I perked up. I’d never heard that before.

“As long as I’m here,” Mother said, “selling on this corner, they can’t ignore us. They can’t pretend their cover-up worked. They have a living reminder that they lied.”

It was… one of the most truly Defiant things I’d ever heard. But it was also so terribly wrong. Because while my father hadn’t been a coward, he had been a traitor. Which was worse though?

Right then, I realized that my problems went deeper than Jorgen’s pep talk could fix. Deeper than my worry about the things I’d seen, or my father’s treason.

I’d built my identity around not being a coward. It was a reaction to what everyone said about my father, but it was still part of me. The deepest, most important part.

My confidence in that was crumbling. My pain at losing my friends was part of it… but this fear that there might be something terrible inside me… that was worse.

The fear was destroying me. Because I didn’t know if I could resist it. Because I didn’t know, deep down, if I was a coward or not. I wasn’t even sure what being a coward meant anymore.

My mother settled down next to me. Always so quiet, so unassuming. “I know that you wish I could celebrate what you’ve done—and I’m proud, I really am. I know that flying has always been your dream. It’s just that if they were so callous with my husband’s legacy, I cannot expect them to be careful with my daughter’s life.”

How did I explain? Did I tell her what I knew? Could I explain my fears?

“How do you do it?” I finally asked her. “How do you put up with the things they say about him? How do you live with being called a coward’s wife?”

“It has always seemed to me,” she said, “that a coward is a person who cares more about what people say than about what is right. Bravery isn’t about what people call you, Spensa. It’s about who you know yourself to be.”

I shook my head. That was the problem. I didn’t know.

Four short months ago, I’d thought I could fight anything, and had every answer. Who would have thought that becoming a pilot would end with me losing that grit?

My mother inspected me. Finally, she kissed me on the forehead and squeezed my hand. “I don’t mind that you fly, Spensa. I simply don’t like leaving you to listen to their lies all day. I want you to know him. not what they say about him.”

“The more I fly,” I said, “I think the more I’ll know him.”

My mother cocked her head, as if she hadn’t considered that.

“Mom…,” I said. “Did Father ever mention seeing… strange things? Like a field of eyes in darkness, watching him?”

She drew her lips to a line. “They told you about that, did they?”

I nodded.

“He dreamed of stars, Spensa,” my mother said. “Of seeing them unobstructed. Of flying among them as our ancestors did. That’s it. Nothing more.”