“Deke!” I punch his arm, and he starts laughing.
“What? I’m happy for you! This is good news all around—you’re getting some, I’m getting some, Nishi’s getting some—”
“Listen up!” shouts Nishi, quieting the room and saving Deke from my fists. “The Capital is shut down, so we’re going to Starry City. Most people there didn’t evacuate.”
“The Aleph!” shouts Ezra excitedly, and someone whoops with glee.
“How are we getting there?” I ask tentatively.
Deke’s fingers close preemptively around my arm. “The cannon is even more fun the second time around, I promise.”
Nishi makes me go first again.
I curl my body into a tight ball inside the echoing chamber, and then a blast of energy shoots me into the air. I keep my head down and eyes squeezed shut for what feels like hours, until I sense myself starting to descend. This time, I loosen my neck just the tiniest bit, and I look down at the rapidly swelling Starry City.
The city has five points, like a geometric star, and unlike the loud, mismatched buildings of the Capital, the structures are all made out of frosted glass. It looks like an ice world, like the Piscene planet Icthys, where Firebird crashed.
A shiver of sadness echoes through me, but soon my heart is pounding in my ears as I plummet toward the ice below. I close my eyes and brace myself for the crash—
But the ground is soft, like freshly fallen snow, and it cradles my body securely when I land. A tall Sagittarian offers me his hand, and I rise to see Hysan, Nishi, Deke, Aryll, Gyzer, Ezra, and all the others dropping down behind me.
“Here you go,” says the same Sagittarian who helped me up, holding out two steel blades to me.
“Um . . . what—?”
“Like this, Rho,” says Nishi, attaching similar blades to the bottoms of her boots. Then she helps me do the same with mine.
“My lady,” says Hysan, offering me his arm when he sees me wobbling.
“Thank you,” I say with relief, resting most of my weight on him. “Let me guess—you’ve done this before?”
Hysan draws out his dimples, as Nishi leads us out of the landing pad and onto the icy pathways of Starry City. The landing pad is the largest and highest structure here—everything else is low to the ground, with semitransparent walls and ceilings. The pathways around the homes and businesses in this city are just as intricate as they are at the Capital, and there are also souvenir stations everywhere.
“This is awesome,” says Aryll, coming up on my other side. His wide blue eye reflects the frost surrounding us, and he reminds me of a young Cancrian wading into the Cancer Sea for the first time.
“Follow meeeee,” sings Nishi, skating past us hand-in-hand with Deke. We all follow, and soon Hysan and I fall behind everyone else.
“I’m sorry,” I huff, trying to stay balanced and also make forward progress.
“For what?” he asks pleasantly, holding both of our weights and seeming undisturbed by having to stop again and again for me to catch my breath or untwist my ankle.
I stare through the walls of a frosted house where two small children and their parents are eating dinner at a large table. And a memory stirs . . . I’ve heard of this city before. “It’s like everyone here is on display,” I say, trying to remember.
“This is one of the most ancient cities on House Sagittarius,” says Hysan, filling in my mind’s blanks. “It’s said that Sagittarius himself, the original Guardian, founded this city, and he designed it to look like his home among the stars. In Space, there’s no such thing as privacy, so those who live here don’t have the same inhibitions as you and I do. It’s very liberating.”
I can tell from his voice that he really likes it here. Every time we talk, I discover something unexpected about Hysan, something that makes me want to learn more. He’s as ever-expanding as Space itself, and I can’t help wondering if I’ll ever fully know him, or if he’ll forever remain just as unknowable.
“We’re here!” announces Nishi when we reach the city limit. She starts removing the blades from the bottoms of her boots. All I see in front of us is a sea of snow. This is the Aleph?
Suddenly a periscope pops up from the blanket of white beside us, and Nishi presses her thumb against its glass. The rest of us take turns doing the same thing until we all have identified ourselves. The powder surrounding us starts to rise up like a tidal wave about to swallow us—but we’re actually descending underground, into a round room surrounded by a dozen closed doors.
