Chapter 24
The morning the guests finish voting is the same day the month-long cruise ends and the guests disembark. I avoid the atrium, not wanting to watch as the votes are cast.
Alana has explained to me how it works. Adults write the three names they’re voting for on parchment and drop them into a basket.
Bosses are the only people allowed to count the votes.
They set up clear cylindrical jars to represent each of the leading staff members with the most votes.
The jars are made by crafters to calculate the number magically, a way to keep the bosses honest.
They use stones to represent the votes. She reminds me fifty additional votes are added for concierges if their assigned family votes for them and ten additional if a boss votes for them. Guests pass through the atrium throughout the morning to see which staff members are pulling ahead.
Despite many of the guests lamenting that it’s their last day on the Celestial, they’re buzzing about how lucky and exciting it is to be here to witness one of the quarterly retrials.
Not that any of them stay for the retrials.
Once the families know who wins, they depart the ship like nothing’s happened.
Our Morphia, which fueled their entire cruise experience, can’t follow them home, so why would they care to see who gets to keep their magic? Their lives don’t change at all.
Alana and I agreed that watching the vote is torture.
That’s why I’ve taken Sage and Ezra to the game room for illumination tag.
Inside, a maze of stairs, tunnels, upper levels, and lower levels are pitch black except for the neon paint on the walls and floor.
Overhead, blue stars illuminate the ceiling, and a brilliant white moon sets an ethereal glow.
At random intervals throughout the game, anyone inside floats into the air.
The kids wear luminous vests and squeal with delight as they shoot concentrated starlight at each other. The beams sparkle like clusters of melted diamonds from the barrels of toy pistols.
“Got you!” Ezra exclaims, pumping his fist as he shoots a beam of starlight at my vest. There’s a vibrating noise as my vest registers the impact.
“Not so fast!” Alana comes up behind Ezra and sends a beam into his vest at close range.
“No fair,” he yells and throws himself through a tunnel to get away. The four children from Alana’s family run on the upper level, screaming as they shoot us from overhead.
“Got you, Lana!”
Alana clutches her chest and falls dramatically to her knees.
As she falls, the room becomes weightless again, and the kids giggle as we all lift into the air.
I paddle with my arms and grab Alana’s hand to keep her from floating away from me.
The end of her braid trails like a tail behind her.
We watch her kids take turns spinning each other in the air.
“This is the best behaved your kids have been the whole trip,” I say.
Alana glances both ways, but this might be the only room bosses don’t lurk in. They don’t like losing their footing every few minutes. “They’re better when they get to run around—or float around. Their parents make them sit in three-hour meals twice a day. I wouldn’t be well behaved either.”
A couple of kids zoom past us as they activate thrusters on their vests. “Are you nervous about retrials today?” Alana asks.
“Not yet,” I whisper back. In truth, I haven’t had time to be nervous.
I’ve been too busy attempting to be the perfect concierge to worry about getting enough votes for a trial.
Although my sleep is plagued with deathmares from using my Morphia, the shitty dreams will be worth it.
I’m used to them, anyway. It’s harder knowing everyone’s counting on me.
If I don’t get home and make changes fast, most of the staff members I’ve met here will lose their Morphia as their time on the ship runs out.
As the gravity returns, we float along with the children to the floor. I’m grateful for the solid ground beneath my feet. Once we touch down, Alana points toward the entrance of the game room. With a jolt, I see Asralyn hovering in the entryway, wringing her hands.
Vance and Asralyn have never come in the game room before.
My heart drops. “I’ll be right back,” I mutter, making my way toward the entrance.
After removing my goggles and holstering my starlight pistol, I stop in front of Asralyn.
Her seafoam-green gown darkens to a forest green as she shifts from foot to foot. She twists an opal ring on her finger.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, lowering my voice.
Asralyn worries at her bottom lip. She continues to fidget with the opal ring, twisting it around and around again. “I— I swore I’d never step foot in this room, but I kept picturing it. Some gory scene with Karynna on the floor…”
I touch her shoulder. “You don’t have to go any further if you don’t want to.”
