I’d owned my real name three times in the last eighteen years, once to Jax not long after we’d met, and then just recently, to my crew and to my uncle. Right now, with Susan, I wanted to be me again, the daughter my mother knew.
But could telling her put her in danger? I didn’t think so. I’d be gone soon, and no one would ever connect us. The galaxy was too vast and populated for that. But if someone did, I wouldn’t blame Susan for betraying me. I would never want her hurt in my stead.
I waffled, indecision plaguing me.
Susan shook her head. “You don’t have to tell me. Forget I asked.”
“I want to.” I swallowed. “I just don’t usually tell the truth.”
“But the truth is something you want to tell me?” she asked.
I nodded, then laughed a little—an odd gurgle that didn’t sound right. “You might not believe me.”
Still holding that precious book, Susan looked at me like she had the other day, as though she were sizing me up. “I think I will.”
In that case… “Quintessa Novalight,” I blurted out before I could change my mind.
Susan’s eyes widened, and her whole body tilted back, even though her feet stayed planted where they were. My name was a bomb. It blew people away.
“You look nothing like him,” she finally said, her voice sounding thin.
I went back to carefully unloading the remaining books. The work helped to calm the anxiety sawing me in half again. “I guarantee I don’t act like him, either.”
That brought some of the color back into Susan’s face. She smiled weakly. “Is your mother really dead?”
Her quiet question reminded me that humanity in general had liked my mother and mourned our deaths. Mostly, I thought the people of the galaxy had felt sorry for us, being at the epicenter of a tyrant’s oppression. “Yes. But that fever didn’t take us both.”
“Why the deception?” she asked, curiosity starting to override her shock.
There was a multilevel answer to that, some of which I couldn’t explain myself. I simplified and held up two of the unsanctioned books, waving them around a bit. “I’m different. And the Overseer couldn’t have that.”
Susan’s expression told me she understood well enough. “So he hid you?”
I snorted. “My father thinks I’m dead. Only a handful of people know I’m not.”
She didn’t ask how I’d gotten away, or what had happened, although she did ask, “So you live your life running from him?”
Gently, I placed the last of the rare books into Susan’s storeroom safe. The shelves were almost full now. “Pretty much.” I turned back to her, opting for the simplified version again. “That, wreaking havoc on the Dark Watch, and liberating books.”
Susan looked like she wanted to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. She continued to hold that one book, still cradling it in her arms. “You remind me of the Mornavail.”
I frowned. “The who?”
“The Mornavail. Haven’t you heard of them?” Susan seemed genuinely surprised, but if I hadn’t heard of them, I doubted that many people had.
I’d devoured every kind of book at the orphanage, all those rejects of the galaxy that Mareeka and Surral had collected over the years—just like their kids. And I’d come across some pretty rare and interesting finds over the last five years, this recent haul being the most impressive yet. The galaxy’s one and only library had finally gained permission to house some historical artifacts, and anything I found and couldn’t quite bring myself to put into sticky little hands went there. The rest went to Starway 8.
This was the only haul I hadn’t had time to fully read before passing on, but I’d at least looked at the title of every book I’d ever touched. I racked my brain, but I was pretty sure I’d never seen or heard the word Mornavail before.
I shook my head to indicate that I hadn’t, and Susan finally set the ancient volume down with the others in the climate-controlled safe and then went over to a different bookcase. The shelves easily contained a hundred books, many of them old-looking, although nowhere near as archaic as what I’d just produced. She ran her finger along the spines until she found the one she was looking for and pulled it out, handing it to me. It was a lot newer than the rest, but still older than I was, if I had to guess.
“Here. Take this and read it when you can. It’s one of a kind, so it, Bonk, and the shower will help me to pay you back.” She removed a big folded-up wad of universal currency from the pocket of her baggy sweater and gave it to me along with the book. “And this is yours, too.”
I thanked her and slipped the money into my bag without counting it. If I trusted Susan with my name, I trusted her not to swindle me.
Now for the book. I read the title out loud. “The Second Children of the Sky Mother: The Mornavail.”
I glanced up, confused. “Second children?”
Susan seemed a little sad all of a sudden. “Should she not have tried again?”
I felt my eyebrows lift. A person had to buy into theology, or somehow reconcile it with science, to believe we were the creations of the Sky Mother at all. But another species on the human level? It seemed pretty far-fetched.
A chill swept down my arms when I flipped open the newish-looking cover but then found the text handwritten in ink. The letters were swirling, extravagant, and overly ornate. The anachronistic style didn’t make sense for a relatively new book. There was no cover page. The author hadn’t signed the work.
Almost warily, I scanned the first paragraph.
When the Heart of Men failed once again, the Faithful of the Galaxy prayed to the Sky Mother for aid. The Great Star answered, as She always does, this time by giving them the Mornavail, the Incorruptible who worked tirelessly to spread Her Light to the far reaches of the Dark. Her New Children made their Home in the deep pocket of the Fold—
Holy shit! I snapped the book shut. “You have to get rid of this!”
Susan looked startled.
Way to be cool, Tess. My pulse drummed like the harsh tattoo of a military march. What else was in this book? What information? If the Dark Watch saw it, could they find the Fold? Inside me, I could already feel the rhythmic thudding of their heavy boots.
“Um… This will get you arrested. It’s blasphemous,” I said, trying to turn fear of offending the church into an excuse for my strong reaction, even though I couldn’t have cared less about religion. Still, the powerful Church of the Great Star spewed all kinds of nonsense about the Wondrous Sky Mother, but not this. In one of those bizarre contradictions, the Overseer supported the teachings of the church, spinning them however he saw fit in order to make them mesh with evidence and tests. It was just another way to obtain greater control, his one compromise, perhaps—and necessary to help gather everyone into his fold.
But this book was dangerous, no matter my personal beliefs. For all I knew, somewhere in the extravagantly handwritten words, it could give away the secret to finding our one safe place. It could get every single rebel killed.
The tale of the Incorruptible Mornavail might have been a load of bullshit, some story the faithful cooked up to comfort themselves in the face of the Dark turning too dark at the height of the Sambian Wars, but the Fold was no myth, and I would protect it with my life.
Susan waved a hand in the air. “No one even knows that book exists.”
She did. I did. That was already a start.
And the final war only ended because my father decided that total destruction was a viable path. The darkest days were still alive in most memories. For some, they weren’t even in the past.
Hope for the galaxy was in the Fold, but it wasn’t because of some fairy-tale, human-like species that the equally fairy-tale Sky Mother had magically sprung forth. It was because regular people were sacrificing their lives.
“What if those goons had searched back here?” I asked, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. “Have they ever tried to see what’s in the back?”
Susan frowned, looking worried now. “Yes, once. But they hardly even glanced at the books.”
I held my breath. “Did they look at this one?”