He was not her Di anymore.

He was the enemy—and it had taken six months to understand it. He wanted her dead. He did. Not just the HIVE. If he loved her, wouldn’t he have fought? Wouldn’t he still be fighting against the HIVE?

She eyed the dagger.

He hadn’t killed her at the palace, and he wasn’t going to kill her now.

Robb

The ducts of the dreadnought’s ventilation system were a lot larger than the ones on the Tsarina. He doubted he could wiggle his way through those now, having gotten a bit broader in the months since. Honestly, between running from Messiers and trying to find a mechanic to outfit him with an arm, he hadn’t really paid much attention to his growth spurt. His trousers were a little short, and his coats didn’t fit nearly as well as they had before—but it was kind of hard to find a tailor when you were a wanted war criminal.

And he definitely didn’t expect to be infiltrating a prison on his seventeenth birthday.

Not that he’d told anyone. He really didn’t want to—and besides, even he knew that mentioning it on the day Ana got arrested was in poor form.

Happy seventeenth to me, he thought. He could celebrate his birthday later. With his friends. And the boy he loved. And maybe finally tell that boy that he loved him. Yeah—he would. It’d be a fine birthday present to himself.

But first he had to find the control box, set the charges, and not die.

Not dying was imperative.

So he dropped down into the maintenance hallway at the end of the ducts and found the electrical junction, old and frightfully rusted, set the charges, and hid around a corner.

He kissed the detonator, prayed, “Goddess, let this work,” and pressed the button.

Ana

As Di raised his blade, the halogen light above them gave a whining pop—and shattered. Ana winced as darkness filled the room. An emergency light flickered on in the corner, bathing the room in a bloodred glow.

She and Di, through the eyes of a Messier, watched each other for a moment.

“CODE THREE-FIVE. SOLAR MALFUNCTION,” a metallic voice announced over the intercom.

It seemed to break the spell.

In that moment she shoved her fright down into her belly, where her scar burned, and launched herself at Di. She slammed her shoulder into his chest. He stumbled away from her, trying to keep his balance.

She jumped, swinging her handcuffed hands underneath her to bring her arms in front, and grabbed for the weapon on his belt—a mace. When did Messiers start carrying maces?

Whatever.

She slammed it into the Messier’s face again, and even though it wasn’t Di’s face, she remembered it like points in her favorite constellation. The scuff on his forehead, the slat on the left side of his mouth that creaked, the staticky tremor of his damaged voice box. She swung the mace even as tears came to her eyes.