Chapter 35
The morning of mount Kilmon’s eruption feels almost like any regular morning.
The Bargainer is quiet, the counters and tables scattered with empty cups, pens, food wrappers.
Jester’s tub of gummies is nearly empty now, sitting like a shrine under the glow of Caspen’s control monitors.
NewsNet plays on low volume, and I read the headline: DETERMINISTS GUARD NEUTRALIZER WHILE VENTHROTHIANS AWAIT SALVATION.
No one else is up yet. That’s no surprise—it’s barely four in the morning.
Also not a surprise? I couldn’t sleep. My anxiety is cresting from background noise to full-blown marching band, and none of my usual tricks are helping, so here I am in The Bargainer’s kitchen at this unholy hour scrounging up something to eat.
I tear through my first two PPMs with single-minded zeal and am about to start in on my third when it occurs to me that I don’t actually want the whole meal, just the brownies.
I rampage my way through another four boxes, tearing the gooey desserts from their packaging and swallowing them whole.
Lament would probably have something to say about this.
I can imagine it: the sardonic arch of his brow, the I’m-trying-not-to-be-amused eyeroll.
You’re going to give yourself a stomachache, Hartman.
But Lament’s not here. He’s upstairs in our shared bedroom, pretending to sleep so he doesn’t have to talk to me.
Don’t let eruption day come without fixing this.
I clutch the brownie packaging between my fingers. I listen to the wind whine against The Bargainer’s windows, the dry sound of my own breathing.
Fix this.
I abandon the carnage of PPMs and go upstairs, wiping my hands on my pants as I move down the hall. I push open the door to our shared room, sticky yellow light spilling across the bed.
Lament is lying on his side under the thin thermal sheet. His back is to me. He doesn’t move, but he knows I’m there.
I cross the small space and kneel next to the bed. Lament’s sides rise and fall with his breath. His shoulder blades poke through the back of his nightshirt like wings. I lick my lips and try to work up enough spit to say, “Lament.”
He jerks upright with a sharp inhale, twisting around to face me. “Hartman?”
It takes me a second to register his puffy eyes, his swollen mouth, the imprint of the pillowcase stamped into his cheek. So he was asleep. Which means … maybe he hasn’t been ignoring me like I thought?
“Hey,” I say.
“What are you doing?” His hair is sticking out in all directions, his cheekbones flushed.
He looks ridiculous and perfect, and I’m torn between wanting to laugh at him and wanting to hug him.
The urge is suddenly overwhelming—to just wrap him up in my arms and laugh. But I doubt he’d appreciate that.
He frowns. “Did you fall out of bed again?”
If he wasn’t half asleep, he’d realize that question doesn’t make any sense. My smile wobbles. “No.”
“Why are you on your knees?”
“I guess … because I’m about to beg.”
I don’t have a plan here. I’ve never done this before.
All I know is I’m tired of skirting around all the broken things between us.
I’m tired of hiding my feelings, of pretending like this doesn’t matter, like Lament doesn’t matter.
I need to be strong enough to ask for what I want.
Even if it opens me up to rejection. Even if it’s really, really hard.
“Hey,” Lament says, apparently registering the conflict on my face. His voice is soft, concerned. “Hey, come on.”
The last time we were this close, we’d been about to kiss. Which is suddenly all I can think about: the shock and vulnerability and the taste of Lament on my lips.
His expression gentles further, which makes me feel a little like running away. He reaches out, brushes the tips of his fingers against my shoulder. “What’s this about?”
“I don’t regret the—what we did,” I croak, fumbling over the word kiss.
“I’m sorry about the rest of it. So, so sorry.
I hate that my mother turned out to be a Determinist. I hate that she dragged me into her schemes, and that I’ve dragged you.
And I really, really hate what happened to Bast. He was innocent, and so were you, and none of us deserved any of this.
But us, you and me—I need you to know how I feel.
And maybe it’s the wrong time, maybe you’re not ready to hear this, but I don’t regret it.
The kiss,” I finally make myself say. “I can’t regret it. ”
Lament’s mouth has sort of fallen open, and he’s blinking at me like I’ve caught him completely off guard. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not just saying all this because…”
“Because we might soon die a painful death in a fiery eruption of poisonous murder gas?”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.”
“No,” I say. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Now he’s shooting me a look of incredulity. “Hartman.”
“I like it better,” I say in a breathless rush, “when you call me Keller.”
His eyes soften again. “Keller.”
Something changes at that. I feel it, and Lament must too, because his eyelids drop to half mast, his pupils blowing wide.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I slide closer, get my hand around the back of his neck.
My mouth is dry and my pulse is wild and I’m watching his face, hunting for any hint that he doesn’t want this, that I’m somehow still getting it wrong.
I move slowly enough that he could pull away if he wanted. But he doesn’t.
