “What are you doing here already?”

“Just want to make sure no one leaves without me.”

She tosses her hair. “No one’s leaving without you, Sargo.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Johnny.”

Sighing, she falls into step beside me. When we reach the door to the lab and it slides open, Johnny and Dominie are already sitting around the table on the other side.

Johnny throws up his hands as I follow Electra into the room.

“Are you kidding me? What is he already doing here?”

“I’m here to make sure there aren’t any secret meetings happening without me.” I fling my pack into a chair and grab the one next to it. Johnny huffs and shakes his head as I pull it out and sit down.

Dominie clears her throat. “We were just going over the procedure for Brume Three. Our next Parallel.” She glances at Johnny, and there is ice in her voice as she says, “Maybe we should get Sargo up to speed?” She must be pissed about the way things went down in Brume Two. Good. She should be. Johnny deserves her contempt.

Johnny glares at me, then taps his brow and throws a projection up over the table. A map. He swipes in the air to highlight and enlarge a building in the bottom left corner and pulls it to the center.

“We’ll meet our contact here, at the launchpad. They’ve agreed to act as escort.”

“Who’s—” I start to ask, but Johnny silences me with another look.

“This parallel is significantly more dangerous than Brume Two,” he continues, “so we’ll use their transport to get around as much as possible.”

“More dangerous than a dimension where one of us was shot?” I ask.

“Two of us were shot,” says Dominie quietly.

In the ensuing silence, Electra slips into a chair across from me. She clears her throat. “Dangerous in a different way. Brume Three is one of the worst-off parallels we’ve come across so far, in terms of their climate situation. It’s pretty uninhabitable for the most part, and the people there are…understandably agitated.”

“We keep our presence there under the radar and don’t call attention to ourselves,” says Dominie. “A lot of places you can’t go. And certain places, you just don’t.” She swipes through the air, reorienting the map. “It’s not like in Brume Two where I had a working relationship with the High Council. In Brume Three we don’t have working relationships with anyone except our contact.”

“I see. And this contact knows where Bird is?”

Johnny shoots me a look. “Can we hold questions til the end, please, Pretty Boy?”

I grit my teeth. “You know, I’m getting pretty tired of the demeaning nicknames.”

“Well I’m getting pretty tired of your inane questions—”

“Alright!” Electra brings her hand down on the table. “Gods, it’s like listening to six-year-olds.” She inhales narrowly through her nose and turns to Johnny. “We need Sargo’s skills in Brume Three. So like it or not, he is a part of this operation. Maybe you could refrain from calling him ‘Princess’ for a little while.” She flicks her gaze to me. “And if you’re going to be part of this mission then you need to accept Johnny’s authority and do what he says. That means obeying direct orders when they are given to you. Is that clear?”

I glare at the table. “Yes.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes!” Johnny and I snap. He folds his arms and scowls at me.

“Great.”

The door sweeps open and Paradi enters. She strides wordlessly to a chair and sits, tenting her fingers. “Where are we at?”

“Just wrangling the boys,” Electra says with disgust. She taps her brow to check the time. “Stavra’s replacement should be arriving now from Pocosín. Our techs there equipped her with QMTP yesterday and took her through basic training. She’s making her first solo jump this morning.”

“Her first jump?” Johnny throws up his hands. “You’re sticking me with another untrained civilian?”

“No,” Electra says sharply, “I’m gifting you a deadly mercenary with extensive hand-to-hand combat and sailing experience. She doesn’t work for Zenith but she happens to be someone I trust to keep her head a lot better than Stavra did.” She taps her brow to check the time, then stands and walks to the door.

I frown at the back of her head as the door slides open. “Sailing experience?”

Electra steps out into the corridor and looks up and down it. She lifts a hand and beckons someone toward her. “This way. We’re in here.”

She steps back to let a group of three people into the room: two Zenith employees flanking a small Black girl with a shaved head, dressed in combat gear and sporting an array of silver earrings and a nose ring. A long, curved knife is strapped across her chest. My mouth drops open.

Fetch takes in the room with swift, easy confidence as Electra steps around her and dismisses the two Zenith escorts.

“Johnny, this is Fetch. She was a key player in the headquarters attack on Z-Day. She currently works as an interrogator for the Neozapas in Pocosín and she’s an extremely capable and reliable fighter and sailor.”

If Fetch is as surprised as I am to hear Electra singing her praises like this, she doesn’t show it. She holds Johnny’s cold glare with one equally cold and allows no trace of thought or feeling to cross her face.

Johnny folds his arms. “Stavra was a trained combat specialist.”

“As I said,” Electra replies, “Fetch is also highly skilled at combat.”

“Stavra was versed in interrogation.”

“As is Fetch.”

“Stavra had killed three people.” Johnny sits back in his chair and addresses Fetch down his nose. “How many people have you killed, Sweetheart?”

“Enough that I don’t need to go around bragging about it,” replies Fetch. Then adds, “Sweetheart.”

Johnny narrows his eyes and Fetch sends her gaze around the room again. It lands on me and her brows draw together.

“What is he doing here?”

Realizing my mouth is still hanging open, I close it and say, “Nice to see you too.”

Fetch turns her gaze to Paradi. “From what Electra told me, this whole thing sounds pretty dangerous. Sargo’s not exactly qualified for this, is he?”

Johnny barks triumphantly and points his finger across the table at Fetch. “You know, I take it back. I do like you.”

“Are we going to have to have another conversation about who is in charge here?” Paradi says impatiently. “Fetch, you report to Johnny, who reports to me. It’s not up to you to question who is and isn’t part of this team. Clear?”

Fetch shrugs. “Aye aye.”

Paradi braces her hands on the table and stands. “Johnny, I’ll let you handle the rest of this briefing. Please make sure you actually brief people this time.”

Johnny glares at her as she and Electra sweep out of the room. He folds his arms and looks at Fetch.

“Guess you’d better sit down.”

The rest of the day is spent getting me and Fetch up to speed on what to expect in Brume Three. Johnny seems to take Paradi’s dressing down seriously—in fact, he overloads us with so much information that I can’t help but think it’s some kind of malicious compliance. Like he’s trying to tell us too much. From Johnny and Dominie’s description, I feel even more nervous about Brume Three than I felt about Brume Two, but I do at least find out what Electra was talking about when she said we needed Fetch’s and my ‘sailing expertise’.

By the end of the day, my head is so full I can barely keep it upright. My eyes are burning and my shoulders and back ache from sitting all day. Across the table, Johnny stretches both arms over his head, rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and stands. He steps around the table and extends a hand to Fetch. They shake, then Johnny steps back and claps me on the shoulder.

“Guess I’ll see you in the morning, Pretty Boy.”

I restrain a frustrated growl as he steps around me. Dominie watches him go with what I can’t help but think is an expression of controlled fury. She’s definitely pissed at him for the Brume Two debacle. On her way out, she stops and offers Fetch her hand. To my surprise, she says in a clipped voice, “Johnny’s taking Stav’s death hard. Don’t form your opinion of him based entirely on today.”

I frown at the back of Johnny’s head as he walks out. “From what I remember, he was an asshole way before Stavra died.”

Dominie shoots me a look. “You’re not free from blame either, Paz.”

“Are you?” I shoot back. “Pretty sure you and Stavra would have had to go along with Johnny’s little plan to keep me in the dark. What the hell was even the point of that?”

She sets her jaw and stares at the door Johnny just walked out of. Finally, she says, bitterly, “To be honest, I don’t know. But Johnny’s team leader, right? What he says goes.” She draws and releases a long breath through her nose. “Anyway. You don’t have all the facts.” I frown as she folds her arms, tucking her slate against her chest and turning to Fetch. “You work with the Neozapas? That’s admirable. How did you get into that?”

Fetch sighs. “My girlfriend roped me in. She’s got this thing about helping humanity and doing the right thing.”

“I see.” Dominie tilts her head. “And you don’t?”

“I’ve got this thing about making sure she doesn’t get herself killed.”

“Uh-huh. I guess you’ll be pretty incentivized to make sure this mission goes right so you can get back to her.”

Fetch watches her for a moment. “If you’re asking whether you can rely on me to do my job, then you should know that I always do my job.”

“Mm.” Dominie squints at her. “My father always said never to trust anyone who was only doing a job for the coin.”

“Then your father must not have known many Reckoners,” Fetch replies, briskly.

Dominie eyes Fetch for a long moment, then says, “I don’t think we actually introduced ourselves yet. I’m Dominie. Dominie Marks.”

“Fetch Savage,” says Fetch, and I jolt inside because I always forget that Fetch is the daughter of that asshole Blondie McSailorTats.

Dominie swings a pack off her shoulder and tucks her slate into it, then shrugs it back on. She smiles a brief, strained smile at me, then steps around us. “I should get going. See you tomorrow morning. It was nice to meet you, Fetch.”

The door slides shut behind her. I turn to Fetch. She looks at me and we both shift our feet and look away.

Fetch and I have never really talked. In everything that happened surrounding Z-Day last year, the only meaningful interaction I had with her was being kidnapped by her father. And then there was the time she chased me and Locuaz down outside Pocosín, hit me in the face with her knife, and tried to take Panga from me. On my list of favorite people, she’s close to the bottom. But it is weirdly comforting to see her again. Not like seeing an old friend, exactly, but a familiar face, at least. Someone marginally less hostile toward me than Johnny, at any rate.

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” I ask.

“The Nations put me up in this fancy house for the night. It’s…” She frowns, turning around. “It’s…near the harbor…” She points at the window, then frowns again and looks over her shoulder at the door. “Actually…can you show me how to get out of here? I have no idea where I am.”

As we make our way through the busy corridors of Zenith headquarters toward the lobby, I rake through my brain for something to say and finally come up with, “How’s Locuaz?”

Fetch shrugs. “She’s good. On her way to Île Tor with Yote and the rest of the Neozapas. Taking parts to some Reckoners out there.”

“Did she ever actually learn how to sail?”

“Locuaz? No.” Fetch shakes her head. “She’s hopeless. Still can’t even tie a bowline. But Yote takes care of her. She’s good at a lot of other things.”

We walk in silence for a few steps, Fetch watching the ground ahead of us. Eventually, she says, “I saw the Exiters outside on my way in today.”

I nod grimly. “Yeah.”

“You guys have a lot of them here.”

“You have them in Pocosín too, now, right? I saw them when I was visiting my aunt.”

“Yeah but not like here.” She frowns. “Yours seem…more organized. And better informed.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods. “They have a symbol now?”

“The Nabla Omega.”

“And that woman outside—the one with the hair? Was making some surprisingly salient points.”

“That does surprise me. Normally she just screams about ‘the children’.”

“She was doing that too. But some of the other things she said were—” Fetch hesitates, glancing around. “Well anyway. I don’t know. Never mind.”

I look sideways at her. “Some of the things she said were what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She fixes her eyes on the floor again. We walk in silence until we reach the lobby. As we come to the door, I stop.

“Some of the things she said were what?”

She looks over her shoulder again. “Should we be talking about this here?”

“No. Probably not.” I open the door and step through. The quad is swarming with people holding signs, chanting. The Nabla Omega is everywhere. It looks like they’ve chosen a color for it now: red. Not super original, but it is foreboding. In the center of the quad, the woman with the hair stands on the fountain, her amplified voice ringing over the assembly.

Fetch falls into step beside me as the door closes behind us. She says in a low voice, “What do you think about them?”

I don’t answer her right away, watching the crowd as we skirt around the edge of it.

“I guess I haven’t thought about it since Bird went missing. But I did think about it a lot before. I don't think they’re right, necessarily. But sometimes I wonder…if Zenith really do know what they’re doing. I mean, something’s—definitely wrong.”

Fetch nods. “Sometimes I worry that Zenith are in denial about how bad things really are. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you’d see unless you knew what to look for.”

“I see it on the Salt. The weather.”

“Right. Same.”

We reach the edge of the quad and turn onto a path that cuts through the forest down the hill toward the harbor. The cover of the trees muffles the noise of the protestors and I breathe in the quiet. The smell of leaves and soil.

“Do you think Zenith can fix it?” says Fetch. “The mess?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “But after what just went down in Brume Two, I think they have to. I don’t think we have anywhere else to go.”

“Electra told me. Apparently, you single-handedly destroyed our relationship with the only dimension that could help us?”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t think that place was going to be any kind of salvation.”

“You’re probably right.”

We walk in silence. Finally, I say, “I guess right now I feel like there’s not much choice but to put my faith in Zenith and hope they figure out a solution.”

“I guess so,” says Fetch.

We reach the street that leads to the harbor and I stop. “I’m going the other way.”

“You’re not going to the harbor? I thought you and Howsley were living on Panga now?”

“I need to check on Bird’s moms and my dog.”

“Okay.” Fetch tucks her hands into her pockets. “I think I can find my way from here.” She drops her gaze and scuffs her toe on the ground. “Hey, so…speaking of Panga…I never apologized for that time I ran you down outside Pocosín.”

She doesn’t say anything else, so eventually I say, “And…?”

“And what?” She frowns at me.

“And are you going to apologize now?”

“I just did.”

I fold my arms. “Actually, you didn’t.”

She sighs. “Okay, well…yeah. Sorry about that.”

“Thanks.”

“I always thought you were a good sailor. For a Turf Rat.”

I lift my eyebrows. “I guess I always thought you were a good sailor, too. For a filthy Reckoner.”

She mirrors my folded arms. “So what do you think our chances are of actually finding Alluvium?”

“Alluvium?”

“Sorry—” She blinks and shakes her head. “I mean Howsley. Bird. I got so used to calling her Alluvium. What do you think our chances are of actually finding Bird?”

“Uh, I hope high?”

“Yeah. Me too.” She turns her grim gaze out toward the Salt. “Me too.”

chapter

eighteen

I WAKE the next morning to the skull-splitting ping of an incoming message. Bolting upright with my eyes stuck together, I tap my temple to open it.

>>> WHERE ARE YOU???

Shit. Johnny. I tap my temple to check the time—0510, ten minutes late.

Shit, shit, shit.

Throwing back the blanket, I fall out of bed and across the room to my pack, which sits open against the wall with the tactical gear Johnny gave me half-stuffed into the top. For a minute, I’m temporarily lost in a room I don’t recognize, then I remember I slept at Jade and Kestrel’s after I stopped here last night to check on Shanny. My head is pounding and full of fog; I did not sleep well.

Pulling on my pants and shirt, I blindly stuff the rest of whatever is out of the pack back into it, throw it around my shoulders, and sprint out of the room. Kestrel and Jade’s door cracks open as I bolt past it and Kestrel croaks something I don’t hear as I slam the front door behind me and take the stairs down to the street two at a time.

Johnny, Fetch, Dominie, and Electra are waiting at the launchpad in the lobby at Zenith HQ.

“Sleeping Beauty,” says Johnny as I pull up gasping and double over with my hands on my knees. “So nice of you to join us.”

“Seriously, Sargo,” says Electra, stepping around me to put her palm on the scanner and open the elevator doors, “I’m sticking my neck out for you here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep—it was…” I straighten up to find them all glaring at me. “Never mind.”

Dominie adjusts her spex. “Well, he’s here now. Shall we get this moving?”

Johnny swings his pack off one shoulder, pulls something out of it, and hands it to me. “You’ll need this.”

I turn the thing over in my hands. It’s a mask—not a bandana or a cloth mask like we wear here, but a gas mask with a mesh mouthpiece that seals tightly around your face.

“And these,” he shoves some goggles at me. They’re scratched and the elastic is slack with age.

“What’s all this for?”

“Breathing,” says Dominie. “We talked about this yesterday.”

“Right.” I rub my face, still groggy. “No, yeah, I remember.”

She removes her spex and replaces them with a much-newer-than-mine pair of goggles, then puts on her mask and steps past me into the elevator, followed by Fetch and Johnny. As I move to follow them, Electra catches my arm.

“Please be careful.”

“I will.” I tap the compass pin on my lapel. “I have this, remember? What could go wrong?”

She doesn’t even pretend to smile. Johnny barks my name and Electra grabs my hand and squeezes it. “I mean it. Like, really careful.”

My face goes warm at the squeeze of her hand, and I gently remove it from my own and try for a reassuring smile as I step into the elevator. “I will.”

The doors close between us and I find myself staring at an unfamiliar reflection on the elevator wall again. A man in a monkey suit, packed like a sardine into a tin with three other people in monkey suits, about to teleport into another dimension. I shake my head at the guy in the mirror, who looks as baffled as me.

“Wild, isn’t it?” says Fetch. And we disappear.

Coming back together is easier this time—or maybe I’m just more used to the horrendous nausea. Fetch, apparently, is not. As the ground meets my feet I sense her staggering away from me, and turn in time to see her catch herself against the wall and vomit down it.

Johnny sighs heavily but says nothing. He stretches his mask’s elastic over his head, then dons his goggles and taps behind his left ear to activate the radio in his biochip.

I hear his voice in my head. “Everyone ready?”

Nodding, I put on my mask and goggles. Fetch spits, wipes her mouth, and does the same. Johnny and Dominie exchange a look.

“Okay,” says Johnny, “here we go.”

I was briefed about what Brume Three would be like, but nothing could have actually prepared me for it. The blast of air that hits me as the doors open is like a furnace—if the air from a furnace was also thick, and full of dust and grit. I throw my arm across my face as Johnny shoves past me and shoulders into the gale.

When I stagger through the door after him, I find myself on the edge of the world. The air is so full of swirling orange haze that I can see nothing but a narrow, metal platform at my feet, extending about five feet in front of me and then abruptly ending. Johnny throws his arm across my chest as I step onto the platform.

“We’re about fifteen thousand feet above the ground here,” he yells over the roar of wind whipping my clothes and hair around. “So don’t step over the edge.”

“Fifteen thousand feet?” I yell back.

Dominie steps up next to me and peers over the side, which is pointless, because the smog is so thick you can’t see the ground. Lightning flickers in the orange soup below.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Fetch yells. I notice she hasn’t stepped onto the platform; she’s hanging back in the doorway, clinging to the wall.

Dominie taps her temple and gestures in the air to send a message. “High Life is almost here.”

“Almost where?” I look around me at the building we just stepped out of, which is not so much a building as a box on a tower. The door we just came through is cut into the side of a metal container approximately eight feet by eight feet, bolted to the platform we’re standing on. Through the platform’s honeycomb pattern of metal holes, I see a swaying metal tower spiraling down through the yellow haze below my feet. The sight of it makes me dizzy and I quickly put my eyes forward again.

As I do, a patch of smog above me darkens with the shape of something inside it, and a moment later a massive airship explodes through the clouds.

A wash of white from a floodlight mounted on the front of it dazzles me and I squint as the ship plummets toward us like some kind of airborne fish. My mouth falls open inside the mask. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Like images of zeppelins on the Net, but…with sails. One stretching above the torpedo-shaped hull, like the mainsail on a boat, and one sticking directly out from the bottom, like a keel.

Dominie steps to the edge of the platform as a figure pops out of a hatch in the top of the hull and heaves a length of rope at her. The shriek of it uncoiling cuts through the roar of the wind, and as the end of the line lands heavily next to me on the platform, I realize it’s not a rope but a metal cable twice as thick as my arm. At the end of the cable is an enormous hook, which Dominie grabs with both hands and hitches to a cleat at the platform’s edge. The figure throws a second cable to Johnny.

The ship doesn’t stop falling. It screams past the platform, careening toward the earth below us at an alarming speed, and as it goes by I catch a brief glimpse of the pilot, standing on the deck, hauling the top sail down hand over hand.

I step to the edge of the platform to follow the ship’s trajectory as it disappears into the smog below us. For a second, it’s quiet. Then the two massive hooks snap against the cleats that Johnny and Dominie attached them to, the cables go taut, and the whole platform shudders with a formidable metal groan as the ship, I assume, jolts to a stop below us. The cables are apparently sprung, because they stretch and spring back, then stretch again, the whole platform shaking and swaying beneath us as the ship bounces at the end of them far below us, slowly stilling.

When the cables have stilled and the platform has stopped shuddering, Johnny sweeps his arm to where the first cable is hooked to the platform. “After you, Princess.”

“What?” I gape over the side down the length of the cable plunging into the haze a hundred feet below me—the ground is not even visible fifteen thousand feet below that.

“We climb down,” says Dominie.

Johnny shoves me out of the way with his shoulder and squats at the edge of the platform. I notice now little metal brackets sticking perpendicularly out of each side of the cable. Foot pegs. Johnny turns as though about to climb down a ladder and puts his foot on top of the first peg. It’s barely wide enough for the toe of his boot. He wraps both hands around the cable and steps his other foot onto the bracket below. My stomach wobbles as he disappears over the edge and begins to descend.

Dominie climbs over the side after him. I look back at Fetch, who is still standing in the doorway, gripping the two edges of the frame with both hands. She lets go with one hand long enough to tap behind her ear, activating her radio.

“I guess now is not a great time to bring this up,” she says, “but I’m scared of heights.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

I glance over my shoulder at Johnny, halfway down the cable. “I don’t think you have a choice.” When I look back at Fetch, she is shaking her head. “You’re a sailor—haven’t you ever climbed a mast before? It’s probably the same.”

“The same?” Her voice cracks over the roar of the wind. “No, Sargo. This is not the same as anything. And no.” She huffs. “I haven’t ever climbed a mast before.”

“How is that possible? You’ve lived on the Salt your entire life! You were first mate on the Kingfisher!”

“I had a crew! I had people to do it for me.”

My hand goes to rub my face in frustration, but the mask and goggles are in the way. “Okay. Okay. Well…look, I don’t think you have a lot of options here. I think it’s climb down this cable or go back to Zenith.”

“I’m not going back!” she says fiercely.

“No one would judge you.” I put up my hands. “I’ll tell Johnny you were too sick from the jump.”

“No!” She glares past my shoulder at the cable, then takes one hand off the door jamb. “No, I’m gonna do it.”

“Are you sure?”

She takes a single, large, decisive breath that makes her shoulders rise and fall, and takes her other hand off the door jamb. “Yes.”

“Okay…” I glance back down the cable. Johnny has disappeared into the orange soup below us and Dominie is not far behind him. I turn back to Fetch. “Okay. What do you need me to do?”

She tilts her head. “What?”

“How can I help?” I yell over the wind.

“I don’t need your help!”

“It kind of seems like you do! Do you want to go first? Or shall I?”

She stares at me for a long moment.

“Fetch! I imagine we don’t have a lot of time here.”

“I’m thinking!” She puts her hands on her hips. “I’m just—I’m thinking. If I go first and you’re above me and you fall, you’re gonna take me down with you.”

“I’m not going to fall—”

“I said if!” She stares past my shoulder again. “Okay. You go first.”

“Okay.”

I turn around and step up to the edge of the platform and look down. My stomach disappears through the bottom of my feet.

This is bonkers. We are fifteen thousand feet above the ground and I’m about to shimmy down a metal cable barely wider than my arm without so much as a tether? I’m not actually going to do this…

“Sargo?” Fetch’s voice in my radio jolts me back into my body.

“Yup!” I squat and put one foot over the side of the platform. “Yup, I’m going.”

The metal brackets on either side of the cable at least feel sturdy, even if they are barely big enough for my boots. I wrap my hands around the cable like Johnny did and back down far enough to let Fetch get over the edge of the platform behind me, then look back up. Her masked-and-goggled face peeks briefly down at me over the side then disappears again.

“Fetch? Come on.”

A long minute passes while I cling to the cable, which sways in the wind and vibrates so violently between my hands that I have to grip it with all my strength. Finally, Fetch’s right boot comes over the edge of the platform. She toes around until she finds a bracket, then swings the left boot over as well. She eases herself over the side with painful, creeping slowness.

“Great job!” I force as much confidence into my voice as possible. “You’re doing great. That’s the hardest part.” Fetch says nothing. I redouble my grip around the cable. “Alright,” I yell. “Here we go. Don’t look down.”

Following my own advice, I keep my eyes glued to the cable in front of my face, feeling below me with my toes for each bracket as I slowly descend. The wind claws at my clothes and screams in my ears, and the lower I go, the thicker and grimier the air becomes, until it’s so dense I can barely see my own hands, inches away from my face.

Pausing to catch my breath and wipe film from my goggles, I look back up. Fetch is nowhere to be seen.

I tap behind my ear. “Fetch?!”

Nothing answers but the wind as I crane my neck back and try to squint through the smog. Finally, her voice trembles through the radio in my ear.

“I can’t do it.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I press my forehead to the cable, feeling like I’m back in sailing class. What would I say to Malick Dawson in this situation? “Yes, you can. Just take it slow.”

“I can’t!” Her voice cracks again, panicked. “I’m stuck!”

“You’re not stuck. You’re going to be fine. Just hold tight to the cable and move your right foot down.”

Silence on the radio.

“Fetch?”

More silence. Then, “Okay. I moved my foot.”

“Great! Now move your left foot.”

Silence. Finally, “Okay.”

“Okay what? Okay you’re doing it, or okay you did it?”

“Okay I did it.”

“Amazing! Now move your right foot.”

“This is so stupid,” she says.

“It’s not stupid. It’s how legs work.”

“No, I mean—”

“Are you moving your foot?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful.” I wipe film from my goggles again, and as I do, the sole of her boot appears in the haze above me. “That’s great!” I yell. “You’re doing great.”

“I think I’m okay,” she says, her voice pitched several notes higher than usual. “I’ve got it. You can keep going.”

As she says this, her toe lands on the bracket directly above my face. And to my horror, the bracket snaps.

Fetch’s foot slips at me, the sound of her terrified scream piercing my skull like a metal spike. I shoot my hand up and catch the bottom of her boot, but the force of it knocks me backward, and my own foot slips. Wrapping my other arm all the way around the cable and clutching Fetch’s foot above me in my other hand as we jolt downward, I scrabble with my toe until I find another foothold, get purchase on the next bracket, and lock all my muscles tight around the cable, gripping with my knees.

Trembling, my heart bouncing off the inside of my ribs, I manage to find some air to put in my lungs and say, “Okay?”

“Okay?!” comes Fetch’s furious, screamed response. “No I am not flogging okay! Jesus flogging gods flogging Christ flogging dammit.”

“You’re okay,” I tell her, pushing her boot up and helping her maneuver it onto the next bracket. “We’re okay.”

I feel below me for the next foothold and keep going.

I don’t know how many minutes go by until I feel my toe touch the solid deck of the airship and I let go of the cable and sink to my knees, shaking. Fetch staggers off the cable behind me and collapses.

“Finally,” Johnny’s voice drawls through the radio. I look up to see him standing over me, his masked face barely visible through the haze. “Took you long enough.”

Before I can reply, Fetch rolls to her feet and launches herself at him.

“You smarmy, condescending, piece-of-shit—”

Johnny puts up his hands, but she already has him by the collar. She rips off his goggles and delivers a startlingly quick blow to his face, then heaves him around by his shirt and flings him at the ground. Johnny stumbles to his knees, Fetch still right on him, following up her punch with a swift kick to his ribs.

I scramble up and grab her around the shoulders. As I haul her away, she is screaming and clawing at me.

“Let me go! Let me go! I’m going to flogging kill him!”

Johnny rolls onto his side, clutching his ribs, and feels around for his goggles. Finding them, he pulls them on, then staggers to his feet and glares at Fetch, who is still struggling against the arm I have around her chest.

