“Apple juice.”
“I seem to remember you once lecturing me about the detachment’s liquor policy.”
Lament gives an unhappy laugh. “Maybe you’ve corrupted me.”
I study his face: hair backlit by lamplight, lips pressed together, posture too studied, too exact. He looks small in the dark. Breakable. It makes me physically ache to touch him. To take him into my arms and tell him everything will be okay. “Want to explain why you’re drinking alone?”
Another sip. “Not particularly.”
“Is it the BlackWing?” I ask. “Is that why you’re upset?”
“I think we have established what is upsetting me, Hartman.”
“Don’tHartmanme. Look. I know you’re…” I scramble for the right word and come up empty. “I know you’d rather us not see out this plan. And yes, there are a few small risks, but—”
“They’re notsmall.” He sets his glass down with enough force to make the liquid jump. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you hell-bent on going through with this?”
“I’m a gunner. Flying into danger is kind of my job.”
He looks unhelpfully down at his lap, rubs his wrist. His eyes catch the light, and I notice they’re rimmed red. “I feel like I’m sending you to your grave.”
“I’m sending myself,” I rejoin, then wince. “I mean—not to mygrave. I’m sending myself on this mission.”
“A mission organized by your mother, who abandoned you, and Ran Doc Min, who we don’t trust, on an impenetrable spacecraft, where—should something go wrong—we cannot help you.” Lament’s voice is at its most precise, which I once would have thought cold. Now, I understand that’s the voice he uses to cover his fear. “How is that not a suicide mission?”
“Jester gave me a piece of keening.”
“Really?” His eyes are a little wild. “That’s your answer? A bit of mushroom is going to protect you from the might of a man like Doc Min?”
“You’re acting like I’ll be attacked as soon as I step onto The Parallax. It’s not going to be like that. I won’t do anything stupid. I’ll evaluate the situation once I’m on board and act accordingly. You once told me you’d do anything to figure out what happened to Bast, the full story, and we’re so close to finally—”
“I don’tcareabout that,” he bursts. “I don’t care about finding answers, not if it meansthis. And you shouldn’t, either. Youwouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense.”
This is beginning to feel like a cliff. I should back away from the ledge. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think I don’t know how it feels to lose someone you love? Iknow, Keller. How the loss eats at you. How you wish you could just understand, like understanding will make any difference. But you didn’t only lose your mom—she left you, and you’ve dealt with that for ten years. You’ve spent most of your life wondering why. And now here she is, asking for you back, and it’s just so fucked-up, and I worry you’re doing this for her, orbecauseof her, like you think it’ll give you the closure you need, or, I don’t know, the vindication—”
“That’s not the reason,” I say, though his words are turning my lungs to mud.
“Then why?” He stands suddenly from the sofa, eyes big, arms thrown wide. “Why do you have to go? Why won’t you hear reason? You could stay here, with me. You could stay safe.”
“I understand you’re upset,” I say slowly, following him to my feet. My brain is tumbling down a hole. The room is too small, and the air too thick, and I can’t think. “I get it, Lament.”
He presses his mouth into a thin line. He looks—hell, he looks close to tears. “Do you?”
“It’s because you lost Bast.” I take a step closer, putting him within arm’s reach. “He died less than a year ago, and now you’re worried you’ll lose another gunner…”
“Notanother gunner,” Lament chokes. “You, Keller. I’m worried about losingyou.”
The silence is deafening. Lament is in my space, stealing my air. Words, I think. I need to find some words. But I can’t, because I catch the way Lament is looking at me, like he’s shipwrecked and I’m an island. Cheeks flushed. Lips parted. Angry and wretched and so, so beautiful.
I make a pleading sound. “Lament—”
“Don’t say it,” he begs. He’s close enough that I can count his eyelashes, see the wetness clinging to them. How did he get so close?
