“To open a spot in the Sixth,” I whisper, “so the Determinists would have a place to plant me.”
I feel like I’m dissolving. Or… like I want to dissolve. I lock eyes with Lament, see the hollowness in his expression. I can barely breathe.
“If that’s true,” Vera says shakily, “it would explain why the Legion didn’t want to conduct a real investigation into Bast’s death. They already know why he died. They’ve been covering it up.”
Lament gives a single nod. “Exactly.”
My hands curl into tight, powerless fists. My heart is a fuckingmess. “Lament…”
“Excuse me,” he says, and strides out of the room.
For a long moment after, I just stand there in the awful quiet, staring at the door he disappeared through. The knot in my chest—the one that’s been there ever since I first stepped foot on The Parallax—is tightening into something so hard and painful it makes me want to double over. My brain feels broken. Like there’s a gap in its center and I can’t get the separate halves to align. Bast Vinicchi. An innocent bystander, dead because he was in the way. Lament, his scars, his anger, his wounds. For what? A scheme. Someone else’s game.
And me. The trigger on this deadly, loathsome weapon.
“It’s not your fault, Keller,” Vera says softly, making me flinch. I’m standing halfway between my chair and the stairwell to The Bargainer’s upper rooms, staring at the door as if I can melt it with my eyes. Vera moves to set a gentle hand on my arm, warm but hesitant, like she’s not sure if I’m okay with being touched right now. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It haseverythingto do with me.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t change that Bast is dead.”
“Keller, please…”
My skin is made of rubber. I’m too cold, then too hot. I stumble past my shell-shocked fleetmates into The Bargainer’s kitchenette, turn on the faucet, shove my head under the water. It spills down my cheeks and over my mouth. I close my eyes, taste its mineral tang.
I thought I knew about despair. I was sure I’d seen how deep it can dig its claws, how it pours itself into you, through skin and muscle and straight to the bone. But that was back when I believed there was actually still some hope for me. My life—tumultuous as it’s been—had a path forward. I could be the Sixth’s gunman. Lament and I could heal the wounds between us. I thought, yeah, it would take time, but it waspossible.
I was wrong. I can’t even believe how wrong. My mother is a villain. My home planet is doomed. We’re stuck on this no-man’s-planet without support, the Legion is rotting from the inside, and my presence here is predicated on the death of the best friend of the man who I—
“Fuck,” I whisper, head still under the faucet. Water spills from my lips. It feels like I’m spitting. “Fuck.”
“Keller,” Master Ira says from somewhere to my left. He must have followed me into the small kitchen. “Come on. Come out of there.”
I give a grunt.
“Do you remember the time I made you untie a front-handed knot?” he asks.
I do remember. That was back when the Master was teaching me theways of the Order. The skid knot is commonly used to bind people’s hands. Unknotting the rope is impossible unless you know a very specific technique.
I lift my head out of the sink. “If you’re about to impart some sage wisdom,” I say, squirming where the water streams down my neck and soaks my collar, “I am, respectfully, not in the mood.”
“I put your wrists in the knot,” Master Ira continues calmly. “You struggled for half an hour before you finally asked what you were missing.”
“This situation isn’t aknot.”
“No,” he agrees in that even way of his, “but it islikea knot. Just because it seems impossible does not mean there is no way out.”
I’m still feeling too bashed in the head to take his guidance seriously. His words aren’t helping. This situationisimpossible.
“Start with what you know,” Master Ira encourages.
“We know Doc Min doesn’t really want to kill everyone,” Vera offers from the other room. I glance up to see the rest of my fleet gathering tentatively around the kitchenette’s opening.
“That would defeat the purpose,” Vera continues. “Ran Doc Min wants people afraid, and then he wants to save them. Once he wins a devoted following on Venthros, he’ll repeat the scheme on other planets. He’s already hinted that the voroxide will spread around the galaxy. He’ll come up with new ways to use his neutralizer to save people, planet by planet, until all of Romothrida is pledged to him.”
“So what you are saying,” prompts the Master, “is that Doc Min is relying on something.”
