and covers my face. I can’t even be honest about my tears to myself. I have to hide them. I rub the area of skin over my heart, trying to ease its painful ache. Then I sit down in the shower; the water pelts me as I bring my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on them. I need to see Trey. I have to figure out what to do now. My skin turns cold even under the heat of the water.
I slip outside of my physical form. The transition is finger-click fast. It’s as if I inhale a breath in my shower and exhale it in New Amster. I recognize this Gothic, dust-covered entranceway I find myself in. It’s the building that guards the passage to their secret city.
The sweet scent of brown sugar assails me when I ghost-move through the majestic, crumbling corridors of the outpost. Matchstick men puff on cig-a-likes, venting the fragrance into the air. It makes me shrink away from them. I associate the aroma with Defense Minister Telek. It was the last pleasure he had before I’d poisoned him . . . well, other than the threats to my life. He took great pleasure in those.
Sifting through the decadent decay of abandoned wealth, I slow when I see Trey. He’s attired in a New Amster uniform, sitting alone near a broken-out window in the darkness and staring at the empty streets. They’ve given Trey a freston, which he has propped up on the window frame, ready to use to defend their position. If the form I have taken is my soul, then my soul aches for him.
Crouching down next to him, I grieve in a way I haven’t since this has all begun, not with tears, but with discoloration. I’m a watercolor, bleeding luminosity in smearing swirls of sorrow. I’ve never seen him like this. Trey is hollow. Empty.
I barely hear someone else approaching. “May I sit with you?” Pan asks as he towers above us. He’s little more than a shadowy silhouette in the darkness. Moonlight shines on Trey’s eyes as he looks up. He gives Pan a brief nod. Pan approaches and sits down beside Trey. Leaning against the same wall, Pan offers Trey a cig-a-like. Trey shakes his head.
“You don’t smoke?” Pan observes.
“No,” Trey replies, refocusing his attention out the window. Streaks of light from Sinter, the larger moon, fall on his eyes, highlighting their violet brilliance.
“Kricket’s mother, Arissa, made me quit when she was alive. She said it was bad for me,” he says. His voice has a deep, sleepy dragon’s tone to it. Holding a stylized smoker in his hand, he spins it between his fingers. “I don’t smoke it. I just carry one around as a reminder.”
I stare at Pan, studying all of his features. He’s a hazy memory. I don’t think he’s aged at all, but it’s been a long time. He smiles, as if remembering something, or maybe it’s from the ridiculousness of him quitting smoking only to find himself in an apocalyptic situation—I’m not sure. His smile does something to me, though; it sparks a memory of the two of us on the sidewalk in Chicago. I used to like to wave at taxis as if they were a parade of floats in a carnival come to town. He used to play along, lifting me up for a better view of them.
“I was impressed by your ingenuity with the drones,” Pan says to Trey.
Trey’s lips show his disgust. “You like the way I can annihilate mass amounts of people with just a few keystrokes?”
“It’s war,” Pan says flatly. “They were toasting the demise of the House of Rafe when it happened. The House of Alameeda will level the House of Wurthem when they no longer need them. You saved many more lives by taking a few. One city. Now they’ll turn their eyes to the House of Alameeda in suspicion.”
“I think the cost was too high.”
“Your cost?”
“Mine. Theirs,” he says in desolation.
“History will show the sacrifice as just.”
“Will it?” He obviously doesn’t believe that.
Pan doesn’t respond to that; he simply twirls the stout cylinder of the smokeless inhaler between his fingers.
“Was there something you needed?” Trey asks coldly.
“What’s she like?”
“Your daughter?”
Pan nods.
“She’s a loner,” Trey replies. “She pays her own way. She’s someone who doesn’t know her place, or if she does, she doesn’t abide by the rules. She’ll see right through your lies. She’ll steal your heart without even trying. She’ll