“Come on, leave some Rho for the rest of us,” says Deke after he’s greeted Aryll, whom he met on Gemini. Deke peels Nishi and me apart and lifts my feet off the floor with his hug.
Despite the warmth of their welcome, the atmosphere in this spaceport is bleak. Sagittarians are vying for seats on any transport going almost anywhere, while holographic wallscreens scroll through the never-ending columns of names on the waiting lists for every flight. The screens that aren’t crammed with words are blasting images of wounded Sagittarians from the fighting that’s broken out between them and the migrant Scorp workers on Wayfare, one of the House’s moons. The sight brings to my mind the burned bodies on Gemini, and I have to swallow to clear the taste of ash from my throat.
As Nishi nimbly leads us to the exit, I’m jostled on every side by the tizzy of travelers tunneling in the opposite direction, all desperate for a way off this planet. We seem to be the only ones trying to get in.
Once we’ve left the spaceport, I get my first view of Centaurion’s capital city—and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The Capital is a vast Imaginarium come to life.
The buildings here are bizarre shapes and colors, their outer walls covered with diagrams, drawings, and questions: If the universe has a beginning, what came before the universe? If the future isn’t written, how is it we can predict it? If the stars guide us, what guides the stars?
There are no cars on the ground, so there are no streets, just one large, lavender landing pad in the center of the city for intraplanetary flying vehicles. All around the pad are millions of narrow pathways that wind in curving patterns through the city’s jumble of buildings, storefronts, and curiosities. I can’t discern a design in the pathways—it seems they just meander through downtown, at times abruptly ending at various destinations, though some seem more direct than others.
“Depends if you’re walking or wandering,” says Nishi, observing me observe her city. “When we’re in a wandering mood, we take a more roundabout path; but when we have a target, we’ll take the quickest route to our destination.”
I nod as I scour all the activity blooming around me. Metallic-bodied androids bustle alongside dark-haired Sagittarians in the crowds, and though I don’t see any names on the piles of pathways, everyone seems to know where they’re going. High above us is a different picture altogether.
Rows of traffic ripple the sky as vehicles imported from all over the Zodiac and spanning every time period stop at holographic traffic lights, waiting. Whenever a green light blinks on, the next vehicle shoots off. They fly so fast they vanish from view almost immediately. Sagittarians may sometimes wander on the ground, but in the air they’re like arrows: When they pick a mark, they hit it.
Nishi and Deke lead us down one of the wider pathways, past a display of decorative centaur sculptures and shops with names like Robotic Reset (a spa for androids), Startastic Tastings (a market with foreign foods from across the galaxy), and Absolutely Abyssthe (the Sagittarian economy is export-based, and Abyssthe makes up 95 percent of the exports).
Every few minutes, we come across another overstuffed souvenir station—tents filled with strange trinkets and gadgets that span everything from antiquated technologies to innovative inventions. Nishi told me Sagittarians like to collect tokens from their travels and often donate them to their city to share their curiosities with their neighbors. But today’s wanderers are hurrying up and down the street with purpose, too preoccupied to pay the stations any attention. The mood is as grim as the leaden sky.
Our pathway weaves around a triangular hotel and past an arrow-shaped archery supply store. Holographic graffiti covers the structures’ surfaces, and my gaze darts in every direction to take it all in. I think I glimpse a girl’s face drawn onto the archery store’s wall, but when I look back we’ve already turned the corner. I’m probably just seeing things, but she looked just like me.
“With everyone trying to leave the planet, we didn’t dare fly here in Dad’s Icarus,” Nishi explains, gesturing to the clogged airways above us.
“So how’d you get here?” I ask as we pass an ancient cannon, behind which a line of Sagittarians has gathered. Nishi stops walking, and we all turn to watch a girl wearing a helmet and protective gear step inside the cannon.
A moment later, fire flames out from the cannon’s backside, and I gasp as the girl rockets out—hugging her knees tight like a ball—and disappears into the far-off horizon.
