We didn’t speak, not at first. We just hugged each other, hard, knowing it was real, knowing we wouldn’t be pulled apart again. I heard noises from the rest of the ship, but they might as well have been in another universe for all I cared. I’d got my sister back.

We didn’t need to say much, not at first, and we didn’t need alien skulls to flash our thoughts to each other. There had always been a language between us that didn’t need words, one that had nothing to do with dead aliens or the bony gubbins they left us. It was just that we were sisters and we knew each other better than any one else could.

It was a long time before Adrana pulled back from me enough to take me in as a whole.

‘What did they do to you?’ she asked.

And I gave the only honest answer I could. ‘They didn’t do anything. I did it myself. I knew what I was doing. I’m Fura Ness and I chose to become what I am.’

‘If I didn’t know you already,’ Adrana said, ‘I think you’d frighten me.’

‘Good,’ I said.

‘They say the glowy changes you.’

‘Lots of things change you. If it’s in my grey already, it can stay there. I like what I am now.’ I flexed my fingers in her hand. ‘Even these tin fingers. They’re not so bad. I can feel more through them with every day.’ I paused. ‘We’ve taken the Nightjammer. It’s ours now, not Bosa’s. We own this ship, and we can do what we like with it.’ I knew I was glossing over a thousand hard things we’d need to do before the ship was truly ours, but I also knew we’d find our way around every problem, one at a time, because we were a crew now.

‘Do you think it’ll get us back to Mazarile?’ Adrana asked.

‘It could,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think there’s anything there for us now.’ And I knew I had to get the truth out now, before it festered any more and started poisoning what was between us. ‘He’s gone, Adrana. Father’s gone. He died.’

‘Died?’ she asked softly.

‘He wasn’t well when we left. We knew that. After I got back, it just got worse. But you mustn’t blame yourself.’

‘Blame myself?’

I’d said the wrong words, and once I’d have taken more pains to spare her feelings, but they were out there now so the best I could do was soften them. ‘It was a strain, all the worry we put him through. He started telling himself you were dead, because it was easier than clinging to the hope that he’d see you again. I read your obituary, Adrana. Just before I left.’

‘When did he die?’