Looking at Ares, and especially looking at Ares and Pisces together, reminded her of Donnally. He reminded her of how she’d failed to save her brother. And beyond that, looking at Ares reminded her that there was someone on this ship who knew exactly what her brother had become. She could ask, and she was sure he would answer. And that certainty drove a tremor straight down her spine.

“You look like you’re doing better,” she said. “I’m glad to see it.”

“Sometimes,” he said with a shrug. He carried himself at odd angles, like he couldn’t get comfortable in his own body. Oran’s withdrawal had been easier, but so had his experience in the Bullet fleet. “Hime is a tyrant. I understand why they call her Princelet.”

Caledonia laughed. “And we are all the better for it.”

He nodded, but his lips never moved toward a smile. They seemed set around a permanent meridian, carved there by too much—pain, hardship, Silt. Whatever it was that had left Ares in this fragile state had also siphoned his capacity for mirth, leaving him with a friendly sort of melancholy. It struck a chord of regret deep in Caledonia’s heart. This boy had once been full of passions, a trickster, roving the Ghost on the lookout for any opportunity to cause mischief.

“He won’t hurt Donnally.”

At first, the words made no sense. Her mind refused them, scattering them like a puzzle she slowly pieced together again: Lir wouldn’t hurt Donnally. “Why not?”

“He’s—they have some kind of connection. I think he likes him. As much as a Fiveson is capable of liking anyone.” He paused there, then, seeming to sense Caledonia’s next question, he continued. “He’s always looked out for Donnally. Like a little brother.”

Brother.

“He’s my brother,” Caledonia growled. Her stomach clutched violently around sudden nausea.

Ares watched her with the pitying expression of someone who understood what they were witnessing and saw the futility of it.

“I know why you won’t ask me about him,” Ares said softly. “And I won’t tell you if you don’t want to know, but I will say that he’s not like some of the others. He’s never forgotten you or where we came from.”

She didn’t know how to feel. There was too much possibility packed into those words. Donnally was still her brother, he still remembered his family, but he was different. Someone else called him brother. The boy who’d taken everything they loved. Had he also taken her brother’s heart?

The nausea in her belly churned and churned. She couldn’t speak, could only lean one hand against the console behind her.

“Were you in Lir’s fleet?” she asked.