“There’s a poetic balance between the perfect amount of leverage and consequence, don’t you think? You’ll of course want to take your time to agree with me, I’m sure; doing so too readily might wound your pride. Believe me, I understand. Very prideful here. Guilty.”

At bay seventeen they ascended a ramp into a small, well-used asteroid tug. It was a simple box with oversized drive cones on either side, and a big, retractable claw suspended underneath. The name on the side said ODIAT. “Forgive the temporary state of our mount. She’s all I could do on short notice.” Then, cheerfully: “On the bright side, she’s powerful, and with surprisingly few amenities!”

Aptat set Naecia carefully down on the floor of the cramped deck and went to the console. Unable to turn her head, she had very little range of vision, but the Switch Drive was there.

“I’m going to get us out of the city, but we’ll need to hurry on after that. The Scythin round Aszerat as we speak.” They projected a star map out from the console. “Oh look, there’s Drev! Your mother and brother. How many years has it been? You can see them again today, in quicker than the spin of a pulsar.”

She was crying. All the way. Sucking up breaths of air soured by the coming surrender. Aptat had her cold. Absolutely. Dead to rights. Of course, she would save her family. The ramp began to close. Like the end of a story. After all of her efforts, she’d failed. It was over.

Aptat came up alongside her, opening their mask, looking down with a sharp-toothed grin. “This situation here? This would be checkmate.”

And then their head exploded.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The forced reminiscence complete, I stood, finally, and stared at the hollowed out and desiccated corpse of Jecca, the one who had awakened to the world beyond the Scythin and fled. Taking an ashy breath, I reached into the cavity of their chest, through flaking tissues that crumbled beneath my probing fingers. And then, something solid. Non-biological. I lodged my fingers in the center gap between the tines and pulled. A loud crunch sounded, along with a billowing of evaporated flesh. And again. Until it came free. And then I had it. The Chime. The Note of Jecca.

It was as long as my arm, a perfect object. Simple. Beautiful. Three-quarters of its length were a symmetrical pair of parallel arms, flared to sweeping and poetic swirls along the outer edges. A cosmic tuning fork. I wanted to hear it.

I heard something else. A voice in my ears. I fell back into myself, as if disconjured from a spell, seeing my surroundings as they were. The voice was urgent, panicked.

“Attacked...

“Switch Drive...

“Aptat...

“Stolen...

“Return.”

“Wait, wait,” I said, rushing into the present. “Izairis?”