Deke looks at me. “It’s really not as bad as—”
“Oh, don’t even!” I snap, shaking my head. “There is no way I’m doing that!”
“Come on, Rho,” pleads Aryll. He seems to be teeming with excitement at the concept of being launched through the air like a missile. “It looks fun!”
I point to his injured hand. “If being maimed once again is your idea of a good time.” Despite my panic, I’m relieved to see Aryll looking less sad. As I watch him in this new world, I realize for the first time how little he liked Capricorn.
“Rho, you don’t have a choice,” says Nishi, shoving me in line. “It’s the only way to get home, and we need to go. People are waiting on us.”
My panic intensifies, and I feel a line of sweat forming on my forehead. I don’t say anything because she’s right, but every cell in my body is urging me to run. This is the riskiest thing I’ve ever done—and I’ve done some deadly things, especially lately.
“Sweetzer Suburb,” says Nishi to the cannon’s operator when it’s our turn. She faces me. “You should go first—just get it over with.” My mouth is too dry to form words. “Tuck everything in,” she says, helping me into protective gear, “and roll up tight.”
She snaps on my helmet, and then a tall Sagittarian ushers me through a side door into the cannon. I tuck myself in tightly, like Nishi said, my heart bashing so violently against my rib cage that my pulse seems to echo through the chamber. Then, before I can dread it for one more second, a blast of force thrusts me through the air, and the whole world looks like the stars at hyperspeed: threads of light and a blur of textures.
I grip my knees tightly and dig my chin in, like a crab in its shell. The wind whips against the exposed skin of my neck, and my whole body aches from the strain of being so clamped up. The flight seems to last forever, and then I start to feel a falling sensation that builds until there’s a tickle in my stomach that won’t go away.
I land in a vast meadow, on a lavender bed of the most comfortable, foam-soft material I’ve ever felt. I’m helped to my feet by another tall Sagittarian, and as I’m handing him the protective gear, Aryll lands in the lavender, looking delighted, followed by Nishi and Deke.
“Wasn’t so bad, right, Rho Rho?” asks Deke, giving my arm a squeeze.
My joints are still sore from crushing everything to my chest, and my neck spasms with pain each time I move it. “Never . . . again.” My knees wobble as I speak the words.
“We’re close,” says Nishi encouragingly, and we follow a pathway far less crowded than the main route through downtown, into what looks like a residential area. On either side of us are single- and multi-family homes, each structure so strikingly different from the next in color and shape and design that the effect is dizzying.
Some homes are painted with polka dots, some with stripes; some change color depending on where you stand. Some flash films from their windows, some have chimneys branching from chimneys, and some have see-through walls. Some are built underground, some wear their staircases on the outside like exoskeletons, and some are so skinny they become almost invisible when looked at from certain angles.
After a while, we turn a corner and enter a quiet area surrounded by a sky-high hedge. We can’t see what’s on the other side, but the sight of so much gentle green soothes my eyes. I’m about to ask how much farther when Nishi turns and then vanishes into the hedge.
“It’s a hologram,” says Deke,
following Nishi through.
Aryll and I inspect the greenery. The leaves look real, smell real, even feel real . . . until I touch the spot where Nishi and Deke disappeared, and my hand goes right through the green. It’s a small holographic doorway hidden within the hedge. I step through it to the other side and find myself standing before a sprawling palatial estate.
Aryll’s mouth hangs open, and I look at Nishi in awe. “That’s home?”
She shrugs. “I hated this place growing up,” she admits, a gust of wind tossing her hair back as she stares up at her palace. “My parents were always traveling for work, and I don’t have any siblings, so to me it seemed the embodiment of loneliness.” She looks at me with sadness glinting in her amber eyes. “The Academy was my home, Rho.”
Deke and Aryll awkwardly amble away as she and I pull each other in for another hug. I don’t think I fully appreciated until now that when Ophiuchus destroyed Cancer, Nishi lost part of her home, too.