“Well, Electra was right that you know how to fight, at least,” he spits.

I keep my arm around Fetch until she stops struggling, then let her go and step back. Johnny folds his arms. Through the smog just behind his right foot, I see a head pop out through a hatch in the deck.

Dominie’s voice comes down the radio. “If y’all are done playing, we should probably get moving.”

The roar of wind and rumble of thunder muffles above me as I drop off the bottom rung of the ladder that leads below deck and Johnny closes the hatch above us. In the sudden calm, my ears ring. I pull off the mask and goggles and rub grime from my face.

The interior of the ship is not much different to Panga’s—the ceiling brushes my head, and there’s just enough width for Johnny, Fetch, and I to stand shoulder to shoulder. The room we’re standing in looks like some kind of main cabin, longer than it is wide, with bench seats along both sides, a table between them, and a massive metal beam running vertically from the ceiling to the floor through the center of the table—I assume this must be the mast, connecting the sail on the top of the ship to the one underneath. Everything is shabby, and it looks as though the ship has seen better days.

Dominie squeezes around the table and ducks through an oblong door at the far end of the cabin. Following her, I enter another long, narrow room with stained counters running along the walls on either side of me. A sink and a hot plate are set into the counters on the left. The galley.

Dominie is still ahead of me, ducking through another oblong door, which brings us into the cockpit. A tiny room with just enough space in it for two high-back swivel chairs, bolted to the floor in front of me, an instrument panel and a steering yoke. Through a curved windshield above the instrument panel, I can see the hazy orange smog outside. Two smaller seats with seatbelts are mounted to the walls on either side of the door.

One of the chairs swings around. A person about my size, with pale skin, a mop of floppy brown hair sticking haphazardly out of a green bandana, and a pair of thick goggles so dark I can’t the eyes behind the lenses, peers up at me.

“Sargo, this is High Life,” says Dominie. “This is their ship.”

High Life launches themself from the chair and grabs my hand in a firm, enthusiastic shake. “Pleasure. Pleasure.” They look over my shoulder, to where Fetch and Johnny have just ducked into the cockpit. “You must be Fetch.” High Life extends a hand. “Glad you all made it.”

Fetch shakes High Life’s hand warily, looking overwhelmed and exhausted. “Yeah. Me too.”

High Life releases Fetch’s hand, their goggled eyes bouncing around the group. Their right heel is bouncing too, as though they’re barely containing some vast well of energy. Now that they’re standing, I can see they’re actually smaller than me, wiry, and compact inside a threadbare suit like the one I’m wearing.

“You can put your packs in the main cabin,” says High Life, stepping between us and ducking back through the door to the galley. “There are sleeping bunks in the stern, just behind that. Not enough for all of you, though, I’m afraid. The ship is going to be at maximum capacity.”

I had completely forgotten I was even wearing my pack. As we follow High Life back through the galley into the main cabin, I shrug it off, feeling tension leak out of my shoulders. I dump it on one of the bench seats and sink down next to it, bracing my arms on my knees.

The pack rustles, and a small snort issues from inside.

“Uh…” Fetch eyes the pack as it shudders and twitches. “What the hell is that?”

I reach out and unzip the top. A furry black mop leaps out and lands on the floor at my feet.

Shanny.

His claws scrabble on the smooth metal as he bolts past Fetch toward the galley.

“What the hell was that?!” demands Johnny.

“Shit.” I scramble to my feet and dive after Shanny. He tears down the narrow galley into the cockpit and, finding a dead end, spins in a panicked circle and bolts back toward me.

“What the hell is that thing doing here?” Johnny yells over my shoulder.

Ignoring him, I drop to my knees and throw out my arms to block Shanny’s path. He skids to a halt in front of me, his eyes white all the way around.

“It’s okay, Buddy,” I say in the most cheerful voice I can manage. “Everything’s fine.”

“Fine?” Johnny’s voice over my shoulder is more indignant than I’ve ever heard it. “You brought your dog on a—”

The air splits with an unearthly screech, and a bright green flash plummets down from the ceiling. I throw myself over Shanny, feeling something sharp tear at my hair as it swoops by.

“What kind of goddamn circus is this?!” Johnny yells as I look up to see the green thing turn and dive again, screeching. Air pummels the back of my neck as its wings beat furiously.

High Life’s voice punctures the din. “Penelope! Easy!”

The next screech is cut short into a choked squawk, and the frenzy of flapping abruptly stops. Sitting up, I see High Life gripping a large, green bird around the middle with both hands. They tuck it under one arm, grab a towel from next to the sink, and throw it over the bird’s head. In the sudden quiet, we all exchange glances. Johnny’s face is white with fury.

“What the hell,” he says, very quietly, “do you think you’re doing, Paz?”

I get to my feet and scoop up Shanny, who wiggles ecstatically and tries to lick my face.

“I didn’t mean to bring him, obviously. He must have been asleep in my pack. I ran out this morning without checking it because I was late.”

Johnny stares at me, his jaw working as though he’s either about to scream, hit me, or spontaneously combust. Then he whips around and stomps back to the main cabin. Dominie, who has been watching with folded arms and raised eyebrows, tuts, and follows him. I look at Fetch, who sticks out one finger to scratch the top of Shanny’s head.

High Life sets the bird on the counter and carefully removes the towel from its head. In addition to green, its feathers boast an impressive kaleidoscope of red, blue, and yellow. Its head is blunt, its beak curved and black. It shakes and stretches its wings, then eyes us sideways. Shanny growls.

“Penny isn’t usually unfriendly,” says High Life. “But I don’t think she’s ever seen a…one of those…before.”

“Shanny isn’t usually so panicked,” I reply. Keeping one eye on the bird, I carefully set Shanny on the floor. He sneezes and tilts his ears up at Penny. Penny issues a long, low squawk, but doesn’t try to attack him again.

High Life grins. “Hey, look at that! They’re already hitting it off.”

Dominie’s head pops back through the oblong door to the main cabin. “I’m loving the whole Noah’s Ark vibe,” she says, tersely, “but we really need to get moving.”

Back in the cockpit, High Life flips a few switches on the instrument panel then stoops to open a hatch in the floor, revealing a large windless with a massive handle. Kneeling, High Life grabs the handle and begins to crank the winch around, and I feel the ship shudder and begin to move.

“Just need to wind up the aft cable so we can launch, then we’ll be on our way,” they explain.

“You’re going to wind that whole cable in by hand?” My eyebrows shoot into my hair as I imagine the enormous cable attached to the back of the ship, disappearing up through the smog to where it hooks on to the platform.

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s no motor?”

High Life shakes their head, pausing to wipe their forehead on the back of their arm. “Too heavy.” They grip the winch handle and start to crank it again. “But it’s all good. Not like I haven’t done this a million times before!”

As they say this, the hull shudders again and I feel us start to move. Looking through the windshield, I can see that the nose of the ship is starting to tip forward, toward the ground. We’re moving backward, inching up the rear cable toward the platform as the cable is wound back into the ship. The floor tilts beneath me as the nose of the ship points down, and I brace against the back of Johnny’s chair to keep from falling forward.

“You might want to sit down and strap in,” grunts High Life, bracing their feet against the wall to stop themself from sliding as they continue to crank the winch around. “Taking off is always a little, uh, rough.”

Fetch and I dive for the two small wall-mounted seats beside the door and pull on the seatbelts. Shanny leaps into my lap and I pull the belt around him. Craning my neck around the cockpit door, I see Dominie strapping herself into one of the bench seats in the main cabin and Penny settling herself onto a perch in the galley. Johnny, in the swivel chair next to High Life’s, pointedly does not put on his seatbelt. The nose of the ship continues to tilt down as we inch backward up the cable toward the platform. I exchange a nervous glance with Fetch.

“So what’s going to happen here, exactly?”

“As we wind the aft cable up, it pulls us up level with the platform,” says High Life, in the eager manner of somebody who has explained this a lot and yet somehow never gets tired of explaining it. “Once the stern of the ship is level with the platform, we unhook the aft cable, and swing back down.”

“Swing back down?” I swallow. “Like, free-fall?”

“Like a pendulum!” High Life says brightly. “There’s a second cable at midship. We’ll swing down on the mid cable, and once we get to the bottom and start to swing up the other side, we release the cable and slingshot into the sky.”

“Slingshot?” says Fetch. “That sounds—”

“Sketchy,” says High Life, nodding enthusiastically. “It is.”

“How are you going to release the cable?” I ask.

“Retractable hook.” High Life grins.

The ship shudders to a halt. High Life, now braced completely against the walls to stop themself from siding down the near vertical floor, flips the winch hatch closed with their foot and climbs back to their seat at the control panel. The ship is now tipped completely on its nose, and I’m hanging by the seatbelt around my chest as the force of gravity pulls me away from the back of my seat.

“Alright!” High Life straps themself in and grins over their shoulder. I grip the seatbelt straps with sweaty, trembling fingers. “Everyone ready?”

chapter

nineteen

CLOUDS of orange smog evaporate as we burst through the top layer of what High Life calls “the Soup” and soar into clear air above. We are shooting directly up into the sky like the projectile fired from some insane cannon. My knuckles are white around my seatbelt and my stomach has abandoned me.

Next to me, Fetch is screaming, “I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this!”

The ship rattles around us like a tin can, which I have to agree is not very confidence-inspiring. As we continue to climb, however, it begins to slow, and the rattling eases. I squint through dazzling sunlight across a vast tundra of sludgy brown that stretches endlessly below us in all directions. Every so often, the cloud is punctured by the jagged brown peak of what I assume is a mountain, but apart from that it is starkly empty.

High Life flips a couple of switches and spins around in their swivel chair. “Alright! Time to raise the sails. Give me a hand, Paz?”

When I unbuckle my seatbelt to follow High Life to the main cabin, I have to hold onto the walls because the floor slopes down toward the stern. I shove Shanny into Fetch’s arms as I stumble out of the cockpit.

In the main cabin, High Life climbs the ladder to the top deck and throws open the hatch. Wind roars in from outside. “We don’t have a lot of time!” they yell over their shoulder. “We’ll reach the top of the arc soon.”

“What do you mean ‘the top of the arc’?” I call back as I scramble up behind them.

High Life stops at the top rung with their head poking out of the hatch, and reaches back to grab two coils of rope from the wall by my head. They hand one to me. “This is your tether. Clip it to your suit. You need to be tethered all the time when you’re walking above deck.”

I snap the loop on the end of the line to a carabiner on my suit and squint up at them. “What did you mean ‘the top of the arc’?” I repeat over the wind.

“The highest point in our upward trajectory,” High Life says as they snap on their tether and climb out. “The point at which we stop ascending and start to fall.”

“Fall?” I gape as their feet disappear through the hatch. “You mean we’re not flying right now?”

“Technically, we are,” yells High Life’s voice over the roar of wind. “The same way a ball is flying when you toss it up into the air. But we won’t stay flying if we don’t put up the sails before we reach the top of the arc and start to come back down.”

I reach the top of the ladder and pop my head through the hatch. My stomach flops over as I stare around me. We’re just soaring through murky yellow sky, tens of thousands of feet above the ground. The rush of wind against my face is shockingly cold. High Life holds onto the mast with one hand and reaches down with the other to pull me up.

But I can’t let go of the ladder. My fingers are seized around the top rung. I’m paralyzed; as stuck as Fetch was on that cable.

“Paz!” yells High Life. “Let’s go!”

My eyes won’t move from the expanse of sky all around us. For some reason, all I can think about is Bird. That night we had to reef the mainsail on Panga, when we first sailed out of Brume a year ago. Watching her climb around on the bow without a tether while I was trying to steer us and not get capsized. I was sure she was going to go overboard. I thought she was—

“Paz!” High Life smacks me hard in the side of the head. “We don’t have a lot of time here!”

“Right.” I snap myself together and climb out of the hatch. “Right.”

High Life unhitches a line from around the mast and shoves it at me. “This is the halyard that raises the mainsail. Can you handle it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Great. I’m going to pull out the keelsail.”

“The keelsail?”

“The sail on the bottom of the ship.”

“You don’t pull it out from underneath?”

High Life stares at me like I’ve just said the stupidest thing they’ve ever heard. “No. That would be extremely dangerous.”

“Right.” I fix my eyes firmly on the line in my hands, trying not to think about how far above the ground we are. “We wouldn’t want that, obviously.”

The mainsail is surprisingly easy to raise. Super light. It appears to be made of some kind of paper thin foil and unfolds from the boom in a glittering silver arc against the blinding yellow sky. I tie off the halyard as High Life pulls on a second line that disappears down through the deck by our feet, which I assume raises the sail on the bottom of the ship. They haul it up hand over hand, kneel to tie it off on a cleat, then wipe their face on the back of their arm and squint up at me.

“Hold onto something.”

“What—”

My feet leave the deck and my stomach drops between them. The world goes still and silent. I’m floating. In the unnerving moment of weightlessness, I shoot out both hands and clutch the mast.

High Life grins. “We reached the top.”

We soar in silence like a bird over the peak of our upward trajectory as though we’re suspended in time. The Soup swirls and drifts below us like something magic and otherworldly. Then we begin to drop. High Life grabs another line, heaves on it, and I feel the boat heel over as the sails catch the wind. It’s exactly the same feeling I get on Panga when we trim the mainsail just right—like a weight in your core, tethering you between the Salt and the sky. My feet return to the deck. The airship sinks until the bottom of it is submerged in the smoggy orange surface of the Soup below us, then begins to glide.

“That’s it!” says High Life, standing and clapping dust from their knees. “We’re sailing.”

I let out a long breath and let go of the mast, overwhelmed by the sudden quiet. The stillness. Not even the familiar sound of water against the hull lets me know we’re moving.

I turn to High Life. “How does this work?”

“The ship sits on the surface of the Soup like your boats sit on the surface of the Salt. The Soup is such a dense cloud and the air above it up here is so thin it creates the right resistance for sailing.”

“And I guess the sail on the bottom—the keelsail? That’s your ballast. And helps you steer?”

“Exactly.”

I squint at the orange cloud below us. “There’s enough difference between the density of that smog and the air up here for that to work? That’s crazy.”

“The air up here is very thin. We can’t be out here too long—you’ll get lightheaded pretty quickly.” They pause. “Unless that’s what you’re into.”

“Excuse me?”

They shrug. “I mean, on a long flight, nothing to do? Hanging out up here getting loopy is a decent way to pass the time.”

I fold my arms. “You come up here to get high?”

“Not all the time.”

“That seems extremely irresponsible.”

High Life nods enthusiastically. “It is.”

“Mm.” I frown and look back down at the Soup. “So this cloud, it’s what? Smog?”

“Pollution, smog, toxic gases. A whole mess. The atmosphere of this Parallel was a little different from yours to begin with, I think. But it’s all been exacerbated by the climate. They started building the Towers about a hundred years ago to lift people out of it. But the Soup keeps rising—the Tower where Zenith built that landing pad you guys arrived at used to be above it. Some of the mountain tops,” they point out to one of the black, jagged peaks puncturing the smog, “are still clear. A few people live up there. Everyone else is in the Towers.”

“Towers?”

“Like the one we just left. Big old metal structures tall enough to get you up out of the worst of it.”

“And everyone travels like this? In airships?”

“We call them celestials. And yes. It’s pretty much the only way to get around.”

“They must be super light.”

“They are. We’re almost at max capacity for weight. We just about have space for Howsley, if we find her.” They rap on the mast. “That’s why we can’t have a motor or carry fuel.”

“What’s the ship made of?”

“You won’t have heard of it. I don’t think it’s a thing in your Parallel.”

I nod. “And the name?”

“Of the ship? Runabout.”

“Any significance there?”

They shrug. “It runs about.”

“Fair enough.” I fold my arms and contemplate the Soup. “This is…kind of awesome.”

“It’s nice to have someone around who appreciates it.” High Life squats by the hatch and steps back onto the ladder. “Johnny doesn’t understand how it works at all.”

“No?” I try to keep my smirk from being too smug as I follow them below deck. “Well, he’s not really a sailor. More of a muscle guy, I think.”

“Computers,” says High Life. “He does something with computers.”

We find Dominie sitting in the main cabin with a map projected over the table. High Life disappears through the galley into the cockpit to turn on the autopilot as Johnny and Fetch come back to the cabin. Shanny wriggles out of Fetch’s arms and launches himself at me—a maneuver that Johnny observes with obvious distaste. We sit around the table and Dominie begins to talk us through the map.

“According to High Life, there’s a group of radicals forming in this Parallel, similar to the Exiters, but much more poorly organized.” She rotates the map. “They call themselves Creed. High Life told us they have a meeting point…here.” She spreads her fingers to enlarge a section of the northeast corner.

I frown. “And this Creed—they’re likely to have Bird?”

“Not necessarily. But we think that if the Exiters found their way here, these are the people they’d end up falling in league with. They might have some information, or have seen something.”

“So we go to this meeting point?” I gesture at the map. “Then what?”

“High Life has been doing some jobs for someone in the organization. Running supplies, that kind of thing. They can make contact for us and ask some questions.”

“Why do I feel like that sounds way too easy?” says Fetch.

High Life bounds back through the door from the cockpit with Penny on their shoulder and flops into a seat next to me. “Because she didn’t tell you about the Updraft.”

Fetch sighs and squeezes her temples. “Of course.”

I fold my arms and raise my brows at High Life. “Alright. I’ll bite. What’s the Updraft?”

High Life dips their hand into the front of their jacket and produces a folded sheet of paper. They unfold it on the table as Dominie swipes to close her projection.

“Is that a chart?” I exclaim. “An actual paper chart?”

High Life rolls their eyes. “You can just call it a map, Sailor.”

“You guys don’t have biochips here?”

“Nope. And thank Yah, those things seem like a nightmare.” They smooth the creases out of the map and drop their finger onto the bottom right corner. “This is the location Dominie’s talking about. It’s a super small, super sketchy little Tower way out on the edge of what we consider habitable territory. It was built seventy-five years ago or something like that. Unused now. Which is why Creed has taken it over, I think.”

They drag their finger from that point to a large, shaded blob near the center of the map. A mass of dark ink. It looks like someone dropped a cup of brew and failed to clean it up.

“This,” says High Life, “is the Updraft. It’s a weather pocket caused by temperature differences in the Soup and the air above it.”

“Like a thermal,” I say.

“Not quite.” High Life tilts their head. “It’s not called the Updraft because air moves up. It’s called the Updraft because it messes you up. It’s basically, like, a really, really gnarly storm.”

“Great,” says Fetch.

“Yeah. It’s not the best,” High Life agrees. They trace their finger around the edge of the blob. “We could skirt around it, but that will take a few days, and from what I understand, you all are in a hurry.”

“We’re hoping we can get to Howsley—wherever she is—before she discloses any information to the Exiters about QMTP,” says Dominie. “We already burned a lot of time getting stuck in prison in Brume Two, so…” She glares at Johnny. “Yeah. I’d say we’re in a hurry.”

“Hold on. We don’t even know if Bird is there,” I cut in. “Are we really going to go all the way through this Updraft on the off chance?”

“I thought you wanted to be proactive.” Johnny folds his arms and sneers at me.

“Yeah, proactive, not stupid.”

Dominie puts up her hand to silence us. “We don’t have much of a choice, unfortunately. We don’t have an established presence in this Parallel. There aren’t even really any governing bodies or establishments we can go to. All we really have to go on is High Life’s intel. Our best bet at finding any information about Bird is to find Creed.”

Fetch eyes High Life. “How do we know we can trust this intel?”

High Life eyes her back. “I’ve spent a long time building up a rapport with these people. Doing deliveries for them. My contact there is reliable.”

“How do we know you’re reliable?”

High Life shoots a look at Johnny. “Is she serious? I didn’t agree to do this favor for you so I could be interrogated.”

Johnny ricochets High Life’s angry stare to Fetch. “High Life is reliable. Am I going to have a problem with you like I’m having with Paz?”

Fetch folds her arms and says nothing.

Johnny stands. “Yes, this is risky. But right now, this is all we have to go on. If someone has a better plan, I’m all ears.”

I exchange a look with Fetch, then shrug. “I guess I don’t.”

High Life stands, gathering up the map. “That’s what I thought.”

chapter

twenty

THE UPDRAFT IS EVEN LESS fun than High Life made it sound.

It takes us about ten hours to get to it, a monotonous, mind-numbing slog across miles and miles of stark, smoggy, orange nothingness. The glare of the sun becomes so relentless that I start to understand why High Life is wearing those dark goggles. The boredom is so grating that I seriously contemplate taking their advice to go ‘get loopy’ above deck, but think better of it. Instead, I stretch out along one of the benches in the main cabin and shut my eyes.

I must have dozed off, because I wake to shouting and find myself on the floor. Shanny is yapping like a maniac, running in circles. The ship is listing badly to starboard, and rattling like it’s being pelted with rocks. It sounds like a hurricane is blowing outside. As I roll to my feet and sprint to the cockpit with Shanny at my heels, I pass Dominie in the galley, vomiting into the sink.

“What’s going on?” I yell, falling against the back of High Life’s chair.

“What does it look like, Pretty Boy?” Johnny shoots over his shoulder from the other chair, where he has both hands braced on the console. “We’re having a nice relaxing day on the beach. Did you pack your bikini?”

Ignoring him, I bend over High Life’s shoulder and peer through the windshield. The smog outside has turned from orange to purple, and it’s so dark out there I can see myself reflected in the glass. High Life has the lights on the instrument panel dimmed, and is gripping the yoke in both hands.

“Joking aside,” they say, “these conditions are bad enough that I think we need to put out the drogue.”

“You guys use drogues too?”

“I mean, ideally, no, because ideally, we don’t fly into conditions like these. But it kind of feels like it’s about that time. You’ve used one?”

“For sailing. Where is it? You want me to do it?”

“What the hell is a drogue?” yells Johnny.

I can’t help smirking at him. “What’s the matter Johnny, you’ve never put out a drogue before? It’s almost as easy as overpowering a guard.”

He glares at me and says nothing.

“Can you handle it?” says High Life.

I nod. “With Fetch, maybe. Where is she?”

“Last I saw she was throwing up in the sink,” says Johnny.

“Well Dominie’s there now—”

“I’m here.” Fetch’s voice croaks at me from the corner and I see her strapped into one of the small wall-mounted chairs, looking positively green.

“I thought you were supposed to be a hardened sailor,” says Johnny. “You don’t look very hardened to me.”

“The toe of my boot is gonna be pretty hardened in your ass if you don’t shut your mouth, Johnny,” she snaps.

I put up my hand before Johnny can reply. “Honestly, he’s right. You don’t look like you’re going to be much good for anything right now.”

“We’re just…really high,” she whispers.

Sighing, I turn to Johnny. “You’re gonna have to do it.”

“Me?” He shakes his head. “I don’t faff around with your little sailboats.”

“Oh, great.” I throw up my hands. “So we’ll all just die then.”

“Just get out there, Johnny!” yells High Life. “And listen to Sargo.”

Doing my best to hide my smirk, I lead a fuming Johnny back to the ladder in the main cabin. We both don our masks and goggles, and I find the drogue—a long line with a series of small parachutes tied along it—in a locker next to the ladder. I climb up the ladder to the hatch and throw one of the tethers down to Johnny.

“Hook this to your suit. You need to be tied on above deck.”

He wordlessly hooks the tether to his suit, folds his arms, and glares up at me. “Now what?”

I sit on the third rung from the top and hold up the drogue. “This is what we’re setting up. It’s basically a series of parachutes spread out along a rope. We’re going to attach one end of the rope to the back of the ship and then throw it over the side so the parachutes open and drag behind us. In our dimension, we’d throw this into the water, but here I figure it probably just deploys into the air. The parachutes should slow us down so hopefully we’ll have more control of the ship and everyone will stop throwing up.”

He gives me the most sarcastic thumbs-up I’ve ever seen. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

I grit my teeth. At least Captain is a step up from Pretty Boy.

Clipping on my own tether, I throw open the hatch above me and climb out. The roar of the wind is literally deafening; I feel like it’s ripping holes in my ear drums. The air is freezing, and filled with swirling dust that stings the exposed skin on my face and hands.

Tucking the drogue under one arm, I fall against the mast and hold onto it while Johnny emerges from the hatch behind me. He staggers upright and grabs the mast as well. I give him a thumbs-up, then point to a handhold on the deck to indicate that we should crawl to the stern. He nods.

We scramble to the back of the ship on our hands and knees, unclipping and re-clipping our tethers to a new handhold every few feet or so. At Azimuth, a long time ago, I learned that humanity once sent ships into space. They used to climb around on the outside of them just like this. I don’t know if it makes me feel more or less confident to know that. It’s not like astronauts ever had to climb around on their ships in a windstorm.

When we reach the stern, I pull out the drogue and look around for a cleat to tie it to. Spotting one behind Johnny, I shove the end of the rope at him and point to it. He looks at the end of the rope, then over his shoulder at the cleat, then back at me, and shakes his head.

“What?” I scream, but of course, he can’t hear me over the wind. I tap behind my ear to activate my radio. “What’s the problem?”

He taps behind his ear. “I don’t know how to tie that thing. Not my department.”

Right. He doesn’t know any flogging knots.

Tucking the drogue into a corner of the deck, I take the end of the rope in one hand and crawl past Johnny to the cleat, tie it off, then turn back to him.

“Okay, it’s tied. Toss it over the side.”

He crawls to the drogue, picks it up, and looks at me. “Just…throw it?”

“Yup!”

He flings the thing over the back of the ship and the wind whips it away behind us, the rope spooling out at about a thousand miles an hour.

I notice too late that Johnny’s boot is tangled in the line.

The rope whips him over the side before I can even open my mouth to warn him. He cartwheels over the edge of the ship and shoots out behind us, dangling from the drogue by his ankle as the rope finishes spooling out and the parachutes all snap open. I feel the ship lurch and slow. Johnny hangs from the drogue just before the first parachute, half-obscured by smoggy haze. The line that tethers him to the ship—the one I made him clip to his suit before we came through the hatch—hangs in a loose curve between his suit and the last place he clipped it to on the stern.

Scrambling to my feet, I jam my finger behind my ear. “Johnny!”

“Gods dammit, Paz!” comes his furious shout through the radio.

My chest unclenches at the sound of his voice. He’s conscious. And still an asshole, apparently. “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay, Paz? Do I look flogging okay?”

“You’re going to be fine.”

“How? How am I gonna be fine, Paz?”

“We just need to untangle your foot from the drogue.”

“I’m just gonna cut it loose.” He reaches into the sheath on his ribs for a knife.

“Don’t do that!” I yell, panic spiking in my chest. “You can’t cut the drogue! That’s the whole reason we’re out here. If you cut it, it’ll just fly away.”

Silence for a moment, and I can practically hear him seething down the radio. Finally, he says, “Okay. Tell me what to do.”

“I can’t really tell you how to untangle your foot. You just need to make it happen. Then I can pull you back in by your tether.”

“Are you sure I’m still attached to the ship?”

“Yes. You’re gonna fall a ways once you get your foot free, but don’t panic, the tether will stop you.”

“I never panic, Paz!” he snaps, and I can’t help but think I hear a distinct note of panic in his voice.

