I thought it was a joke until I searched the whole ship myself, from cockpit to engine room, and found him nowhere. Momma wouldn’t even give me access to send an interplanetary message. Instead I ripped his room apart, certain that he had to have left something for me—a letter explaining himself, some trinket to remember him by, something—but he had left nothing but the hole of his absence.

It hurt. Three years later, it still hurts, but I’d almost resolved myself to the idea of never seeing him again. Plenty of people go off to die in the war on Titan. Most of them, actually. And Corvus was always more suited to stitching wounds and cooking meals than putting holes in people. He was the gentlest of all of us. He was the good one.

“You finish your tantrum yet?”

My mother stands over me. The emotions she showed during her speech are gone now, replaced by her usual icy expression.

“Thought you would be pleased by the news,” she says when I don’t speak. “Aren’t you grateful to get your big brother back?”

“No.” The lie burns on the way out, but I spit it anyway. I grind my teeth together and breathe out through my nose. “I want my ship.” So much for maintaining my dignity. I sound like a child and I know it.

My mother lets out a huff of breath that could be either a laugh or a sigh.

“The ship’s never been yours, and it never will be.”

Never. I grit my teeth as my eyes sting, willing them not to overflow. I put a hand on the wall to steady myself and rise to my feet, drawing myself up to my full height so I can look down on my mother.

“I know Fortuna better than anyone else,” I say, “and I pilot her better than anyone ever could. You know it’s true.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It’s…” I had a multitude of arguments waiting on my tongue, but I wasn’t ready for that. My mouth hangs open dumbly before I snap it shut. “The hell do you mean ‘it’s not enough’? The ship is my home, it’s always been my home, I’ve got nowhere else to fucking go!”

“Then you best stay on your brother’s good side.”