Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,34

wing. No one is ever there except for Lionel nerds.” While Ari stared at the suit, Kay tried to scratch his back with the edge of the storage compartment’s metal door, whining dismally as he couldn’t get the exact spot.

“Oh, good grief, come here,” Ari said, beckoning.

Her brother leaped over the space between them in a single bound, too much satisfaction in his grin while he hunched before her and she scratched that one shoulder blade spot Kay always needed scratching. Her hand slowed after a minute, and she pressed her palm on his back, relieved by the ever-familiar—and yet so lost—sensation of his worn T-shirt, his soft skin.

“Moms would want you to get off ship sometimes.” His voice was gruff with rocky feelings. “Even with how dangerous it is. No one can stay lost out here between the stars. That’s what they’d say.”

He spoke of their parents as if he’d already buried them. Ari had forgotten about that heartbroken tone. This was the Kay who’d spent years not knowing if his parents were alive. He didn’t know that they had found a way to stay together. He didn’t know that, soon, they would all risk everything to save them. His silver hair reminded her of Captain Mom. Ari wound a quick finger around a lock in the back until he barked an objection and slapped her hand away. This was her brother. Alive. Which meant she wasn’t in the same time period anymore.

Oh my gods, she’d left Gwen behind in the Middle Ages.

Error’s proximity alarm dinged. Kay put her in a tight headlock, squeezing and letting go so fast Ari barely felt him before he was gone again. Back in the cockpit, Ari picked up the suit. It was heavy from the extra padding Mom had ordered, for when Kay took more than his share of blows at knight camp.

“Hurry up and get dressed!” Kay called. “We’ll be in the docking garage in five.”

Heritage grew into focus in the front viewscreen, dwarfing her brother’s messy profile—and Ari knew why the Lady of the Lake had dropped her here. This was where it all started.

And she could stop it.

Ari ran to the airlock. She threw the stupid knight costume in and hit the button to seal the inner door. Her hand paused over the second button, the one that would open the outer door and eject the costume into space and make everything un-happen. No hacking into Mercer’s files, crashing on Earth, finding Excalibur. No empty Ketch, or Kay’s death, or Gwen torn from her arms in that merciless portal…

Maybe this was supposed to un-happen. It’d be a new start. She’d go to Lionel, not chased by Mercer, but returning to pick up with Gwen where they’d left off with that first kiss. They could all live there, be happy.

But then, she remembered Gwen’s brand-new smile. The one she wore when she touched her belly, the baby moving beneath her fingers. If Ari changed the story, there would be no series of catastrophes to lead to that small, miraculous person. Ari wished she had some way to prove that this baby wasn’t destined to become some legendary patricidal maniac. She didn’t have proof, but then, she didn’t need it. This baby was theirs.

Ari’s hand moved to the first button, re-opening the inner door. She lifted the rubber knight suit and put one leg in. There was a reason for this pain just as there was a reason for King Arthur’s tragic story. Through the darkness, the new life.

“I’ll do everything exactly the same,” she told herself—and the Lady of the Lake if she were listening. “Every single thing.”

Ari coughed and black, half-frozen water shot out of her lungs. It hit the floor of Error, which flooded in an instant, twisting her around until she was back beneath the crushing pressure of the lake, screaming a good-bye to Kay that he would never hear.

Ari lay on her back in a few inches of cold water. Beside her, a black lake sat silently within a great, glimmering cave. A few small, silver torches burned. She breathed hard, rubbing her face with numb hands, trying not to feel like Kay had died all over again. Her tears came fast and desperate… until the sound of giggling broke through her grief.

Ari opened her eyes and found a favorite memory playing out in the surface of the dark lake: back on Error, she was sitting in the captain’s chair with her knees spread wide. Gwen,