“Okay, sorry,” I reply, as evenly as I can. “My mistake.” He hangs in silence until I say, “Any time you want to start untangling that foot…”

Curling up toward his feet, he begins to tug at the drogue line. Minutes go by while I watch him struggle with it. The wind beats against my ears and stings my face. I can feel my breath getting a little short and silently pray we get Johnny loose before either of us starts to get ‘loopy’. I cup my hands around my mouth and blow into them. The cold is bone-rattling.

I tap behind my ear again. “How’s it going out there?”

He doesn’t answer, still struggling with the line. Finally, he lets go and drops back into his upside-down position. “I can’t get it,” he gasps down the radio. “The knot is too tight and my goddamn fingers are frozen.”

Shit. I blow into my hands again and stamp my feet. Shit, shit, shit.

“Okay,” I tell him. “I’m coming out there.”

“What?”

“Just hold on.”

“Hold on to what, Paz?”

Restraining my frustrated eye-roll, I check my tether and take a deep breath. “To your goddamn faculties, Johnny, I guess.”

I leap over the side and catch hold of the drogue. My fingers are stiff with cold but I force them closed around the rope. With my legs swinging, I make my way hand over hand toward Johnny, forcing myself not to look down. I’m sure it doesn’t matter—the air is too thick and black to see anything below us anyway.

When I reach Johnny, I curl my legs up and hook my knees around the rope, then pull my face up to where his ankle is tangled up. The line is somehow knotted around his boot. It looks tight. The boots we’re wearing are very sturdy, but still, he’s lucky his ankle didn’t break.

I tap behind my ear. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s fine,” comes his terse response.

Deciding not to question him even though I can tell he’s lying, I pull my marlin spike out of the breast pocket of my suit and flip it open.

“What is that?” he demands. “A knife? I thought we weren’t cutting the rope.”

“It’s a marlin spike.” I hold out the long, blunted spike for him to see. “It helps you loosen knots.” Wedging the tip of the spike against the center of the knot, I begin to work it back and forth. It takes almost five minutes of wiggling the spike to even get the point of it into the knot. My fingers are rigid with cold. The blood is draining from my legs and I can feel everything below my knees, wrapped around the line, going numb.

“How long is this gonna take?” Johnny says.

“As long as it takes,” I reply.

After another nearly ten minutes of working the knot with the spike, I am officially loopy. Not sure if it’s the thin air or just being upside down for so long, but I’m suddenly finding this whole situation extremely hilarious, which I’m sure is not an appropriate reaction to be having.

Johnny hasn’t said a word since I started working on the knot. I take my eyes off the knot and let my head dangle to look down at him. “Hey Johnny.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Johnny. Johnny!”

“What, Paz?”

“Did you hear about the knot competition?”

“The what?”

“The knot competition. Did you hear about the knot competition?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Paz.”

I turn my focus back to the knot. “It ended in a tie…”

“Jesus Christ.”

He must be exasperated. I’ve never heard him say ‘Jesus’ before. He’s one of those careful people who only ever refers to ‘gods.’

“A tie.” I’m giggling now. “It ended in a—”

The knot loosens. The rope shifts and slips.

“Grab the line!” I yell. But it’s too late. In my slightly inebriated state, I don’t move quickly enough, and neither does Johnny. As he reaches up to take hold of the drogue line, the knot opens and his boot slips out. His terrified scream rips down the radio as he plummets away from me, then silences as he jolts abruptly to a stop at the end of his tether.

“Johnny!”

No reply. His limp body dangles at the end of the line thirty feet below me, partially obscured by smog.

“Johnny?”

Nothing. Jesus, his spine is broken. The force of hitting the end of that rope must have snapped him in half. The thought makes me sick. I may not ever have liked the guy, but I don’t want him dead.

Suddenly, the radio crackles to life. “A little more warning would be nice next time, you asshole.”

“Oh, thank God.” The air surges back into my lungs. “I thought you were dead.”

“Nope, sorry.” A long silence, and then, “Knot this time…”

A laugh barks out of me and my arms and legs go loose with relief. Clutching tighter around the drogue line so I don’t lose my grip and plummet to the end of my own tether, I start to make my way back toward the ship.

“Okay, just hang on. I’ll climb back and pull you in.”

His body, dangling sideways at the end of the tether, turns in a slow circle. “Any time today, Paz.”

By the time I haul Johnny back aboard Runabout, my arms are so burned out I can barely lift them. I collapse next to him as he rolls onto the deck, and we crawl back to the hatch. The sound of our breaths colliding down the radio replaces the roar of the wind as I close the hatch behind us and we fall down the ladder.

“This is why,” Johnny gasps as we sprawl onto the floor of the main cabin, “I don’t do the sailing thing.”

“It’s not always like that,” I reply. “Most of the time it’s really boring.”

Shanny tears out of the cockpit and throws himself at me as Johnny rolls onto his back, tugging off his mask and goggles and blowing a long breath at the ceiling.

“Well…thanks, I guess.”

Deflecting Shanny’s tongue with my hands, I sit up, pulling off my own mask and goggles. I shake my head. “That was all my fault. I should have checked we were both clear before you threw the drogue out.”

“Oh yeah?” he snaps. “Well, in that case never mind.” He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his face with one hand. “Sorry. I don’t…mean that.”

“It would be fine if you did. I deserve it.”

He watches me for a long moment, then blinks hard and looks at the ceiling. “Man, I feel weird.”

“Yeah, the air is super thin out there.”

We sit in silence for a few moments while the room seems to spin around us. Through the door at the end of the cabin, I see Dominie sitting on the floor of the galley with her back against the counter and her eyes closed. Finally, Johnny staggers up. To my surprise, he extends a hand down to me. I take it, cautiously, and he pulls me to my feet.

“You may not be as totally useless as I thought you were,” he admits.

“Wow. High praise.”

He smiles. Like, a real smile. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him do that, and it’s so unexpected that the world seems to tip sideways. Or did I just stand up too fast? I step back, suddenly filled with a weird, unbalanced nervousness. He really is disarmingly handsome. Asshole.

He doesn’t let go of my hand right away. “What was that thing called? The spike thing?”

“Uh…” I feel dizzy, and my ears have gone unexpectedly hot. Loopy. Or the adrenaline wearing off. Or both. “Marlin spike.”

“Right.” He nods, pursing his lips. “Pretty handy.”

“It was my mom’s.”

We stand for another prickly moment, watching each other. Then he drops my hand and steps back.

High Life ducks through the door from the galley with Penny on their shoulder. “You get it done?”

“Yep.” Johnny doesn’t take his eyes off mine as he answers. “All set.”

“Great.” High Life hesitates, looking between us. “Everything okay?”

“Smooth sailing,” says Johnny. “Nothing to report.”

I open my mouth to protest—we almost died, I almost killed us—but Johnny lifts his brows at me, and I shut it again. As he turns to follow High Life back to the cockpit I inhale a slow breath to open up the inexplicable tightness in my chest.

So this is what it feels like when Johnny is nice to you.

______________________

We reach the other side of the Updraft within a few hours, and as we emerge from the roaring, freezing blackness back into raw sunlight, High Life swivels their chair around and rubs their face. Their eyes are like two tiny, exhausted pinpricks.

“I think we should get some sleep,” they say. “It’ll be another ten hours until we’re there, and the rest of the way should be smooth. There are two sleeping cabins in the back, and someone can stretch out in the main room.”

“I’ll take first watch,” croaks Fetch from her chair on the other side of the cockpit.

I fold my arms. “You look like you’re about to fall out of your chair even with a seatbelt on. I’ll take first watch.”

High Life stands and stretches. “I don’t care who takes it as long as it isn’t me. The autopilot is on. You shouldn’t need to touch anything. Just keep an eye on the sails.”

Johnny stands and follows High Life out of the cockpit. Fetch unbuckles her seatbelt. Shanny uncurls from his spot in the corner and trots over to sniff her boots as she gets shakily to her feet.

“You sure you’re okay?” she says.

“I’m fine. Go get some sleep. We need you functional.”

“Roger that.” She gives me a grateful grimace and trips into the galley.

Stretching the stiffness out of my neck, I get out of my wall seat and sink into High Life’s swivel chair behind the console to examine the instruments. To my surprise, many of them are familiar. Compass, speed indicator, something that looks like a radar. I guess some things are universal. Shanny hops into my lap and I scratch him absently behind the ears as I stare across the Soup. Some things are bizarrely universal.

Hours later I climb out of the chair and stumble back to the main cabin with Shanny to rouse whoever I can find to take the next watch. Dominie is stretched out along one of the benches, fast asleep. No one else is anywhere to be seen. On the wall at the back of the cabin are two oblong doors, both shut, which I assume lead to the two sleeping cabins. On the wall cornering them, a third door is cracked open, through which I can see a toilet.

The door to the starboard berth opens and High Life steps through it, looking groggy in rumpled clothes. And right behind them, shirtless, and buttoning his pants, is Johnny. I feel my eyebrows start to lift and quickly stop them as High Life raises a hand in silent salutation and ducks into the head. Johnny stops in the doorway.

“Something wrong, Princess?”

“Nope. Just didn’t realize there was more than one bunk in there.”

“There isn’t.”

“Then I guess I didn’t realize sharing bunks was an option.”

He smirks and steps through the door, pulling it shut behind him. “I don’t think it is, for you.” The dragon around his arm curls and flexes as he stretches over his head, yawning, then scratches his ribs. “Time to change the watch?”

“Mhm.”

“Great.” He steps around me in a wash of that citrusy cologne. “I guess I’m up.”

I watch him duck into the galley and head for the cockpit. “Are you gonna put on a shirt?”

“Why would I do that?” he calls back. “And miss the look of wonder on your pretty face?”

So we’re back to demeaning nicknames and jokes about me being a pretty boy. So much for Johnny being nice to me. Shoving the hair out of my face, I glare around the cabin for a place to sleep. Seeing none, I find a spot on the floor in the corner and lie down with my arm under my head and Shanny under my chin.

Sleep finds me almost immediately.

chapter

twenty-one

BANG BANG BANG.

There’s a crack in the wall.

A tiny fissure, a hairline, spider-webbing away from the top left corner of the door. I trace it with my thumb—it zig-zags sideways across the surface of the wall for a long way. Walking along the wall with my thumb against the crack, I note that the air coming through it is no longer warm.

Returning to the door, where the crack began, I see now another crack forming on the opposite side of the door. A drop of water beads through it, trembles, then slips down the face of the wall.

I step back, my heart beating fast.

Bird. This is Bird’s fault. Her infuriating insistence that we mess with it. Try to get the door open. She never listens. And now there’s a crack in the wall.

I need to patch it. Quickly. I push my thumb hard against the first crack to stem the water leaking through it while I try to think.

Mud, maybe. That would fill the cracks, for a time. It won’t keep the water back for long, but maybe long enough for me to figure something else out. I stoop and grab a handful of dirt, begin smearing it into the crack where the water is dribbling out. It won’t work. Of course it won’t work. I need sealant.

A second drop of water appears in the crack on the other side of the door. At my feet, another fissure appears, sprouting up from the bottom of the wall like a weed.

Bang bang bang.

Whatever is behind that wall is trying to get out. I wheel around, scanning desperately for something to patch the cracks with.

Johnny is standing behind me with his arms folded.

“That wall’s about to come down,” he says.

Scowling, I turn back to the wall. “No it isn’t.”

He chuckles. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

“I just need to patch it.” I drop to my knees and scoop up more dirt. “You want to do something useful, you can help me.”

“Useful? Would that be useful?”

“I’m not here to debate the definition of the word ‘useful’, Johnny. If you’re not going to help, you can flog off.”

A small spout of water shoots out of a new crack by my head.

“Shit.”

Water is pouring freely down the wall now. I grab more dirt, shove it against the new crack with the water spraying out of it. It does nothing—turns to mud and runs down the wall. Not knowing what else to do, I scoop up more, smear it onto the wall. My hands are turning black with mud. Water is soaking the front of my shirt. There’s nothing I can do to stop this. It’s happening too fast. The cracks are appearing faster than I can patch them. If I could—

A hand lands on my shoulder. I still and let it pull me to my feet. Johnny turns me around and takes my shoulders in his hands. I can feel the shadow of the wall falling across the back of my neck. Bleak, brutal, and cold.

Johnny’s face is frank. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to fix the wall, Paz.”

I shake my head. “I have to.”

“Why?”

“I just…have to.”

His brow knits unhappily. It’s the first time I’ve seen Johnny look at me with anything remotely approaching sincerity. “Are you sure? Are you sure you can’t just…let it come down?”

“No.”

“No you’re not sure, or no you can’t let it come down.”

Bang bang bang.

“No, I’m not—I don’t…know.” I stare at him, feeling helpless. “I don’t know anymore.”

He sighs and squeezes my shoulders and as he does, the air seems to squeeze around me.

“Would it be fair to say you need someone to help you figure it out?”

“Please let go of my shoulders,” I whisper.

His eyes search mine for a long moment before he steps back. “That wall wants to come down, Paz. Maybe it’s time to let it.”

chapter

twenty-two

“TIME TO GO, SLEEPING BEAUTY.”

My eyes struggle open to find Johnny squatting over me. I lurch sideways, startled, and he grins. Scraps of some memory whip through my head. Or a dream, maybe. The wall. Johnny was there? I can’t catch hold of it.

“What the hell are you doing?” I roll painfully onto my side, pushing Shanny’s tongue out of my face, and sit up. “Time to go where?”

“Rescue the princess from the tower.” He stands and holds out a hand. I look at it suspiciously and don’t take it.

“I thought I was the princess.”

He snorts. “It’s twenty one ninety three. Princesses can rescue princesses now, didn’t you hear?”

I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet. My eyes are sticky and my whole body is sore from sleeping on the floor. I rub my face and look around.

“Where are we?”

“Landing dock near the tower.”

“We landed? How did I sleep through that? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Fetch handled the docking fine. You seemed out of it. I figured it was better to let you sleep.”

I narrow my eyes. He’s being nice again. It’s unnerving. “Thanks.”

He flicks his eyes away, shrugging. “Need you functional. That’s all.”

High Life steps through from the galley with Penny on their shoulder, followed by Fetch and Dominie. There is a fresh, lively energy in the air. Everyone must have slept.

“What’s the plan?” says Fetch as we gather in a circle in the middle of the room.

Johnny folds his arms. “Since High Life is the only one these people know they’ll go in alone. All we’re doing right now is gathering information. We’re not actually rescuing any princesses.” He lifts an eyebrow at me and turns to High Life. “Ask around but don’t be pushy. See what you find out.”

High Life nods.

“And then what?” I ask. “We’re just going to sit and wait?”

“I know it’s not your preferred method, but we’re trying to be smart about this,” says Johnny. “High Life, you have a radio?”

High Life produces a small, handheld device from inside the pocket of their jacket and presses their thumb against a button on the side. The radio in my ear crackles to life.

“Roger,” says High Life into the radio.

Johnny looks around. “The rest of us should be ready to make a move in case something does turn up. Fetch, Sargo, it would be a good idea to study the map. We don’t know where we might have to go next. Dominie can fill you in on the places we’re familiar with.”

High Life, already halfway up the ladder, is donning a square pack that straps around their chest with a lot of tight cinches. They pull on their goggles and mask, give us all a big thumbs-up, throw open the hatch and climb out onto the deck. I try not to scowl with frustration as their feet disappear and the hatch closes behind them.

“Why did you even wake me up?” I mutter. “It’s not like I’m doing anything.”

Johnny shoots me a look. “Study the map, Sailor.” He ducks through the galley door and heads for the cockpit.

I sit with Fetch and Dominie at the table and look at the chart. The landing platform we’re currently docked at is a few hundred yards from the Tower where Creed are holed up and High Life’s alleged contact is waiting. I frown to myself as Dominie pulls up her own projection to supplement the map. How the hell is High Life getting from here to the tower? We’re fifteen thousand feet up and as far as I know, there isn’t a bridge between the two structures. There isn’t time to ponder it, unfortunately, as Dominie has launched into a rapid explanation about the radicals we’re dealing with.

According to High Life’s intel, Creed’s goals are similar to those of the Exiters: find a more habitable dimension. The group has only been organizing for a very short time—since Zenith made contact with this Parallel. In fact, prior to Zenith coming here, this dimension had no knowledge of other dimensions or inter-dimensional travel. Since making contact, Zenith has tried to keep their presence undetected, but it seems they’ve been unsuccessful.

“So it’s actually Zenith’s fault that these radicals even exist,” I say.

Dominie grimaces. “We don’t know that for sure. But it is possible that our presence here exacerbated an already tense situation.”

I shake my head. “Wow, so we really are just flogging things up all over the multiverse, aren’t we?”

She rubs her eyes behind her spex and says nothing.

An hour later, Fetch and I stand up from the table, stiff and overloaded with information. I stretch and wander through the galley to the cockpit, where Johnny sits in High Life’s chair with his boots up on the console, staring vacantly through the windshield. Through the glass and the haze outside, I can just make out the tower we’re here to check out. Again I wonder how on earth High Life got over there. QMTP maybe? But how? They don’t have a biochip.

Johnny shrugs and says nothing as I step into the room and indicate the chair next to him. Flopping into it, I swivel it toward the console and cross my feet up on the dash. “Busy?”

Johnny eyes my boots, then folds his arms and stares through the windshield again.

“It’s just that you told us to get prepared. Study the map. I figured you’d have some kind of really important team leader work to do.” I make a big show of looking around the cockpit as though searching for whatever he’s been working on. “I guess you already finished it, huh?”

“You worry about yourself, Paz,” he says. “I don’t need babysitting.”

“You seem even more moody than usual. Something wrong?”

“Nothing that concerns you, Sweetheart.” He uncrosses and re-crosses his boots.

“Well, actually, it does concern me. Because like you said earlier, we need everyone functional.”

He tilts his face to mine. “I’m functional.”

“Alrighty.” Folding my arms, I put my gaze through the windshield. We sit in silence for what feels like an excruciating number of minutes.

Finally, he sighs and says, “Stavra was a friend. You know?”

“Oh.” My eyebrows knit. “Sure.”

“Actually…” He shakes his head, rubbing his face. “That’s not even true. He was…more than a friend.”

I nod slowly, keeping my eyes forward. “Like you trained together?”

“Like we were together.”

“I see.”

“And yes. We also trained together. He was Anonymity. He was good at his job. I just can’t understand why he—flipped out like that.”

He sounds more resigned than upset or confused, so I don’t try to offer any explanations. I didn’t know Stavra. I don’t know why he would have flipped out.

We lapse into silence. I watch orange strands of smog threading themselves around the Tower, weaving and shifting. Guilt creeps through me. It had never occurred to me that Johnny might actually have feelings. That all his glibness and snark might actually be a way of masking those feelings. I scratch the rapidly thickening stubble under my chin.

“You know…you’re allowed to talk to people about Stavra. You don’t have to…” I trail off, shrugging.

He scoffs and looks at me. “Which people? You?”

As our eyes meet, a fragment of an image flits through my head. Johnny’s eyes, frankly searching mine. A drop of water, beading out of a crack in a wall. A vacillation in the air around us. I shove it down and put my eyes forward again.

“I mean…sure. If you want to.”

“I’d honestly rather not,” he says.

Irritation prickles my spine. “Yeah, no. Why would you? It’s not like—”

He sits up suddenly, holding up one finger to silence me and pressing the other behind his ear. “High Life?” I watch as he listens to something I can’t hear through his radio, then swings his eyes to me, his mouth falling open. “Are you sure?” Anxious silence while he listens, then he says, “Copy that. We’re on the way.”

“What?” I sit up too as he springs from the chair. “What did they say?”

But he’s already through the cockpit door to the galley, and doesn’t look back as he calls over his shoulder, “High Life has eyes on Howsley.”

“What?” I fall out of the chair and stumble after him. “She’s here?”

“Yup.” He strides into the main cabin, where Fetch and Dominie look up from the map. “High Life says Howsley is inside,” Johnny tells them. “They can’t get her out on their own. But they may be able to get us in so we can extract her.”

Fetch is already on her feet, sheathing her knife across her chest. “What’s the procedure?” She’s practically on her way out the door while I’m still struggling to process the information.

“According to High Life, there’s a second entry point on the other side of the tower. They’ll let us in and direct us where to go. We need to be fast and dead quiet.”

“How many people inside?” says Fetch.

Johnny flings open a locker next to the ladder and pulls out four packs. He shrugs one on, hands one to Fetch and another to Dominie, and tucks the fourth under his arm. “Around ten. Ideally, we won’t have to deal with them—High Life should be able to cover for us while we get Howsley out.”

Fetch snorts. “Right. Ideally.”

Johnny, cinching the pack around his chest, eyes her. “Well, that’s what you’re here for, right? In case things don’t go ideally.”

Fetch examines the pack. “What am I putting on here?”

“Wings,” says Dominie, putting on her own pack and cinching down the chest straps.

Fetch freezes. “Wings?”

“So you can fly to the Tower.”

The color drains so quickly from Fetch’s face that it looks like someone pulled a plug in her foot. She blinks. “I’m sorry…I think I just went temporarily insane. Because I thought you said we were going to fly to the Tower.”

“Yup.” Dominie lifts her braids out from under the pack straps and pulls them into a thick ponytail, securing them with a band from around her wrist. “Well, more like glide.”

“Can’t we just teleport?”

Dominie shakes her head. “The electricity in the air here does something funky to the biochips. And anyway—no launchpad.”

“Let’s go.” Johnny pulls his goggles over his eyes and heads for the ladder, his pack already secured.

“Um…hello?” I wave an arm over my head. “Can someone explain why I’m not wearing wings?”

Dominie pulls off her spex and tucks them inside her jacket, then replaces them with her goggles. “Johnny?”

He stops with his hand on the lowest rung of the ladder and sighs heavily. “We need someone here to ready the ship for launch, in case we need to get out of here in a hurry. And anyway, we only have four wing packs.”

“There are four of us!” I cry.

“This…” He shakes the fourth pack in my face, “is for Howsley, Genius!”

“I’m not going?” I gape at him.

Fetch, who has become very quiet and somehow also very small, stares at the pack in her hands.

“Don’t make this difficult, Paz,” says Johnny.

“But it makes no sense!” I gesture furiously at Fetch. “Fetch is afraid of heights. She doesn’t want to fly over there! Give me her pack and let her stay here! She can fly the ship. She’s as good a sailor as I am. Better, probably.”

“She’s also a better fighter and covert operative,” Johnny retorts sharply. “We need her over there. You will not be useful, and you’ll probably get yourself killed. And High Life told me you understand how to launch the ship. How it all works.”

“I mean…I understand it. That doesn’t mean I can do it.”

“This isn’t a discussion, Paz. This is a direct order.”

My mouth drops open, but he’s already turned and is climbing the ladder. I glare at the bottom of his boots as he reaches the top, throws open the hatch, and climbs out. Dominie offers me an apologetic shrug, then pulls her mask on and follows him.

I exchange a look with Fetch, who is trembling.

She swallows. “Why did I think this was going to get less insane?”

Exhaling long and hard through my nose, I shake my head. “Yeah, I don’t know. This whole thing is…”

“Bonkers,” she supplies.

“Fetch!” Johnny’s bark from outside is impatient.

She shuts her eyes and my stomach swoops, suddenly feeling her fear as palpably as if it were my own. Doing my best to temper my rage, I put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you going to be able to do this?”

She barks out a panicked laugh. “I don’t think I have a choice.”

“Give me your pack. You don’t have to go. Screw Johnny. He can deal with it.”

She shakes her head. “He’s right. If things go badly over there, you’re not going to be able to handle it.” She shrugs the pack around her shoulders and tries to buckle the cinch, but her fingers are trembling so badly she can’t.

“Let me—” I push her hands away and buckle it, cinching it down tight. I buckle and cinch the other, then shake her by her pack strap. “Feel pretty tight?”

Her face goes even paler. “It’s not going to come off, is it?”

I shake my head, feigning confidence. “No. No way.”

“Okay.” She licks her lips. “Okay.”

“Fetch!”

Johnny’s shout from above jars her into movement. As she steps toward the ladder, I grab her around the shoulders and pull her into a hug. Suddenly, I feel very, very scared. I don’t have a little sister, but if I did, I imagine it might feel a lot like this to watch her strap on a pair of death wings and jump off an airship into a toxic wasteland.

“Be careful,” I say. “Locuaz needs you to come back.” I feel her nod once against my chest, then release her. Holding her at arms’ length, I look into her eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” she croaks, then clears her throat and stands up a little taller. “We all have to face our fears someday, right?”

“Actually…” I squeeze her shoulders and let go. “Most people don’t.”

She smiles weakly and steps around me to the ladder. After following her up through the hatch, I stand by the mast to watch as Johnny runs her through how to deploy the wings. When he finishes his spiel, he claps her on the shoulder, takes about ten paces back from the edge of the ship, squares his shoulders, and takes a breath. He checks over his shoulder and catches me watching him, and something acute and electric snaps between us. Suddenly, I feel really scared again. I feel like I did on Z-Day when I watched Bird disappear into thin air in the middle of Axioma’s office, following Axioma to some random dimension where I couldn’t keep her safe.

Then Johnny tilts his head and gives me a salute that I somehow know is sarcastic even though it’s just a tip of his hand, and the moment shatters. He turns, sprints flat-out toward the edge of the deck, and leaps over the side.

I stumble after him and look down to where he is shooting like a stone toward the earth—at least, I assume the earth is down there somewhere, I can’t see it through the smog and the fifteen thousand feet that separates me from it. At the last possible second, just before the smog becomes so thick that I lose sight of him, the wings snap out of his pack and he banks sharply upward.

Dominie leaps over after him. I turn to Fetch, meaning to give her one final word of encouragement, but she’s already sprinting past me, and before I can even shout after her, she’s over the side as well. She wobbles as the wings snap open, and I shut my eyes. When I open them again, the three of them are soaring toward the Tower. They glide to a platform at my eye-level and land, Dominie reaching a hand down to Fetch, who barely makes it to the edge. Folding up their wings, they sprint around the corner and are gone.

I stare after them for several minutes, feeling helpless. The smog drifts and swirls between me and the Tower, closing off my view of it. There’s nothing I can do for them now.

With a resigned sigh, I turn and climb back through the hatch. I head to the cockpit and fling myself into High Life’s chair to ready the ship for launch and take my mind off the thought that is spiraling loudly up from the base of my skull:

Bird is in there.

____________________

“Paz!”

Johnny’s voice sizzles down the radio into my ear. I look up from the console and through the windshield. The ship is in its launch position, with the cable pulled tight and ready to release. The smog has cleared a little and I can just make out three tiny figures sprinting around the corner of the Tower on the platform. A moment later, a fourth figure appears, bigger, slower, moving with a weird, disjointed gait. I squint at it, not comprehending, until I realize it’s actually two people. One is carrying the other. Or, dragging them, more like.

“Paz!” Johnny yells again.

I jolt to my senses and jam my finger behind my ear. “I’m here.”

“We’re being followed. Howsley’s in bad shape. She can’t use the wings, she can barely walk. We need you to meet us halfway.”

“What?”

“One of us is going to have to fly with her.” The first three figures make it to the edge of the platform and stop. Johnny continues down the radio, panting, “But the wings won’t take two people all the way back to you. It’s too much weight. You need to launch the ship and catch us. If we time it right—”

“Catch you?” Through the windshield, I watch the fourth figure, which I assume is Johnny dragging Bird, catch up to the other three and stand at the platform’s edge.

