Starglass

the last. Why, four years ago I ran into our clock keeper at a pub down in the commerce district. He looked so sad, so I bought him a drink for his troubles. And you know what he told me in return?”

Abba, I thought. Oh, Abba, what did you do?

“Told me he’d caught his wife with the librarian. Lying together, in his very own bed.”

My mind resisted his words. My mother and father had loved each other, hadn’t they? He had called her his bashert. But had she felt the same way about him? I couldn’t remember, not really. What I did remember was the expression on Benjamin’s face at Momma’s funeral and then again on the day I received my vocation. Like he’d lost something precious. Like he was searching me for some shadow of my mother. I set the book down on my knees, staring down at the cover. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the doctor.

“He didn’t mean to betray her,” he said, his voice syrupy. “He was in pain. Why not talk to a Council member about it? Of course, it was easy after that to find out what had brought the star-crossed lovers together. The Children of Abel. Your mother was one of their leaders, you know. And Jacobi their messenger. I imagine that it all seemed terribly romantic.”

There was a long pause after that. I guess I was supposed to say something, but I couldn’t make my lips move. I only stared down at Momma’s book. Mazdin reached out and snatched it from me. He glowered at it, then tossed it down onto the table.

“What do you know about this book?” he demanded.

I wanted to blurt out that I knew nothing, to beg for forgiveness, to throw myself on my knees. I wanted to save myself from the gleam in his eyes. But the gleam in Mazdin’s eyes was too much like my father’s. I was frozen in fear where I sat.

“The writer’s name was Frances Cohen,” he said. “She was the ship’s first psychologist. A specialist, like you. She even tried to start an uprising. Seems to be common in your family. Though I never did understand why her journal was considered a document of the rebellion, myself.

“Frances might discuss freedom. But in the end she gave in, as they always do. She had her babies. Obeyed the Council. Became a true Asherati. That’s how it always goes. Well, either that, or you die.”

I hadn’t moved a centimeter from where I sat, hadn’t even looked up. Without a word Mazdin rose from the sofa, leaving me there alone. But he stopped at my side as he passed me, and bent at the waist. When he spoke again, his words were whispered, hot against my ear.

“I’d hoped my son would choose better,” he said. “But Silvan’s never been bright. I have to let the spoiled child have his marriage. Still, I’m not worried. You’re just a broken little girl, aren’t you? You might have dreams of rebellion, but you’re not a threat.”

I watched him as he started up the stairs.

“You pose no danger to me or my son,” he called out behind him.

He disappeared into the darkness above. I heard a bedroom door slam. Soon silence followed. I was alone, all alone, in his living room.

My body thought for me. Trembling, I rose, taking the journal in hand. I shuffled toward the door, groping for my coat. Numbly I slung it over my shoulders. My fingers moved mechanically, fastening the buttons.

It was the weight in my breast pocket that brought me back. I reached in. My fingers found a red-gold bottle, heavy with white powder. A grin curled my lips.

My body moved with sudden anger, my limbs propelling me across the galley and right to Mazdin Rafferty’s wine rack. My hand flashed down to the bottle he’d just uncorked. It moved with purpose. His smug words echoed in my brain.

I think I can handle leftovers.

Handle this, I thought, gripping the cork and tugging it out of the bottle’s mouth. The galley echoed with a resounding pop. I unscrewed the cap from the bottle of poison and began to pour it in.

It’s funny. I had spent so much of my life sad or scared. But my hands didn’t shake as I emptied the powder from the bottle and watched it sink into the dark liquid. I couldn’t even hear my heart in my ears. Instead I saw the moment with perfect clarity: the white of my hands in the galley light, the bloodred of the wine behind them. It was a rash, angry, terrible thing that I was doing. But I didn’t feel angry. Only strong, decisive.

Because I wasn’t acting for myself or for the Children of Abel. No, the poison I put in Mazdin Rafferty’s wine was for Momma, and my father, and even for Mar Jacobi. It was for everyone who had died, everyone I had lost.

I shoved the cork in and gave the bottle a few fierce shakes. I was strong, whole. Someday soon Mazdin would learn.

Other than a few frothy bubbles, you couldn’t even tell the bottle had been disturbed. With satisfaction I slid it into place on the wine rack. Then I turned to where I’d set the bottle of poison on the counter, and froze.

It wasn’t empty, not quite. But no more than a sprinkle remained, clinging to the amber glass. As I slipped the bottle down into my pocket, I realized that there was no way I’d be able to do what the Children of Abel had asked of me, not anymore.

I buttoned my coat up the rest of the way and left.

* * *

That night, as the clock tower bells called out across the pastures, I climbed the tower’s steps alone, only the ghost of my memories by my side. At the top I found Koen. His silhouette danced across the floorboards as he threw his weight against the ropes. The rhythm stuttered when he saw me, his face an unreadable mask. But he had to finish his work. So I waited there at the top, watching his lean body move until his shoes touched the floor again and he once again found solid ground.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bottle. Then I crossed the floor and handed it to him. Under the shadow of the bell, Koen frowned at the empty glass.

“What’s this?”

“What’s left of the poison. Tell the Children of Abel that they can find someone else to murder Silvan Rafferty. I’m out.”

I started toward the stairs.

“Terra!” he called. I turned, searching his face. His thin eyebrows were arched up under his unruly mop of hair. His broad lips were twisted in a question. At last he said, “You know, I’m mad at you, but I don’t want to see you die.”

“I don’t want to see me die either, Koen. But I don’t see any other way out.” I spoke down into the dark stairwell now, my voice echoing off each dusty step. “The way I see it, so long as we live under dome glass, I have one of two options: kill Silvan Rafferty or marry him. And he doesn’t deserve to die.”

“But . . .” Koen’s voice was strained, sad. “You don’t love him.”

“So? You don’t love Rachel.”

“That’s different! I’ll never get what I want. Marrying Rachel is my best chance at living a normal, happy life. What am I supposed to do, be alone forever?”

“What, am I?” I asked.

“Oh,” was all that Koen said. He stared down at his cradled palm, at the glass that rested within it. He looked so sad. So I took quick steps across the cedar floor and put my hands over his.

“Koen,” I said gently, “I’m sorry I told your secret.”

He shrugged. “It’ll be all right. What I had with Van, it . . . it was just kid stuff. Messing around. We weren’t meant to be together forever.”

I felt his fingers beneath mine. They were ice cold, lined with blue-purple veins that I could see even now in the tower’s dim light. I remembered a time when I’d thought those hands might be the ones that haunted my dreams. I knew better now, but I couldn’t help but feel some fondness for the boy who owned them.

“I think you should decide that,” I said. “Not the Council. Not the Children of Abel. But you, and Van, and Nina, and Rachel. You’re the ones who matter here.

“Besides,” I said, squeezing his fingers, “I don’t want to see either of my two best friends get hurt.