“Welcome to the Aleph,” says a metallic-bodied android standing in the center of the empty space, holding a silver tray. “Would you like any Abyssthe before entering?”
“No thanks,” says Nishi. Then she turns to me in excitement. “Pick a door, Rho.”
“Which one?”
She shrugs mysteriously, and I roll my eyes and walk forward to the one directly across from me. When I open it, the room is dark with pulsing holographic lights, and it’s packed with people dancing. But I can’t hear anything.
Curious, I cross the threshold, and as soon as I step through, the sound blasts on. A percussion-heavy song beats through the room and once everyone else is inside, we thread through the crowd toward the stage, where a tattooed band is performing a high-energy number. Nishi, Deke, and the Sagittarians immediately start moving to the music, and suddenly I find myself next to Hysan, and we’re the only two people standing still.
He takes my hand, and we drift to a corner of the room near the back bar, where it’s quieter. Neither of us says anything, but there’s a new energy between us. It’s the first time we’ve hung out like this, overtly together, in public. His eyes drop to my lips, and tonight, I’m willing to give in to our feelings even here, in front of everyone. It’s like Nishi said—if everything ends tomorrow, let’s live today.
My lips are centimeters from Hysan’s when I hear the voice of a demanding girl.
“I want to talk to you.”
Annoyed, I turn to see Ezra, with her hundreds of braids spilling over her mahogany face and her arms crossed over her chest.
“I’ll get us drinks,” says Hysan, pulling away from me and leaving us alone.
“What’s up?” I ask Ezra.
“I want to go with you tomorrow. And don’t say I’m too young—you were only sixteen the first time you took on Ophius.”
“Ezra, I’ve already chosen my crew. You know I’m not going to change my mind.”
“I won’t get in your way.”
“I know that, but I said no.”
“I’ll follow orders, and I can help—”
I clench my hands at my sides but try to keep the anger out of my voice. “I said no. Now please drop it.” I relax my fingers and reach out to rest a reassuring hand on her arm.
She shoves my touch away and snaps, “Why not?”
“Because this is life and death, Ezra, and I won’t have your death on my hands!”
Everyone at the bar looks at us. Ezra’s chest is pulsing rapidly with her heavy breathing, as if there’s a wild bird in her rib cage.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer, “I didn’t mean to shout—”
She runs off before I can finish my apology, and Hysan returns to my side. “You okay?” His eyes glow in the semidark like the holograms that dance along the walls.
I shake my head, my cheeks burning with regret. “I just blew up at her—I don’t know what’s wrong with me—”
“Come on,” he says, leading us out of the loud room and into the quiet of the threshold.
Soon we’re back in the soundless, circular lobby with the android. When we cut across the room, it turns to us as though we just walked in for the first time and says, “Welcome to the Aleph. Would you like any Abyssthe before entering?”
“No thanks,” says Hysan. The robot seems satisfied with his answer and turns
back around. I stare at it a moment longer, thinking of the sophistication of Lord Neith and Miss Trii. I’m not sure I’ve heard of an android anywhere in the universe as advanced as those two.
Hysan squeezes my hand, and I meet his gaze. “Rho, the past few months have tested you in ways few people could withstand. You’ve had to fight down so much—your fears, worries, wants—to do what’s best for everyone else. Who could blame you if some of those feelings break the surface every now and then?”
“I know, and you’re probably right, but Ezra still didn’t deserve that.”
“She’ll forgive you. She wasn’t at her best either—she kept pressing you even though she knows you made the right call. Speaking of . . . do you know what you’re going to do about Aryll?”
“Let’s not talk about that right now,” I say, dropping his hand. Revealing Aryll’s secret requires sharing truths about my own childhood, and this isn’t the place for that.
“Well, what can we talk about?” he asks, a trace of annoyance in his tone.
“Us.” The word falls from my lips before I can catch it.
Hysan’s expression suddenly relaxes, and I wonder if I’ve surprised him as much as I have myself. “Okay then,” he says, his voice now lower, huskier. “How do you feel about us?”
