The crushing sensation of rejection fell heavily on Caledonia’s shoulders. “They’re not an option.”

Oran’s lips tightened. He had been skeptical of their aid from the start, but if he felt any satisfaction in being right, he didn’t show it. Instead, he seemed truly disappointed.

“You don’t have to use these, Cala.”

A thin, tragic laugh escaped Caledonia’s lips. The memory of Aric using his Bullets as a living shield as she threw a star blossom bomb into their midst planted itself in her mind. She would never forget the chorus of their screams or the wet sound of their dying cries. She would never forget the burnt smell of the air even as it tasted of copper and pain. She would never forget that she had had a choice and, in an instant, killed a hundred Bullets in the worst possible way.

Had there been another option? If she’d given herself another moment, would she have found a solution that didn’t leave the deck of the Titan washed crimson and black?

She still didn’t know. But she did know that once a bomb was built, the question wasn’t if it would be used, it was when.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to build them if I wasn’t prepared to use them,” she said. The anger that threaded her chest as she spoke was partly for Aric, who had created a world in which star blossoms were ever a necessity, and partly for herself, for answering that need. She was supposed to be working toward a world without this kind of fear.

“I won’t ever judge you for it.” Oran spoke softly, his eyes holding on to her and keeping her afloat. “And I will make you as many as I’m able. Just say the word.”

Using star blossoms was a terrible option. The worst she’d ever entertained. She couldn’t really imagine what Pisces or Sledge would say if they knew she was building her own. It was better that they didn’t know. Better that the decision wouldn’t rest on their shoulders.

“Not yet,” Caledonia said, and Oran released a tight breath of relief.

Then she reached out, twisted her fingers in his shirt, and pulled him back to her. She whispered, “For a minute, I actually thought skintech could be the answer. But Lir still outnumbers us and I can’t build our fleet fast enough. He’s brutal. I have to be prepared to end this one way or another.”

They stayed that way for a long time. Her head against his chest, his fingers threaded through her hair. She quietly told him about Decker being dead, about Donnally, about the murdered Fivesons who used to be Oran’s brothers, too. There was nothing she could say that he would hate or reject, because for all her growing familiarity with darkness, Oran had already been there.

CHAPTER SEVEN