Nishi lets us into the mansion, which is just as majestic on the inside: It’s vast and echoing and glossy, and it seems to have an endless supply of kitchens and bedrooms and bathrooms and common rooms and reading rooms and White Rooms and more. White Rooms are traditional in Sagittarian homes—completely and literally white and empty of everything, they’re places where Sagittarians can go when their thoughts or surroundings grow too loud. The starkness helps them Center.
“I need to Wave Hysan.”
“He already knows you’re here,” says Nishi. “He checked in last night and said he’d come over as soon as he can.”
“How soon?”
“I don’t know, but don’t worry about him. He knows what he’s doing.” She links her elbow with mine and steers me into a big, open sitting area in the center of the mansion, filled with long paneled windows and a circle of creamy levlan couches that could seat a small army.
“Hysan’s arranged for a fleet of bullet-ships to transport people to Verity,” explains Nishi. “Guardian Ferez said all are welcome. Most Sagittarians are evacuating to our other planets and moons, but some have taken Ferez up on his offer.”
Ophiuchus’s warning thunders through my mind, and I wonder whether I should tell Nishi. I’d love to share the weight of his words with her—if only the action didn’t feel so cowardly. I have no way of knowing if Ophiuchus is telling the truth, and neither does she. The two of us raising the alarm once more would be the perfect way for him to wreak more damage to our already fragile House bonds. Once again, he’s wound me up like a toy set to self-destruct.
But this time I’m not playing Ochus’s games. I’m going to help Sagittarius.
Nishi fetches a carafe of water and some glasses, and Aryll and Deke sprawl out on separate couches. Deke rests his dirty boots on the light-colored cushions.
“Nish, where are your parents?” I ask.
“That’s sort of . . . the thing,” she says, trading a nervous look with Deke, like the one from the other day. “See, they were on House Libra the past week, so when the Marad made its threat, I kind of told them to stay there—because I was evacuating with Deke to Gryphon.”
“Nish!”
“I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want to put them in danger,” she says quickly, avoiding my gaze. “And I want to fight.”
“What about your Tracker? Won’t it give you away?” I stare pointedly at the flint device around her wrist designed to ping out her location wherever she goes, so loved ones can find her.
“Hysan taught me how to disable it,” she mutters under her breath, pouring each of us a glass of water.
I don’t know what to say. I want to yell at Nishi about family being too important to gamble with, and how this isn’t fair to her parents, and they’ll feel so awful if anything happens to her. But Nishi’s the smartest person in this room. She already knows everything I’m not saying, and she still made this decision.
My best friend is making sacrifices for this war, and I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t understand why. I put my arm around her as she sits down beside me. “It must be hard lying to them.”
“It is,” she admits, her eyes downcast beneath her heavy black bangs. “But it makes it easier, knowing they’re safe. And anyway, with them gone, we were able to bring everyone together.” She looks up, her voice regaining its usual cheeriness. “So we can all be in one place.”
“You mean us and Hysan?”
“No, she means everyone,” says Deke. “Everyone willing to fight—whom we’ve been able to reach—is crashing the zillions of rooms here.”
Nishi nods. “Now you can address us all together, and we can train as a unit for whatever the Marad has planned.”
An uneasy feeling prickles my stomach, the start of a panic far worse than the kind I felt inside the cannon. I look from Nishi’s eager face to Deke’s determined one, and I flash back to the moment Rubidum nominated me to lead the armada. I came to Sagittarius to help—but Nishi and Deke asked me here to lead.
Before I can say anything, the swooshing sound of doors opening fills the air, and soon about fifty Acolytes are crowding the bright space. A flurry of dark faces and long-cut, wide eyes blur before me as I trade touches with each one. Like Nova on the flight over, they all ask questions after introducing themselves.
“Hi, I’m Mina. Do you still believe in Ophiuchus?”
“I do.”
“Thanks for coming. My name is Wynn. Do you think Ophius is involved with the Marad?”
“Yes.”
