Vex babbles in delight. I sit on a box beside them, watching. They’re beautiful together—small family snapshot. I want to memorize it so nothing can ever erase it.
Later, Dad calls me into his office. The smell of engine grease and old jokes lingers in the doorway. He’s sat behind a battered desk with maps and registration files. The air hums.
I clear my throat. “You wanted to talk?”
He studies me through the narrow window of his glasses. “Yeah. I been thinking.” He pushes a file across. “I can add Takhiss to the hover-taxi registry. Give him a share in Cab 27. He works good, you know. Doesn’t cut corners.”
My heart jolts. I look at the file, then at his face. It’s earnest. Hesitant. It’s a small thing—but in this life, small things are survival.
“He’s a good one,” Dad says, quiet. “Got the look of a fighter, but the heart of a mechanic.”
I swallow. It’s the closest he’s come to sayingyou stay.To giving me permission to believe.
I nod. “Okay.” My voice cracks. “Thank you.”
He shifts, looks away. “Don’t thank me yet. Just… be careful.”
That night I don’t sleep. Vex nestled between us, light from the window weak and trembling. Takhiss breathes against my neck. His arm curves around me. I feel the rise and fall of his chest. His scent—oil, rain, his skin—fills me up.
I watch his face in the dark. He looks tired. Late lines beneath eyes. He’s pushing too hard. But he doesn’t complain. Doesn’t ask. He just holds.
I whisper: “You did good today.”
He doesn’t say much. Just presses me closer.
I let my mind drift—over memory, over fear, over possibility. Over truth I haven’t told.
Maybe this won’t end in heartbreak. Maybe I’ll let myself believe that these nights, these moments, are the way.
Because I’m fixing what I can. And with him—maybe it’s enough.
CHAPTER 34
TAKHISS
The morning sun is shy behind the haze, but it spills enough gold to warm the metal of the streets. Ella lets me go to the market with Vex strapped to my chest in a harness she helped me adapt. The straps press into my shoulders, a familiar weight that feels like armor. The hum of commerce pulses like a war drum around us.
When we step out the door, I tuck Vex closer. His little face peeks over the harness. He gives a soft, vibrating coo—not quite human, a rasping trill that vibrates against my sternum—and my heart stutters. I brush my fingers across his cheek to hide the sound from passersby.
“That’s mine,” I murmur, and no one else matters right then.
We tread through the crowded walkways. Stall after stall—spices, hover-parts, neon signage, fuel cells glowing faint green. The air tastes of fried food, exhaust, and sweat. I growl low at anyone who dares stare too long. Vex squirms, delighting in the noise. He latches his tiny fingers onto my vest. I feel life pulsing through them.
Ahead, an officer in Coalition trim looms in the crowd: steel jaw, scars, the crimson piping of a veteran.
Our eyes meet.
He stops. He looks at me—size, posture, the way I move. He nods. A soldier greeting a soldier.
But then his gaze flicks down. To Vex.
He stares for a heartbeat too long. He looks at the boy’s eyes. The slightly too-pale skin. The way Vex’s hand grips the fabric.
The officer’s nod deepens. Not pity. Not judgment.
Recognition.
Something ancestral. Something shared.
