Secondborn

“I think you mended his faith in humanity. He’d lost it the day they killed Radix.” She locates my boots and helps me put them on. I walk slowly with her through the enormous house, more modern than the palace I grew up in. Its beauty is tempered by its size. She takes me to the back door of a kitchen the size of our locker room in the air-barracks. In the closet, she finds a cloak and hands it to me. Once outside, we follow a stone path to a small cottage behind the main house.

“Knock, knock,” she says, pushing open the front door.

“We’re in here,” Hammon calls from the next room. I follow Mags and find Hammon sitting on a sofa with Edgerton’s head in her lap. He looks kind of like me—like he got beaten by a mob of soldiers.

“Roselle!” Hammon gasps. I must look really bad.

“It probably looks worse than it is,” I insist.

Edgerton sits up. “No, it don’t.”

I limp toward them. “You’re right, it doesn’t,” I agree. They make room for me on the couch, and I settle between them. Hammon moves to hug me, but I stop her with a raised hand. “Please don’t touch me. I don’t think I can bear it.”

“I took the beating of my life, Roselle,” Edgerton says. “You look like you took a fall off a cliff.”

“I don’t remember much about it once I hit the ground.”

“I don’t either, to tell you the truth,” Edgerton replies. He must have gotten the leeches, too, because his eyes are less swollen than the rest of him.

“You don’t want to know what happened to you,” Hammon says quietly. “It was your hand that saved us, Roselle—your scar. Without that, they’d have killed you and Edge for sure. That man—Winterstrom—he saved us all. How come you never told us about him? You hid that scar under a glove for an entire year.”

“He told you?” I ask.

“Mags told us,” Edgerton replies.

“I didn’t want to involve you. Only Hawthorne knew about it. The less you knew, the better.”

“Apparently, we’re still five steps behind you,” Edgerton says. “Reykin was just here. He told Hammon and me about the deal you made for us.”

“There’s no way we can ever repay you, Roselle,” Hammon adds.

“You can name the baby Roselle if it’s a girl,” I tease.

“That goes without saying,” Edgerton replies. “So you’re going back?”

“I have to. It’s like you said, Edge. I’m still breathing, so there is still a chance, right? I’ll get word to you as soon as I can. Hopefully, one day, when it’s safe, we can all be together.”

We say our good-byes. Mags leads me back toward the main house, and I pause by the garden gate to keep from passing out. “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Mags scolds me.

“I’ve run out of time, Mags. I have to leave now or I might have to stay forever.”

“Would it be so bad?” she asks.

Here among the beautiful grounds of the Star-Fated estate, war seems distant. A glass gazebo borders a small, serene lake. Well-groomed horses run along the paddock fences. I can see why Reykin’s parents were lulled into a false sense of security. One could feel untouchable here.

“Forget what I said, Mags. There’s no forever. There’s only now.”

I lose my balance. Someone behind me breaks my fall. “You’re going back to bed,” Reykin orders. He lifts me into his arms. I wince at the pressure on my ribs. He takes me back to the room I was in before and lays me on top of the blanket. Mags comes in with a cold compress. Reykin takes it from her and lays it on my forehead. With my eyes closed, I murmur, “This changes nothing. I’m still leaving by tonight unless you have another one of those cyanide tablets. I feel bad enough to take one of those. Either way, I’m not staying here.”

Mags snorts in derision. “We don’t have cyanide here. The mind of this one.” I peek at her. She gestures with her thumb in my direction. Shaking her head as if she never heard of such a thing, she leaves the room.

“You wouldn’t let me take the easy way out,” Reykin says. “I’ll return the favor.”

“You’re just being cruel now.”

“I’ve booked passage for you on a very low-budget cargo watercraft leaving for Bronze City late this afternoon,” Reykin says. I can’t hold back my sigh of relief. Reykin notices. “Did you think I was going to hold you hostage here, Roselle?” From the pocket of his coat, he extracts a laser tool and a small vial that matches my skin tone.

“It’s hard to know what you’ll do, Reykin,” I reply. “You’re somewhat unpredictable. It’s the austerity of your stare. I thought before that you’d protect me, but then you promised me that my brother is as good as dead—so you can see my dilemma. I believe people like you should come with a warning label.”

“My intention isn’t to harm you. My intention is to make sure no one ever harms you again.” He reaches for my right hand, taking it gently in his. His fingers run over the crest that his fusionblade left there.

“Why can’t you protect me without killing my brother?”