“Yes! Like, now.”

“Johnny, this is crazy—”

As I say this, three more figures bolt around the corner and sprint for them.

“They are literally on us!” Johnny yells.

“Shit.” I reach for the control panel and flip the lever that releases the launch cable.

The ship plummets off the dock as the four figures leap from the Tower. Four pairs of wings snap open as the ship swings up on the second cable and launches into the sky. Three of the winged figures tuck and bank cleanly toward me in a smooth, controlled arc—High Life, Dominie, and Fetch, I assume. But the fourth—Johnny, carrying Bird—wobbles and begins to sink. My heart gutters. They won’t make it.

Throwing off my seatbelt, I tumble out of the cockpit and run for the main cabin. Grabbing a tether, I clip it to my suit, then swing up the ladder and throw open the hatch in time to see Fetch, Dominie, and High Life with their wings tucked in, diving for the deck. High Life folds the wings away completely and tucks their chin, landing hard on the deck in a tight roll. Fetch and Dominie crash-land behind them in a heap of limbs and broken wings. Just over High Life’s shoulder, I see Johnny sinking fast as the ship passes him, Bird dangling below him from one arm.

“Sargo!” Fetch yells as I sprint past her toward the edge of the deck, “What the hell are you—”

Her voice is lost as I fling myself over the side. The wind screams in my ears and tears at my clothes as I careen out and down toward Johnny and Bird, my arms and legs flailing.

“Johnny!”

Johnny’s head snaps up. He shoots out the arm that isn’t holding Bird, and I reach for it. As we pass each other, I feel his fingers brush mine.

Our hands close around each other at the same moment that the tether snaps tight around my waist. The air shoots out of me and I jolt to a stop, clutching Johnny’s hand in mine. The tether yanks me back toward the ship, Johnny and Bird dragging through the air behind me. Almost losing my grip on Johnny’s wrist, I grab his forearm with my other hand as we careen in a wide, low arc toward the stern.

“Holy shit, Paz!” yells Johnny through the radio.

“I got you!” is all I can think to scream back. “I got you!”

“Sargo?” Fetch’s voice comes in.

“Yeah,” I choke. “I’m here. We’re here.”

She swears, and I hear her panting. The tether swings us all the way under the ship and out the other side, then back down. We continue to swing back and forth at the end of the tether as the ship continues its trajectory up and out of the Soup.

“Is someone gonna pull us in?” I shout.

“Hang on!” Fetch calls back. “High Life needs to set the sails first.”

Johnny, dangling below me, is cursing and panting.

“Gods dammit, I flogging hate sailing!” he yells.

“It’s not usually like this,” I gasp. “Most of the time it’s really boring.”

chapter

twenty-three

BIRD IS A MESS.

Her face and hands are bruised and covered in nicks and scrapes like she was dragged facedown through gravel, or attacked by something with claws. Her clothes are torn in places. She’s not responding to our voices. Fetch and I lay her on a bunk in one of the stern sleeping cabins while High Life sets our course and Dominie cleans up Johnny’s shoulder in the galley. The bullet wound he sustained in Brume Two has reopened and is bleeding freely. Fetch’s eye is black and both she and Dominie are limping from their crash-landing on the deck. The air in the ship is brittle.

Fetch hovers in the doorway between me and the main cabin while I stand over Bird in the bunk, feeling lost and exhausted. My hands are still shaking from the adrenaline rush of jumping off the airship after Johnny. My heart is beating through my chest and my head is ringing like a bell. We’ve barely made it to altitude. The last thirty minutes are a blur.

“You can sit with her,” Fetch says quietly. “We don’t need you out there. High Life and I can manage the sails.”

In the silence following her words, I try not to imagine what it would have felt like for my hand not to have closed around Johnny’s in that microsecond when I caught him. I try not to picture Johnny and Bird plummeting fifteen thousand feet through orange smog. I try not to picture their insides exploding out of them when they hit the ground like feathers in a pillow fight.

I squeeze my head, but the ringing doesn’t stop. I don’t know what to do. I want to sink to my knees and wrap my arms around Bird. But I’m afraid to touch her; she looks broken.

Fetch shifts in the doorway and I turn to see her folding her arms. “Feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help anyone.”

“Right.”

“I’ll ask Dominie to bring you some antiseptic to clean her up.” Her eyes are frank. “Can you handle that?”

“Of course I can handle it.” I return her frank look. “Are you going to take care of that eye?”

“You let me worry about that.”

We stare at each other.

“What happened?” I say. “In the Tower.”

Fetch sniffs. “Oh, you know. The usual. We almost made it out without being detected and then someone sneezed.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She smiles grimly. “A joke.” She shifts her gaze and flicks the knife across her chest, which I notice has blood on the handle. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We got her out.”

I look down at Bird’s battered face. “How did she…how did this happen?”

“She was like that when we found her.”

“What was she even doing there?”

Fetch sighs and tilts her head from side to side, cracking her neck. “That sounds like a question for someone other than me. I’m going to get that antiseptic.”

She crosses the main cabin to the galley, leaving the door open. I stare through it to where Dominie is fixing up Johnny at the sink. When he meets my gaze, his expression is blank and unreadable. Fetch swipes the antiseptic bottle and a rag off the counter next to him, and Johnny doesn’t move his eyes from mine as she trots back to me with them. She hands them to me and Johnny salutes me as I shut the door behind her.

With the door closed, the ringing in my ears seems amplified. Kneeling by the bunk, I set the bottle and rag on the floor and stare at Bird’s ruined face. Johnny’s words from days ago are flying around my head.

“She would give them information if they tortured her.”

Tugging up the bottom of her shirt reveals more bruises. She is literally covered in them. Her whole torso is like a mosaic of injuries. When I roll up one ankle of her pants, I find more.

But closer examination reveals that the bruises are at least a few days old, and none of the cuts are actively bleeding—in fact, they look like they’ve already been cleaned and tended to. Nothing looks infected or dirty or like it needs fixing. There’s nothing I can do to improve this situation. It’s all…done. Frowning, I put my back against the wall, then I tilt my head back and close my eyes.

Some number of minutes later, the door cracks open and Shanny tears through it. I don’t get a look at the face of whoever let him in before the door closes again. Snatching him up by the scruff of his neck before he can bound onto the bed with Bird, I pull him into my lap. He snorts and wriggles and tries to lick my face.

We sit there together for a long time. Hours, maybe. At some point, the door cracks open again and Dominie hands through an apple. I cut it open with my knife and share it with Shanny. When we finish, I duck out to use the head, and when I come back, Shanny is sitting on Bird’s chest, licking her face.

“Shanny! For flog’s sake!”

Bird’s eyes flicker open as I pull Shanny off her. They seem to briefly find the ceiling, then close. My breath goes still.

“Bird?”

After a long minute, with her eyes still closed, she says, “Mm?”

Relief pours through me. I set Shanny on the floor. “Can you hear me?”

“Mhm.”

“Can you open your eyes?”

“Mhm.”

I wait. Her eyes don’t open. Finally, I ask, “Are you going to?”

“Mm mm.”

“Okay.”

Quiet settles. I keep Shanny back with one elbow and resist the urge to pick up Bird’s hand because I’m not sure if doing so will hurt her. Finally, with her eyes still closed, she mumbles, “Where are we?”

“On an airship.”

Her brow creases slightly. Another long moment of silence passes. Then she says, “You came to find me.”

“We did.”

“Even though I was an asshole.”

“I—” My mouth sticks open. “I guess.” I had completely forgotten about the night she went missing. Suddenly it all comes rushing back. I rub my face with both hands and sigh. “Were you an asshole? I kind of thought maybe that was me.”

Her eyes finally open and blearily find the ceiling again. “I kind of think maybe it was both of us.”

I brush the hair from her face and she looks at me. My chest squeezes. “Okay. Let’s go with that.”

She smiles, but for some reason I can’t smile back. She feels…unfamiliar. Like someone I’ve never met before and don’t have anything to talk about with. Shanny wrangles his way past my elbow and launches himself at her again. I make a grab for him.

“It’s fine.” She shrugs me off and starts to sit up. “I’m fine.”

I put a hand on her shoulder to keep her lying down. “You don’t look fine.”

Glancing down at her bruised and shredded hands, she frowns again. “Oh…yeah. No, it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.”

“How is that possible? This looks…” I try not to look as sick as I feel. “This looks really bad.”

“They gave me painkillers, I think.” She struggles up to her elbows and reaches behind her for a pillow, and I tip it up so she can lean against it.

“Who gave you painkillers?”

“The guys…” She lifts a hand vaguely, shutting her eyes again. “The guys in the Tower. When they fixed me up.”

I frown. “The guys in the Tower fixed you up?”

“Mhm.”

“But…they weren’t the ones that did this to you? The guys in the Tower?”

Her eyes open. “Oh—yeah…” She tugs one sleeve down over her hand. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” Her eyes begin to close again.

“Okay.” I smooth her hair and watch her for another long moment. “Do you need anything?” She says nothing, and I quietly get to my feet. “You want me to leave Shanny?”

But she’s apparently fallen asleep again and doesn’t respond.

In the main cabin, I find Dominie and Fetch sitting at the table, poring over High Life’s map. Fetch looks up as I close the door to Bird’s berth quietly behind me.

“How is she?”

“A little out of it.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She said the Creed guys gave her painkillers? That could be why she was unconscious, I guess? And it looks like they must have already fixed up the injuries, because there was nothing really to clean.”

“Huh.” Dominie frowns. She opens her mouth, then hesitates. “I guess I assumed they had given her those injuries. Like, beat her or something. For information. But—why would they give her painkillers if they were…doing that?”

I swallow, feeling sick again. Putting my focus on the map, I clear my throat and ask, “What’s the plan? Back through the Updraft?”

Fetch shakes her head vigorously. “Noooo. No way. We’re going around. It’ll take a little longer, but—you know. It’ll be much easier.”

“Sure.” I check over my shoulder. “High Life and Johnny in the cockpit?”

Fetch nods.

High Life sits cross-legged in the captain’s chair and Johnny has his boots up on the dash. High Life is sporting a split lip, and a small patch of red darkens the bandage around Johnny’s shoulder.

“She awake?” says High Life. I nod. “That’s good.” They search my face. “Everything okay?”

I sit in one of the wall-mounted chairs behind them, and High Life swivels around to face me. “I don’t know. She said some weird things.”

“Like what?”

“Sounds like the Creed guys were, I don’t know, taking care of her? But that doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because…I guess because of something Johnny said back at headquarters.”

Johnny whips his head around and frowns at me. “What did I say?”

“I said that Bird would never give the Exiters information about QMTP. And you said—”

“She would if they tortured her.”

“Yes.”

Johnny turns around again, uncrossing and re-crossing his boots. “Well, that was just speculation. We don’t know for sure that they did anything.”

“Then where did those injuries come from?”

Johnny shrugs. “She went missing during the explosion at the Green, right? Maybe she got caught in the blast.”

“Oh, yeah.” High Life nods. “That makes sense. And the Exiters—Creed, whoever—would need to fix her up so she was in good shape to help them.”

I nod, frowning through the windshield.

“Anyway—” High Life swivels to face the console again. “We’re making good time. Should be back at the launchpad in a few days and you can get her back to Zenith.”

I squint at the display that I’m pretty sure is a radar. “Do you think they’ll follow us?”

“Creed? Almost certainly,” says Johnny.

“And are we worried about that?”

“Nah.” High Life scrunches their face. “Runabout is pretty quick. And none of those guys have my incredible prowess as a pilot.”

I manage a grim smile. “Are we taking watches?”

Johnny eyes me over his shoulder. “We are. I’m assuming you haven’t slept yet.”

“I have not.”

He faces the windshield again. “Maybe you should go do that, then.”

Exhaustion drops into me like a sack full of bricks. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. “Wake me up for the next watch?”

Johnny tips his fingers in another, slightly less sarcastic, salute. “Aye aye, Captain.”

____________________

It takes us three days to get back to the tower that houses the Zenith launchpad. Bird sleeps most of the way. High Life, Fetch, Johnny, Dominie, and I take turns on watch. Four hours on, just like Bird and I used to do on Panga, but with four of us splitting the time, we get a lot more time in between watches to rest, which is a relief.

Shanny and Penny spend long hours grooming each other and chasing each other around the main cabin, filling the place with fur and feathers, to Johnny’s noticeable irritation.

By the time we get back to the launchpad, Bird is up and walking around. Her bruises have faded considerably, and she’s quiet but cognizant. We say goodbye to High Life, and I feel a pang of regret watching Runabout launch and soar up into the Soup. I’ve never met anyone in Brume with quite the same passion for their ship and love for the physics of sailing—or flying—as High Life. It would be nice to have them around some more.

Electra and Paradi greet us on the other side of the nauseating jump back to Zenith headquarters. They are surrounded by a team of lab techs and doctors, who immediately whisk Bird away for observation. Johnny, Fetch, and Dominie are also escorted off to have their injuries seen to, Johnny catching my eye to tip me one final salute as they walk him off. I salute him back, wondering suddenly if I’ll ever see him again now that the mission is over, and feeling oddly panicked that I won’t. My head spins as I stand in front of the elevators with Electra and Shanny, watching my crew for the last week splinter and disappear.

“You should go home,” says Electra. “You look really terrible.”

“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I guess I’d rather stay here and wait for Bird.”

“It’s going to be a while. A few days maybe. They’re going to want to check out her injuries, and Paradi has some questions for her. We need to know what, if anything, she disclosed to the Exiters.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Take Shanny home and get some sleep. I promise we’ll call you.”

For once, I feel too exhausted to argue.

Jade and Kestrel are already aware that Bird is back when I stop by their place to check on them. They’re busy packing an overnight bag to take to Zenith so they can be there in the morning when she wakes up. I don’t know whether Electra will even let them see Bird or not, but they seem determined to go either way.

The docks are wreathed in cold, damp fog. Panga is chilly and lonely. I make a cup of tea and turn on every single light, then pull as many blankets as I can find out of the locker in our sleeping quarters and bundle them around me and Shanny on the sofa. I fall asleep with the full mug of tea still steaming next to me on the floor.

When I wake, the fog has cleared. Crisp morning sunshine is coming through the portholes and the air is clear and hard. I feed Shanny and do a rundown of all Panga’s systems to make sure nothing went awry while I was gone. Then, feeling agitated and not knowing what else to do with myself, I clean the head and the galley, wipe down all the surfaces in the main cabin, turn down our sleeping quarters, change the sheets, put all the towels in a big bag for laundering, clean the cockpit, polish the stainless, and start an inventory of all our food to see what needs replacing and making sure nothing has gone bad.

I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor in the main cabin, surrounded by stacks of cans, piles of dried beans, and bags of rice, checking off things on a list on my slate, when a footstep falls on the dock outside. Shanny tears up the companionway steps, barking his head off.

“It’s okay, Shan,” comes a familiar female voice. “Just me.”

My heart lurches. I scramble up and climb the steps, but the face I greet when I get to the top isn’t Bird’s. Fetch folds her arms and looks past my shoulder at the mess of my half-completed inventory on the floor below.

“What’s going on here?”

“Just doing some cleaning.”

“Not super great at relaxing, are you?” Hopping over Panga’s rail, she steps down into the cockpit next to me. “Want to take a break?”

“I guess.”

We walk out to the end of the breakwater with Shanny trotting ahead of us, and sit on the big rocks where the water of the Salt slaps and sucks below our feet and the last breath of fog is burning away, revealing a clear, blue sky. Shanny disappears to investigate some smell he’s detected and Fetch wraps her arms around her knees and stares across the water at the cliffs on the other side of the bay.

“Are you going back to Pocosín?” I ask. “Now that the mission’s over?”

“Probably. I might hang around for a few days.”

“The Nations let you go without too much hassle?”

“They kept me overnight. I think Electra wanted me to stay in the med lab another day, but I told her to flog off.”

“Did you see Bird?”

“No. Sorry.”

“And Johnny?”

She squints sharply sideways at me. “No. I think he and Dominie are still there.” I feel her eyes on the side of my face for a long moment, then she says, “Seems like a weird energy between you two.”

“Me and Johnny?” I frown. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, her narrow eyes still on my face. “Just a vibe.”

“We didn’t really get along. He doesn’t do things in a way that I think is intelligent.”

“Mm.” She picks up a pebble and tosses it into the Salt. “You don’t seem like you’re friends with many dudes, anyway.”

I frown. That was…insightful. “I—’m…not.”

“Why is that?”

“Um…” I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. It feels too early in the morning for this kind of incisive questioning. “I don’t know. I haven’t really had time for many relationships. Male or female.”

“And why is that?”

“I was busy trying to be the best.”

“Ah.” She nods knowingly. “I was the same way before I met Locuaz. Except it was more about ‘surviving’ than ‘becoming the best’.”

“I would say you did both.”

She smiles abashedly, a look I’ve never seen from her before. “Thanks.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes. I’m weirdly enjoying her company. I never thought I would enjoy Fetch’s company. It’s nice to talk about something other than Zenith or Bird or the Exiters or the impending collapse of society.

I pick at a small hole that’s appeared in the knee of my pants. “So you never dated anyone before Locuaz?”

“I did once. When I was younger. A guy.” She makes a face. “It was terrible. I don’t know how straight girls do it. No offense.”

“None taken. We are pretty terrible.”

She picks up another pebble and tosses it into the water. “What about you? Did you ever date anyone before Bird?”

“Not seriously.”

“Did you ever date any guys?”

“What?” I whip my head around to find her surveying me with those frank little-sister eyes. “I—no? Why would you…ask me that?”

“Just a vibe.”

A cold sliver of panic has fallen across my shoulders. A bleak and brutal shadow like the chilling shade cast by some bleak and brutal wall.

“No,” I say, putting my gaze firmly back on the Salt. “I never dated any guys.”

“Mm.” Her eyes don’t move from the side of my face. Finally, she says, “Okay.”

A ping penetrates my skull, and a message alert slides in front of my eyes. I swipe it open quickly, eager to change the subject, and squint at the text.

“Shit.”

“What?” says Fetch.

I swipe in the air to forward the message to her. It’s from Johnny.

>>> NEED YOU TO COME BACK TO HEADQUARTERS. HOWSLEY IS REFUSING TO COOPERATE.

chapter

twenty-four

JOHNNY MEETS Fetch and me in front of headquarters with a grim look on his face.

“Your girlfriend is a real pain in the ass,” he says.

Fetch nods. “He’s aware.”

Johnny puts his palm to the door scanner and motions us through. “She’s been checked out. Physically, she’s fine. The injuries were superficial; the medics already took care of them. She won’t tell us how she got them. She won’t tell us much of anything.”

“Well, she did just survive a kidnapping.” I try to keep my voice level as we follow him along the corridor toward the main lab. “Maybe she needs some time to recover?”

“I know. Unfortunately, Electra is on a bit of a bender. She doesn’t think we have time.”

We round a corner to find Electra striding down the hallway toward us, her face furious.

“What are they doing here?” she demands.

Johnny halts in front of her and folds his arms. “I called Sargo. Seems like we need some help getting through to Howsley.”

“We have interrogators working on her.”

I frown. “Interrogators?”

“Not—” She tosses her head. “Not like that. Just professionals. People who are trained to talk to people. You don’t need to be involved.”

“So you were fine sending me into a post-apocalyptic nightmare world where I could have easily died, but you need trained professionals to talk to my girlfriend?”

“You had transferable skills there,” she shoots back. “I just don’t see how you can be useful here.”

“I know how to talk to Bird.”

“Do you? Because I seem to remember you telling me the last conversation you two had ended with her storming out and being abducted.”

The words hit me so hard I nearly double over.

“Whoa…” Fetch puts up her hands. “Easy.”

“I don’t…I didn’t—” Electra rubs her face. “Sorry. The situation has gotten complicated. While you were in Brume Three extracting Bird, we got a tip that the Exiters may be planning something. Here.”

“Another demonstration?” asks Fetch.

“Maybe. Maybe bigger. We don’t know. And right now, Bird is our only link to the organization. If she heard anything while she was with them, we need her to tell us.”

“And there’s still the matter of what she might have told them about QMTP,” Johnny adds.

“It’s been one day.” I shake my head at Electra. “Give her some time, maybe?”

“We don’t have time,” she replies.

“Can I see her, at least?”

She purses her lips and looks at Johnny.

“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea,” Johnny says quietly. “We should try every avenue.”

“Suddenly you’re keen to have him on board?”

He spreads his palms. “Maybe I changed my mind about him.”

A spike of nervous energy goes through me as our eyes meet.

Electra sighs and squeezes her temples between her thumb and middle finger. “She’s in the main lab. You can see her,” she calls after me as I step around her and continue down the corridor. “I did not authorize a conversation.”

At the door to the lab, I put my face to a small round window. Bird is sitting with her back to me on a metal table in the middle of the room, surrounded by shelves of medical equipment and creepy-looking machines with articulating arms. Around her wrists are two large, white bracelets with tiny blue lights blinking down the sides.

I step back and turn to Electra. “Did you cuff her?”

“To prevent her from jumping.”

“Why would you think she would try to escape?”

“We don’t know what she might do! She’s been extremely uncooperative, and I don’t know if you remember, but Howsley is notoriously unpredictable.”

I stare at her. “Did you ever think that when you treat people like criminals, they tend to act like criminals?”

“Can confirm,” says Fetch. “Am criminal.”

“We need her here,” says Electra. “We can’t risk her disappearing again.”

I turn back to the window. “Let me take her home.”

“What? I don’t think so.”

Bird sits up and looks over her shoulder. Her eyes find mine and her face splits into a smile. My throat tightens.

“Open the door.”

Electra steps between me and the window. “You’re upset. This is exactly why I didn’t want you here.”

“Open the door, right now. I’m taking her home.”

She looks past my shoulder at Johnny. “Do you see why I didn’t want you to call him?”

“Well, maybe he’s right,” says Johnny. “Maybe going home would be a good idea. Reset. She doesn’t seem super receptive to anything we’ve tried so far.”

“The Exiters are looking for her! She’s still at risk. Or are you all just dying to go back through the Updraft if she gets taken again?”

“No one’s going back through the Updraft,” says Johnny. “Look…if you let Paz take her home, I’ll go with them. Okay? I’ll keep my eye on the Exiters situation, and you can leave the cuffs on Howsley so she doesn’t do anything unexpected. Paz can talk to her. If it doesn’t work, we bring her back here. No harm, no foul.”

Electra sets her jaw and says nothing.

“Is that acceptable to you, Paz?” says Johnny.

When I turn to look at him, he flicks his eyes away. Suddenly, I wonder why he’s doing this. It seems out of character. Did he really call me here because he thinks I’m the best person to talk to Bird, or did he do it…because he wants to help me get Bird home. And if so, why?

“Fine,” I say. “That’s fine.”

Johnny looks back at Electra. “Is that acceptable to you?”

She folds her arms with a huff. “If anything happens, Johnny, it’s your ass.”

I’m aware that Fetch’s eyes are on me and Johnny as he steps around me, puts his palm on the scanner, and enters the lab. I purposefully don’t meet them as I turn to follow him.

Electra catches my arm. “Just tell me,” she says in a low voice, “that you’re not doing that thing again.”

“What thing?” My brain is still muddling through the quagmire of feelings that Johnny’s unexpected kindness and Fetch’s narrow eyes have thrown me into.

“That thing where you can’t just let someone else be in control. Where you have to fix everything.”

Through the lab door, I see Bird greeting Johnny with an exhausted nod. I keep my face expressionless as I look down at Electra. “You’re holding my girlfriend prisoner. I think that’s the kind of thing that warrants fixing.”

____________________

Before they let Bird leave the lab, the Zenith techs want to finish running a battery of tests on her to make sure she’s physically sound enough to go, and turn her location module back on so they can track her.

I sit on a cold metal chair in the corner of the room and watch people in white coats poking her with various instruments. The cuts and bruises that were all over her yesterday are gone. Literally vanished without a trace, and Bird seems to be in no pain at all. Electra explains that they fixed them up overnight using some experimental new tech they’ve been developing, and I don’t know whether to be grateful or creeped out.

Johnny excuses himself with a word about coming back when we’re ready to leave. Fetch hangs around for thirty minutes, but I can feel impatience radiating off her and I know she’s anxious to get back to Pocosín. Finally, when she’s paced the entire circumference of the room ten or so times and is getting ready to go for an eleventh circuit, I tell her to beat it. She refuses my goodbye hug, insisting instead on a handshake from both me and Bird.

By the time Bird and I get out of headquarters and back to Panga, with Johnny in tow, the sun is halfway below the horizon, and long, pink rays are filtering through the incoming fog. Shanny bounds up the stairs from below deck as I open the main hatch and I just manage to get hold of him before he flings himself at Bird.

Bird climbs over Panga’s rail and looks around with a confused frown, and for one terrifying moment, I’m convinced she doesn’t know where she is.

Then she blinks at me and says, “You cleaned,” and my chest opens with relief.

“Yeah.”

“It looks nice.” Her eyes scan the gleaming cockpit, then fall on the stacks of cans and piles of food at the bottom of the stairs. I was halfway through organizing them when Fetch interrupted me earlier. Bird looks at them for a long time and then says, “You were worried.”

My throat goes tight again.

She turns to Johnny, who is still standing on the dock. “So are you, like, here to guard me?”

“Officially, I’m here to keep tabs on you,” he replies.

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially? Mostly I just said that to get Electra off your back.” He eyes Bird. “But you stay here. I think it’s highly unlikely the Exiters know where you live, and as long as you’re cuffed and you’re not going to do something extremely stupid like go wandering around the City in the middle of the night, I think we can all agree that you two don’t need a chaperone.”

My heart, inexplicably, sinks. “You’re not staying?”

“No, Paz.” His eyes meet mine and they are almost as exhausted as Bird’s. “I would really like to go home. I think we would all just really like to go home, wouldn’t we?”

I swallow, nodding.

“I’ll come by in the morning to check in. But if either of the Nation girls asks, I was here all night.”

I watch him adjusting his pack on his shoulders with an overwhelming mix of gratitude and disappointment. I don’t want him to leave. I feel safer with him here.

“Thanks,” I say. “For helping.”

He continues adjusting his pack and doesn’t look at me. “Electra was acting crazy. It’s better for Howsley to be here.” When he finishes fiddling with his pack, he looks up and lifts his eyebrows at me. “But let’s not forget the reason she’s here. Once you two are all done getting reacquainted.”

My ears ignite. “We’re not…doing that.”

He smirks. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

I grit my teeth. Just like that, we’re back to Princess. Like Johnny flipped a switch and threw up a barrier between us. He absorbs my glare with an irritating grin, then winks at Bird and strolls off down the dock.

Bird frowns after him. “Princess?”

“It’s not—I don’t know why he calls me that,” I mumble, setting down Shanny, who immediately begins inspecting Bird’s shoes.

Bird doesn’t seem to register him. She stares after Johnny and says, distantly, “Why am I here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Johnny said ‘let’s not forget the reason she’s here’. Why did they let me leave headquarters?”

“Officially? I’m supposed to find out what you know about the Exiters.”

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially, I guess I just wanted you to come home.”

