“Well,” Nishi starts to say, her voice a pitch higher than usual, “Rho and I should probably—”
“Hysan Dax!”
When Blaze roars Hysan’s name, my heart stops so completely that I think it’s finally punched a hole big enough to escape my ribcage.
“Over here, playboy. You’re too busy to return my calls now?” Blaze brings Hysan in for a hug. “I’ve been trying to tell you about the Tomorrow Party for weeks!”
I glue my eyes to the white clouds on the floor, unable to look up from the foamy swirls.
“I’ve come to make it up to you.”
At the sound of the charm-filled voice, I give in and look up.
“That’s a start,” says Blaze, slinging an arm around Hysan’s neck. “Now come greet my other most important guest—I believe she’s a friend of yours.”
Blaze wheels him around, and Hysan sees me at last.
The instant his leaf-green eyes meet mine, solar systems are ignited inside me.
I feel frozen in place, my body buzzing from being back in Hysan’s orbit. As we stare at each other, I forget where I am, what I’m doing, why I’m here—I forget the whole Zodiac. And all I remember is the tingly feel of his electrifying touch. The Abyssthe-like taste of his confident kisses. The sunny brilliance of his beautiful mind.
He looks at once the same and completely changed. He’s still the best-dressed man in the room, but there’s a gravity in his gaze that makes the clothing seem like just a costume. It makes me think of the way light from far-flung stars takes billions of years to reach us, so that when we stare up, we’re seeing the star as it was and not as it is. While I know I’m seeing the real Hysan, I also know he isn’t this person anymore.
Nishi squeezes my arm, bringing me back to the ball, and as I blink back my stupor, I realize Hysan hasn’t reacted yet either. His eyes look as dazed as I feel.
“My . . .”—his voice falters, and he tries again—“My lady.”
He holds out his hand for the greeting, and I hesitate because I know what I’ll feel when he touches me, and then my heart will give me away. But Blaze and the others are all staring, so I start to extend my hand.
Suddenly, Nishi tugs on my arm. “Sorry, Hysan. I just spotted a potential donor we’re trying to court, and I’ll need my date’s help with the wooing!” And before I know what’s happening, she’s whisked me away.
“Where are we going?” I ask over the thudding of my heart. She pulls me along with her at such a swift pace that I’m tripping over my heels.
“You should be thanking me,” she says as we elbow our way through the crowd. “You two were like a couple of firebursts facing off—and Helios knows how flammable these Aquarian fabrics are!”
We go through a door marked “Lady’s Lounge” and enter a wide, mirrored space filled with velvet couches, sandstone tables, wallscreens, and refreshments. Even though the party just started, at least a dozen women—mostly Virgos and Scorps—are already draped over armchairs, their gown skirts crumpled and their up-dos loose, enjoying each other’s company.
Nishi finds us an unoccupied couch. “How are you?” she asks the moment our heels are off. Without giving me time to answer, she fires off more questions. “What was that dance with Mathias? And how about that tension with Hysan? Please start talking, or I’m just going to keep asking you more questions—”
“Mathias and I are . . . done,” I say, keeping my voice low so no one else can hear. “Seeing him with Pandora was painful, but . . . losing him felt more like letting go of the girl I’d once been, and a future I wanted to keep believing in.”
“And Hysan?” she asks gently.
I shake my head. “In another stunning display of my heart’s perfect timing, I just realized he’s the person I want to be with. I’m completely in love with him.”
Now she shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you Cancrians are pretty, because you’re dumb as a bag of nar-clams.” At my glare she shrugs unapologetically. “You love me because I’m honest.”
“I love you in spite of your honesty.” I’m annoyed that she’s being sarcastic when I’m in real pain; it’s not like her. Then again, she’s right. I have been dumb as a nar-clam.
“I’ve been such a coward, Nish.” I drop my head in my hands. “Not in the ways Charon said, but in my personal life. This whole time, I’ve been brave enough to risk my life but not my heart.”
She wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Rho, there’s no reason for you to feel this way. Hysan’s in love with you. That’s not something that changes from one month to the next. And if it has, then he wasn’t in love with you in the first place. But based on the tension I just witnessed between you, I don’t think that’s what happened. So cheer up.”
Her tone grows tougher as she goes on, like she’s flitting too close to doors she’s desperate to leave closed. Discussing my love life must make her think of her own; here I am dwelling on my feelings for a guy who’s just outside this room, while the man Nishi has loved her entire adolescence is gone forever.
“You have no reason to pout, Rho. So leave the dark thoughts in here, and then let’s go back out there and have some fun.” She grabs our heels from the floor and hands me mine. “I promise to keep an eye out so you don’t have to run into him again.”
I would much rather stay in here the rest of the night, but for Nishi’s sake I get to my feet. I can’t drown in my heartbreak now, not when her heart is barely hanging on.
• • •
When I leave the Lounge, I survey the ballroom for Stan and Mathias and the others, but by now the place is so crowded that it’s hard to find anyone. Every few steps we take, Nishi flags down another dignitary or Party member to introduce me to, and between the fear of running into Hysan and the stress of interacting with so many new people, I feel drunk on my emotions, even though I’ve yet to try the House’s fizzy drink of choice.
Eventually a round of dinner trays begin to float among us, and Nishi and I fill up on finger foods—porkling burgers, aquadile cakes, falcon poppers. While we’re talking to a group of Aquarian, Scorp, Geminin, and Capricorn dignitaries, I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around.
“Wandering Star,” says a dark-skinned, middle-aged woman with fine, short hair. She’s wearing a striking gown comprised of glossy green feathers.
I grow alert when I recognize the Taurian Guardian. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone from such a high level of government at this youthful soiree.
“It’s an honor to see you again, Fernanda—I mean, Chief Executive Purecell.”
“Fernanda is still fine.” She transfers the drink she’s holding to her other hand so she can reach out for the traditional Taurian handshake. “Are you joining the Tomorrow Party?”
“I think so.” As I say the words, a fantasy unfolds in my mind of Nishi and me living together in our own home on the Black Moon settlement, of Hysan and me dating out in the open, of Stan and Jewel marrying and starting a family—and I feel myself smile. “How about yourself?”
“I’m one of the Party’s financial backers.”
“Oh—I had no idea.” Strange that with everything going on in the Zodiac, she took the time to travel here for a ball.
“I think any movement that embraces inclusivity and choice deserves our consideration and support, don’t you?” The focus of her sharp eyes reminds me of the horned hawks on Tierre.
“Yes, and having your support will mean a lot down the line.” The more I think about it, the more I like the Tomorrow Party’s experimental approach to uniting our solar system. After all, it’s unlikely we’ll convince every House to drop its walls and start welcoming everyone at once, so this small-scale trial run is far more sensible.
Fernanda leans closer, and her terse, no-nonsense voice brings the ball back into focus. “Nobody knows yet, but the Plenum has convened a confidential, m
ulti-House tribunal to investigate me and my ties to Risers. If found guilty, they’ll try me for treason.”
My drunken emotions sober fast. “Why?”
“Because I’ve spoken out in support of Risers? Because my father was a Riser?” She shakes her head. “Because, as you well know, those in power always need a new boogeyman. It’s how they stay in power.”
Chieftain Skiff comes to mind; the last time a Guardian shared a secret with me, strings were attached. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if they ask you to testify to what I discussed with you in my office—about my correspondence with Risers—I need you to lie.”
I feel my face blanching, and I look around us to see if anyone’s listening. Nishi’s still entertaining the same group of diplomats, and everyone around us is engrossed in their own conversation. When I turn back to Fernanda, I barely move my lips as I form my answer. “Don’t you think this should be a more private discussion?”
