Chapter 21
I tell Lament everything. How my mom chose to leave me for reasons I do not and will never understand.
How I landed at Master Ira’s School for Children, and the Master took me in, then turned his back on me, too.
The truth is ugly, and it makes me feel beastly and unwanted—unwantable.
Yet somehow, once I start talking, I can’t stop.
The whole story pours from me like wine from a spilled cup, every detail included, every vulnerable memory.
Lament, seemingly knowing how tenuous this all is, listens without trying to cut in or defend.
He simply lets my words be what they are, my past what it is, and absorbs.
I’m breathless by the time I finish, and more than a little self-conscious. I have no idea what comes next. How do two people move forward after seeing each other laid bare like this? After all their wounds are held to the light?
Lament looks at me in that too-long way of his and says, “Thank you for telling me.”
I study the wall behind him. “I should have told you before.”
“You don’t owe me the truth.”
“I asked you to trust me and then I lied.”
“Trust isn’t something you can just ask for. It’s earned. And I hope”—his eyes seem to grow bluer in the dark—“maybe this means I’ve earned yours?”
It’s the quiet of the room. The way we’re (basically) sitting in bed together.
The memory of his story, his scars, how I saw them and let him see mine.
Lament’s question is simple, but it’s the way he asks it that touches me, like my trust is something he cares about having.
I feel a sort of weightlessness. It’s in my chest, spinning up through my heart.
My lifestone is still glowing, the soft green light filtering through my nightshirt.
“Yeah,” I say, voice hoarse. “Yeah, Lament. You have.”
“So.” Lament readjusts his seat. “You saw your mother yesterday. And she saw you. Do you think she came to find you?”
The thought has occurred to me. It seems too great a coincidence that I’d randomly spot Nina Hartman in a crowd like that, even if she’s a Determinist now, and even if I’m Legion.
The galaxy is massive—too big to explain the sighting away on chance.
But it’s also too big to explain away on premeditation, because again, the galaxy is massive.
How could Nina have possibly known I’d be on Venthros?
Legion missions are classified, meaning civilians don’t have access to our orders in advance of deployment.
Anyway, even if Nina did intend to come for me, what was her purpose?
I can’t help but consider Ran Doc Min’s simulation.
We’ve been operating under the assumption that FPS can only predict large events, since the sheer amount of data required for individualized predictions would be next to impossible (not to mention illegal) to collect.
Only, there’s Professor Morton’s warning to consider.
He knew details about my past as well as specific predictions about my future.
So, what if FPS is more advanced than we’d thought?
What if Ran Doc Min used his technology to predict I’d be on Venthros and gave that information to my mother?
“I’m not sure what to think,” I say. “I haven’t seen Nina Hartman since I was nine years old. Why would she come for me now? And why let me see her?”
“Maybe she didn’t mean for you to see her,” Lament says. “Maybe she only meant to find you.”
I flop onto my back and stare at the smooth ceiling of our shared cubby. The Bargainer clicks and hums with small noises, water draining through its pipes, air vents rotating open, panels creaking as they shift and settle. I voice the question again, the one that has no answer. “But why?”
We spend another two days on Venthros before Lament is cleared to fly home.
Time to relax, Avi called it, but it’s hard to enjoy the break with the Youvu Hums watching NewsNet in the background (RAN DOC MIN RELEASES LATEST PREDICTION: PLANET VENTHROS DOOMED) and my handheld sitting like a weight in my pocket.
I tell myself I won’t compulsively check for new messages and fail spectacularly.
It becomes a cycle: check handheld, frown, put it away, check again.
I’m just marinating in this congealed soup of anxiety and despair, wondering if Master Ira received my message, wondering how long it would conceivably take him to reply if given every possible setback.
I waver from I’m sure he’ll answer to I don’t care if he does to fuck it, fuck everything.
Lament—after catching me eyeballing my empty inbox for the millionth time—holds out his hand and makes a give it here motion. And it’s a relief, passing him the device. Like all my problems are contained within that tiny screen, and they can just belong to someone else for a while.
This does, however, leave my hands woefully empty. And with nothing else to occupy them, I start fidgeting with my lifestone.