She nods vaguely, seeming only half there. Silence settles. I feel it filling the space between us, and reach for something to say before it cuts us off completely, but come up with nothing. I never thought about what it would be like to actually see her standing here again, in this familiar place, surrounded by these familiar things. I didn’t think it would feel so…odd. I don’t know who she is anymore. I feel like a different person is standing there wearing her clothes.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Okay.”

More uncertain silence. Between us, Shanny sits and thumps his tail anxiously against the deck. Not knowing what else to do, I reach for Bird. But she pulls away. The silence solidifies. We watch each other over the top of it.

“I think I need to sleep?” she says finally.

“Okay.”

Another long moment of tense silence, then she steps carefully toward me and I step out of her way. We are briefly touching as she squeezes past me in the narrow cockpit, then she ducks down the companionway steps. Shanny dives after her. I hear her footsteps crossing the cabin, then the door to our sleeping berth closing, then silence again.

I watch the last ribbon of sun disappearing into the horizon. Then I go below to finish organizing our food.

By the time I’m done, the cabin is chilly and dark. I stand outside the door to the berth where Bird is sleeping for a long time, listening to the quiet sound of her breathing on the other side. All I want is to crawl into that warm bed and fold myself around her. Wake up tomorrow morning and go back to the way everything was. Like none of this ever happened.

Instead, I sleep on the sofa. Because all of this did happen. And I’m not sure anything will ever go back to the way it was.

chapter

twenty-five

THE CRACKS in the wall are appearing too fast for me to patch.

Every ten seconds or so, another springs into existence. Another weed blooming up from the ground. Another spiderweb creeping outward in long, crooked fingers. Water spouts out of every crack, pours down the slick, black face of the wall now, soaking the ground at my feet. I’m ankle deep in it. In mud and sludge.

Johnny is gone. I don’t know where. Bird never came back. It’s just me. Me and the wall and whatever is on the other side of it.

Bang bang bang.

I press my hand flat over the newest crevice, water spilling around my palm, running down my arm. Another appears to my left and I slam my left hand over it. Then another appears at my feet.

Bang bang bang.

The knocks are coming more frequently too, and with each foreboding knock, the wall shudders and a new crack appears. It seems Johnny was right. The wall is coming down. And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to stop it.

Bang bang bang.

A loud crunch above draws my eyes up just in time to see a huge chunk of black stone come loose from high above and plummet toward me. I take my hands off the wall and lurch backward, slipping in mud, just managing to dodge out of the way as it slams into the ground where I was standing; a sharp, black shard the size of my head.

Another crunch above me and another chunk of the wall comes loose. Then another.

I turn and sprint as slabs of stone begin to rain down around me. They crash into the water at my feet, sending up sheets of spray. Behind me, a massive, ominous crack rips through the air, and I look over my shoulder just in time to see one massive fault line sever the wall from top to bottom.

The wall splits and a tidal wave of water explodes out of it as chunks and slivers of stone fly free. It surges toward me, a churning mass of white foam, and I throw my arms over my head as it slams into me, bowls me over backward, flips me head over heels over head over heels, filling my eyes and nose.

I tumble and skid and somersault in the current for I don’t know how far, until the rush of water ebbs and slowly carries me to halt, flat on my back, gasping at the sky. I flail onto my hands and knees and cough and choke and snort out water until I can breathe again.

Then, very slowly, I get up. Little rivulets swirl and eddy around my feet as the last of the water drains away. The land around me is soaked and studded with massive chunks of rock and debris. I shake the water from my hair and drag my hands over my face and look back at where the wall stood. It’s just a pile of rubble. A heap of black stone, so tall I can’t see the top, rivers of water still cascading off it. Very slowly, I walk back to it.

A hand reaches up from behind a stone near the bottom of the pile.

I freeze. Whatever was on the other side is loose.

The hand feels around, finds purchase on the nearest stone, and grips it. Heart pounding, I watch as a figure climbs up and out of the heap. It struggles to pull itself up—appears to be using only one hand to do it. In the other hand, it is clutching something to its chest. The figure is small. Skinny. I frown as it makes it onto the top of the stone and slowly stands, turning its gaze out toward me and holding out the thing it is carrying.

“You look sad,” it says.

It’s a little boy. Offering me a glass of water.

chapter

twenty-six

WHEN I WAKE, Bird is sitting on the sofa on the opposite side of the cabin, watching me. The light is early-morning gray and the air feels chilly with fog. Snippets of dream flicker through my head.

The wall came down.

“You didn’t come to bed,” Bird says.

I blink hard and sit up, rubbing my aching neck. “I didn’t know if I should.”

“Shanny was extremely disappointed.”

“Was he.”

She drops her gaze and fiddles with her nails, which I notice with some uneasiness are bitten away. “Sorry if I was weird yesterday.”

“I don’t think you need to be sorry about that.”

“I don’t really know how to navigate this situation.”

“Neither do I.”

Shanny emerges from the sleeping berth, yawns, stretches, shakes, then hops up on the sofa with Bird and paws at her leg.

Bird looks down at him. For a long time, she seems to stare through him, then finally, she says, “I guess in this awkward, post-kidnapping reality that neither of us knows how to navigate, we still have to do really mundane things like walk the dog.” She offers me a grim smile and for the first time in over a week, I almost smile too.

“Would you like to go together?”

We make tea and walk barefoot to the freezing beach, side by side, but not holding hands like we usually would. It’s early enough that we’re the only people around. The Salt is gray and restless. Shanny bolts in and out of the surf. Bird stares at the sand ten feet ahead while I try to turn words into questions.

But all I can come up with is, “So all those injuries…?”

“They’re fine now,” she says.

“...okay.”

“You remember that gun thing that Dr. Lysett used on me in Grike? The calidifier?”

I shudder, remembering.

“It’s actually a medical device. They used one to fix everything up while I was asleep.” She lifts one hand and turns it over, examining it. “Kind of crazy. It’s like it never even happened.”

I keep my eyes forward. “That wasn’t what I was asking.”

She sips from her mug and says nothing. We walk in silence.

“Did it happen during the attack at the Green?”

She sighs through her nose. “No.”

“So then…”

“I thought we were walking the dog.”

“I just don’t understand why you won’t tell anyone what happened. I get it if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m just—”

“Concerned?” She squints sideways at me.

“Yes! Concerned. Very concerned. You were gone for a week and then you showed up looking like you were mauled by a sandcat. I get it if you don’t want to tell Electra or Johnny or whatever, but…you can tell me, right? I just want to know that you’re okay.”

She sighs and stops, holding out her arms, the mug of tea in one hand. “Look. I’m okay.”

I feel like we’re speaking through a broken translator. Like I’m trying to talk to Khala without my biochip and no amount of raising my voice or gesturing with my hands will make her understand me.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

She drops her arms.

“Why won’t you tell me what happened? Why have you been hiding things from me? I had no idea what you were actually doing at Zenith. And that, according to Johnny, you’ve been going AWOL for like…days at a time?”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

“That’s bullshit, Howsley. Since when has me being worried about you ever stopped you from doing something?”

“That’s not true—”

“It is! You don’t care about my feelings at all—”

“Okay!” She puts up a hand, shutting her eyes. “You want to know where the injuries came from.”

“I guess that would be a start.”

She tilts her head and looks at me, chewing her cheek. Then she sets her mug in the sand at her feet, straightens, and folds her arms. “I got them training the Exiters.”

“Training the Exiters?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

She sighs. “When they kidnapped me, after the Green. They wanted me to blip them to another Parallel. To train them.”

“Did they threaten you?”

She hesitates. “Yes. They weren’t super well-organized. I think the whole thing was completely unplanned—like they just saw me after the explosion and decided to grab me.”

She seems to start picking up steam, like now that she’s started talking about it, the words come more easily.

“They knew who I was, but they seemed pretty panicked and not all that together. But they had this biochip prototype. They wanted me to teach one of their guys to use it.”

I frown. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just—that’s exactly what Johnny said they would do.”

“Yeah, well, Johnny is good at his job.” She tugs the ends of her sleeves down over her hands, cups them around her mouth, and blows into them. “Can we sit somewhere?”

We make our way to a massive piece of driftwood half buried in the sand and sit with our backs against it. Bird looks around, then calls Shanny. Shanny doesn’t appear. She frowns and calls him again.

“He’s probably halfway underground digging some poor helpless creature out of its hole.” I cup my hands around my mouth and bellow. “Shanny!”

Shanny comes barreling out of the fog, blows right by without seeming to see us, and disappears again.

Bird stares after him. “I guess he listens to you, now,” she says. She sounds sad, and I put my hand out to squeeze her knee, but she stares at it like she doesn’t want me to, so I don’t.

“He always listened to me,” I say. “That’s nothing new.”

Bird digs her fingers into the sand and extracts a handful. “I guess that’s true.” She cups the sand in one hand. “Once we got to the Tower, they tried to install the chip prototype into one of their guys.”

“They had equipment for that?”

She swallows. “No. They had to do it twice. Because the first guy bled out through the hole they made in the side of his head.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” She pours sand through her fingers, not looking at me. “Anyway.” Silence. The sand slowly pours away. “The second time they tried it, it worked. The guy who they chipped seemed to be the one in charge, as far as I could tell. He wanted me to take him to some other Parallels. To see what I could do, I guess. They’re looking for places to go, you know? Somewhere to escape to.”

“Right.”

“So I started blipping him into some other dimensions I’d discovered with Zenith. But without the safety protocols and stuff Zenith has in place…it was—different. We ended up jumping into a—situation I wasn’t prepared for.”

“What does that mean?”

She picks up another handful of sand, still skirting my eyes. “You know, just kind of a mess. Not a safe place. I got us out of it, but we were both in bad shape afterward. That’s where all those cuts and bruises came from. Actually,” she smiles grimly, “it’s a good thing you guys didn’t find me until a few days later. If you had seen me before they fixed me up you would have been—”

“Concerned.”

“Yes.”

We watch the sand pour through her fingers. I want badly to put my arms around her but I’m afraid she’ll just pull away from me again. Instead, I open my hand and hold it out to her.

She doesn’t take it, lets the sand continue pouring away until it’s gone. Then she rubs her palms together and looks at me.

“I’m okay,” she says, like I’m the one that needs consoling. “It wasn’t as scary as it sounds.”

My open hand lays untaken on my knee between us. I curl my fingers closed and tuck it in my pocket. “Do you think they’ll come after you again?”

“The Exiters?” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. They have a working prototype of QMTP and they seem determined, even if they are disorganized.”

“And now they know how to use the prototype.”

“Yes.”

I frown, a question occurring to me. “Why did you help them?”

“What do you mean?”

“When they kidnapped you. Why didn’t you just jump back here? Couldn’t you have just blipped away?”

She shakes her head. “They had cuffs to disable QMTP. Like these ones.” She lifts her wrists, which are still braceleted by two white, hexagonal cuffs. “I think they must have stolen them from Zenith.”

“They must have taken them off you to jump, though?”

“Hm?”

“When you were showing the guy the other Parallels. They must have taken the cuffs off, right? So you could have escaped?”

“Oh.” She stares vaguely out at the Salt. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Another long silence hangs between us while I watch her, watching the waves. That old familiar feeling—that she isn’t telling me everything—creeps through me. Finally, I say, “Did you hear anything about whatever it is Electra thinks they’re planning?”

She shakes her head. “They were careful about what they said around me. I didn’t even get any names. I think they’re taking a page out of the Anonymity’s book. Actually, some of them might even be ex-Anonymity.”

“I thought the Anonymity all worked for Zenith now. Did you know Johnny’s ex-Anonymity?”

She nods. “I did. But they don’t all work for us. There were plenty of people in that organization who didn’t agree with the way we handled Z-Day. Plenty of people who think what Zenith is doing is wrong. Sometimes—” She hesitates and picks up another handful of sand.

I watch her carefully. “Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes I wonder myself.”

A beat of unease goes through me. As if, at any moment, a peace force officer will pop up out of nowhere and arrest us for treason just for talking about this. I remember my conversation with Fetch outside Zenith headquarters.

“You think the Exiters are right?”

She squints up at me. “Do you?”

“I don’t…think so. I think—I think I used to worry that they might be. But now that I’ve seen what else is out there…” I shake my head. “I don’t think there is anywhere else for us to go. If the other Parallels Zenith has found are anything like Brume Three or Brume Two, then I don’t really see any option for us but to stay here and make it work.”

She smiles faintly. “Oh, that’s right. You went to Brume Two. So you’re an inter-dimensional terrorist now.”

My stomach lurches. I had completely forgotten. “Gods, I really hope not. How did you know about that?”

“Paradi caught me up.” She flicks my knee with a sandy finger. “I think it’s kind of sexy.”

“It’s not sexy.”

“Sure it is. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. From what I’ve heard, the UD is kind of a shambles. Your case will probably end up getting thrown out.”

“That whole thing was just insane. Brume Two is just murdering people. To keep the peace.”

“Yeah.”

I shake my head, my mouth stuck open. “I don’t even know how to feel about that. I feel like everything is kind of a shambles.”

She sits for a moment, pouring sand through her fingers and I sense she’s trying to decide whether or not to tell me something. Finally, she says, quietly, “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t know what?”

“That everything is a shambles.” Again she hesitates, turns her attention back to her hands. “Like you were saying about there being nowhere else for us to go. You don’t know that.”

“I feel like I have a pretty good idea, based on what I’ve seen.”

“But you haven’t seen anything. You’ve barely seen two other dimensions. Suddenly you’re an expert?”

“No. Of course not. But—”

“So how do you know? How do you know there’s nowhere else to go? How do you know Zenith isn’t making a mistake? How do you know…that the Exiters aren’t right?”

Those words land between us like a lead weight. Again, that beat of anxiety goes through me. Words that Johnny said a long time ago rise unsettlingly into the back of my mind.

“The Exiters indoctrinate people when they’re vulnerable.”

Bird has never said anything about the Exiters except what a pain in the ass they are. What a load of shit they talk. Is it possible they got to her? Could that have been why she was so reluctant to talk to anyone about what happened? She’s not usually the kind of person to be swayed like that. But she was vulnerable.

Shanny tears out of the mist and skids to a halt in front of us. He is soaked from head to toe and covered in sand. Bird scratches him behind the ear, then claps her hands together to brush off the sand and gets to her feet.

She reaches a hand down to me. “Breakfast?”

I let her pull me up, and we stand face-to-face in the damp, cold air. Then she slides her hands around my waist and pulls us together, turning her cheek to my sternum. She feels unusually tiny, and for some reason, it makes me feel fragile. Like we are coming together across a tenuous bridge that at any moment might shake to pieces and tear us apart.

I wrap my arms around her and do my best to hold us together.

____________________

Johnny is waiting when we get back to Panga. He admonishes us for not being there to check in, but seems unconcerned about getting Bird back to headquarters right away.

“Take a day,” is all he says.

Bird, evidently having no qualms about doing that, steps around him and climbs aboard Panga with Shanny. They disappear below.

I study Johnny. “Is Electra going to be happy about this?”

“She’ll be fine.” He folds his arms, and again I wonder why he’s helping me. “She and Paradi are feeling some pressure from the public after the incident at the Green. They’re scrambling to make it look like they’re responding, but that ‘tip’ they got about the Exiters’ plan—” He shakes his head dismissively. “Honestly, it was weak. I think they’re overreacting.”

I nod, watching his face. His eyes are baggy and he has a twitchy, unrested look about him. “Did you get any sleep?” I ask.

He unfolds his arms and turns, clapping me once on the shoulder. “I’ll check in later.” Without so much as an indication that he’s heard my question, he skulks down the dock into the fog.

Watching him walk away, I wonder if his insistence that we get out of headquarters and take some time off is selfishly motivated. He probably never did take any time to process what happened to Stavra. I wish there was something I could do for him. I wonder if he has anyone outside Zenith to talk to.

The fog doesn’t burn off, so Bird and I close up Panga against the cold, make endless cups of hot tea to warm the cabin, and throw every blanket we own into a pile on the bunk, to Shanny’s evident delight. Bird seems more at ease. When we crawl under the blankets together, she curls into a ball and pulls my arms around her, and is asleep almost immediately. I lay awake for a long time, breathing in the scent of her hair.

A message from Johnny wakes me at some point in the middle of the afternoon.

>>> EVERYTHING GOOD?

Carefully disentangling myself from Bird and sliding out from under the blanket pile, I trip blearily into the galley to reply.

>>> FINE. YOU?

>>> HOWSLEY HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY YET?

Didn’t even pretend to answer my question. Sighing, I send back,

>>> SHE SAID THEY WERE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT THEY LET HER HEAR. DIDN’T GET MUCH. SHE THINKS SOME OF THEM ARE EX-ANONYMITY?

>>> THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE. I CAN THINK OF A FEW WHO MIGHT HAVE GONE THAT WAY. DID YOU GET ANYTHING OUT OF HER ABOUT WHAT SHE TOLD THEM? ABOUT QTMP?

I hesitate, glancing over my shoulder to where Bird and Shanny are still asleep in the berth.

>>> SOUNDS LIKE ONE OF THEIR GUYS HAS THE PROTOTYPE INSTALLED AND SHE HELPED HIM JUMP TO A FEW PLACES. BUT NOTHING—

I delete the last two words and hesitate, then type

>>> SHE MAY HAVE

More hesitating. It feels wrong to be talking about Bird behind her back. But telling Johnny feels like the right thing to do.

>>> SHE MAY HAVE HAD A CHANGE OF HEART ABOUT THEM.

A long moment goes by. Then he sends

>>> ABOUT WHO?

>>> THE EXITERS

>>> A CHANGE OF HEART MEANING WHAT?

>>> MEANING SHE MIGHT BE SEEING THINGS FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE.

Another long beat.

>>> I SEE.

>>> I’M NOT SURE, SO DON’T QUOTE ME ON THAT, I amend, hastily. JUST SOMETHING SHE SAID.

>>> THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW. He types, deletes, types again. I’LL COME BY THIS EVENING.

>>> OKAY. I pause. Then I try my question again. EVERYTHING GOOD WITH YOU?

No reply. I don’t know anymore whether to be irritated or genuinely concerned.

By dinnertime, Bird seems mostly back to normal. Unsettlingly so. I cook, and we eat together for the first time since before she went missing, and I try to enjoy the normalcy. She sprawls across the table on her elbows, picking at fish with her fingers and tossing scraps onto the floor for Shanny. We make jokes. She laughs. The last week feels like it never happened. In the back of my mind, I can’t help thinking that that’s not the way it should feel.

When I clear the plates, she sneaks up behind me in the galley and slips her hands around my waist. I tense, setting down the dish I was rinsing.

“Yes?”

“I think Johnny said something about us getting reacquainted?” She pulls me around to face her and toys with the top button of my shirt. “I wouldn’t want to get in trouble for not doing it.”

I catch her hands as they begin to undo the button. The feeling that this somehow isn’t right is crawling unpleasantly up the back of my neck, but I don’t know how to explain it to her. How do I tell her that her being happy and back to normal is wrong? Why do I even think that?

Looking for a way to redirect the situation, I hold her hands up between us by the wrists. “Your hands are filthy.”

“Filthy?”

“I just watched you eat your dinner with them and then lick your fingers clean like an animal, Howsley.”

“Like an animal, huh?” She wiggles her eyebrows and gets one hand free. Hooks it into the waistband of my pants and tugs my hips toward her so that her tits, her warmth, her smell are pressed up against me. A wash of cinnamon tea and hair, and a sharpness that I always thought was booze, but since she quit drinking last year I’m now realizing is just…her. Gods, I missed that smell.

“You don’t like it when I act like an animal?” She presses her palm flat to my stomach and slips her hand down the front of my pants. I can feel the blood draining out of my limbs.

“Get your filthy hand out of my pants, Howsley,” I croak.

She stands on tiptoe, presses her lips into the spot just below my ear, and purrs, “Get your filthy mind out of my pants, Paz.”

Every hair on my body rises.

Her hand drifts lower. All the blood that drained out of my limbs is coalescing beneath it into a hot, hard ache. The press of her chest, barely against mine, is unbearable. After being without her for a week, I can’t stand to feel her so close and not have her.

I palm the backs of her ribs and pull her closer. Drag my fingertips down the sides of her waist and press my thumbs into the points of her hips. Grip them and squeeze. I don’t know why, but I feel like I want to squeeze her until she snaps.

She closes her hand softly around my cock and I fight back a groan. I still feel like this is somehow wrong, but if we take it any further, I won’t be able to stop.

“I’m going to make you wash those filthy hands,” I manage to say.

“Wash them?”

She frowns up at me with a confused half smile that makes half of me ache for her and the other half want to do savage, unspeakable things to her. I pull her hand out of my pants and grip her wrists in one fist. With my other hand, I reach behind me and turn on the tap. I tug her toward the sink and shove her hands under the running water, then step back, folding my arms.

“Wash your hands, Howsley.”

She stares at me with her mouth open, like she’s not sure if I’m serious. “Are you telling me what to do, Paz?”

I narrow my eyes. “What would you do if I was?”

Her smile turns wicked. “I would tell you to fuck off.”

“I thought so.”

I grab her wrist again, hard. She gasps, her eyes flitting to mine, and I see a flash of alarm in them. A moment of trepidation. And it turns me on. The power. The control. I don’t know where this is coming from. It’s not like I actually care whether she washes her hands. It’s…that I want to make her do it.

Holding her hands under the water, I squeeze soap onto them and wash them for her, feeling her eyes on my face, feeling our slick, soapy fingers twisting together. My blood heats. I want her hands all over me.

When they’re clean, I rinse the soap off and step back. “Dry them.”

She takes the towel I hand her without breaking eye contact, dries her hands, drops it on the floor, and presses one finger to my lips. I close my eyes and inhale the fresh, clean scent of her skin.

“I didn’t know you had a thing for washing hands,” she whispers, and although there is a note of teasing in her voice, there is also uncertainty.

“I don’t.”

“So what is this?”

“I just wanted to make you do it.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I just want to see you do something that I…” I shake my head. “Understand.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Okay. So…” She pokes her tongue into one cheek. “What should I do now?”

My cock bulges and her eyes dart to it. I manage to get enough air into my lungs to say, “Turn around.”

Her eyes flare. I watch her, frozen, wondering if she’ll do it. If she would ever actually do what I say. In my dream, she did. But this isn’t dream Howsley.

A smile twitches up one corner of her mouth. Then she says, “No.”

“What?”

“I said no.” Her eyes are bright. Wary. “What are you going to do about it?”

The space between us goes deadly still. The air crackles. Then I lunge for her.

She squeals and darts sideways, but I catch her around the waist and haul her against me, pinning her ass to my hips.

Her hair is soft and wild, and all around my face, the scent of it overwhelmingly arousing. Reaching around with one hand, I fumble at the button of her pants. I smash my lips against her ear and growl, “What am I going to do about it? I’m going to fuck you against this counter, Howsley.”

She shrieks and twists, but I tighten my arm, trapping her against me. The way she’s struggling is turning me on like crazy; I want her so badly. Her smell and her taste and the feel of her against me seem amplified. Maybe it’s having control of her. Maybe it’s because I haven’t smelled or touched or tasted her in over a week. Maybe it’s just the feel of her body writhing against mine.

I get her pants open and yank them down around her thighs, a desperate groan that I don’t even really mean to make coming out of me as her ass is exposed. I grip a handful of it and grind against it, pulling her hair with my other hand to get my teeth into her neck.

“You’re so hard,” she gasps, and a note of teasing edges her voice, like I should be embarrassed. Suddenly, I’m angry. Angry that she’s teasing me. That she lied to me. That she let the Exiters put bullshit in her head when I know she’s smarter than that. That she won’t talk to me. That she stormed out a week ago and got herself kidnapped. That she let Savage into our home.

Wrenching my pants open with one hand, I pull out my aching cock and jam it against her.

“Wait—” she says, but I’m already inside. I drive into her so hard I feel her hips bang into the counter in front of us. She’s slick and hot and so tight it makes my knees weak.

She cries out, a sound of shock and maybe pleasure that goes straight to my balls. I pull out and slam into her again, growling.

“You need to learn some manners, Howsley.”

“Fuck,” she whispers, her hands frantically scrabbling for purchase on the countertop. “Oh, fuck.”

Bracing one hand on top of hers, I force her hips against the counter again. She yelps, and I honestly can’t tell if it’s a cry of pleasure or pain or both. I can already feel release gathering low and tight in my balls. I don’t know if we’re playing anymore. I don’t know if she likes this or not. I don’t care.

Then, as I plow into her again, she reaches behind me to grab my ass and pull me in deeper. I groan into her shoulder through spit and teeth. “You fucking like it. Don’t you?”

She moans.

“You rude, filthy, thoughtless animal.” I slam her against the counter with every word. “You fucking like it.”

She whimpers, the fingers that are twined through mine tightening, like she’s clinging to me. “I don’t…I don’t know—”

Fuck. She’s playing with me again. Making me drag it out of her. “Of course you know,” I growl. “Don’t say you don’t know. You want me to treat you like a fucking animal?” I slam into her again.

“Oh my God.”

“You want me to make it so good you’re begging me to stop?” Again.

“I don’t—”

“You want me to hurt you?”

“I don’t know.” The last word comes out like a plea, and in the same moment, like a velvet fist tightening around my cock, I feel her come.

Biting down on her shoulder, I roar through my teeth as release erupts from the base of my spine like a bullet. Everything leaves me—anger, fear, the feeling that I would never see her again, love, confusion, need…all of it drains out of me as I pour myself into her.

I ride the torrent of that release until I am shaking. Until I have to shoot out a hand to catch us on the counter as we sink toward the floor. I wrap my other arm around her chest and hold her against me, burying my lips in the soft, sweet, wild mass of her hair, kissing the back of her neck. She tastes so good. I haven’t tasted her skin in so long.

When we come through to the other side, my hips pin hers to the counter and my hand is still braced over hers, the fingers still twined together. I press my forehead to her shoulder and close my eyes. For a long time, neither of us moves. The rasp of our breaths fills the cabin.

Finally, lifting my head, I look around, slowly coming back to Earth. I’m seized by the sudden desire—the need—to get out of the galley. We need to be in bed, where I can hold her properly. She needs blankets and tea and sleep and to be held.

I’m carefully unwinding myself from around her, piecing my shattered mind back together, when she shoves me backward hard with her hips and wheels around, dragging her pants back up and buttoning them. When my startled gaze finds hers, her eyes are furious and full of tears.

My heart goes still.

“Oh…gods.” I reach for her face, but she angles her head sideways, ducking my hand. “What’s wrong?”

Her chest rises and falls sharply. “You hurt me.”

“What?” My stomach plummets through the bottom of my feet. “No…I—I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t you?” Her glare sharpens.

“I—” My mouth sticks open. Everything is spiraling. I feel sick and dizzy.

She drags the back of her forearm across her eyes and sniffs. “I told you to wait.”

“You liked it,” I stammer, hoarsely. My dick is still hanging out of my pants like a bad joke. I put it away.

She inhales like she’s struggling to breathe. “No…I don’t know—”

“I’m sorry…” I reach for her again, but she sidesteps quickly, putting up her hands. I pull back, putting up mine too. We stare at each other, trembling. “I thought you liked it. Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”

“I don’t know! Why didn’t you wait?”

“I didn’t…I don’t—” I squeeze my head between my hands. “Fuck.”