“I don’t trust any quiet rooms that aren’t my own,” she says, taking a slow sip of her drink.
“Fernanda, I’m not a good liar. I want to help you, but even if I tried, they’d probably see right through me. And anyway, from everything you’ve told me, you’ve done nothing treasonous. The only thing they can blame you for is that you didn’t bring your concerns to them sooner, but you couldn’t have known—”
“The only thing they can blame me for?” she repeats, her voice sour. “Don’t you realize yet that they can do anything they want? You yourself are proof of that. They can sell any story they please, they can rewrite history, they can make me out to be the Marad’s master!”
“If the system is this broken, why didn’t you and the other Guardians try fixing it before the attack on Cancer?” I burst out, anger shooting through me.
“Who says I haven’t been?” she asks, and a flash of power surges through her dark features, a glimpse into her fearless core. “But a chemical reaction requires more than energy. It needs a catalyst.”
“You mean a sacrifice.”
There’s something new in her eyes tonight, a darkness I didn’t see on Vitulus. “On Cancer you believe the loss of one life is as unacceptable as the loss of ten thousand,” she says, and I nod. “But on Taurus we are team players, and we believe in making sacrifices for the greater good. I’m sorry for the people we’ve lost, but I can’t pretend something like this wasn’t bound to happen. You can’t crush an entire race of people and think you’ll hold on to power forever; Nature will balance herself out.”
I glare at her. “That doesn’t sound like balance. It sounds like a tug of war.”
“Are you saying no then? You won’t help me?”
I sigh. “I won’t lie. But I won’t betray your trust either.”
She quirks her head. “What then?”
“If they come around asking,” I say, the answer coming to me as I’m speaking, “I’ll tell them what we discussed was just between us. That’s all.”
Her expression is unreadable, so I don’t know if this is good or bad news to her. With her hawkish eyes and feathery dress, she looks more than ever like a bird of prey.
“You know,” she says, taking another slow sip of her drink. “I think we might make a politician out of you yet.”
17
WALKING AWAY FROM FERNANDA, I’M thinking it’s definitely time to investigate the Aquarian drink situation.
Nishi’s circle of admirers has grown, and rather than rejoin her, I decide to hunt down one of the floating trays. She’s far better at the small-talk stuff than I am; I’d rather skip this kind of dullatry and go straight to working on the Black Moon project.
The ballroom is so packed that I can’t spot any drinks, so I edge toward the outskirts of the crowd to get a better vantage point, knocking into elbows and shoulders along the way. When I reach the white marble wall, there’s a massive, gold-embossed mirror where a handful of women are checking themselves out. Their chiffon and satin and velvet gowns are so puffy that they can’t get very close to the glass.
I stand near them as I scan the room for the glint of tall-stemmed glasses.
“You look like you’re on the hunt,” says a clear, confident voice to my left, and I look up to see statuesque Skarlet Thorne holding two drinks in her hands.
It seems impossible, but upclose she’s even more stunning. Her skin is a shimmering bronze brown that seems to produce its own light, her eyes are curved and cat-like, and the folds of her red silk dress roll off her like watery flames.
She offers me one of the glasses. “Thanks,” I say, taking it. “How’d you know this was what I was hunting?”
“I figured if it was a guy, you would have checked your lipstick first.”
I stare at her questioningly, then I lean over to peek at myself in a corner of the mirror. The red paint has mostly smudged off my mouth, probably from eating.
“I think we’re wearing the same shade.” She draws a red tube from a barely noticeable pocket in the folds of her dress. Beside us, competition for space in front of the mirror has intensified, and she says, “I’ve got you.”
She hands me her glass but holds onto the napkin that was wrapped around its stem. Then she takes my chin between her fingers. “Part your lips.”
Her cat eyes study my mouth as she paints my top lip. “I’m glad we’re getting this chance to meet because I think there’s a lot we can do together to improve the situation for Risers,” she says, moving on to my lower lip. “I heard that Chief Executive Purecell is here, too, and since she’s such a vocal Risers’ rights advocate, it could be even more effective if the three of us combine forces. If you want, I’ll get your information from the Party so we can get organized.”