I inhale deeply, worried if I don’t get this out now, I never will. “I know I’ve been punishing myself. Not just for Mathias but also for breaking the Taboo.” Hysan nods along, as if he suspected as much. “But the truth is, I love you.”
He stops nodding. I say it just as simply as I feel it, like the inescapable truth it is and not a secret I had to mine the depths of my soul to unearth.
“I don’t want to keep running away from myself,” I press on. “Mathias is gone.” While the words cut me, the blade doesn’t dig as deep anymore. “He can no longer be my excuse to stay stuck. I don’t think he’d like that.” I’m startled to find myself repeating not Nishi’s words but Deke’s.
Hysan looks like he’s going to speak, so I speed up to reach my point. “I’m telling you all of this in case this is my last chance to do it. So, I love you, but I can’t offer you anything more right now. My heart is in this war. If we survive it—”
“Rho, even if we weren’t at war, one of us could still die tomorrow,” says Hysan, taking my hand again. “My parents weren’t killed by Ophiuchus or his master or the Marad. A forecasted future can be every bit as hopeless as an invisible one.” He cups my face with his hand. “I know your head has to be elsewhere right now. But when we get back from this latest life-or-death adventure, I want something from you.”
“What?” I whisper.
“I would like to take you out on a real date, my lady.”
“A date,” I repeat, amused by the modesty of the request.
He smirks and pulls me in for a kiss, and every second I feel Mathias slipping further from me, but in a way that makes me feel lighter rather than heavier. Right now, with Hysan, I see the first hint of a brighter tomorrow, a chance for the happiness I thought I’d lost along with Dad and Mathias.
But only if we survive.
When we pull apart, Hysan’s centaur smile lights up the Aleph, and he takes me by the hand to try a new door. I gasp at what I see: a grand hall in which a full orchestra is performing for a packed house. The next room is by far the emptiest—there’s a lonely singer belting out what’s probably a ballad, and a few couples are swaying slowly to her song. Hysan turns to me, and I know what he’s going to ask, and I’m already crossing the threshold into the room when a voice calls out behind us.
“Hello, lovers!”
Deke and Nishi are in the lobby, both pink-cheeked and breathless, the way they used to look whenever one of them got away with breaking a rule on Elara.
“You didn’t think we came all the way to Starry City just for a good party?” says Nishi, though it’s no surprise a Sagittarian would travel even farther than this for the promise of a great time. “There’s something I wanted to share with you. It might be a clue about Ophiuchus. We’ll come right back—we’re not going far.”
I look at Hysan. “Up for another adventure?”
He offers me his arm. “Naturally.”
Back outside, we skate down a narrow, icy pathway, away from the Aleph, toward the homes of Starry City. “As soon as we got back to the Capital,” says Nishi, leading the way while I hold on to Hysan and try to keep up, “I started researching Ophiuchus again. I figured, being in the land of Curiosity, there were bound to be a bunch of questions about him over the ages. But when I looked, I could only find vague references. I think whoever’s been erasing any trace of the Thirteenth House from history has been more meticulous than we thought.
“So instead, I started looking into Guardian Sagittarius—after all, he would have been a peer of Ophiuchus’s. And it turns out, like most elder Sagittarians do, he became obsessed with a singular curiosity. The question he most wanted answered was: What is time?”
Time . . . the time-worm, Moira and Origene’s experiments. I feel Hysan’s muscles tense in sync with mine, and I can tell he’s just as intrigued as I am by Nishi’s discovery.
We come to a stop before a massive memorial carved from crystal. It’s a statue of the original Sagittarian Guardian. He looks like a combination of all his people, and in his features I see Nishi, Brynda, Gyzer, Ezra, and all the others. Across his chest is the Archer symbol, as large as his head. “See?” asks Nishi, pointing to the bow and arrow. “Time.”
She runs her finger along the arrow and says, “It’s either linear”—then she circles the arch of the bow—“or circular.”