“It wasn’t—” She swallows. “I didn’t say I liked it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” she repeats.

“You have to stop saying ‘I don’t know’.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” She drags her palms across her face and heaves a breath. Silence settles between us like a pane of glass.

“I need to take a walk,” she says finally.

“What? No, that’s a terrible idea.” I step in front of her as she moves toward the steps. She halts abruptly, glaring at me with bright, watery eyes.

“Let me by.”

“I don’t—I just don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Don’t make me force my way out of here like I’m trying to escape.”

“We just got you back. You’re not safe out there.”

“I’m not safe in here.”

The wind goes out of me. “That’s not fair.”

Her eyes flood with fresh tears. “Please just let me by.”

For a long, silent, brittle minute, we stare at each other. Then I put down my hands and step aside. She looks at me a moment longer, then pushes past me and climbs the companionway steps.

“I’m going to the breakwater,” she says. “Don’t follow me.”

“I just really don’t think—”

“It’s two hundred yards, Sargo!” she snaps. “I’ll be fine. Shanny!”

Shanny flinches and looks at me.

“Shanny!” Bird’s voice cracks.

I pick Shanny up and set him on the top step of the companionway. Bird snatches him up and tucks him under her arm. Her footsteps cross the deck, then recede down the dock. When the sound of them has faded to nothing, I climb the steps too and stand in the cockpit, watching her shadow vanish into the fog.

A voice drifts to me from the other end of the dock.

“How’s the reunion going?”

Johnny is leaning quietly against a concrete pillar at the opposite end of the pier to where Bird disappeared. Here to check in. He unfolds his arms and ambles down the length of Panga until he’s standing below me on the dock.

He turns his gaze toward the breakwater. “Should we be going after her?”

I swallow. “No.”

He sighs and puts one hand on Panga’s rail. “Permission to come aboard?”

Raking a hand through my hair, I flop into a seat in the cockpit, saying nothing. He climbs over the rail and takes a seat across from me, then sits back, folding his arms. I keep my eyes on the spot where Bird left and wait for the frantic beating of my pulse to wane. But it doesn’t.

“Everything okay?” he says.

I bark out a laugh. My hands are shaking. I stare at the spot in the fog where Bird disappeared. I should go after her. I need to fix this. I need her to know that I didn’t mean to hurt her. That it was an accident. But if I do that, when she told me not to…

Johnny clears his throat. “Does it get old being the sensible one all the time?”

Keeping my glare out at the fog, I reply, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen, Howsley’s kind of a loose cannon. Which leads me to believe you’re the one holding everything together. Or at least, you think you are.”

I open my mouth to argue then shut it again. I used to think that.

He shifts in his seat and crosses his legs, stretching them in front of him. “You know what I’ve found, though? The people who keep their problems very close to the surface, like Howsley, are rarely the ones you actually need to watch out for. It’s the people who bury them so deep even they can’t see them who are the real wild cards. Like you.”

I tear my gaze from the spot where Bird disappeared and look at him. “What are you, a psychoanalyst now?”

“No, but I know how to read people.”

I scoff and look at my hands. Still shaking. “And you’ve been reading me, have you?”

For a long time, he doesn’t say anything. Then, quietly, like he’s admitting something he isn’t sure he wants me to hear, he says, “All week.”

My eyes snap up. As they meet his, that strange, electric spark shimmers between us and my stomach rolls over. Suddenly, my heart feels like it’s beating fast for a reason that has nothing to do with Bird. I swallow around it and ask, “And what have you learned?”

“That Howsley’s not the only person hiding things from people,” he says. “That she’s not the only one with a lot of complicated, messy feelings. And that…” He hesitates. “And that I think you’re astonishing. And I wish you didn’t feel like you have to hide that.”

All the air that was inside me abruptly finds somewhere else to be. Astonishing? I’m not astonishing. After what just went down with Bird, I’m afraid I might be a monster.

I manage to hold onto enough air to halfway fill my lungs and look at him. “Astonishing? I thought I was just a Pretty Boy.”

He smiles the real, earth-tilting smile I first saw after I cut him out of the drogue on Runabout and lifts his shoulders. “You are a very pretty boy. Beautiful, actually.”

Everything spins. Some cataclysmic change of guard has tipped the world on its end and closed the edges up around me like a cardboard box. The wall is nothing more than a pile of stones and anything that was left of it is swiftly and violently coming down—everything I’ve worked so hard to keep together. The part of me I put behind that wall and sealed up so well that even I could forget it was there sometimes. Johnny saw it. He sees it. He’s taking it to pieces.

Like two people who have only ever seen each other through a window and suddenly find themselves standing face-to-face, we stare at each other.

“You were such a jerk to me,” I whisper.

“Sorry.”

“Why?”

He sighs, unfolding and refolding his arms. “It’s a defense mechanism, I suppose. When you’ve had as many crushes on straight boys as I have, you get really good at putting up walls when you start to have feelings for someone that you’re pretty sure is never going to have them back.” He eyes me. “Except then I started to think maybe you did have them back.”

I say nothing.

He looks at his shoes again. “Which then made me wonder what exactly you’re doing with Howsley.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and conjure Bird’s face. Her face like it was before all this. When it was just the two of us and Malarkey against the world and I was so hopelessly in love with her I would have severed my own arm if I thought it would keep her safe. That hasn’t changed. I’m still hopelessly in love with her. It’s just…so different now. I want to cry, thinking about her face. When I open my eyes, Johnny is watching me with a carefully curious expression.

“I’m in love with Howsley,” I tell him.

“I see.” He nods slowly, rubbing his chin with the back of his hand. “Then am I right in thinking this is the first time you’ve had feelings for someone—like me?”

“Actually…no.”

“Oh.” He frowns. “Does Howsley know about this?”

“Nobody knows about this.”

“I see.” Drawing a breath, he unfolds his arms and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I guess I’m not the only one who’s good at putting up walls.”

The movement brings his face close to mine, and with it, the tingling aura of uncertainty that seems to always vacillate the air around him. I feel myself pull away, because the world is closing in again. He notes it with a tiny tick of his eyebrow.

“If you don’t mind me asking…why the secrecy? Why all the torment and the buried feelings? Why not just tell people? What are you afraid of?”

“I do mind you asking, actually.”

He purses his lips, considering this answer, and evidently decides not to press me on it. He sits back, and the pressure that lifts from me as space opens up between us is immediate.

“Well,” he says, “I think you may be even more of a mess than I thought, Paz. I think you may be even more of a mess than Howsley.”

“That’s not true.”

He chuckles and stands, turning to leave. “My mistake. You’re the one keeping everything together, right?”

Anger flares in my limbs, propelling me to my feet. “What about you, Johnny? Where are the messy, complicated feelings you’re hiding from everyone? Where’s the complete breakdown you should be having about Stavra?”

His eyes flash. “Think very carefully about what you want to say next, Paz.”

The air between us goes frighteningly still and suddenly, the space we’re in feels very small. I remember how easily Johnny took out that guard at the prison in Brume Two. I remember that he’s bigger than me. I remember the powerful, magnetic confidence he exuded it that moment that made me just do what he said, for some reason. That same aura is currently radiating off him in waves. Something about it is both terrifying and exhilarating.

My anger gives way to nerves, and I reel back my fury, lowering my voice. “Did you even care about Stavra?”

“Of course I cared about Stavra.”

“Are you ever going to talk to anyone about it? Or are you going to spend the rest of your life ignoring people when they ask you how you’re doing?”

He sets his jaw and stares at me. Finally, he says, “Electra was right about you.”

“Electra?”

“The fixing thing. Your whole—” he wiggles his fingers in my face, “need to be in control. I don’t need your help, Paz. I’m fine.”

I can’t help but scoff. “Okay, Johnny. Sure.”

Before I know what’s happening, he’s closed the gap between us. Every inch of my skin ignites as our chests come together. I hold my ground, my heart banging on my ribs like a fist on a window as he looks down into my face and says,

“Do you know what Paz? I think you’ve spent so long carefully building your wall and trying to keep everything together that you’ve forgotten what it feels like not to be in control.” He presses even closer, incrementally closer. “But I bet, if you let go just a little bit…”

There is nothing beyond the press of the three inches of air sizzling around us. He has no idea how close everything is to falling apart. How shattered and broken my world has become. How little control I seem to have over any of it. We stand as though balanced on opposite edges of some dizzying precipice, neither of us moving, neither of us breathing, as far as I can tell, until he says,

“Do you think you could let go enough to let me kiss you, Paz?”

And I don’t know why—I don’t know why, except that the wall is rubble and I’m not sure who I am anymore—but I say, “Yes.”

chapter

twenty-seven

I’VE ONLY EVER KISSED one other guy before.

I was eleven. It wasn’t good. It was the day of my moms’ memorial service, at Electra’s house, so I wasn’t exactly in a clear headspace. He was the son of one of Axioma’s friends, I think; I knew him from school. He brought me a glass of water. I was sitting alone outside and he just kind of appeared there, with this glass of water and said, “You look sad.” And we talked.

After I kissed him, he pushed me down, called me a fag, and ran away. I still don’t know if I badly misread that situation, or if he was just an asshole. I guess either way, he was an asshole. But I didn’t try to kiss any more guys after that.

I haven’t thought about that day for a long time—I used to keep that memory sealed up behind the wall, along with all the feelings it evoked. But as Johnny moves into me it all comes surging up like water from a blocked drain. Suddenly, I’m terrified—but there isn’t time to change my mind before his hand is on the back of my neck and his mouth is against mine. And if the world shifted when he called me ‘astonishing’, now it stands on its head.

I don’t know what I was expecting this to be like. I don’t think I was expecting anything. But I certainly didn’t expect him to be…gentle. To touch his lips to mine so softly that I feel like I’m dissolving into him. To crack me open with a lightning bolt that so thoroughly incinerates everything inside me that my legs evaporate and I grab his shirt at the waist with both hands because I’m afraid I might collapse.

He smiles against my lips and wraps his other arm around me, pulling me against him, and as his grip tightens and his lips become more insistent, I realize I’m kissing him back. My heart is beating so fast it’s just a hum inside my chest. He’s strong. Nobody’s ever held me like this before. Nobody’s ever literally held me up. With Bird, it’s always—

Oh my God, Bird.

I put both hands against his chest and push him away.

And as I do, a familiar voice says, “What the hell is going on here?!”

The blood drains from my face. When I turn around, Bird is standing on the dock with Shanny at her feet.

Her face is white with shock. She stares at me like I’m something from another world. Like she can’t physically comprehend what she’s seeing. Next to me, Johnny has gone totally still. The three of us stand like pillars in the eye of a hurricane. I find a single word inside and somehow drag it out of me.

“Bird…”

She steps backward, shaking her head.

“Bird, wait—”

But before I can say anything else, she turns and bolts down the dock. Not back to the breakwater—in the other direction, toward the harbor gate and the street.

“Shit.” Shoving past me, Johnny swings over Panga’s rail and takes off after her. “Paz, let’s go!” he yells as he disappears into the fog. “She can’t be on the street by herself!”

My legs propel me to the rail, but it’s like I’m moving without having control of them. I see my feet land on the dock, but I’m not sure what it is that got them there. I’m aware that Shanny is following me. All I can see is Bird’s face. Her confused, horrified face.

The fog is so dense I can’t see Johnny up ahead as I run blindly across the harbor. When I get to the gate, he’s bent double with his hands on his knees, breathing hard.

“I don’t know where she went,” he gasps.

I clutch the top of my head with both hands and turn a complete circle in the street, but we’re socked in with fog in every direction and there’s no indication of which way she ran.

“Where would she go?” Johnny asks, straightening.

I can’t think. My brain is spinning. I drop my hands and shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Seriously?”

“Her moms’, maybe.”

“How far is it?”

“Not far, but can we—”

“Okay, go check her moms’.” He taps his temple and gestures to compose a message. “I’m calling Electra down to headquarters; we can track Howsley’s chip. She still has the cuffs on, she won’t go far.”

“Can we just—I need a minute here—like, I’m not—”

“We don’t have a minute, Paz. We need to find her before the Exiters do.”

“I thought you said it was fine for her to be out here!”

“Fine to be tucked up safe and sound at home! Not wandering the streets after dark!” Sending the message with a flick of his finger, he looks up and down the street again, then back at me. The weight of what we just did lands in the center of my chest like a block of ice.

“Why did you do that?”

He grimaces, shaking his head. “I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking.”

“That wasn’t…fair.”

His mouth twists. He drags both hands down his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be like that.”

We stare at each other.

“We need to find Howsley,” he says.

Shanny bounds up the stairs behind me as I take them two at a time up to Jade and Kestrel’s apartment. I pound on the door and Kestrel throws it open, looking immediately panicked, as if she somehow already knows that something is wrong.

“Is Bird here?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

Johnny messages me as I reach the bottom of the stairs at Jade and Kestrel’s and step back out onto the street.

>>> ANYTHING?

I tap my temple to reply.

>>> SHE WASN’T THERE.

A few moments of silence, then he sends,

>>> CAN YOU THINK OF ANYWHERE ELSE SHE MIGHT GO?

I squeeze my head in my hands and try to think, but it’s like a roaring fire in there and nothing is getting through.

>>> I DON’T KNOW.

>>> OKAY. ELECTRA AND I ARE ON OUR WAY TO HEADQUARTERS. MEET US THERE.

Tripping over the first few steps, I take off for Zenith headquarters with Shanny behind me. When I get there, ten minutes later, the lobby is dark. I scan my palm and head for the main lab, where Electra, Johnny, and Dominie are gathered around a slate, talking in low voices. Electra looks up as the door slides open. Her face is a mask of fury.

“What the hell happened?”

Johnny steps in front of her as she comes at me. “It wasn’t his fault. I was wrong to say we should release Howsley. It wasn’t a good idea.”

“No shit, Johnny.” Electra glares at me past his shoulder, then exhales sharply through her nose and turns back to the slate. “Where are we at?”

“We were able to track her to almost the same location,” says Dominie.

My heart lurches. “You found her?”

“She just went offline.” Dominie rubs her eyes behind her spex.

“Offline where?”

“We tracked her to the same neighborhood we think the Exiters took her to before.”

I gape at her across the room. “They can't have already picked her up? It’s only been twenty minutes! Thirty? How did they find her so fast?”

Dominie gestures to the slate. “I’m just telling you what I see here.”

“We need to get over there.” Johnny scoops his pack off a chair and slings it around his shoulders, already heading for the door. “Dominie, Paz.”

I stare after him. “You actually want me to come?”

“Up to you, Paz.” He doesn’t look back.

I leave Shanny in the lab with Electra and pile into a Zenith EV with Dominie, Johnny, and one other guy whose name I don’t know. The ride across town is grim. Dominie checks Bird’s location over and over again, but she doesn’t come back online.

The house is in a deserted residential neighborhood on the outskirts of town. I’ve never been out here. Most of life in Brume happens in Midtown, around the harbor and the hill behind it, where Azimuth and Zenith are located. Everyone in the City lives within those few blocks. The rest of it is deserted. Cracked sidewalks. Windowless buildings. Trees. The houses that do have windows are boarded up, with peeling paint and dead grass out front. The Nabla Omega is spray-painted across doors, on walls, over boarded-up windows.

When we get out of the EV, a block down the street and around the corner from the house, it is eerily quiet. Johnny pulls a gun from a holster under his jacket and motions Dominie and the other guy forward with two fingers.

I eye the gun. “Is that going to be necessary?”

“We don’t know what we’re walking into,” he says. As I set off after Dominie he stops me with a hand on my chest. “You don’t have to go in there.”

We look at each other for a long moment, then I wordlessly step around him and follow Dominie around the corner.

The house has a wide, wooden porch with steps that come down to the sidewalk. Johnny and Dominie creep silently up the steps and stand on opposite sides of the door while Nameless and I hang back in the street. When Johnny puts his ear flat to the door I hold my breath, as though I might be able to hear whatever it is he’s listening for, but the blood is roaring in my ears and I can’t hear anything over it. He nods to Dominie and they kick the door in.

I sprint up the steps after them as they shoulder it open, Johnny screaming for everyone to ‘get on the ground!’ I follow them through the dust and splinters swirling around in the doorway, blinking as I’m plunged from the dark of the foggy street into a living room that lights up as Johnny flips a switch on the wall.

The room is empty.

Dominie slinks through it, gun drawn, and disappears through a door on the opposite wall into a kitchen. Johnny sweeps the room, while Nameless sprints up a set of stairs to my left. I blow out a shaky breath and wipe my face on the back of my arm.

Dominie returns from the kitchen. “There’s no one here,” she says.

Nameless reappears at the top of the stairs, shaking his head. Johnny drags both hands down his face and drops to a seat on a couch in the middle of the room.

“They must have known we would come. They must have just left.”

Dominie holsters her gun, her lips set into a thin line. “Could they be tracking us?”

“Are we sure this is the right house?” I ask. A stern look from Dominie tells me that was a stupid question, but the room gives no indication that this is any kind of Exiters hideout. It just looks like any other living room—two couches, a coffee table. Everything run down and dirty. Chipped furniture, stained carpet. On an end table in front of the boarded up window is a cardboard box with the top flaps half open and the letters ‘AN/FO’ handwritten on the side in black pen.

I frown at it. “What is that?”

Johnny looks over his shoulder, frowns, then gets up and goes to the box. He uses the barrel of his gun to push the flaps open completely and peers into it.

“Oh…” he says quietly. “Shit.”

Dominie’s eyes widen with alarm. “What?”

“This is ammonium nitrate.” Johnny picks up the box.

“Where the hell did they get that?”

Johnny wheels around, scanning the room. “Are you sure you checked everywhere?”

“Pretty sure,” says Dominie, as he pushes past her into the kitchen. I hear him slamming open cupboards and drawers, then he returns, stalks across the living room and sprints up the stairs. Dominie, Nameless, and I follow him. At the top of the stairs is a small hallway with two doors standing ajar on either side.

“I checked these rooms,” says Nameless. “There’s no one in them.”

“I’m not looking for people.” Johnny pushes open the door to our right and sucks in a sharp breath. “Holy shit.”

I step through the door behind him to find the room full of cardboard boxes—most of them empty, torn apart, flattened; some standing open. It looks like someone just moved in and didn’t take out the recycling yet.

“Did you not think it was worth mentioning that this entire room was full of this shit?” Johnny demands of Nameless. Nameless shrugs, looking pale, while Johnny turns over a few flattened boxes with his toe. The letters ‘AN/FO’ are scrawled on most of them. “This is all ammonium nitrate.”

“Shit.” Dominie taps her temple and gestures in the air to send a message, pushing past me and out of the room. “Shit, shit, shit.”

I watch Johnny turning over more boxes, opening any that look like they still have something inside, cursing. “What is going on?”

He picks one of the boxes up and holds it open to me. Inside is a case of what look like cartridges for a flare gun. “This is how you make a bomb,” he says. “A really big flogging bomb.”

chapter

twenty-eight

“SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” I yell after Johnny as I run down the steps outside and into the street behind him.

Dominie and Nameless are ahead of us, sprinting for the EV. Johnny doesn’t answer me until we are all piled back into it. Nameless starts the motor and whips the vehicle around.

“It means,” Johnny says from the passenger seat, grabbing hold of the handle above the door as the EV jumps the curb and screeches into the street, “that right now the Exiters have Howsley, and they have a bomb big enough to blow up a building. It means Electra was right. They’re planning something.”

Nameless points us toward the hill that Zenith headquarters sits at the top of, and Dominie repeatedly types and sends messages with her fingers in the air as we tear through the deserted, grass-covered streets. I watch buildings flashing by without seeing them.

“What do you think they’re going to do?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” says Johnny. Then, to Dominie, “We need to figure out how to track them.”

“Electra is still at headquarters,” Dominie replies. “We’ll regroup there. Paradi isn’t here—she’s meeting with the UD.” She shoots me a look. “About your case. But she’s on the line and wants to be kept updated.”

Zenith is dark and deserted—it’s after hours and any employees have left for the day. Electra meets us in the lobby, her face drawn and pale. She sends Nameless home and stops me with a hand on my shoulder as Dominie and Johnny head past her toward the main lab.

“Are you okay?” she says.

“I don’t know.”

“We’re going to find her.” She sets her lips into a hard line, nodding emphatically. “Okay?”

I stare at her, shaking my head. “This is my fault.”

“No,” she says. “No, it’s not.”

“It is, though. This time…it really, really is.”

Her face twists unhappily, her eyes searching mine. The fury that was in them an hour ago is gone. She looks like my friend again. Like she did when we were kids and I would come to her house after school because I didn’t want to go home to Blenny and his stinking, squalid kitchen. I always used to tell her I was there to help her with her homework. But I think she knew that wasn’t true, because she always used to look at me like that.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” she says. When I say nothing, she continues, “Maybe you should get some air. It’s not going to do you any good to sit around in there while we look for her.”

“I don’t know…” I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Take a walk,” she says quietly. “But stay close. I’ll message you as soon as we know something.”

When I drop my hands from my eyes and open them again, she is still surveying me with a worried expression. She reaches up and adjusts the compass rose, which is still pinned to my lapel.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“You’re sorry?”

She focuses on the pin, not meeting my eyes. “I never took you and Howsley seriously. I never—I never got it. I always thought she wasn’t good enough for you. I think maybe I let it…color my treatment of her. That was stupid. I was jealous or something.” She huffs and continues fussing with the pin. “This whole thing. I—we’re trying, you know? The Exiters. The—” she waves a hand, “—mess. It’s so much. I don’t know if we’re doing a very good job. Sometimes I wonder—” She swallows. “Sometimes I don’t know if we’re even doing the right thing.”

I stare at her, not knowing what to say. If Electra is falling apart, then maybe everything really is falling apart. She finishes fussing with the pin and steps back, smoothing my collar, and a pang twists in my chest. I don’t remember my moms very well—I don’t remember if either of them ever fixed my collar like that–but something about the way she does it reminds me of them.

“We’ll find her,” she says. “Go and get some air.”

Outside, the night is cold and flecked with stars. On campus here, at the top of the hill above the bay, we are above the fog. A blanket of it stretches down to the water, so thick I can’t see the lights of the city through it. I turn left and head for the part of campus that Azimuth still uses for classrooms. The roof of the main hall there is where Bird used to go to think.

I pick my way through the empty quad, remembering the day I came here to use the launchpad to visit Khala in Pocosín. It was swarming with Exiters that day. Bird had to come out to blip me inside because I couldn’t get through. We made jokes about the batshit insane woman standing on the fountain, rallying the crowd. It was only a week or so ago, but it feels like another lifetime. I can’t believe we ever made jokes like that.

Climbing up to the roof of Azimuth Hall is nearly impossible. There isn’t even really a good way to do it from the ground. Bird was only ever able to get up there because she can blip herself up there. I try and fall, and try and fall, and get up and try again, until my hands are raw and I’m so exhausted I can’t see. But if I’m not doing this, I’ll be thinking about Bird, and if I do that, I’ll fall apart.

Finally, I get my toe into a crack where I couldn’t before, and manage to get my fingertips on the top ledge of a window. I haul myself up and over the eave, and roll onto my back on the roof, gasping. Above me, the stars are bright and cold and tiny. I stare at them until they start to duplicate and blur together.

Electra always used to say that if I kept holding on to everything so tightly, eventually it would break. She used to say I should stop trying to control everyone. Fix everything all the time. Keep everything together. She never did understand why I needed to make everything fit into a neat little box, and I could never really explain it to her. To be honest, I’m not sure I can even explain it to myself. But why should I have to? Why should I have to explain myself to her? I don’t have to explain myself. Not to Electra. Not to Johnny. Not to Bird. Not to anyone. I decide how to live my life. It’s perfectly within my right to build a big flogging wall and put things behind it and not share those things with other people. It’s been working fine.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

I jump and look up. Someone is standing at the other end of the roof, a dark shadow against the night. I can’t see her face—she is nothing but a silhouette in the dark—but I recognize her shape. It’s Bird.

“Oh, my God—” Rolling to my feet, I scramble toward her. “We thought you were—”

She steps back, putting out a hand. Like I might hurt her.

I stop. “We thought they took you.”

Silence stretches between us. Finally, she says, “Who’s ‘we’? You and Johnny?”

The bottom drops out of my stomach. I don’t know what else to say except, “I’m sorry.”

She laughs a short, bitter laugh. “Okay.”

Silence.

“Do you even love me?” she says.

“Yes!” I step toward her again, but she counters with a step back and I stop. “Yes.”

“So then what was that?”

“A mistake. A…confused, stupid mistake.”

“That doesn’t seem like the kind of mistake you just make.”

I hesitate. “No. I guess it isn’t.”

She folds her arms. “So how long have you known?”

I sigh, not wanting to have this conversation. Not wanting to have to explain myself to her. “Since I was eleven.”

“Eleven.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s what, exactly?”

I frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, you said you still love me.”

“Yes.”

“But you also…like Johnny.”

“Yes.”

She’s quiet for a long time. I stare at her figure in the dark. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me,” she says at last. “What did you think I was going to do? Did you think I would have a problem with it?”

“No. By the time I met you, that was just what I did.”

“What? Not tell people?”

“Yes.”

“Did something happen? That made you not want to tell people?”

A boy holding a glass of water appears inside my head.

Fag.

She folds her arms, waiting. I squint through the dark, wishing I could see her face, wanting to close the space between us. But I know if I try to move toward her, she’ll just move away again.

I sigh. “Yes. Something happened. But it wasn’t—it wasn’t just one thing. Look…when I was growing up, people had no problem letting me know that I had a lot of things stacked against me. No parents. Living with Blenny. Not looking like anyone else in Brume. People had written me off before I had even gotten started. It just seemed…easier—not to have to…explain this on top of…everything else. It felt like one more thing that people would put on me. And it was…complicated. And I didn’t have space for that. Not when I knew I was already going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else to make it half as far.”

“So you never told anyone?”

“I told a few people. At first. I told Blenny. He said ‘that’s not a real thing’. The next person I told said I should just suck it up and admit that I was gay. There was only one person I ever told who accepted it without question.”

“Who was that?”

“Electra.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘Oh, okay. Do you want to talk about it?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And she said, ‘Then what does it have to do with me?’”

Bird is quiet. So I go on.

“But apart from that, I pretty much just got crap for it. Eventually it just started to feel like it wasn’t worth it. To fight everyone on it. So I stopped.”

“Did you have relationships with guys?”

“No.”

“So you just ignored it?”

“You’ve never had a crush on someone that you couldn’t do anything about? Plenty of people don’t act on their feelings. It’s not so strange.”

“I guess.”

“Anyway. I was busy becoming the best sailor in Brume, remember? I didn’t have time for relationships. With anyone.”

“With anyone?” She folds her arms. “Last year when we got together, you said you had been with tons of girls.”

“I never said ‘tons of girls’.”

“Okay. Well…you said you had been with other people. And maybe I assumed. Because…you knew what you were doing.”

“I…had sex. I didn’t have relationships.”

“With girls.”

“Yes.”

She’s quiet for a time. Then she says, “And now…?”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Seems like you have a lot of things you need to work out.”

“I don’t need to work anything out. I want to be with you.”

Another long, dark silence. Then she says, “It doesn’t make it okay, you know. Just because you’re…going through something. That doesn’t make what you did okay. You hurt me.”

