“So I joined them. And I mourned you. As I said, it wasn’t until years later I found out there were other survivors and I realized there was a good chance you were still alive. But for years, I mourned you. I followed the rebel group west and then south, spending a few weeks or months in a dozen towns and villages, establishing connections, spreading the word: We are rising up against them. The rebels used me as an eavesdropper, a thief, a spy—I was small, I could slip in and out of places the others couldn’t. Nobody suspects a child, not even the Automae. And I mourned you.”

“I mourned you too,” Ayla choked out. “I never stopped mourning you. There was a third body next to Mama and Papa, I thought it was yours, I thought for sure it was yours. It must have been someone else’s child.”

His expression fractured. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ayla.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “After . . . After three years, the original group split into factions. Some of them remained in Rabu, some headed to Tarreen, some to Varn. There was nothing for me in Rabu. I chose to come here, to Varn. We managed to cross the border to the west and made our way to Thalen. Then, in Thalen, there was . . .”

“There was?” Ayla prompted when he didn’t finish. “There was what?”

Storme cleared his throat. “A rebel girl. Her name was Annedine.”

Ayla waited, but again he didn’t continue. “What happened with Annedine?”

“I . . .” He shook his head hard. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have named her. That is one secret I still cannot tell.”

Ayla didn’t protest. Everything else he’d told her was so overwhelming, she could leave the story of Annedine for another time. She couldn’t stop thinking about nine-year-old Storme hiding in the branches of the Bone Tree, burning, shivering. They’d both survived the raid and then come so close to dying anyway.

“But I still don’t understand,” she said, glancing up at him. “After all that, after traveling with human rebels for so long . . . how did you end up as the right hand to Queen Junn?”

“That’s another secret,” he said. He was avoiding her eyes. “Just trust me, Ayla. I know what I’m doing. The queen plucked me from obscurity. She gave me—”

He broke off, but Ayla could finish the sentence in her head. A home. She swallowed the nasty retort on her tongue. She’d fought with Storme once, fought with Benjy today. She needed to stop fighting with the people she loved.

“But . . . she’s one of them,” she said slowly.

“And it’s different here in Varn, all right? The Kinds aren’t enemies like in Rabu. Here, we live and work together. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. And the queen and I—and you—have a common enemy. A common goal. Why should I not work with her? Why should I not remain at her side?”