had been convinced for a while that copper was a deterrent against Ghosts, that the metal repulsed them and kept them away. In her eagerness to protect us, she’d spent a sleepless, feverish night tinkering with every single one of our weapons, stringing copper wiring around their handles. It ended up not working, of course. But I’ve never forgotten that night—the hope in her eyes that she might have something to save us.
She shrugs grumpily and ignores my reference. “You’re lucky the Firstblade went easy on you.” As usual, though, the anger is already seeping from her gaze. “I thought he was going to cut you down right there in front of us all.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t make saving Federation soldiers a habit.”
Adena glances skeptically at me, then takes a pair of pincers and sinks the steel cylinder into a bucket of cold water. It hisses, steam obscuring the air between us. Adena takes out the cylinder and hands it to me.
“For your blades,” she says.
I take the cooled cylinder curiously. “Why?”
Adena reaches over and yanks out both of my swords. She twirls one expertly, then attaches the cylinder to the end of one hilt. It fits so neatly that I wonder if she’d stolen my blades in my sleep just to measure them properly. Then she takes the second sword’s hilt and fits it into the cylinder’s other side. It snaps neatly into place, transforming my swords into a double-ended weapon.
Adena hefts it twice and gives me a confident nod, her eyes shining. “Twist once to take it apart,” she says, doing it. The swords separate again.
“You were doing this for me?” I ask her as I take back my weapons. “I thought you were angry.”
“I can be both. I told you I’d make you one, didn’t I?”
She doesn’t mention her brother once. Maybe it’s for the best, not to acknowledge the memory of his death right now. But I understand all the same, and I bow my head once. “Thank you.”
Adena glares at where Jeran and Red have stepped right outside her workshop to talk. “Don’t thank me yet. I still don’t know about your new companion.”
Suddenly, we both hear the Firstblade’s voice outside, addressing Jeran.
Adena shoots me a startled look. “I didn’t think today was an inspection day in the Grid.” Then she steps away from me and darts outside. I follow her.
We come face-to-face with Aramin, standing with his hands tucked behind his back. Beside him is Jeran’s father, Senator Barrow Wen Terra, and older brother, Senator Gabrien An Terra.
I look quickly at Jeran. The easy attitude he’d had moments earlier has vanished, and his face is drained of blood. He looks down, away from these two Senators who are his family, pretending to be fascinated by the samples of glass that a metalworker across the path is laying out across a table. Everything about his posture has stiffened. His father, Senator Barrow, looks at him without much of an expression, but even then, I can feel the tension between them crackling in the air like a living thing. Jeran speaks so rarely about him that I sometimes forget his position.
But I never forget that this man exists. The bruises on Jeran’s arms always remind me.
“Training to be a metalworker now, Jeran?” he says to his son.
Jeran doesn’t dare look up. “No, sir,” he replies, anxiety laced through his words. “I’m only waiting for my Shield.”
His father’s eyes scan him slowly, from head to toe, before finally settling on his eyes. “Waiting on others, your specialty,” he says mildly. “Just like your mother.”
Jeran says nothing to that. All of his cheery air has vanished under the scrutiny of his father and brother. My attention turns to Gabrien. He looks like the taller, crueler version: handsome where Jeran is beautiful, with wider shoulders and longer legs; his robes elegantly cut to resemble their father’s Senate coat; his face similar to Jeran’s but chiseled into something made out of stone.
He gives Jeran a pitying look that makes my blood run cold. “It’s all right, Father,” Gabrien says. “Jeran’s strengths have always been physical.”
Jeran shifts uncomfortably, head down. I find myself moving closer to his side, every muscle in me tensing to protect him.
“Well,” Jeran’s father replies to Gabrien. “A man is fortunate enough to have one son as high-achieving as you.”
Aramin’s expression doesn’t shift at the subtle insult to the Strikers, that we are nothing more than brutes sent to hold monsters at bay, but I do see