She slips the napkin between my lips. “Blot.” Then she steps back and admires her work. “Perfect.”
“Thank you. And yes, I’d love that,” I say, handing back her drink. “I’ve been really inspired by how you’ve bridged the divisions of your House.”
She clinks her glass with mine. “Well, it’s an honor to inspire the woman who inspired me.” Then she takes a sip of her drink, and I bring mine to my lips.
The liquid’s sweet fizz seems to invade my mouth, eyes, and nose all at once, and I cough a couple of times. To cover my mortification, I take a long sip. The drink is a mix of fruits I’ve never tasted before, and another flavor that’s familiar but I can’t place.
“I met Corinthe.”
The sweetness sours, and I nearly choke on it. “W-what? How?”
“She and the other Risers are being held in The Bellow on planet Phaet.” It’s the highest security prison in the Zodiac. “Since she’s the only soldier without a mask, most interrogations are directed at her, but she hasn’t spoken yet. The Majors felt since I’ve been advocating for Risers’ rights, and since I’ve been effective at addressing our people, I might stand a better chance.”
My mouth suddenly dry, I ask, “Did she . . . talk to you?”
“No—but I’m the only one who’s elicited a reaction from her.” Skarlet leans a little closer, and I catch a whiff of a spicy, floral scent that makes me think of a field of firebursts. “I did it by mentioning you.”
The glass slips a little in my fingers. “Me?”
“I asked if she’d rather talk to you.” The Ariean’s gaze trails down my gloved arm, where my scars are hiding, then flicks back to my face.
“And she smiled.”
I take another sip of my drink to drown the visual of Corinthe’s leering smile. As if she could see what I’m thinking, Skarlet adds, “She’s finished her transition. Want to know what House she’s in now?”
Somehow, I know before she says it.
“Cancer.”
So the person who doesn’t believe in love now looks like she belongs in the House of love. I can’t imagine a worse punishment for Corint
he.
“Actually . . .” Skarlet scrutinizes my face closely. “She looks a lot like you.”
My left arm suddenly starts to boil. I rub it against my dress to calm my skin, as the thought of Corinthe wearing my face burns me from the inside.
“Strange, isn’t it?” whispers Skarlet.
“What’s strange?”
Her fireburst scent grows stronger, like she’s about to spark. “The stars’ sense of humor.”
She walks away before I can say anything, leaving me to stare after her as she goes. And I’m not the only one looking.
Heads turn wherever Skarlet passes: She’s like a blaze of fire you want to keep your eyes on at all times in case the wind changes direction, and her flames blow your way.
• • •
When I find Nishi again, she clutches my arm. “There you are! Let’s go! It’s speech time!”
I run with her to the grand staircase, and we come to a stop next to Blaze and Geneva and the rest of his entourage. “Oh, good, you’re here,” he says, seeing Nishi. “Stay close.”
“I will.”
Blaze hands his date his drink, then hitches his purple skirt up on one side so he can climb to the middle of the staircase. At his signal, the orchestra stops playing, and in the absence of music, everyone looks around.
“Welcome, trailblazers!”
His voice comes from all corners of the room, and I notice a small volumizer—a black ball that’s a sound amplifier—hovering in the air near his head. He waits for the wild cheering and clapping to calm down before speaking again.
“Everyone who came here tonight is a pioneer of a new tomorrow. A different tomorrow. A united tomorrow. One that looks like this.” We look up to see holographic captures materializing in the air above us.
All the images are of the party attendees as we descended into the ballroom, each of us walking alongside a person from a different House. Mossy-eyed Virgos with dark-haired Sagittarians with tawny-skinned Geminin with broad-faced Leonines with athletically built Arieans and so on. No divisions among the Houses.