I mean to be gentle about this. To make it better than last time. Only, the moment Lament’s mouth brushes mine, time slams to a halt. Fire roars through me, and all I can think is more.
I rock forward, crashing into him like I’ve lost the ability to do anything else.
One of my hands goes for his hair while the other grips his shirt, dragging him closer, hot and wanting and desperate.
Lament responds with a shudder, brings one arm around my shoulders, the other angling himself up on the thin mattress.
His eyes flutter closed. His breath goes ragged.
He’s shaking—like, actually shaking—and for a moment, the universe is nothing but the feel and smell and taste of Lament, the rough slide of our tongues, the sheer, heady thrill of being this close, getting to do this again.
And then we’re just kissing. And it’s good. And the world drifts for a while.
When we finally break apart, it takes a minute for the room to stop spinning. My knees are throbbing where they’ve been pressing into the floor. Lament grips my wrists with strong, light fingers and murmurs, “Come here.”
He pulls me up under the blanket. Gets me on top of him, hip to hip, his knees bending up to bracket my sides. His hand is bleached white in the semidarkness as he reaches up, runs his thumb over my cheek. “I don’t regret it, either,” he says.
I don’t know why I suddenly feel like crying.
Or maybe I do know. Because I’m messy and vulnerable and just—I want this.
I drop my head to the place where his neck meets his shoulder, kiss the skin there.
My world has condensed to the press of Lament’s knees into my sides, the tickle of his hair against my face.
I let my hand drift to his night shorts, toy with the waistband.
He makes a soft sound, his head falling back.
“Is this—?” I ask, sliding my hand under the fabric.
His fingertips dig into my shoulders. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I capture his mouth under mine.
We stop talking for a while.
When Lament and I make our way back into The Bargainer’s control center some indeterminate number of hours later, everyone else is up and ready.
Dawn pours through the front windscreen in a swath of pinkish orange, Purvuva’s sandy landscape glowing golden behind the glass.
Vera takes one look at Lament and me (both of us rumpled but surprisingly well rested) and closes her eyes, like she’s pressing the image into her memory.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so happy.
No one talks much as Avi passes out a round of PPMs. (I end up with a vegan one.
Lament rolls his eyes at the horror on my face and switches with me).
We all know the plan today. We’ve been over it a thousand times.
To cut Doc Min’s legs out from under him (figuratively speaking—I think), we’ll need to steal his neutralizer from the deployer ship, and to do that, we’ll have to catch him and his cronies off guard.
But we’ve all been watching the news. We know his cargo ship is heavily protected.
Our plan is a good one, but it doesn’t come with any contingencies.
For today to work, everything has to go exactly right.
Lament finishes his food, then lets himself sink back into the cushion of our love seat. His shoulder presses into mine. So does his thigh. The feel of Lament like this—relaxed and within reach, touching me, letting me touch him—is still so foreign. Heady and good and right.
I don’t know what last night means for us.
Lament and I weren’t exactly verbalizing our thoughts on the future.
Everything was about taste and touch, fingers digging into skin, the arch of his neck and the splay of his hands and supple curves and just …
there were words, but they were words like oh and please and yes.
Which means I don’t know if Lament has considered the other words I’m thinking right now.
Home. Forever. Love. I want to ask (of course I want to ask), but I also don’t want to shatter this fragile thing between us, not with the clock ticking down the minutes to what may be the last mission we ever run.
For now, though, it’s enough just to be able to lean into his warmth, let it feel good. We have this moment. The rest can wait.
After breakfast (hurried along by Vera, who’s beginning to worry about our timing), we suit up.
It feels weird to pull on my whites, given we might not even belong to the Legion anymore, but they’re the most functional uniforms we have (fire-resistant, waterproof, flexible).
I’m lacing up my boots on the bench by The Bargainer’s exit when Master Ira approaches.
“Ready?” he asks.
“As ready as I can be,” I answer honestly.
The Master nods and lets that reply stand. He glances over to where Lament is talking to Toph near The Bargainer’s controls. “You gave that boy your lifestone.”
I blush. “Yeah.”
“Have you told him why?”
“He knows why.” A beat. “Sort of. Fairy tales aren’t really Lament’s thing.”
“You should tell him.”
“Really?” I frown at the Master. “I didn’t think you believed in the power of lifestones.”
He lifts his brows but says nothing.
Once we’re ready, Vera and Jester head for the Sky Runner parked on the bluff, Lament and I exit down the back ramp toward Moon Dancer, and everyone else stays on The Bargainer.
There are no pep talks. No good lucks. We’re all trapped in our own thoughts, our worries, our pre-mission focus routines.
As I ready to climb up into Moon Dancer’s cockpit, I glance back and spot Master Ira through The Bargainer’s window.
His expression is graver than it was before, and I don’t like that he looks that way.
I don’t like that he maybe has good reason.
I turn away before he notices me watching.