39. First Seating
Chapter thirty-nine
First Seating
Cass
The porridge tasted the way it had always tasted, which was like nothing pretending to be something.
Cass ate it because eating was what everyone did at first seating, and because his body needed it even if his stomach disagreed, and because the act of lifting a spoon to his mouth gave him something to do with his hands that wasn’t reaching for Riot under the table.
He finished his food and reached for Riot under the table anyway.
The commissary was full and quiet in the way it was always full and quiet—murmured conversations at approved volumes, ceramic bowls in three approved colors, the soft lighting that made everything look healthy and happy.
He loved this room. He’d sat across from Honey and watched her sort through logic puzzles while eating, her brow furrowed, her locs swinging forward when she bent over her bowl. He felt like he belonged here.
Now the room looked like a bad painting of a room he’d once lived in and it made him sad.
Honey arrived five minutes late, which in Springfield Gardens might as well have been arriving without clothes.
She sat across from them with a tray she’d assembled the same for years—porridge, fruit, tea—and immediately began arranging the fruit by size.
Grapes first, then berries, then orange and apple segments.
She’d done this since they were eight because when the fruit was in order, her thoughts would follow.
Cass always loved watching her do it and hoped that it would rub off on him, the way her mind needed the world to be organized before it could work.
It never did. His thoughts sort of fell through things until they landed somewhere useful.
“I need more time,” she said to the grapes.
“Honey—”
“I know.” She placed a berry between two grape segments, then adjusted it. “I tried to imagine leaving and I couldn’t see it, Cass. I couldn’t make a picture of it in my head. Every time I tried, it was just—blank. Like trying to imagine a color that doesn’t exist.”
“There’s no picture,” Cass said. “I’m here now, for you, asking you to please come with me before they hurt you. We have a place we can go to. It’s so beautiful, Honey, like things in story books. There aren’t any bells or mandatory meditations…you can look at birds whenever you want—”
“That’s not a good enough reason to leave my entire life behind, Cass, you can’t ask me to do that.”
“This isn’t like an impulsive decision being made while fucked up on synth drugs.
” Riot spoke, low and even, pitched for their table and no further.
Both Cass and Honey flinched. “The community leader where I am from didn’t approve this mission.
The woman with the green hair risked everything she had to come here and help Cass.
I’m risking everything. He’s risking everything. Think about it for more than an hour.”
Honey’s arranging hand paused, then she picked up her tea and looked into it. Cass wanted to say more, but Honey was doing the thing where she stared at her tea like it contained answers, which meant she was thinking, and when Honey was thinking, the best thing to do was wait.
So he just held Riot’s hand and waited.
And then Sage walked in, and Cass forgot about the fruit and the tea and Honey’s thinking face.
She was bald.
The green hair—the moss-colored waves that had been part of her the way Riot’s scars were part of him, just there, just a fact about her body—was gone.
Her skull was bare and pale where the hair had been, with a faint shadow of dark roots, and she was wearing cream seeker robes, moving through the commissary with the kind of calm that Cass could tell meant Sage was not calm at all.
She sat down next to Honey, close enough that the fabric of their robes touched at the shoulder.
“They wanted to dye it,” Sage said unprompted as she picked up an apple slice from Honey’s tray and looked at it like it had personally offended her.
“So you shaved your head?” Honey asked.
“I shaved my head.”
“Rather than dye it?”
“Rather than let them dye it.” Sage’s jaw tightened. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“I chose this. They don’t get to choose things about my body.”
Neither of them was looking at each other, which Cass was starting to realize meant they were both thinking hard about not looking at each other.
“You didn’t come find me,” Sage said. “After the ceremony. You were supposed to stay for questions.”
“I needed time.”
“You’ve had three years.”
Honey’s cheeks darkened. Her mouth opened and closed. Sage was still looking at the apple, but her other hand was on the table—flat, open, and six inches from Honey’s hand.
Cass looked at Riot. Riot looked at Cass. Under the table, Riot’s thumb moved slowly across his knuckles, and the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that made Cass want to kiss him. It took him a full minute in the awkward silence to figure out what was making Riot smile.
They know each other.
He had so many questions building on his tongue that he couldn’t pick which one to start with, and he may have just started asking and never stopped if the air in the commissary hadn’t changed.
He felt it before he heard it: a quality, a pressure, the particular way a room adjusted itself around an important person. Conversations didn’t stop, they just... redirected.
“Good morning.” Brother Matthias’s voice arrived with its usual warmth and made Cass feel small like it always did.
That voice read Cass bedtime stories when he was younger— not official bedtime stories, not the ones the communal caretakers read, but special ones, just for Cass, because you’re like a son to me, Cassiopeia, and sons deserve special things.
Nobody else in Springfield Gardens had a dad and Cass had never even met his birthgiver.
Children were raised communally, shared among the caretakers, belonging to everyone and no one.
But Cass had Brother Matthias. Brother Matthias who remembered his favorite foods and knew when he was sad and came to his room on difficult nights when other children were mean to him because he wanted to draw flowers instead of do math.
Even at his lowest, Cass felt like the luckiest person in Springfield Gardens because everyone else belonged to the community, but Cass had Honey and Brother Matthias.
The feeling that rose in his chest when Brother Matthias sat down beside their table was so tangled he couldn’t find the edges of it. Warmth and dread and love and the thing that lived behind the door, all twisted together like roots grown too close to separate.