The stone has been glowing almost constantly since the night I told Lament he had my trust. It’s done this before, lit up at random moments, but it’s never been so persistent.
The other Sixers have noticed (how could they not?), but when they ask about it, my reply is tepid.
“I don’t know why it’s doing that.” And that’s true. I don’t know.
But I have some guesses.
My eyes find Lament across the room. He’s currently leaning against the doorjamb between the command center and The Bargainer’s kitchen, frowning at something Avi is saying (“Please let me dye your hair, it’s like a canvas begging for color.
”). Morning sunlight filters through the windows, casting the tips of his eyelashes blond, reflecting the high crest of his cheekbones.
He’s in a fresh set of whites, but he’s left his collar undone, and the bare hollow of his throat is absurdly suggestive.
Jester pauses on his way past me and notices where I’m looking. He shakes his head. I won’t tell Vera.
I widen my eyes innocently. “Tell Vera what?”
Patchy clouds roll in, giving the sky texture.
Outside, the day is warm, windy. Our plan is to down a quick breakfast of PPMs, then load up into our respective spacecrafts and head back to Skyhub.
Which, of course, only globs another spoonful of uncertainty onto my growing trepidation pile.
Am I riding with Vera and Jester in the Sky Runner, Caspen in the cargo craft, or Lament?
Breakfast ends (my anxiety-hunger strikes with a vengeance; I eat my weight in PPM brownies) and everyone starts to clear out, but I hang back to see what Lament will do. He starts toward the exit. Pauses. Turns to face me.
Hope is a beam of golden light, pouring down my throat.
My heart is going a mile a minute, because this has to be it, right?
This is the moment Lament finally asks me to fly with him.
After everything we’ve been through—I mean, he’s ready.
To make this official. Solidify my place as his partner and a member of the Sixth.
Fly with me, I beg him to say. I want you by my side.
Lament pulls my handheld out of his pocket. “It doesn’t look like there’ve been any new messages.” He passes it over. The device is a brick in my palm. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” I croak.
He hesitates. “Should I not be?”
“I didn’t expect a message.”
“Okay.” His eyes drop to my lifestone, which has started flickering haphazardly. The hope is still there, partway derailed but still traveling on forward momentum. “Vera is waiting for you,” Lament tells me. “We’re airborne in five.” And with that, he walks away.
The brownies curdle in my stomach.
I tighten my fist around my handheld and tell myself not to be disappointed, not to let my mind travel down its usual paths.
This is about Lament’s recovery, Lament’s timing.
I mean, was I not just thinking about how I don’t blame him for being reserved, given what he went through? Given what I now know?
But that was before the other night. Before I opened up to him, revealed my past, admitted things I’ve never admitted to anyone. He’s seen me, and I’ve seen him. So why does he insist on boxing me out? I know I shouldn’t, that it’s selfish, but I feel abandoned. Left behind. Again.
My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth. The collar of my shirt feels three sizes too small. I swallow hard and catch the look Caspen is throwing me. “No good days for the Pirate King,” she says.
“You’re telling me.”
I march through The Bargainer’s cargo hold and down the back ramp.
I catch sight of Lament climbing into his skimmer (his fingers grip the cockpit’s seal, boot wedging into the foot notch, lean arms hauling his body up) and I think he must hear me stomping around, because he glances over. Catches my eye. Looks away.
And you know what? Fine. Whatever. Lament and I can keep doing this little dance until the universe freezes over, if that’s what he wants. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.
The flight back to the detachment in the Sky Runner is quiet. Vera starts to tell me something but stops at a look from Jester. And somehow, that turns my mood even fouler. Like they think they have to walk on eggshells around me. As if I’m some kind of monster.
We switch into hyperspeed, and everything goes blurry and dark for a while.
I practice an old breathing trick I learned from Master Ira, hoping it’ll help dissipate some of this hurt, but before long we’re approaching Skyhub, winging over its circular face, peeling past the ninety-nine identical detachments until we find the one labeled 94.
The flight deck’s exterior metal door opens at our arrival, and Vera guides the Sky Runner inside, followed by The Bargainer and—bringing up the rear in his navy skimmer—Lament.