what that techprint says.”
Ready for answers, I thrust my wrist out to him. He takes it gently, and his hand is warm on my skin, sending the oddest sensation of comfort traveling up my arm. The digifile takes a long while to scan.
“Sorry, we only get the castoffs that refugees bring from Arras,” he apologizes, and then the information displays. I can’t read what it says, but the words reflect in his wide eyes.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I ask.
Dante waits a long moment before he responds, and when he does, his hand grips my wrist tightly.
“It says I’m your father.”
TEN
THE MOMENT LOCKS IN PLACE, MY MIND frozen like a blank screen as shivers ripple from my fingertips to my throat. Suddenly I’m falling, but I never jumped. It’s the sensation of the world slipping away.
This is what my mother was trying to tell me, why she pushed me to seek answers from Dante. How is this possible? Dante is barely a year or two older than me.
A voice calls me back, and I find I’m still on the edge of the fountain.
“Come on, you’re getting wet,” Dante says.
And in that moment, he sounds downright
“You’re lying,” I say, pulling my arm from him.
“It’s right here,” he says, holding out the digifile. “Your parents encoded it in your techprint.”
“My father is dead,” I spit at him. “Benn Lewys died on the night of my retrieval. Whoever you are, whatever happened between you and my mom, nothing changes that.”
I don’t stop running until I’m back inside. He doesn’t stop calling after me.
Jost’s bedroom is across from mine. I stare at his door, knowing it’s late, knowing I don’t want to talk, knowing he’s asleep.
But also knowing that the door will open if I twist the knob.
I do it. His room is too dark to see much. A single beam of light from the security system outside evades the blackout curtains, cutting across the floor and falling on Jost’s still form. I tiptoe to his bedside and watch him sleep. A pillow is twisted in his arms and his hair covers his face. He breathes slowly and rhythmically, and I count each inhale and exhale, willing the steadiness of it to calm me.
When it doesn’t, I climb into bed next to him. He rolls over and wraps an arm around my waist, but his eyes don’t open.
“You’re still dressed.”
I press into him. I don’t want to explain why I’m awake. I don’t want to share what I’ve seen or learned today. Not yet. Not while I still don’t understand any of it.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks.
“I haven’t even tried yet,” I admit.
“Do you want—”
I know he’s going to say
He doesn’t object.
In fact, his whole body says yes. His fingers find my jaw and he holds my mouth to his. His grip loosens and his hands slip into my hair, holding me to him. The room falls away. There is only him, and the wonder of how soft his lips are. This is the only real thing I have left. The taut muscles of his back, coiled like wire, as he hovers over me. The way my body aches to float up, to close the space he’s left open between us, but his hands hold me in place.
I stretch against him. His touch erases the agony I feel in my chest, leaving traces of fire where our skin connects.
“I need you,” I murmur into his ear, and he responds by drawing me up, his hands cocooning my back. He cradles me gently as our limbs lengthen and intertwine like vines growing into one another until I can no longer remember where I end and he begins.
But the barriers between us remain intact, and his lips leave mine as he drops them to my ear. “What are you running from, Ad?”
He knows me too well. I rejoice in this knowledge even as I deny it. “I’m not running.”
Jost drops to his back, his hand wrapping into my own. “I won’t make you talk, Adelice, but I wish you would.”
I’m not ready to face this—not even with him, so I turn to him and run a tremulous finger down his cheek. “I’m not running from anything,” I whisper. “I’m running
He doesn’t ask to talk again.
ELEVEN
THE LIBRARY SPANS A SPACE AS LARGE as the dining hall in the Coventry, books tucked behind lattice doors. Someone has lit a fire in the hearth, and its heat radiates through the room. I’d never imagined so many books could exist. My experience is limited to the fifteen or twenty hidden in my parents’ room. Here stories from men about the nature of the universe mingle with tales of all-powerful creators. I come from a world created by men, but on Earth, they don’t know how we came to be, whether we are the product of spectacular chance or divine intervention. I find poetry and prose, history and science mixed together into a world of words and thoughts.
Most of the history books are dated. None of them were written after the building of Arras or the Exodus from Earth. I doubt anyone writes books anymore. I flip through them, looking for clues that will link this reality with the one I knew once, but the volumes are full of history I’ve never heard of, places with names that are lost, and people who died long ago.
“I collect them.” Kincaid’s proclamation is nonchalant, but I can tell by the tilt of his head that he hopes I’m impressed.
“My parents did, too,” I say.
Kincaid slides onto the sweeping arm of a sofa, leaning forward. “So you were raised to be a rebel.”
“No—I was raised to blend in,” I correct him.
“And yet here you are. A girl who reads books and runs from the Guild while your mother sits in my prison,” he says with a smile that stops on his cheeks. His eyes stay snakelike, darting ever so slightly at the smallest of my movements.
“Is that a problem?” I ask.
“Not for me. Not yet,” Kincaid says. “My informants within Arras tell me the Guild is none too happy about your unexpected departure from service. It seems you were more than another Spinster to them.”
I keep my gaze leveled on his beady eyes, forcing myself not to blink.
“Don’t fret, child. I’m thrilled you came to me. Any enemy of Cormac Patton is a friend of mine. ‘The signs of war advance,’” Kincaid quotes. “But I wonder why you are here. What are your plans?”
I’m not sure I can trust Kincaid. I know I don’t like him, but he’s opened his home to us. He’s also as eager to destroy Cormac as I am. I turn my attention back to the shelves. “I want answers about this world and Arras. I was hoping to find a book about Kairos.”
“That will be a problem,” Kincaid says, a note of apology in his voice. “Not many books have been published since the Exodus.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