“Brother Cassiopeia. Seeker Riot.” Matthias’s eyes moved across the table. “Sister Honey. And our newest arrival. I see you’ve taken an... unconventional approach to the grooming guidance.”
“The color wasn’t approved,” Sage said. Her voice was very flat.
“We could have found a more moderate—”
“It’s done.”
Brother Matthias smiled as he settled into a chair beside their table. “Of course. The path takes many forms.”
Brother Matthias was asking about their night, if they rested, but Cass couldn’t make himself hear the words.
His eyes were warm and his voice was the voice it always was and his hand rested on Cass’s shoulder the way it always did, but Cass couldn’t stop noticing a smell.
Maybe he had been too tired or nervous or covered in blood the day before, but today he smelled familiar in a very un-Brotherly way.
It was that nameless smell that poured off Riot when his eyes went gold and made Cass’s stomach do flips.
Why does he smell like that?
“There seems to be some tension between our welcoming advisor and our newest convert,” Brother Matthias said lightly, glancing between Sage and Honey. “Is the orientation presenting challenges?”
“No challenges,” Honey said, and even Cass heard her say it too fast.
Brother Matthias smiled the smile that said I don’t believe you. His eyes moved to Riot and narrowed.
“Seeker Riot,” he said. “Your eyes.”
Everything in Cass went cold.
“They flickered,” Brother Matthias began, “just now. Gold. Was that—”
“Residual ocular effects from the Endeavor modifications.” Riot sounded calm, but he squeezed Cass’s hand a little too hard under the table. “They catch the light sometimes, but they were decommissioned. They pose no threat.”
“Fascinating. I’m sure Brother Cyrus would love a chance to examine your eyes when you are more settled.” Brother Matthias looked at Riot, then at Cass, and then where their arms disappeared under the table.
The dread settled into Cass’s stomach and stayed. The warmth of gentle kisses with Riot and Honey hugging him was gone, burned off like morning mist.
He was scared.
Not for himself. For Riot, whose eyes had just betrayed him.
For Sage, who had shaved her head and for Honey, who was still arranging fruit and still saying no.
He was scared for all of them, and fear for other people being hurt made Cass feel brave.
Not brave the way Riot was brave—not controlled, not strategic, not the always assessing and ready to punch something brave.
Brave in the way a body was brave when it stepped between a rifle and a Berserker covered in blood.
“Brother Matthias,” Cass said, waiting until his mentor’s gaze met his. “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday. About the negative energy from the—from what the wild Berserkers did. The contamination.”
Matthias’s attention settled on him fully.
“I can feel it.” Cass reluctantly pulled his hand from Riot’s and pulled at the front of his robes before his hand went to one of the beads in his hair and rubbed it. Smooth and rough, smooth and rough, around and around. “It’s getting worse. I don’t want it to affect anyone in the community.”
“That’s a very responsible concern, Brother Cassiopeia.”
“I was hoping—could we schedule a release? I know the reprieve doesn’t end until morning, but I’d feel better if we didn’t wait.”
Riot squeezed his leg so hard it hurt, but Cass didn’t look away from Brother Matthias. If Riot was already cracking, and Honey needed more time, he would buy it.
“That’s very evolved of you, Brother Cassiopeia,” Brother Matthias said softly. “And very selfless. The community’s well-being should always come first.”
“It does,” Cass said.
“We’ll schedule a session for this evening. Before night meditation. In your home, as always, since the familiar environment helps the energy move more freely.” His hand squeezed Cass’s sore shoulder, his thumb pressing in. “I’m proud of you.”
Then he left and the commissary exhaled.
“What did you just do?” Sage demanded.
Honey looked between them—at Sage’s stone face, at Riot’s locked jaw, at whatever was on Cass’s face that he couldn’t see from the inside. “What? What’s wrong? It’s just a release session. He gets them all the time.”
Nobody answered her. Sage was looking at Cass with an expression that would have been terrifying if it wasn’t also, underneath the anger, something like pity.
Riot hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. His hand was still locked on Cass’s leg and his breathing was very even and very controlled in the way that meant it was taking everything he had to keep it that way.
“You have until this evening,” Cass said to Honey, his hand slipping beneath the table to stroke Riot’s knuckles.
“Talk to Sage, please. You are the smartest, most brilliant person I know. I love you, Honey, and we did a lot to get here. But when the session is done…we’re going to go.
Please don’t make me leave you behind. I don’t want to make you water the rosemary by yourself. ”
“Cass—” Riot’s voice was barely there.
“I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen,” Cass said without looking at him. “I can do it one more time.”
Honey was looking between them with growing confusion. “What is happening? It’s a negative energy release. He’s had dozens of them. Why are you all acting like—”
“Because it’s—” Sage started, her voice sharp.
“It’s fine.” Cass interrupted her and it felt mean, but he needed everything to remain calm or the pressure behind his eyes was going to become real tears and crying in the commissary was frowned upon.
“It’s fine, Honey. They’re from outside.
They don’t understand how the releases work. It seems more intense than it is.”
The lie tasted like porridge—like nothing pretending to be something. But Honey’s face smoothed, and Sage’s jaw locked, and Riot’s hand slowly relaxed.
“Trust me,” Cass said. To the table. To Riot. To himself. “Please.”