I wince. “I thought—I thought you liked it.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry. But why didn’t you—say something?”

She says nothing. Then, very quietly, “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” I don’t know what else to say. I move toward her, but again she counters, and again I stop. “I know I screwed up. I just—I’ll fix it.”

She shakes her head. “You’re doing it again. You can’t just smooth things over and expect them to go away. There’s a difference between making things better and patching.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

“Isn’t it? Because it seems to me like you can’t just admit to yourself when a thing is broken.”

The words land hard in the center of my chest. “You think this is broken?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. It’s not like we were getting along all that well before all this happened, were we?”

The pain in the center of my chest deepens. “Weren’t we?”

“Come on. We fight all the time.”

“No we don’t.”

“Are you serious? We’re fighting right now!”

“This isn’t a fight.”

“Yes it is!”

“No it isn’t!”

I glare at her shadow in the dark. She draws and releases a long breath. “I just feel like…last year, you found out everything about me. Every…embarrassing, gross, reprehensible thing. And I’m not saying that anything you’re telling me is embarrassing or gross or reprehensible or anything like that. I just thought…that I knew everything about you too. But now it feels like—like you didn’t actually trust me at all. And I guess I just don’t understand why.”

I narrow my eyes. “Do I know everything, though?”

She shifts. “What does that mean?”

Somewhere down the hill behind me, tires squeal. Turning around, I see two sets of EV headlights speeding up the darkened hill below us. The lights flash and disappear between the trunks of the fogwood trees; they’re moving fast, one right behind the other.

“What the hell are they doing?” I mutter.

Bird says nothing. She taps her brow to check the time.

And it slowly dawns on me that I have no idea how she got up here.

I was so caught up in talking about what happened between me and Johnny that I didn’t even question it. She was supposed to have been kidnapped again. Dominie tracked her across town. Where did she come from?

The EVs come around the last bend in the road that leads to the campus and speed toward the main gate—which is closed up for the night and locked.

Fear’s cold finger brushes the back of my neck. “Bird…”

“Mm.”

“How did you get up here?”

She holds up her hands, palms facing away from me. In the dark I can just make out that the cuffs—the ones that Electra put on her to stop her jumping—are gone.

“How did you get them off?”

She drops her hands, saying nothing, turning her gaze back to the approaching EVs.

“How did you escape from the Exiters?”

“I didn’t.”

My heart begins to pound. “Did you—come up here to think?”

She shakes her head. “I came to see it one last time.”

Behind me, a crash tells me the first EV has just driven through the campus gate. I spin around to see the gate hanging open, crooked and half-destroyed on its hinges, and the two vehicles driving up the steps to the main quad. They’re big—full-on trucks with covered cargo beds and enormous knobbed tires. When they reach the top of the stairs, they split. One tears across the quad toward the lobby of Zenith headquarters. The other turns and heads directly for the building we’re standing on.

I step back. “What the hell is happening?”

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Bird sighs.

The second truck is less than a hundred yards from us now, still barreling toward the building at at least sixty miles per hour. Every fiber of my being screams at me to run, but there is literally nowhere to go. I stand paralyzed, like I’m in some kind of fast-forwarded nightmare as the vehicle blasts at full speed into the side of the building directly below my feet. A deafening bang fills my ears and the roof shudders so violently that it shakes me to my knees.

Bird shoots out her hand to grab mine as I fall.

She twists us into light and we disappear as the building explodes around us.

chapter

twenty-nine

THERE IS heat and light and roaring sound, and then there is nothing.

Silence. Darkness. And the faint smell of cinnamon orange tea.

My feet find the ground as the world arranges itself around me—darkness giving way to dim shadows and the edges of familiar things. Pieces of my home emerge: a copper kettle on a small gimbaled stove. A set of steps leading up to a hatch in the low ceiling. A tiny, folding, wooden table. A girl.

I sway, feeling nauseous.

“Still not used to that, are you,” says the girl.

She lets go of my hand. Her features swim into focus—blue eyes, pale skin, wavy brown hair chopped into a mohawk. Folded arms and a sardonic expression. I know her. And yet…she is unrecognizable. I couldn’t see it when she was just a shadow in the dark on top of Azimuth Hall. I couldn’t see how different she had become.

Thick, black ink smears her left eye and cheek like warpaint. She’s wearing clothes I’ve never seen before: a black jacket reminiscent of the one Johnny wears, and underneath, a vest that looks bulletproof. A red symbol is stitched across the chest. I recognize it. I saw it spray-painted on the walls of derelict buildings in that neighborhood we went to earlier today. I’ve seen it scratched into the lids of trash cans and drawn on the signs of protestors in the quad outside Zenith headquarters. Nabla Omega. Johnny’s right: it doesn’t look anything like the Starbird—I looked it up.

“You look scared,” she says.

“You look…scary,” I reply.

She smiles faintly.

I swallow. “What is going on?”

“I would have thought you could piece that together on your own.”

“You’re working with the Exiters.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

She tilts her chin, considering this. “About six months.”

“Six months?”

It’s as if she just told me she was born on another planet, or used to have wings. I can’t believe it. I was afraid she had been turned while she was kidnapped. That they somehow got to her in that week she was held in Brume Three. But six months? She works for Zenith. She hates the Exiters.

“Johnny told me you’ve been disappearing from work. Is this where you’ve been going?”

She nods.

I squeeze my eyes shut. There is nowhere in my head for this new information to fit.

“But…you were kidnapped. The attack on the Green—”

“Was planned.”

“By you?”

“By a group of us. We needed cover to get me and some others out of the City for a while. Away from Zenith’s surveillance so I could have the space and time I needed to teach them how to use the prototype. Until that point, I had only been able to meet with them for a few hours here and there. I needed more time with them. Uninterrupted time. And, like you said, Johnny was becoming a threat. I was afraid he was going to put two and two together. So we staged the kidnapping, and we set off the bomb at the Green to make it look unplanned.”

“But…we had a fight. That night. You stormed out. There was—there was no reason—there was no way you could have known…”

Her face twists. And suddenly it hits me.

“You did it on purpose. Did y—did you do that on purpose?”

“Let me explain—”

“Savage?” My hand claps to my forehead. “Was he—is he part of this? Did you plan this with him?”

“No!” She puts up a hand. “Please, just let me explain.”

My chest is tight. I step back, forcing air into my lungs.

“I know this is—this is a lot,” she says. “Savage wasn’t involved. Not voluntarily. He doesn’t know anything about it.” She hesitates. “I invited him here that night because I knew if you came home and found us together, you would be angry. I figured it would start a fight. And if I started a fight, I could storm out, and nobody would suspect that there was another reason for me being on the Green. Nobody would suspect that I went there on purpose.”

She drops her gaze, fiddling with her nails, and mumbles the next thing so quietly I can barely hear her. “And I thought maybe if you were mad enough, you wouldn’t try to come after me.”

The cabin is so still around us that I can hear the water outside lapping against the hull. When I manage to speak, all I can think to say is, “You thought I wouldn’t come after you?”

She shrugs—a tiny movement. “We were already fighting so much.”

Rage barrels through me. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How could you do that to me?”

“It wasn’t about you—”

“Oh really? Oh, well as long as it wasn’t about me—”

“Please just listen—”

“I thought it was my fault. I thought—” Tears choke me and I stop.

She observes me with a pained expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But it had to be believable.”

“Believable.”

“I needed time. Cover.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me what you were doing?”

“Because it would have introduced too much risk. To you and to the mission. It had to be completely secret. It had to go right. This thing—the resistance…” She shakes her head. “It’s important.”

The resistance.

I stare at her. More than ever, she looks like someone else. Behind the warpaint and the uniform and the Exiters symbol stitched across her chest, she is fundamentally someone I don’t know.

I fold my arms. “More important than me.”

She flinches. “The world is burning. We have to get out.”

“And you don’t care who you have to climb over to do it.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying to save us.”

“By blowing up the Green? By using me?”

“I didn’t use you.”

“Then what would you call it?”

She opens her mouth, but says nothing. I close my eyes, trying to still the thoughts rolling around in my head. Finally, she says, “I know you won’t want to hear this. But I hoped you might…come around.”

I open my eyes. “Come around?”

“I think…” She hesitates, squinting at me. “I think you have your doubts about what Zenith is doing. You’re not convinced that any of this is right. You see the signs.”

“You don’t know what I think. And even if I did, why would I support an organization like that? After what you just did?”

“Because you’re smart enough to see that there isn’t any other way.”

My head is shaking. I don’t even think I’m doing it consciously. “Bird, this is insane. This is—this is unbelievably stupid. Even for you, this is—”

“Even for me?” Her eyes go hard. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You know exactly what it means.”

“The Exiters are right.”

“I don’t care if they are right! You lied to me!”

“You lied to me,” she spits back. “You’ve been lying to me since I met you.”

Fury ignites in my chest. “That is not the same.”

“Well it still hurts.”

We glare at each other.

She inhales and exhales hard. “This is the only way.”

“I can’t believe you think the solution is blowing up buildings.”

“Of course the solution is not blowing up buildings!”

“You just blew up Azimuth Hall!”

“That was a tactic, not a solution. Zenith needs to know we won’t back down. And people need to pay attention. They need to be shown. They need to know what’s out there.”

“I’ve seen what’s out there. There’s nothing out there for us.”

She scoffs. “You haven’t seen anything. You’ve been to two Parallels and you think you know what it’s about. You have no idea. Nobody does. I’m the only person who understands what’s possible. And the Exiters see that.”

“You’re asking people to put their faith in an organization that endangers people’s lives.”

She folds her arms. “I’m asking people to put their faith in me.”

A powerfully unsettling sense of deja vu grips me. Those words are familiar, but I can’t place them. Where have I heard that before?

“I understand if you can’t put your faith in the Exiters,” she says, “but this is bigger than the Exiters. This is the future of humanity.”

The future of humanity. Suddenly I remember where I’ve heard these words before.

“Axioma.”

She blinks. “What?”

“You sound like Axioma.”

Her face darkens. “Take that back.”

“Do you hear yourself? ‘The future of humanity’? You’re the only one that can save the world? Do you actually believe that?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You’re not God, Bird.”

“I never said I was God. I said I knew what was possible.”

Outside, someone shouts. Far off—at the end of the dock, maybe. The sound snaps Bird’s head around. She looks up through the main hatch at the sky outside, then back to me.

“I have to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“The rest of my team is still up at Azimuth.” She taps her brow to check the time. “I need to get back. I wouldn’t have left, except I had to get you off that roof.” She pauses. “I guess…it was a good thing I went back to see that view one last time…”

Nausea sweeps through me. If she hadn’t, I would be dead.

“You’re really going back there?” I ask.

“I have to.”

“You don’t.”

She looks at me with something akin to pity. “Come with me,” she says quietly.

I shake my head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You lied to me. You used me. You’re working with an organization that goes against everything I believe in. I don’t…I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Her brow creases. She studies me for a long moment like she isn’t sure she recognizes me anymore either, then steps back. “I wish I could make you understand.”

“I wish I could make you listen.”

She narrows her eyes. “Maybe this is better anyway. It’ll be dangerous. You could get hurt.” She taps her temple and sends a message.

Suddenly, the idea that she might go and not come back seizes me like a fist around the heart. The Exiters are criminals. They just blew up a building. There could be peace force up there. People with weapons. In spite of everything she’s done, I can’t just watch her walk into a warzone. For what feels like the hundredth time that night, I reach for her. And for the hundredth time, she steps back. I feel the chasm between us growing deeper. Wider. Darker. Impassable. Unnavigable.

“Please don’t go.”

She shakes her head, and her eyes are so sad I feel like my heart might come out of my chest.

“I love you,” she says, and disappears.

I stare at the spot where she vanished as the cold and dark and damp of the fog settle around me like haar. I can’t believe she is this person. How did I not see it? How have I lived with her for a year and had no idea this was going on? How could things have been so broken between us, and I didn’t even know?

My head is spinning. I squeeze it between my hands and take a deep, slow breath. Breathe it out carefully and let the stillness envelop me for a moment. It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

Frowning, I look around.

Where is Shanny?

Another shout from outside. I leap up the companionway steps and stick my head out of the main hatch. People are congregating on the dock, shouting, pointing up at the hill behind the bay, where, even through the fog, I can see a faint orange glow filling the sky. Azimuth Hall is burning. I climb out to the deck and stand with my hands on top of my head, staring at that orange sky, feeling out of my body. I used to have class in that building. When I started teaching, I used to hold lectures there sometimes.

Thank gods it was after hours and nobody was inside.

A gust of wind off the bay clears a patch of fog and I get an unobstructed view of the hall—blazing so brightly against the black trees and the star-speckled sky that I can’t look at it directly. Smoke pours through the forest toward the water. I squint, letting my eyes adjust, and see that a second building is burning.

My heart goes still.

Because they didn’t just blow up Azimuth Hall. There were two trucks driving up that hill. Two trucks came through the campus gate. Two trucks split at the top of those stairs and drove in opposite directions flat-out across the quad. One was heading for the hall. The other was heading for Zenith headquarters. Where I left Shanny. Where Electra, Johnny, and Dominie were working on tracking Bird’s location.

chapter

thirty

AZIMUTH HALL IS fire and smoke and rubble. The lights of peace force EVs swing crazily around the sky, lighting up the trees.

Blue. Red. White. Blue. Red. White.

They haven’t erected a proper barricade yet. They’re still climbing out of vehicles, yelling instructions at each other, uncoiling massive hoses from trucks with water tanks strapped to the beds. Nobody seems to notice as I slip around the side of the building and run across the quad toward the second bombsite: the lobby at Zenith headquarters, where peace force vehicles have only just started to arrive.

Halfway there, a voice halts me. “Sargo!”

Dominie is running across the quad toward me—with Shanny bounding ahead of her. Relief pours through me as Shanny launches himself into my arms.

“Where is everyone?”

Dominie pulls up behind Shanny, gasping. Her face is coated in ash. Her spex are shattered. “I don’t know! I brought Shanny out for some air…” Her eyes are panicked. “I think they're still in there.”

“Was anyone else here? Other employees?”

She shakes her head. “Everyone would have gone home for the night.”

The lobby is nothing but a black, charred hole in the front of headquarters. The insides of the walls sag out like the entrails of some savaged creature. Glass dust coats the ground like snow and smoke billows into the sky from a fire blazing out of a second-story window. I can see the twisted remains of the EV that carried the bomb buried in the center of the hole. I try not to wonder whether it was automated or if it had a driver.

I scan the wreckage, trying to remember exactly where the main lab was situated relative to the blast area. Behind the wreckage, the back half of the building looks mostly intact, but there’s no way we can get in around the mess of the decimated lobby.

Dominie grabs my arm. “There’s another way inside.” She takes off toward the back of the building. Around the corner is an unmarked door, which she opens with her palm. Inside, the smoke and dust are so thick I can barely see. I stumble after Dominie in the direction of the main lab with one arm over my face and the other clutching Shanny, choking.

Rounding the corner at the top of the hallway that leads to the lab, we are confronted with more rubble. The door to the lab is blocked behind a pile of it. I can see just enough of the top left corner of the doorway to see that behind the pile, the door is open. Not knowing what else to do, I put Shanny down and start heaving chunks of plaster out of the way. Next to me, Dominie does the same. We work in grim silence, sweating in the heat of the fire that I assume is rapidly consuming the front of the building. When I drag the back of my arm across my face, grit and ash smear into my skin.

Five minutes of hauling away debris opens up a path big enough for me to climb up to the gap at the top left corner of the doorway. I’m halfway up the pile when Dominie’s voice pipes up to my right.

“Here!” she yells. “Someone’s here!”

Shanny is yapping and digging at an arm sticking out from under an enormous chunk of half-destroyed wall. It takes both Dominie and I working together to lift the wall, and when we heave it out of the way, Johnny is revealed, half-buried, his eyes closed in a bruised and filthy face.

“Oh gods!” Dominie covers her mouth with her hand.

I drop to my knees, wedging my hands under his shoulders. “Help me pull him out!”

We drag Johnny out of the pile and lay him on the floor. Dominie kneels over him, pressing her lips together, and puts two fingers to the side of his neck. I turn away to stare at the wall behind us while I wait for her to tell me whether the guy who just tipped my world onto its side is dead.

It seems to take forever. Inside my head, memories dive and cartwheel through each other, blurred and nonsensical. Johnny leering at me across the table the first day I came to the lab. Johnny on his back with his legs in the air, struggling to get that guard’s pants on in the prison cell in Brume Two. Johnny’s tattoo, snaking around his arm as he disappeared shirtless through the galley into Runabout’s cockpit. His hand on the back of my neck. His lips against mine.

When Dominie finally gasps and yells, “He’s alive!” I have to put a fist on the wall to keep my legs from failing. I turn around to find Johnny blinking at the ceiling with glassy eyes. Kneeling beside him, I put my hand on his shoulder. His eyes swim to mine.

“Where’s Electra?” I shake him. “Johnny. Where’s Electra?”

He blinks woozily, his eyes not focusing, and his head rolls sideways, toward the door of the lab.

I follow his gaze back to the pile of debris. Dominie shakes her head. “Oh no…”

“I think you should stay out here,” I tell her. “If something collapses on me I may need you to dig me out.” I nod at Shanny. “And hold onto him.”

Eyes wide, lips still pressed together, she nods.

Everything in me screams to stop as I start to climb up the path I cleared in the rubble and squeeze my head and shoulders through the gap in the door. Plaster chunks and sharp metal edges pull at my clothes and dig into my arms as I pull myself through. The heat in the hallway is unbearable now. Sweat rolls down my chest and the middle of my spine. As I pull myself out of the wreckage I fall through the open door into the lab. Stumbling to my feet, I drag my arm across my face and look around.

It’s like something out of a cartoon. Half of the room is like a pile of matchsticks; the other half looks almost untouched. Shattered glass, scattered lab equipment and burn scars around the walls are the only indication that anything on the untouched side happened at all. The air is full of ash and smoke.

And standing in the middle of everything is Bird. She’s facing away from me, her gaze on the floor. She’s standing over something. For a brief, bewildering moment, I wonder how she got in here. But of course she got in here. It would be easy for her. The question isn’t how she got in here. It’s why.

I step toward her, squinting through the smoke and ash at the heap on the floor at her feet and my blood runs cold.

It’s Electra. She’s standing over Electra.

“Bird.”

The sound of my voice whips her head around, and when her eyes meet mine they are full of tears.

“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” she says.

“Bird…” My heart begins to thunder. “What have you done?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be here!” she repeats. She gapes at me, like she’s not sure what’s happening either. “No one was supposed to be here!”

“Jesus Christ, what have you done?!” I push her out of the way and sink to my knees, taking Electra’s hand in mine. Her face is shattered. Black and purple skin; blood and bone. Her one remaining eye is open, staring vacantly into space. I squeeze her hand, a feeling of absolute panic spiraling through me. This is not happening. This is not happening.

This is not happening.

She fixed my collar. Less than thirty minutes ago, she fixed my collar.

“Electra?”

I don’t hear the name come out of my mouth. I am only aware that my lips are forming the shape. I went to her house after school.

“Electra!”

She was the only person who never questioned me when I told her who I was.

I can’t seem to shut down the voice in the back of my head saying over and over and over again that this isn’t happening. I am aware that tears are streaming down my face. Again, I say her name. As though she might hear me. As though she might suddenly blink and stand up, toss her hair and demand to know who made this mess.

“What the hell is going on here?” she would say. And then, to Bird, “Did you do this, Howsley?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” Bird repeats, behind me. “No one was supposed—”

“Well she was here, wasn’t she?” I leap to my feet. Wheel around to face her. “They were all here. They were looking for you.”

Bird’s face goes bone-white. “No.”

“Yes, Bird!”

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispers. “I didn’t think—”

“Of course you didn’t think. Because you never do!”

She covers her face with her hands, and suddenly I am furious.

“Don’t close your eyes!” I grab her by the wrist with one hand, seizing her chin in the other. “Look at what you did.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, twisting, but I tighten my grip and pull her toward me. Rage is crashing against the base of my skull in great, heart-stopping sweeps.

“Open your eyes and look at what you did, Bird.”

“Let go of me!”

“Is this what you were hoping for? Is this what you meant when you said ‘the future of humanity’?”

“You’re hurting me!”

“I don’t care. Open your eyes! Open—”

There are hands around my shoulders. Someone yanks me backward so forcefully that I trip and land on my ass. A foot swings into my stomach and I double over, rolling sideways as it comes at me again. Staggering to my feet, I find myself face-to-face with a man in a black jacket and bulletproof vest. The Nabla Omega is blazed red across his chest and half his pale face is marred with thick, black paint. He lifts a gun and points it at my chest.

“No!” Bird lunges in front of him, throwing up her arms.

The Exiter eyes me over her shoulder. Behind his left foot, Electra stares vacantly up at the charred ceiling. I clutch my stomach, gasping, tears still leaking from the corners of my eyes. He doesn’t lower his weapon.

“It’s getting busy outside,” he says. “We need to get out.”

Bird, sobbing, just stands between us with her arms up. The Exiter taps behind his ear.

“I found Howsley,” he says. “We’re on our way to you.” He turns his gaze back to Bird, the gun still pointed at me through her. “Let’s go.”

Bird shakes her head. “Put the gun down.”

“We don’t have time—”

“Put it down!” she screams.

The Exiter raises both hands to either side of his face, the gun in one, pointed at the ceiling. “Take it easy, Howsley,” he says quietly. “We’re on the same side.”

Bird holds out one hand. “Give it to me.”

The Exiter hesitates.

“Give it to me!”

Very slowly, he hands her the gun. With shaking hands and tears still streaming down her face, she removes the ammo cartridge. She does it with such astonishingly practiced ease that my mouth drops open. She tucks the cartridge into the back of her pants and hands the gun back, steps forward and turns around to face me. Her chest heaves. She drags the back of her arm across her face and squares her shoulders.

“Nobody touches him,” she says. “Ever.”

The Exiter glares at me as he holsters his empty weapon. He taps behind his ear again and listens to a radio transmission I can’t hear.

“We need to go,” he says.

“I heard you,” she replies, and her voice is so level it chills me. Her eyes have not left mine. She stands between me and the Exiter. Tiny. Tears and black paint smeared across her face. Her hair wild and full of ash. Smoke and dust swirling around her like she’s some kind of terrifying sprite summoned from the other side of hell, flanked by demons and surveying the aftermath of the apocalypse. Her apocalypse.

I can’t find anything to say to her but, “Why?”

She stares at me across that same sad, black, hopeless chasm. As though the very fact that I had to ask that question proves that I will never understand the answer. Her shoulders lift almost imperceptibly—a gesture of resolute helplessness. “This isn’t my fault,” the gesture says. “I had no choice.”

“What must be done, shall be done.”

And they are gone.

chapter

thirty-one

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, in this part of the world, we used to bury our dead. I’m told we used to say, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” when a person was interred, meaning that they had come from the earth, and to the earth they would return.

By the time the last pandemic hit, twenty three years ago, we had stopped burying people. We ran out of space in the ground. Around the Cities, at least. Far too many of us, in far too small an area—unless you could somehow get out of the City, which no one could. In history class at Azimuth, we learned that it became such a problem, in the last five years or so, when the overcrowding was really bad, that they actually had to make it illegal to bury a person. The only way to do it was cremation. Then the pandemic hit, and for a year or so after that, we cremated people in piles. I remember the bonfires, but I was too young then to know what they were for.

We don’t say “Ashes to ashes” anymore. Not since the Polytheistic Revolution made that kind of faith-specific language unpopular. Not since most of us started referring to the gods only as expletives. It wasn’t a great saying, anyway, in my opinion. Humans aren’t made of ashes and dust. Mostly, we are made of water. Salt water.

“Given life by salt and water, to the Salt we shall return.”

At the edge of Panga’s deck, Paradi kneels, lifts the lid of the teak box containing her sister’s ashes, and gently tips them over the side. They are caught by the wind and swept in eddies across the sunlit water—a shifting, dissipating curtain that swirls and stretches until it is gone. It takes no time at all.

Beside me, Locuaz makes the sign of the cross across her chest. I recognize it only from old vid streams and lectures about the Revolution; I’ve never seen anyone in Brume make that sign. But where Locuaz is from in Pocosín I think Catholicism was more entrenched. I’ve seen a cross on the wall of Khala’s house. There are still pockets of people holding on to old ways.

Fetch puts her arm around Locuaz’s shoulders, her eyes fixed grimly on the spot where the last of Electra’s ashes disappeared. That ephemeral space between the Salt and the sky. The space Electra was born into, twenty-one years ago. The space to which she has returned.

Fetch looks nice. All in black. I’ve never seen her dress up for anything before.

Paradi stands, brushing off her knees, and grips the box with white fingers as she turns and asks us if anyone has anything they want to say. Her eyes meet mine. I should probably say something. But what could I possibly say that would be of any use to anyone?

Just behind me, Johnny clears his throat. Fetch, Locuaz, and I turn to look at him. His face is still half black and blue, a thick white gauze pad taped over one exquisite cheekbone. He leans heavily on Dominie’s arm; this is the first time he’s been out of bed in three days. As he opens his mouth, he appears to think better of it. He shrugs lamely and says, “Never mind.”

“I’ll always remember,” says Kestrel suddenly, and I shift my gaze to her, standing with Jade just behind Johnny’s shoulder, “the day she came to our house, when the girls were,” she shakes her head, “oh, I don’t know, eleven? She only ever came once. I don’t think she and Bir—” Paradi’s jaw ticks and Kestrel hesitates. “I don’t think she and…my kids got along very well back then. But she came over once. I remember, because I had just finished potting up my tomatoes, and Electra took one look at them and said, ’You’re overwatering those.’ She wasn’t nasty about it. Just matter-of-fact. Eleven years old.” Kestrel smiles. “And she was absolutely right.”

We all turn our gazes back to the water.

Paradi’s eyes are still on Kestrel. I was surprised she invited Bird’s moms to come out with us today. But I suppose, at the end of it all, she realizes that what happened to Electra was nothing to do with them. And Paradi is nothing if not diplomatic.

We stand in silence a few moments longer. I feel as though I should cry, but I’ve cried so much in the last three days that I don’t have much of anything left to cry out. I put my attention on the sound of the water against the hull. The brush of the wind and the heat of the sun on my back. The sun feels good. We don’t get many sunny days in Brume.

Finally, Paradi tucks the box under one arm and dabs under her eyes with her knuckle. “Okay, Sargo,” she says. “Take us home.”

I pick up the anchor and turn Panga back toward the harbor. There are too many of us on this tiny boat. Fetch, Dominie, Johnny, and Locuaz sitting on the bow with their legs over the sides; Jade, Kestrel, and Paradi squeezed into the cockpit with me and Shanny. At the dock, Jade and Kestrel hug me too hard and excuse themselves quietly. Paradi follows shortly after, leaving behind the teak box that held Electra’s ashes. When I call after her and hold it up, she shakes her head.

“I can’t—I can’t take that.” She looks exhausted and makes no effort to explain herself or come back for it. I set it under a seat in the cockpit as she turns and walks away.