“Chan; nice to meet you. Do you know how we’re going to defeat the Marad in just three days?”
“Not yet, but I came to help figure it out together.”
“I’m Gyzer,” says a guy with soulful eyes, a mournful voice, and coal-black skin. It’s early morning on Sagittarius, and while most of the students are still in their bed clothes, he’s one of the few who is already in his lavender uniform. “If you consider only what was within your control, where did you go wrong last time?”
“Accepting leadership,” I say without hesitation. I knew nothing of governance or war or politics. I wasn’t ready then—and I’m still not.
“Did you come here to help us or to get revenge?” asks the youngest in the group. She looks to be about fifteen. “I’m Ezra,” she adds, tossing back her hair, which is in hundreds of tiny braids.
After a beat, I admit, “Both.”
Once I’ve met everyone, they all take a seat while Nishi stays standing. “Okay, now that Rho is here, let’s launch into our progress report so we can bring her up to date.”
“What about the Libran? Has he returned?” asks Ezra.
“Not yet,” Nishi tells her. “And, guys, please hold on to all your questions for later. Updates first. Deke, you start.”
Deke springs to his feet and Waves a blue holographic diagram of the Capital into the air. “So far, the Marad has targeted the richest and most powerful parts of each House it’s attacked: Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. Given that, and the fact that it’s threatened to leave Sagittarius with Guardian Brynda’s head, we can expect it to strike somewhere within this radius, right here in the Capital.” He enlarges the diagram so that we’re seeing only the sector most likely to be in danger.
Nishi’s Tracker beams out a red holographic overlay that lines up with Deke’s and adds a new layer to his diagram. Now there are concentrations of red dots dispersed throughout the city. “This is the latest Stargazer defensive formation, sent to us by our contact in the Royal Guard,” says Nishi. “The Sagittarian government can’t legally endorse our participation in military actions, Rho, but unofficially they’re feeding us details.”
“Most of us aren’t combat fighters, nor do we have access to or experience with weapons,” says Deke. “Which is why violence is not our primary objective.” Gyzer and a few other guys grow disgruntled when they hear this, but they don’t argue, so it
’s clear this subject has already been settled.
“We’re going to be using invisibility Veils that will conceal us from others but are networked so we’ll be able to see each other.” Nishi holds up one of the collars Hysan gave her back on Gemini. “Once the fighting starts, we will back up the Stargazers, supplying weapons reloads, transporting the wounded, and bringing back reconnaissance updates on the Marad’s positions. That’s all.”
Deke shuts off his hologram. “Today and tomorrow, we will continue training in combat and weapons so that if the worst should happen, we can defend ourselves.”
“There are vials of Abyssthe available for anyone who wants to do readings,” offers Nishi.
“What happens if they attack us with Dark Matter?” asks Ezra, her elaborate braids practically swallowing her small face. “How will we defend ourselves then?”
Until now, the Marad has been attacking with brute force and advanced weaponry—not Psynergy. There’s been no evidence of any Dark Matter assaults since the armada, and with Charon back in power and still spreading his fabrications about cosmic rays from the Sufianic Clouds, most question the existence of the Psy weapon altogether. Despite the evidence Lord Neith and Ambassador Sirna presented to the Plenum on Aries, no one wants to believe in a superweapon . . . just as they don’t want to believe in a supervillain.
“The city will be shielded.”
My heart recognizes the voice before my ears do, and a torrent of blood floods my face.
“And this time, I can assure you the shields will work, because I built them all myself.”
Hysan strides into the room in an inconspicuous all-black getup and casts his green gaze around the group. He stops on my face.
“My lady . . . it’s good to see you.” A strange silence follows, but Hysan seems to be the only person in the room who doesn’t hear it.
“Great to see you again, Hysan,” says Deke, dispersing the cloud of discomfort. “How do we shield the city?”
“I’ve spoken with Guardian Brynda, and we agreed that I will deliver the shields today,” answers Hysan, who still hasn’t broken eye contact with me.