She lifts her chin in the way that used to make my blood boil.
Now I see the quiet strength in her jaw and hardened eyes.
She folds her arms over her beaded bodice and nods, allowing me to guide her farther into the game room.
“The emotive healer I talk to back home said this would be a good exercise for me. She thought if I could go inside and keep my anxiety down, it could be healing. It might stop my imagination from running wild.” We walk arm in arm through the maze of silver starlight and glowing, colorful walls.
Kids laugh and shriek as they pass. “But it doesn’t seem right that they still let kids play in here. ”
“Alana told me nothing bad has happened here since. The bosses checked it again and again.” I shake my head. “No one really knows what happened.”
Just as no one knows what happened to Elayne.
Although I can’t explain now, I wish I could tell Asralyn she’s right.
As far as I’m concerned, no one should come back on this ship until we can make it safe.
She’s right to be afraid of this place. But that’s not what she needs right now.
She’s trying to heal from the nightmare she keeps replaying in her head—not reality.
And I know all about nightmares. Instead, I try to think of the good Karynna experienced in this room.
Her joy at shooting starlight and darting through tunnels before joining her friends in the air.
Asralyn tilts her head back to look up at the star-studded ceiling. “I never realized how beautiful it was in here.” Her eyes slide over the glowing blue paint on the walls and the silver stars above. “I never pictured it like this.”
Then a child shoots a star beam into her dress. With no vest, there’s no vibration or twinkling sound, but the child shouts, “Gotcha!”
Asralyn clutches her chest and gasps. A tear streams down her face, but then she’s laughing.
It doesn’t take long to corral her niece and nephew.
Other parents duck their heads in and yell for their kids.
Staff members take children by the hand and help them hang up their vests and goggles.
My hands shake as I hang up Ezra’s and Sage’s vests.
The nerves are starting to creep back in as I realize we’re all about to head to the atrium.
I lead the family, almost mechanically, from the game room.
We descend the stairs without speaking and make our way to deck five.
Sage and Ezra skip ahead of me, shouting about how I’m going to get my retrial the second their feet hit the atrium floor.
Vibrations in the illusion of puddled water reverberate from their small feet.
A blue illusion of a penguin waddles across the floor, entertaining families who are already waiting.
It almost helps distract me, too, as I’ve never seen a penguin in real life; they’re all on an island north of Tamarynth.
The atrium is just as packed as it was on my first day.
Staff who know their names aren’t getting chosen unload luggage from the ship.
Most of them will be loading new luggage in the afternoon as new guests arrive.
No rest. No chance at a break. It feels like I’m in one of my deathmares.
I don’t want to turn around and do this all over again. I can’t.
We find Vance in the crowd after pushing our way through groups of people. I was too overwhelmed on my first day to take it all in, but the sheer number of staff hits me now—concierges, chefs, performers, deckhands, housekeeping, hosts, waiters, and many more.
Alana guides her children behind me as she searches for their parents.
She carries a four-year-old boy on her hip without breaking a sweat.
It makes me wonder if her sister is younger than her.
I’ve never asked, and yet our time together on the Celestial is almost up, if our plan works. This can’t be the last time I see her.
We find a spot near the vote counters, but I’m not tall enough to see over the shoulders of the guests standing in front of us, who are a few very tall men. “Good thing most of them won’t leave this ship with magic,” one man says.
“True, but you can’t argue with how great this place is. I’m thinking of taking the kids again next month. It’s a good lesson for them in what can happen if we let these Morphics go unchecked,” the other guest says, jerking a finger toward a staff member.
My nostrils flare as it takes everything in me not to march over to the two men and show them what an unchecked Morphic looks like. These guests may decide our fates, but they do not know us.
Vance bends down to me. “Looks like they’re counting the last ballots.”
My mouth dry, I try to thank him, but nothing comes out. “It’s tight right now,” Asralyn says, gripping Vance’s arm. “But they haven’t put in the concierge family votes yet. At least, I think they haven’t.”