She sets her empty tray on his, but he shoves them back to her. They struggle to push the trays in front of one another until Victoria finally cracks a thin smile.

“Don’t you have any thinking to do?” she asks him. “I’m sure your genius ideas are needed somewhere.”

“As a matter of fact, yes, they are needed.”

He grabs the trays from her, making the act seem like a grand, gentlemanly gesture. Victoria rolls her eyes.

“I’ll see you three later.”

And he leaves.

At nine-thirty, I head to Glacia’s room and knock on her door. She doesn’t answer. I stand there, hopeful, even though it’s obvious she isn’t in her room. She must’ve already left so she can figure out how to work the StarPad.

But when I get there, Glacia is nowhere to be found. She’s not waiting near the StarPad or standing along any walls or sitting in any lounge chairs.

Where is she?

I sit on a couch and wait. The leather is cool and makes squishy noises when I shift around. People come and go. Ellin and Michael arrive a few minutes later, but Glacia isn’t with them. When Ellin sees me, her smile falls.

“She didn’t tell you, did she?”

My chest tightens on itself, but I try to look more curious than worried. “Tell me what?” I ask, keeping my voice as level as possible.

“Captain Fallsten assigned her to the night shift, nine to six.” Ellin says. “I didn’t find out until this morning. Apparently Captain Fallsten called her after dinner yesterday and sent her straight into training. She was pretty upset.”

I swallow hard to loosen my throat. My arms tingle with numbness.

“So…still want to do this?” I ask, unsure.

“Of course!” Ellin says cheerfully, softening her expression for me.

She and Michael walk up the short ramp, me trailing. My legs are weak again. It’s not fair.

Ellin hands me a pair of tendril gloves. She looks at the panels and mumbles quietly to herself as she tries to figure out how to activate the displays. After multiple failed attempts, an officer hustles over and helps her activate the overhead projectors. A massive hologram of the Milky Way fills the center of the StarPad.

Yup, Glacia would love this.

The officer teaches us how to activate different regions of the galaxy and look at individual stars. We can even expand the image and trace constellations, our fingers drawing faint white lines through the hologram. We can draw real constellations or create our own. Ellin forms some random shape that only she can see, because I have no idea how she thinks her drawing is a tree.