Hysan moves closer, clearly entranced by Nishi’s theory. “Here’s where it gets hazy,” she goes on, while Hysan traces the symbol just as she did. “Since there are no direct references to Ophiuchus, there’s not much in the way of facts. But there’s a legend that started in the earliest days of our House, about a magical object that possesses the truth about time, located somewhere in the Zodiac.”
My head hurts from the effort of not looking at Hysan. Though she doesn’t know it, Nishi is referring to the Guardians’ Talismans.
“What if Sagittarius suspected Ophiuchus had it?” she asks eagerly, having reached her main point. “What if Ophiuchus truly was wronged?”
“So what, though?” asks Deke, and Nishi glares at him. “I’m just saying, whatever happened to him doesn’t justify all he’s done—”
“Of course it doesn’t justify it; that’s not my point—”
My Ring finger buzzes as Hysan’s voice whispers in my head. What if another Guardian did steal Ophiuchus’s Talisman?
I touch my Ring, my eyes tracing the lines and curves of the Archer symbol. It could have been anyone . . . doesn’t even have to be a Guardian.
And if they stole his secrets, adds Hysan, they could be immortal, like him. They could be anyone, anywhere.
I gasp out loud. The master.
Hysan nods. We should share our suspicions with Ferez.
“What is it?” asks Nishi, obviously aware that Hysan and I are communicating through our Rings. She and Deke immediately quit quibbling.
“I just got chills,” I say, which is at least part of the truth. “Nish . . . you’re a genius.”
Hysan stares at Nishi with an expression of deep admiration. “You are truly brilliant.”
“Genius, brilliant, really now,” says Deke, trying to bite back his own smile. “You fill her head with these grandiose words, and then who has to deal with her massive ego when you both go back home?”
Deke skates away playfully before Nishi can grab him, and suddenly a woman’s voice speaks inside my head.
We need to talk. I’ll be in touch in an hour. Make sure you’re near a transmitter.
I touch the Ring on my buzzing finger. Sirna? What is it?
Ochus.
16
AN HOUR LATER, I’M BACK in my room with Hysan, Nishi, and Deke, awaiting Sirna’s call. I feel all the magic from earlier in the night disappear as we tensely stand around in a circle, not meeting each other’s eyes.
We’ve watched the feeds but haven’t heard anything new. Whatever Sirna knows, it’s not public knowledge yet.
Suddenly, the wall transmitter sings out a musical jingle and begins to glow red. The four of us inhale together as Nishi uses her Tracker to accept the transmission. The hologram of a dark-skinned woman in a long, flowing skirt with a coat that bears the four sacred moons beams into the center of the room.
“Rho,” says Ambassador Sirna as soon as her sea-blue eyes meet mine.
Despite the circumstances, my mood lightens on seeing her—but, though her gaze softens a little, her expression doesn’t match the feeling. She looks worried. “I wanted to wait for more concrete information before reaching out, but when I received the details of your plan, I knew I had to speak with you now.”
I nod. “What is it?”
“I’m at the Plenum, where the ambassadors are reconsidering your account of the Thirteenth Guardian.”
The air in the room goes from tense to stunned. This sounds like it should be good news, but I can tell by Sirna’s expression it isn’t. “Initial analysis of Verity shows the destruction might have been triggered through the Psy . . . and Ophiuchus is the only being we’ve heard of who can do that. The Plenum now believes he may be the master.”
My friends turn to me, their faces a mix of surprise and concern, but I stay focused on Sirna. “Thank you for telling me. We will reconsider our plan and let you know if there are any changes.”
When her hologram winks out, I turn from the screen and face my friends. “Let’s find out as much about this rumor as we can and regroup at dawn with the other Houses. If the plan stays in place, we’ll set out immediately after the meeting. For now, I’m going to consult the stars.”
I’ve been in my room for hours, reading Vecily’s Ephemeris, desperate for a sign of Ophiuchus, when I hear a knock on my door.
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