“What do we do in that case?” I ask.

“We’ll attack anyway,” the Prime says grimly. “If Reed is found out, we’ll have to assume that the General has learned about our plan. I’ll leave a security detail behind to protect Powder Town, and the fleet will head east, hopefully to confront him on the plains before he can attack us here.”

There’s more discussion about logistics—the blast barrels and offensive attacks, but Reed and I are dismissed.

“I’ll see you in Bedrock at midsummer,” Reed says to me on the steps of Prime Hall. Nearly a full year from now. The enormity of that wait hits me for the first time. I’m agreeing to leave my pack in the General’s clutches until this plan can be executed. Bay will be a year old by the time I’m reunited with her.

“I won’t see you in the morning?” I ask. “Before you leave?”

He shakes his head. “Better to head out early, before crowds gather. I don’t like all those eyes.”

“You don’t like them? Have you seen the way they watch me? Have you heard what they’re saying?”

“Yes, and I’m starting to feel left out. Shouldn’t I be a god too? We’re related, after all.” He smirks.

“Very funny.” I touch my lodestone through my shirt. We look out over Powder Town. Down in the clearing, three masts stand proud, the makings of a fleet. So much has to go right for this to work, and the stakes are too high for us to fail. I turn to Reed. “If you betray us, I will kill you myself,” I tell him. “I will draw my blade across your neck, and I won’t feel bad about it.”

His face blanches. “Gods, Delta. And here I was, thinking you were starting to trust me.”

“There are varying degrees of trust. I trust that you want to do the right thing. I pray that you will.”

Reed swallows, looks away. “He called me a traitor before I killed him,” he says, talking more to the horizon than me. “Did you know that? The General’s Second. He said I was a traitor and a coward and disloyal to the gods, that I would rot . . . somewhere. I’m not sure where, exactly. I’d slit him open by then. But it’s interesting, how each side thinks they are the valiant ones.”

“Our side doesn’t drug people.”

“But this side still kills. They do what they think is necessary.”

“What do you think is necessary, brother?”

He almost flinches at the term. He touches his lodestone, feeling it through his shirt. As he looks out over Powder Town, I take in the slope of his nose, his wide eyes, the shade of his hair. How is it that we can share so many features, when Indie and I, also half-siblings, never looked like blood?