Page 69 of The Space Between Stars

“I-I don’t know.”

Damn him. “I don’t know,” Niklaus repeated more firmly.

“Are you giving me answers or interrogating me?” he snapped.

The giant’s brown eyes were pits of flame.

Niklaus sucked at his teeth. He crossed and uncrossed his arms. “Winning a war?”

The response only sent the mute right back into his first fated question.

He was using overt caution. It was a test, and Niklaus’s only option was to play along. “Because he wants to win a war. Alright.” Niklaus nodded. “What war?”

The mute ignored Niklaus’s question to ask yet another.

“You don’t enter a war. Either it comes to you, or you—” Niklaus squinted at the grain of the wagon’s planks beneath him. He stood and began pacing. “If Thyatira stages a war—and wins it—it works in his favor and in favor of the Groundlings that fought with him.”

Niklaus was fast to answer this time. “It would be devastating. Ninety-five percent of this militia is Groundling.”

Niklaus stared at the mute. “Aetech’s fault… because there’s something wrong with the plates?”

The mute neither confirmed nor denied it.

“Well, that practically makes it the oligarchy’s fault.” Panic rose in Niklaus’s chest. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out his cheeks. “It provides him with justifiable cause to support a Groundling revolution, I imagine.”

The mute leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. He hadn’t actually told Niklaus anything.

“My turn to ask questions. You’re clearly conspiring against Thyatira. What’s Thyatira got on you?”

Infuriating. “You just told me Thyatira’s done something with the Aetech plates. That we’re about to enter a war zone and something’s—”

If it was a game of outwitting he wanted, Niklaus would give it to him. “How do I know he didn’t put you up to this? If you want me on your side, if you want me to help you figure out whatever this is, you need to tell me what he’s got on you.”

The mute’s jaw clenched. His eyes flicked to the floor. The tips of his fingers rubbed together. Then his blazing stare flashed up to meet Niklaus’s.

He opened his mouth.

SEVENTEEN

CALVEROUS

Year: 738 Post Cataclysm: 10 Years Previously

Location: Tera’thian Northlands

Something pulled Calver from the void into the haze of metacognition. He had no desire to surface, but whatever had awoken him had struck his subconscious with enormous intensity. It must be important.