“Back gate, back door, hidden tunnels—those are all easy enough to get through, because I know the codes,” I said. “It’s only when we get to his personal rooms that the sensors require my blood. If you can get to the back gate at midnight, I can help with the rest.”
“And you’re sure you’re ready for this?”
A picture of Zosita was taped to the wall above Teka’s head, right over her pillow. Another picture was beside it, a boy who looked like her brother. My throat felt tight. In one way or another, my family was responsible for every loss she had suffered.
“What kind of a stupid question is that?” I said, scowling at her. “Of course I’m ready. But are you ready for your part of our agreement?”
“Kereseth? Yeah,” she said. “You get us in, we’ll get him out.”
“I want it done simultaneously—I don’t want to risk him getting hurt because of what I’m doing,” I said. “He’s hushflower-resistant, so it will require quite a bit to knock him out. And he’s a skilled fighter, so don’t underestimate him.”
Teka nodded, slowly. And stared, chewing the inside of her cheek.
“What happened? You look all . . . frantic, or something,” she said. “You guys have a fight?”
I didn’t answer.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “You’re obviously in love with him, why do you want him gone?”
I considered not answering that, either. The feeling of his rough chin scratching my cheek, and his mouth, warm against my skin, haunted me still. He had kissed me. Without prompting, without cunning. I should have been happy, hopeful. But it wasn’t that easy, was it?
I had dozens of reasons to give her. Akos was in danger, now that Ryzek had realized he could use him as leverage over me. Eijeh was lost, and maybe Akos would be able to accept that once he was home, with his mother and sister. Akos and I would never be equals, as long as he was Ryzek’s prisoner here, so I had to make sure he was freed. But the one closest to my heart was the reason that came tumbling out.
“Being here, it’s . . . breaking him,” I said. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. “I can’t watch anymore. I won’t.”
“Yeah.” Her voice was soft. “Win or lose—you get us in, we’ll get him out. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
I had always hated going back home.
Many of the Shotet went to the observation deck to cheer as our white planet came back into view. The energy on the ship was frantic and joyful as everyone packed their belongings and prepared to reunite with the young and old who had to stay behind. But I was mournful.
And nervous.
I didn’t pack very much. Some clothes, some weapons. I threw out the perishable food, and stripped my bed of its sheets and blankets. Akos helped in silence, his arm still wrapped in a bandage. His bag of possessions was already on the table. I had watched him pack some clothes and some of the books I had given him, his favorite pages folded over. Though I had already read all those books, I wanted to open them again just to search out the parts he most treasured; I wanted to read them as if immersed in his mind.
“You’re acting weird,” he said once we were finished, and all there was left to do was wait.
“I don’t like going home,” I said. It was true, at least.
Akos looked around, and shrugged. “Seems like this is your home. There’s more of you in here than anywhere in Voa.”
He was right, of course. I was happy that he knew what “more of me” really was—that he might know as much about me, from observation, as I knew about him.
And I did know him. I could pick him out in a crowd from his gait alone. I knew the shade of the veins that showed on the backs of his hands. And his favorite knife for chopping iceflowers. And the way his breath always smelled spiced, like hushflower and sendes leaf mixed together.
“Maybe next time I’ll do more to my room,” he said.
You won’t be back next time, I thought.
“Yeah.” I forced a smile. “You should.”
My mother had told me, once, that I had a gift for pretending. My father had not liked to see pain, so I had hidden mine from him as a child—my face passive, even as my fingernails bit my palm. And every time she took me to a specialist or a doctor about my currentgift, the lies about where we had gone came to me as easily as the truth. Pretending, in the Noavek family, was survival.
I used that gift as I went through the motions of landing and returning home: going to the loading bay after we reentered the atmosphere, piling into a transport floater, making the public walk back to Noavek manor in Ryzek’s wake. That evening I ate dinner with my brother and Yma Zetsyvis, pretending not to see her hand on his knee, fingers tapping, or the frantic look in her eyes whenever he didn’t laugh at one of her jokes.
Later, she seemed to relax, and they left all pretense behind them, curled together on one side of the table, elbows bumping as they cut their food. I had killed her family and now she was my brother’s lover. I would have been disgusted by it had I not understood, so well, what it was like to want to live. To need it, no matter the cost.
I still understood it. But now I needed something else more: for Akos to be safe.
Afterward, I pretended to be patient as Akos taught me how to predict how strong a poison would be without tasting it. I tried to seal every moment in my memory. I needed to know how to brew these concoctions on my own, because soon he would be gone. If the renegades and I were caught in our attempt tonight, I would probably lose my life. If we succeeded, Akos would be home, and Shotet would be in chaos, without its leader. Either way, it was unlikely that I would see him again.