“I’m—”
“Don’t care.”
“My name is Lyria of Lagalos.”
“Don’t care. Go do something useful with your mouth.”
He jerks his head toward the commissary. I stay rooted in front of him.
“I wanted to say…” My voice cracks. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. About Ulysses.” His head jerks toward me so fast I flinch back.
“What did you say?”
“Ulysses…he—”
Sevro blinks up at me. “He?”
I stare. Horrified. He didn’t know. Oh gods. I thought he knew. I thought the Sovereign would have told them. I thought he’d know like Darrow knew who I was. Does he know who I am? What does he know? Oh shit. Shit.
“He?” Sevro asks again. A lump forms in my throat. I swallow it down. “He?” Sevro rises to his feet. He’s taller than he looks. Sturdy in frame, lanky with sledgehammer fists. Next thing I know, I’m in the air, dangling from one of those hammer hands as he chokes me. The hand has a skull of a wolf tattooed on it. He’s not cuddly at all. He’s terrifying. I can’t breathe. My feet kick. I see knives in holsters on his belt. Knives on the floor. They’ve sent me home with a monster. I swat at his tattooed arms. It’s like hitting a tree.“He?”
“Your…son…” I manage. “Ulysses.”
Sevro’s grip tightens. He’s going to kill me. My lungs scream for oxygen. White spots dance in my vision. “It’s a boy?” He blinks and loosens his grip. “Why are you sorry?” He shakes me like a rag. “Why?”
I don’t know what he knows, so I just spill my guts.
“I—I was on thePandora.I was Victra’s prisoner, along with Volga. Fá and his Ascomanni attacked. The ship was lost. We escaped down to Mars with Victra. She was trapped under a tree. We helped her get out, and the three of us tried to get to safety. Victra had the baby before we got clear. I helped best I could. But we were in a fishing village. Thought it was safe. It wasn’t.”
His voice is small. “He’s dead?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
He stares at the floor. “How?” I don’t answer. I’m scared. Not by him, but because I know my words are sharper than his knives. “How?”
“The Red Hand. They…took him.” My voice trails away.
“How?”
“They nailed him to a tree.”
He lets me go and I collapse to the floor. He slumps, hollow. Before I can apologize again, he shoves a small silver cube into my hands and says, “Get this to the Sovereign.”
He pushes past me and leaves the ship, stumbling down the ramp like a drunk man.
I follow at a distance, and watch from the top of the ramp as he storms from the hangar. When he’s gone, I’m alone on the ship. I roll the silver cube in my hand. What is it? A message to Virginia from her husband? Or something for Pax?
The AI drones.“Twenty minutes until departure.”
Will Sevro make it back in time? Is he coming back? Am I doing this journey all by myself?
I turn to head back into the ship, then stop. I’m not just alone on the ship. I’m alone in the hangar. Darrow’s ship lies on the opposite side. Welder drones are at work on its hull. More drones trundle in and out of its cargo bay. Its open cargo bay.
I glance back into my ship and its sleek, lonely corridors. I look back at Darrow’s. A smile spreads. I think of Matteo’s last words.Forced to go home at gunpoint. Not a gun to be seen, I dart back into the Mars-bound ship, place the holocube on the table in the commissary, then run out the way I came.
41
DARROW
