group is doing. And then the passage is closed. There’s no way for the refugees to get through.”
I turn and stare into the loophole, watching the colors swirl and the light shifting around the twisted strands. It calls to me. But that’s only a space between. Arras isn’t my home anymore, no more than Earth is. If I could, I’d lose myself in the raw beauty, build a life in the very fabric of the universe, among the possibility. But I have plenty holding me here and plenty calling me home. There’s no time for staying in the space in between actions.
“They’re coming,” Falon announces.
I look but see nothing. I shut my eyes and listen. The strands hum and if I strain I can hear the twang of time running tinny through the soft melody of the matter around it. Combined, the sounds are quite lovely, but if I wasn’t paying close attention it would sound like static. I retrain my focus and hear voices. Shadows cast themselves down the convolution of the loophole and a small band of people slide through. There are only five or six of them.
“Evening, Walter, what ya got?” Falon asks, exchanging a salute with the man heading the group.
“Only a few. Five adults. One kid.”
I look closely at the group. I hadn’t seen a child, but then he’s there, clinging to his mother’s leg. He meets my stare, eyes saucer-wide. He’s dressed in a typical academy uniform, but he can’t be too old. He must have started academy this year. I smile at him, but he darts behind his mother’s skirt.
His mother is stoic, looking at us warily. Her dress is worn and I notice that she pulls her thin sweater sleeve up to hide a tear in it. She holds her head high, but I spy a few dark spots by her ear that stretch to her neck. Bruises.
“This is the one with credentials,” Walter says, leading a tall man over to Dante and Falon. The man turns his head so they can observe the hourglass techprint hidden along his hairline.
“What can you do?” Dante asks.
“Me?” the man says. “Nothing. I have intel for Dante.”
Dante doesn’t betray that the man has found him; instead he turns and looks to the woman and child. “And this intel secured your passage for six?”
“I wasn’t leaving her,” the man says. “Not after what’s been done to her. I know what happens to people who come here on credit, but believe me, my intel is worth our passages.”
“Fair enough,” Dante says, “but that still doesn’t explain what you know that’s important enough to grant you passage.”
“That’s for Dante to know,” the man says. He lifts his chin as if to press the point.
“You’re talking to Dante, ole windbag,” Walter calls over.
“Sir.” The man’s stance changes and he bows low, raising his fist to his shoulder. “I apologize. I thought you’d be…”
“Older?” Dante guesses. “I get that a lot.” His eyes flick to mine.
“I need to speak with you privately.”
“You can tell me here,” Dante says.
“No, sir, I can’t,” the man says. “I’m under orders from Alix to tell you alone.”
Dante stiffens at this information, but he inclines his head in agreement and the two return to the empty corridor inside.
“What can that be about?” I wonder out loud, but Erik doesn’t respond. When I turn to repeat the question, there’s a dazed look on his face.
“Erik?” I prompt, touching his arm lightly. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, but I notice how he swallows against the words.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the female refugee watching us, her son still huddled against her. She shivers in the breeze created by the slow movement of the aeroship.
“Hold on,” I say to Erik.
Approaching the woman slowly, I bend and run a hand over the boy’s finely cropped hair. He smiles at me. I shrug off my coat and move to wrap it around the woman’s shoulders. She steps back and shakes her head.
“I don’t need it,” I insist.
“I couldn’t,” she says simply. “I can’t pay you for it.”
Whatever happened to her in Arras, she’s unwilling to owe other people for favors, but there are going to be a lot of things she can’t pay for on Earth with that attitude. Thanks to Jost, I know the one way to get her to agree.
“I’m not doing it for you,” I tell her. This time she lets me wrap it over her shoulders. Jost taught me a parent’s love trumps everything else, even pride.
The woman swallows hard and mouths, “Thank you.”
I give her a small smile and turn away, tears pricking my eyes.
Warm, scratchy wool falls over my shoulders. “Adelice Lewys, you have a good soul.” There’s a trace of huskiness in the thick words.
I tug the corners of Erik’s jacket closed. “So do you, Erik.”
He shrugs and looks away, but I grab his hand.
“You do,” I say.
Erik opens his mouth to respond, but suddenly a group of men appear on the deck, shouting instructions and dragging the ropes that tether us to the slub in the Interface. They throw the tethers up and stop our progress. I catch Falon’s arm as she rushes past us.
“What’s happening?” I yell over the din of activity around us.
“The estate is under attack,” she calls. “Dante’s ordered us back.”
She doesn’t linger to answer any of the million questions I have. The estate is under attack? Has the Guild come after me? Do Kincaid’s men know I am gone? And then one question stops me cold:
What will happen to my mother?
THIRTY-ONE
THE AEROSHIP MOVES TOO SLOWLY FOR MY taste so I pace the length of its deck until Dante appears, with Falon at his side, carrying a stack of vests in his arms. I haven’t seen him since Falon informed us what was going on, but as he approaches he lifts a finger to my lips.
I shake my head. “No, I have to know what’s going on. Who’s attacking the estate?”
“It’s a group of Remnants,” Dante says. “They’re probably after your mother.”
“My mother?” I repeat in disbelief.
“A rescue mission?” Falon asks, holding out a vest for me to slip into. “Remnants aren’t loyal like that, Dante.”
I dare a glance at Dante and his eyes stay cool and distant. He’s lying to Falon—and to me—but why?
“Kincaid can’t know you’re gone,” Dante says. “He’ll have been alerted to the attack, so we can’t waste time. We need to beat him back there.”
“We need to get to my mother,” I add. No matter what’s happened, I can’t stomach the idea of her falling back into a Remnant pack.
“Of course,” Dante says absently.
“And what exactly is your plan?” Erik asks, examining the pockets of his black vest.
“How are you with ropes?” Dante asks as he glances over the side of the deck.
Nothing about that question is comforting.
“But won’t we be walking into an attack?” I ask, taking the offered vest.
“No, we’ll be
I can’t bring myself to ask why.
“And we’re going to take the aeroship in over the Icebox?” Erik asks. “That’s risky.”
“We don’t have any other choice,” Dante says, his tone growing weary. From the look on Falon’s face, he’s already tried this argument with her.