The sun is starting to dip toward the horizon. I sit on the dock with my feet in the water, stroking Shanny’s ears and listening to Dominie, Fetch, and Locuaz talking in hushed voices on the bow. Fetch and Locuaz need to head out fairly soon, says Fetch—they’re going back to Pocosín tonight. Dominie will walk with them back to the second launchpad Zenith have hidden in the City, since the one at headquarters was destroyed in the explosion. Where did Locuaz get her dress? It looks nice. She’s had it for years. It was her abuela’s.

“Mind if I sit?”

Johnny's voice pulls me out of my meditations. I say nothing and he carefully eases himself down next to me, wincing. We stare at the water for a few long minutes.

“I suppose it would be inappropriate for me to ask you how you’re doing,” he says.

“I think it would be more appropriate for me to ask you how you’re doing,” I reply.

“I’m fine.” I feel him watching me. When I say nothing, he continues, “I don’t want to have to apologize for what happened. Because I don’t want you to feel like it’s the kind of thing that needs to be apologized for. But I shouldn’t have done that. And I’m sorry.”

“I can’t stop thinking that this is all my fault. That it wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t—” I can feel my chest getting tight and stop.

He takes a long, deep breath and sighs at the water. “Howsley was going off the rails regardless.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t pull off an attack like that on the spur of the moment. That was coming for a while. It had nothing to do with you.” Another minute of silence, then he says, quietly, “I don’t regret it.”

My skin prickles. I squeeze my lips together and nod.

Johnny shifts. “Paradi wants to bring her in.”

I frown. “What does that mean?”

“Go after her. Well, go after all of them, but…Bird especially.”

“Why Bird?” Fear blooms suddenly and viscerally in my gut. “How does she even know Bird was responsible? Just because she was part of it, doesn’t mean—she could have been coerced, or—brainwashed—”

“Did she seem that way to you?”

I sit back, staring at the water again. “No.”

“She killed your best friend.”

“I know. I just—” The inside of my head is spinning. I had only just managed to settle the nauseous feeling I’ve been carrying around for the last three days.

He nods slowly. “Yeah. Me neither.”

We lapse into silence again. I feel his shoulder touching mine and have the overwhelming urge to lean against it. To be supported. I never felt like I needed to be supported before. But it doesn’t feel right to do that, after everything that happened. When I don’t know where Bird is, or who Bird is, or what we are, or…who I am, anymore. And besides, Johnny’s in such rough shape that I doubt he even could support me right now anyway.

“We’re heading out.”

Fetch’s voice over my shoulder. I stand up, then reach down a hand to pull Johnny to his feet. I catch his eye, but he is wincing with one hand on his ribs, and I look away.

“I’ll walk you to the harbor gate.”

Fetch nods, and Locuaz takes Johnny’s arm, her face pulled into that concerned, motherly expression I’ve seen her use so many times with Bird.

“Where you going, mijo?”

He allows her to take his weight as Dominie and I fall into step behind them and we set off down the dock. “Home,” he says. “You don’t need to worry about me, meeyo.”

Locuaz frowns. “What?”

“Isn’t that what you said?”

“Mijo.” She smiles. “Mi-ho.”

“Meeyo,” he repeats, getting it just as wrong, only louder now.

“No,” she sighs. “Anyway, you would call me mija. Not mijo.”

Johnny frowns. “What’s the difference?”

Locuaz rolls her eyes and shoots me a look.

“Subtlety is not really Johnny’s thing,” Fetch says from the front of the group, “he’s more—”

She stops. Stops not only talking, but walking too, and Locuaz runs into the back of her.

“What is she doing here?” Fetch is staring at the other end of the dock, and when I follow her gaze, my blood runs cold.

Bird is standing on the corner, where Panga’s dock joins the main pier. She’s washed the black paint off her face and wears a black dress. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a dress. There are no Exiters symbols anywhere on her person. Her mohawk is brushed and braided and she’s carrying flowers.

“Did you tell her to come?” says Fetch.

“Shh…” Locuaz puts a hand on her arm. “Just be calm, gorda.”

“I didn’t tell her to come,” I say. Bird is looking past everyone, directly at me, and the nauseous feeling I’ve been having for the last three days returns. It’s like butterflies in my stomach, except the butterflies are carrying knives.

Bird doesn’t seem to know what to do. Nobody seems to know what to do. She takes a careful step toward us, and when no one says anything, walks slowly down the dock and stops about six feet away. We all stand there, waiting for someone to say something. Bird shifts the flowers from one arm to the other.

“Who are those for?” says Fetch, folding her arms.

“I—think they were for Electra,” says Bird.

“Lot of good those will do her.”

Bird nods, dropping her gaze. She fiddles with an errant leaf and I notice her nails are ragged and red. A disorienting wash of disgust, pity, and despair bubbles through me.

“I just wanted to say goodbye,” Bird says.

“You’re too late,” says Dominie.

“Yeah.” Bird looks up. “Can I…give these to someone?” She looks at Locuaz. “I feel like I should give them to someone.”

“We don’t want them,” says Fetch.

Locuaz steps forward, looking pained. “Give them to me. I’ll take them.”

Bird tries to meet Locuaz’s eye as she hands her the flowers, but Locuaz doesn’t let her. “How are you doing?” asks Bird. Locuaz says nothing. She steps back and Bird looks at me. “Can we talk?”

I look at her helplessly. I don’t have the faculties to deal with this. I feel furious. I feel exhausted. I feel desperately sad. I maybe don’t want to talk to her ever again. But I want to know where she’s been for the last three days. I want to know if she’s eating.

Before I can answer, Fetch does it for me, placing herself between me and Bird. “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Bird’s face darkens. She keeps her eyes on mine as she says, “Is that so.”

“Maybe it’s best if you just go,” says Johnny, and I realize he’s also positioning himself between me and Bird. “Zenith are about to put a warrant out for you and I don’t want to have to make this day any more depressing by apprehending you.”

Bird flicks her eyes to his. “You think you’re in any shape for that right now, Johnny?”

“Excuse me?” Dominie steps forward. “Did you forget the reason he’s in this shape? What are you even doing here? How dare you come here?”

Bird’s brow knits. “She was my friend too.”

“Your brand of friendship,” says Fetch, icily, “is not needed here.”

Silence descends. A fragile silence that feels on the brink of detonating into something irreparably damaging. Bird looks at me again.

“Is that how you all feel?”

Again, I try and fail to find something to say to her. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to speak to her again.

Bird nods and steps back, her eyes moving about the group. “Okay.” She sets her jaw and squares her shoulders, and I see chilling composure come into her. “Okay,” she says again, and disappears.

___________________

Two days later, I go to see Khala in Pocosín.

A shadow seems to hang over the city. The streets are quiet and still, except for one park, which is full of protesters who erupt into bone-rattling cheers as I pass. I tuck my head and walk quickly past the crowd, the back of my neck prickling as they begin to chant.

“What must be done, shall be done, what must be done, shall be done.”

Khala ushers me inside quickly and locks the door behind me. Over coconut rice and patacones, we talk. She has heard about the attack on Zenith headquarters. She has seen some of the broadcasts that Zenith has been issuing through the biochips, with pictures of the Exiters that are believed to have been involved. Bird’s picture is among them, along with a man called Neb and another called Kcaj. I recognize Kcaj as the one who pointed the gun at me that night. Zenith used an old picture of Bird, from Azimuth. In it, she is smiling. She’s wearing her old gray beanie. It makes no sense.

I tell Khala about Johnny and what happened with him the night of the bombing. It feels good. Scary, but good. I don’t tell her about what happened between me and Bird. That doesn’t feel good. It feels scary and bad. I still don’t even really know what happened. I thought she liked it.

Like Electra, when I told her ten years ago, Khala doesn’t blink or question me when I tell her about Johnny.

“I think that wasn’t great timing,” is all she says.

“Right.”

“Like, that was a mistake.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’re allowed to make mistakes, Sargo.”

I sigh. “Yeah.”

“Right now this is…a big mess. And I know you hate that. But things will be okay. You just took a big leap for yourself. You opened the box. Things are going to be messy for a while.”

“I feel like I’m never going to get everything back in the box.”

She scoffs. “Of course not. Why would you want to?”

When I get back to Brume that evening, a message from Paradi reaches me as I’m walking back to Panga.

>>> CAN YOU COME TO HQ? HAVE SOME THINGS TO DISCUSS.

I stop on the corner and check the time. 1844. I left Shanny at home alone all day. Kestrel checked on him and took him for a walk, but I should get back soon.

>>> DOES IT HAVE TO BE NOW?

>>> IT WON’T TAKE LONG. FIFTEEN MINUTES.

Sighing, I take the next right and begin the long trek up the hill to the campus.

Azimuth Hall is gone. Burned to the ground. Nothing but black, charred earth and some remaining structure sticking up out of it like broken teeth. The school has been shut down. No classes. No one is allowed on campus. They repaired the gate and chained it up. It’s quiet. Like Pocosín. Like the rest of the City.

Half of Zenith headquarters is still intact, and of course, Paradi and others are still there. Hunting the Exiters. Working overtime in the burned-out husk of a building. Stepping around piles of ceiling. I can’t imagine how Paradi is holding herself together, but maybe the work helps. Maybe it’s a way of coping.

I find her in the remains of her office on the fifth floor. It used to be Axioma’s office. The window that dominated the west-facing wall that looked out over the Salt is gone. So is the wall. It’s just a hole in the side of the building, exposed to the elements, fog and the sunset creeping into it. It’s chilly, and I fold my arms across my chest as I sit in the chair opposite her. Her glass desk—the only thing in the room that was somehow miraculously unharmed—stretches between us.

“A date has been set for your trial with the UD,” she says.

I blink, reeling. “I had forgotten about that.”

“I figured as much.” She taps her brow and slides her fingers through the air toward me, transferring a file. “That’s your paperwork. You need to fill it out and submit it by the end of the week. My hope is that this will be resolved quickly. I’ve already done a lot of the legwork to smooth things over with the relevant parties. But you’ll need to dress nice and be on your best behavior.”

“Will Johnny be there?”

“You’ll be tried separately, but on the same day. I’m sending you together.”

My stomach swoops with excitement. And then guilt. This does not feel like a world where you’re allowed to be excited about something as silly as seeing a person you like.

I swipe open the file and scan the contents, then swipe it closed. “Anything else?”

“Yes, actually.” She tents her fingers and sits back in her chair. “I suppose Johnny told you we’re going after Howsley.”

My stomach swoops again. Not a good, excited swoop. A sick, apprehensive swoop. “He did.”

“Did he tell you any more than that?”

“You think she’s responsible? That she’s the one you should be going after?”

Her jaw ticks. “Responsible? As in, the leader? No. Responsible, as in, ‘needs to take responsibility for her actions’? Yes. But it’s not about revenge. As much as I wish it could be.”

I frown, watching her.

“The reason we’re going after Howsley is not because I have a personal interest in bringing her to justice for what she did to my sister. Bird Howsley is now our best link to the Exiters. A foot in the door. A way in.”

“Way in?”

“If we can get to Howsley, we can potentially get access to all kinds of inside information about the Exiters. Their movements, their plans. Their leadership. Bird may not have been responsible for planning the attack on this campus, but she knows who was. And played the right way, she could lead us to them.”

“What do you mean ‘played the right way’? How are you going to get to Bird? It’s not like she’s going to come in for a sit-down meeting.”

“No, of course not.” She pauses. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay…”

“You told me she showed up that day. After the funeral.”

I nod.

“My thinking is that Bird might be feeling in over her head right now. Scared. Lonely. Regretting what she’s done but not knowing how to make it right. She might be sway-able. Vulnerable. To the right person.”

I swallow. “To me.”

“If someone she loved was to reach out…”

“You want me to talk to Bird.”

“Not quite. I want you to go to Bird. To be more specific: I want you to go to the Exiters. I want you to pretend you’ve come around and that you want to join them. Join Bird. That you’ve thought about it, and you support the cause. Then I want you to infiltrate their organization and report back to me.”

My mouth is open. I blink and close it. “You want me to…spy.”

“If you like.”

“I’m not—that’s not me. That’s not something I know how to do. That’s Johnny. Dominie.”

She shakes her head. “It has to be you. You’re the only one who could do it without raising suspicion.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in love with Bird.”

A gut punch. I inhale against it.

“It’s the only way it makes sense,” Paradi says. “Your love for Bird is what drives you to them. You can’t live without her. You’ll do whatever it takes to be with her.”

I’m shaking my head. “I don’t…I don’t even know if that’s true anymore.”

“Mm.” She lifts her eyebrows. “Could you pretend it was?”

I sit back and stare through the empty shell of the wall out to the bay. “I don’t know.”

“I understand that this is a lot to ask. I understand that Electra was your friend and that you are probably having as hard a time as I am right now. Harder, maybe, because you also have feelings about Bird. I don’t know what those feelings are. It sounds like you don’t either. But I think I can understand your feelings about Electra. And I hope you can understand mine, and why I would want to bring the people that did this to justice.”

“What if…what if she isn’t sway-able? What if I can’t make her come around?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. It may not matter—simply having you infiltrate the organization may get us the information we need.”

“And then what? You take down the Exiters?”

“That is the goal, yes.”

“And what happens to Bird?”

“Ideally, she would answer for her part in the Azimuth Hall and Green bombings. It’s not my intention to harm her. Although, of course…” She spreads her palms. “We are dealing with a violent group of individuals. I suppose we’d have to be prepared that something could go wrong.”

I swallow again, feeling sick. “She could get hurt. Or killed.”

“It is a possibility.”

“I don’t know if I can be prepared for that.”

Paradi purses her lips. “You may need to prepare for it whether you help us or not. The Exiters are not going to stop. They are going to continue to escalate, and their tactics will become increasingly violent. There will be more instances like Azimuth Hall. And while we are doing everything within our power to bring them into line, this may be the single most effective strategy we have against them.” She stands, bracing both hands on the desk. “Think about it. I don’t need an answer right away.”

She turns toward the door, and I follow her numbly out of the room.

____________________

The harbor is dark and cold by the time I get back to Panga.

The fog seems extra chilly tonight. I can’t seem to shake the feeling of it in my bones. Or perhaps it’s the residual feeling from my conversation with Paradi that’s chilling me. That she wants me to play Bird the right way. That she wants me to go undercover in an organization that sets off bombs and kidnaps people. That I should be prepared for something to go so wrong that Bird could be killed.

Paradi was right: I don’t know what my feelings are. But I don’t think I can willingly participate in that.

I slide open the main hatch to find Panga cold and empty. Climbing down the steps, I flip on some lights, then set the kettle to boil to warm the place up. I find Shanny’s bowl and dump some food into it. Set it on the floor. Frown and look around.

He should be here.

I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even notice that he didn’t come bounding out to greet me like he usually does. Maybe he’s sleeping on the bunk. He’s been a little skittish since the night of the bombing. Been hiding out in the bunk a lot.

I stick my head into the forward cabin. Nothing. Get down on my knees and look under the bunk. Nothing. I sweep the entire boat, checking every space he may have crawled into, lifting every hatch and sofa cushion. Nothing.

I tap my temple and send a message to Kestrel.

>>> IS SHANNY STILL WITH YOU?

The kettle whistles and I pull it off the stove and make tea while I wait for her reply.

>>> NO. I TOOK HIM HOME A COUPLE OF HOURS AGO. IS HE NOT THERE?

Clasping one hand in my hair, I squint around the cabin again. Then send,

>>> IT’S ALL GOOD. NO WORRIES

My eye lands on the navigation table, where we keep all the equipment for way-finding while we’re sailing. A small piece of yellow paper is laid in the center of it. I didn’t notice it before. We never use paper. Nobody does. Nobody writes with pencil anymore. I think Bird and I are the only people in Brume who even know how to use one—you have to in order to do celestial navigation, which we both used to cross the Salt last year.

Frowning, I pick up the paper. Someone has written something on it, in big, scribbly, swoopy, barely-legible handwriting.

Don’t panic. Shanny is with me.

—Bird

I stare through the letters, not seeing them. Not comprehending them. Because this is incomprehensible. No sane person does this. No sane person thinks this is okay. No sane person leaves this note, in the context of everything that is happening.

She took Shanny?

Of all the things—of all the reprehensible, inexcusable…She used me. She lied to me. She disappeared for a week. She made me think she was dead. She made me think it was my fault. She joined a terrorist organization. She blew up a school. She killed my best friend. She had the audacity to show up uninvited to the funeral.

And she took. My fucking. Dog.

My hand is shaking. I crunch the paper into a ball and hurl it across the room. Stab my finger against the side of my head and type a message so fast that I have to retype it three times before it isn’t riddled with errors.

>>> DID YOU TAKE SHANNY?

It takes her too long to respond. I pace up and down the cabin, seething, unbelieving. Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.

>>> YES

>>> YOU TOOK MY DOG? YOU TOOK MY FUCKING DOG???

>>> HE’S NOT YOUR DOG. HE’S OUR DOG

Oh you have got to be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me, Howsley! Where have you been?! Where have you been all week? Who’s been taking care of him? Who took care of him all year? When you were working late. When you were sneaking off to play rebels with fucking lunatics. Who took him to work? Took him out sailing? Walked him every single goddamn morning when you were still asleep because you were always working late. Were you even working late? He slept in my pack. He came when I called. All you ever did was feed him table scraps that gave him the shits, and forget to pick him up from your moms. Malarkey was your dog. Malarkey was your psychopath. Shanny was mine. He was balanced and normal and stable and mine.

I don’t send any of that. Instead, I send a message to Paradi.

>>> WHEN DO YOU NEED ME TO START?

I’m going to get my dog back.

GET THE NEXT BOOK

get the next book

CLICK TO GET PASSAGE

Paso a Paso. Step by step.

My best friend is dead. My best friend is dead and it’s Bird’s fault. On the surface, my path seems clear: get to Bird. Infiltrate the Exiters. Bring them to justice.

But I have never been more confused in my life.

Before I can even think about finding Bird, Zenith has to locate the Exiters. And before I can infiltrate them as a spy, I have to complete training to hold my own. Which means training with Johnny. Which means being close to Johnny. Very close. I may not know how I feel about Bird anymore, but I definitely don't know how I feel about Johnny either.

And I haven't told anyone, but despite what they did, there's still a tiny part of me that thinks the Exiters may be right about the world. Am I falling for their propaganda? Or is Bird right? Are the Exiters humanity’s only hope?

An Excerpt

Johnny turns his eyes back up to mine, gently pulls on my tie and brings my mouth to his.

As our lips touch, all that buzzing, anxious energy rushes up inside me. I almost pull away, but he tightens his grip and doesn’t let me, and as the kiss deepens I close my eyes and let him guide me.

Kissing him is nothing like kissing Bird; it’s bigger and scarier and I feel like I don’t have control of what’s happening. Like I’m letting myself be pulled underwater by a powerful current and trusting him to keep me somewhere near the surface and not to let me drown.

He leans in, bracing his free hand on the roof beside my hip, the hand on my tie holding me still as his mouth becomes more insistent. My heart is beating so hard I feel it in my whole body—in my hands and feet. It’s all I can feel: my heart and his lips.

I find myself lifting a hand, hesitantly, like I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, which is weird because I’ve never felt unsure about that before. I wrap it around the back of his neck and pull him closer. He makes a small noise in his throat and the hand at my tie releases, flattens against my chest, presses me backward.

He rolls halfway onto me, one knee between mine and his weight on my hip as he pushes me to my elbows and then onto my back. Blood is roaring in my ears. My heart is going crazy fast. I part my lips because I feel like I can’t breathe and he immediately pushes his tongue in. I gasp in surprise and my palm comes to the front of his shoulder and he stops.

He pulls back, one hand still on my chest. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah—” I swallow and try to get a breath, but can’t. “I just—”

“We can stop. Any time.”

“No, I—” He shifts his weight and I manage to pull some air into my lungs. “I don’t want to stop.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod. His eyes burn into me as he carefully lowers his mouth and touches it to mine so gently that it takes my breath away all over again.

“Okay, well you don’t have to be that careful…”

He smiles against me, and pushes harder, sinking to one elbow, settling his weight onto me. I slide my hands into his hair, and the strands are like silk between my fingers. I part my lips and let his tongue in, and he groans and goes hard against my hip.

Holy shit.

Deep inside me, a fire lights. A big, hot, smoldering fire. It rockets through my blood in a way I’ve never felt before. My skin ignites, and as he pushes that hardness against me, I feel myself get hard too.

He drags his hand down my chest, pushing open my suit jacket, untucking my shirt so he can touch me underneath it. I shiver as his bare fingers graze my ribs, stomach, the hair below my belly button. They slide over the front of my pants and I suck in a breath, breaking from his lips, tilting my head back, overwhelmed by the heat in my body.

“Still okay?” he says. I nod, speechless, staring at the sky. “You have to tell me if you want to stop.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

"This book is by far my favorite of the series! Sargo being pulled in so many directions and struggling with all the different emotions really made the book an up and down adventure. I read this in one sitting and held my breath the entire time while bawling my eyes out!!"

Goodreads Review

"Another fantastic book in the series, the author knows how to take me through an emotional rollercoaster! Brilliant characters, great plot, and a cliffhanger thatâ€™s got me desperate for the next book."

Goodreads Review

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nabla and omega

I probably started harboring a secret desire to design a symbol for a rebel group when I was a teenager. Probably around the time I saw The Hunger Games. I’m sure lots of budding writers did. The Mockingjay is just…so cool. Ditto the Starbird, the Dark Mark (Harry Potter), and V for Vendetta’s “V”.

It was important to me that the Exiters’ symbol pay tribute to all the cool rebel symbols I knew and loved, while simultaneously representing its own specific and explicable meaning. I wanted the shape to be simple enough that you could imagine someone spray-painting it on a wall, or doodling it on their desk or backpack. I’m not sure if what I’ve achieved with the Nabla Omega is anywhere near as cool as the Mockingjay, but I think I did at least achieve these goals—and it was certainly fun to come up with.

Dominie explained the meanings of the two symbols that make up the Nabla Omega pretty well in chapter eight, but I felt like a little more information about my thought process might be interesting for other nerds like me.

The Omega

The idea to use the Omega (or the Ohm) to mean “resistance” probably popped into my head because Trev—my partner—and his dad and brother are electricians. I thought his dad, in particular, might get a kick out of that pun. Also, I knew I wanted the outline of the symbol to be circular because I wanted to evoke the Starbird (the Star Wars rebel alliance symbol.) I wanted something you could imagine being used as a badge or medal. I’m also a big fan of symmetry (actually, I’m a little compulsive about it) so the symbol needed to be symmetrical or it would have driven me out of my mind.

The Nabla

Once I had the Omega, coming up with something to combine it with was a process of researching various other symbols until I found something that had both a shape and a meaning that resonated with me. I wanted something that looked angular and a bit sinister—something like the “V” from V for Vendetta—that could be laid over the top of the Omega.

I had never heard of the concept of Nabla before I started doing this research, but as a writer (particularly someone who writes a lot of content for the internet) I think it’s pretty interesting. The shape of the symbol (an upside-down triangle) represents the way in which written content is typically presented today in news and mass media.

In this type of journalistic structure, all the pertinent facts (the who, what, where, when, and why) are presented in the first paragraph or so, and details are given in subsequent supporting paragraphs. This way, you capture the reader’s attention right away, and deliver all the necessary information later on for those who care to read further.

Another meaning of the Nabla that I thought was interesting, which I didn’t get into in the book because it would have been too in the weeds, is as the symbol for underdetermination. Underdetermination is the idea that evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient for us to determine what beliefs we should have about it.

A classic example of this is René Descartes’ dream argument. Descartes argued that because the experiences we have in dreams are indistinguishable from reality while they are happening, we cannot necessarily rule out the possibility that we may be dreaming at all times.

I think this is an interesting lens through which to view modern discourse. You may have heard the phrase “we live in a post-truth world,” and indeed, at times it does feel like any group can apply their own interpretation to a particular fact or set of facts to prove any truth they believe to be correct. This is an idea I touched on briefly in the book—namely, that the Exiters and Zenith have wildly different opinions about the fate of the world, based on their different interpretations of the available evidence. As Electra says in chapter eight: “Their definition of facts differs from ours. They think it’s an irrefutable fact that the planet can’t be saved.”

At this point, to be completely honest, I don’t know for sure whether the Exiters or Zenith are right. I haven’t written books five and six yet. Hopefully, by the end of one of those books, I’ll know. But so far, the evidence we’ve been given doesn’t conclusively prove one way or another which group is correct.

The Nabla

The Omega

The Nabla Omega

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The year is 2172. The world is mostly water. Marlin Paz and her pregnant girlfriend arrive in the harbor city of Brume after forty-two harrowing days at sea only to find themselves forbidden to go ashore.

Meanwhile, Axioma Nation, CEO of the world's leading corporation, struggles to solve the climate refugee crisis. But when an urgent message from a colleague overseas comes through, Axioma realizes that the climate is the least of her worries.

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TALES OF MISCHIEF AND F*CKERY

Short. Silly. Sexy. Speculative.

Small town apocalypses? Dystopian billionaires? Fae mafia bosses? How about hockey playing shifters? A Greek god desperately in need of a nanny?

You may ask, "Why?" This series of steamy holiday-themed short stories asks, "Why not?" Why not a mishmash of genres? Why not funny, off-the-wall romance with hot spice and big heart? Why not a sexy hockey shifter rom-com starring the Easter bunny?

Inside these 12 books, you'll find 12 short standalone “fairy tales”, each set during a different holiday in every month of the year.

"Even August?" I hear you asking.

Yes, friend. Even August.

"But there isn't even a holiday in Aug—"

Don't worry about it. It's gonna be fine. I have, like, eight months to figure that out. Just start at December, and we'll all be fine. Okay?

Okay.

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acknowledgments

As an indie author working primarily on my own, I don’t have a big team to thank. However, there are a few people who have been incredibly supportive throughout this process, and without whom, this book would not be what it is.

In no particular order, those people are

GABBY LANE for beta-reading and incredible enthusiasm for this series

SAM STOKES for beta and proofreading

BECKY JAMES for calling me out on my overuse of ellipses (among other things)

LENA COOPER for expert-level proofreading

THE CREW You guys are THE BEST

GEOFF SHIPTON for advice on the feasibility of sailing airships

TREVOR HOPE for steering our ship and fixing everything all the time

ALOY BONESNATCHER MCGEE for being the world’s most legendary dog

about the author

PART-TIME AUTHOR 🪶⚓ FULL-TIME PIRATE.

HI! I'M LIZ. I'm a freelance writer, indie author, and full-time, off-grid, live-aboard sailor. I’m currently sailing around the world with my boyfriend and my dog, turning my real-life adventures into Sci-Fi and Fantasy books.

I love incorporating the incredible experiences, beautiful places, and fascinating people I encounter on my travels into my work. Many parts of the world are underrepresented in fiction, particularly speculative fiction, and I feel grateful to be able to explore them.

I also use my books as a means to explore themes of mental health, addiction, technology, climate change, and the looming collapse of society (but, like...in a fun way.)

When I'm not penning novels about the impending apocalypse, I work as a freelance content writer specializing in articles about code, music theory, and off-grid living. On the rare occasion I'm not writing, you can find me swimming, hiking, telling my dog I love her for the bazillionth time today, or watching Taskmaster.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Content Warning

Nabla Omega

Runabout

Paz

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

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Acknowledgments

About the Author