Phoebe North - Starbreak

“I stopped by your quarters after the riots. Thought after she made her escape from her nuptials, I might have found my talmid there.”

Hannah clutched the gun tight. I could read the questions in her eyes: Was Ronen all right? Had he survived the attacks? “And?”

“He’s waiting for you, both of you, in that dark little galley of yours. Suspect you’ll find him there, not with the Council folk.”

“He—” Hannah began, her features twisting. “He waited for me? But it’s dangerous! He should have been keeping Alya safe in the bow, not waiting for me !”

Mara gave a snort. “Best take that up with your husband, then.”

And with that, the botanist rested her gun on her shoulder and took off for the port districts. We watched her go, white lab coat disappearing in the early twilight.

“I can’t believe he’d do something so stupid ,” Hannah said softly, shaking her head in Mara Stone’s wake.

“Ronen? Really? You can’t?” I asked, and couldn’t help but lift my lips in a wicked grin. Hannah glanced sharply at me at first. But then the smallest smile lit up her mouth too. She reached out and took Ettie’s free hand in hers.

“Come on, girls,” she said, glancing down the litter-clogged streets. Once, the cobblestone had been swept clean every night. Wood and metal and glass would have all been recycled, food thrown into the composters, not a single scrap wasted. Now boxes spilled out of the broken shop windows. What food hadn’t been pillaged had been left to rot. “Let’s get home before . . .”

She trailed off. The lights overhead flickered and blinked. There was laughter in the distance, eerie and echoing. We glanced at one another, eyebrows raised fearfully. Then, without another word, we hustled off.

As we walked through the starboard district, silent save for the beatings of our hearts, we passed Rachel Federman’s house. Once, it had been the prettiest on its block, her mother’s garden full of blossoming flowers, their front windows bright with embroidered curtains. Now the flowers were trampled, the curtains gone. In fact, the front door hung open, showing a gap of black space inside. I asked Hannah and Ettie to wait on the curb, and I headed up the front stoop.

Be cautious, a voice in my head warned. Not my voice. How strange to think he watched me even now, in this solitary moment, as the hairs on my scalp all stood up. But to be fair, if I closed my eyes, I saw him, too. He sat in the senate antechamber, arguing with a senator, pounding his long fingers down against the stone table over and over again.

“Rachel?” I called, pushing the door open. “Mar Federman? Giveret Federman? Hello?”

I peeked in, but in the murky daylight, all I saw were fine vases, smashed, and the walls, once covered in paintings and hangings, now stripped bare. I rushed back down the stairs, shaking my head to Hannah and Ettie.

“No one,” I said. “There’s no one there.”

Hannah’s answer came perhaps too quickly. I saw her give Ettie’s arm a tug as she hustled her down the street. “I’m sure she’s fine , Terra,” she said, looking pointedly toward Ettie. She didn’t want me to scare the girl. Fair enough—but Ettie had seen much scarier in the past seven days than an empty house full of pottery shards.

“I’m sure she is too,” I said quickly. Ettie shook her head. That’s when I knew the little girl didn’t believe it. I felt the possibility settle over me like winter’s first frost. What if something had happened to Rachel? I’d last seen her on her wedding day, just before she was to marry Koen Maxwell. Had their marriage been sealed? Had they made it out of the clock tower alive? I winced, trying to push the thought away.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said again, but this time the words were meant for me and no one else.

Ettie’s home, at least, was in better shape. Though the flower beds had been turned over for winter, a faint light still glowed in the front windows. This time it was my turn to wait on the curb while Hannah led Ettie up the stairwell. They knocked together, waited. At last the door opened a slender crack. It was an old woman—too old to be Ettie’s mother.

“Bubbeleh!” she cried, and scooped the girl up into her arms as though she were little more than a toddler. Hazy eyes pressed into Hannah.

“Where was she?” she asked, faint accusation ringing. But Ettie pulled back from her grandmother’s grip, her toes touching the concrete step again.

“I was on Aur Evez, Bubbe .”

“Aur Evez?”

“Zehava,” I said quickly. “Mar Schneider took her on one of the shuttles.” I braced myself, drawing in a breath. I’d never been the bearer of bad news before—and definitely nothing like this. But somehow Ettie’s grandmother knew without my saying. She drew a wrinkled hand to her mouth.

“Oh, Abraham,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. Her hand fell against her thigh and she let loose a ragged laugh. “He always said he was going to live to see that damned planet. Oh, I hope you’re happy, bashert .”

I didn’t know what to say, but then I didn’t have to say a word. Ettie answered for me.

“Don’t be sad, Bubbe . Please don’t be sad. We said the kaddish for him and everything .”

Giveret Schneider smoothed down her granddaughter’s hair. “I’ll do my best, Bubbeleh .”

“Besides,” Ettie said, “soon you’ll be able to say good-bye to him yourself. Terra says we’re going back there, so I can find my boy.”

“Your . . . your boy?”

“My bashert . The one I keep dreaming about. Hey.” Ettie glanced over her grandmother’s shoulder, into the warm light of the galley beyond. “Where’re Tateh and Mama?”

Ettie’s grandmother let out a long sigh. She glanced up at us—silent, grown-up conversation traveling through the artificial wind.

“We have a lot to talk about,” she told Ettie, leading her inside and closing the door behind her.

“Poor kid,” I said as we hustled down the empty street toward my brother Ronen’s house. I’d once been where Ettie was—small and scared and confused, no parents to guide me. And my dreams had offered no escape, only mounting darkness and confusion. Even if they gave temporary respite—me hidden away in the dreamforests, his body’s love soothing the parts of me that were wounded and raw—I’d wake up every morning and be all alone again in the universe. But Hannah didn’t understand. Of course, she’d never been there herself. As we walked, our heels striking the cobblestone sharply, she narrowed her gaze on me.

“Yeah,” she said. “Poor kid, and poor Terra, and that poor alien she ran off with.” She reached out, touching the silver folds of my Xollu robe. “Do you intend to tell me what happened down there?”

I stopped, standing in the yellow light cast down from a nearby streetlamp. It was so dark , despite the early hour. Hannah gazed expectantly at me.

She will not understand, Vadix warned. But this was Hannah—sweet, tender Hannah, my brother’s true love. She used to try to talk to me, to give me the advice I’d missed because my own mother had died. I had to try.

“You said it yourself,” I began, choosing each word carefully. “We’re the same, Vadix and me. We carry our sadness with us, and—”

“A crush, Terra? He’s not human .”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s human or not,” I said. “He’s like me . More like me than anyone I’ve ever met on this ship!”

I indicated the solar lights, flickering overhead, the rattling tree branches, the concrete fronts of every identical town house.