“The Orbitos creators knew that if the four thousand ever found out about the betrayal, they’d need protection from you.”

Romy stared at her pack with unseeing eyes.

“And so each of the four thousand has a built-in safety . . . which triggers when killing a human being.”

“Enough!” Houston shouted. “You’ve told them too much, Atlas! Don’t be a fool. We’ve worked too hard and too long for this.”

And what was the safety, Romy wondered. To go insane? That was how she felt. To die from lack of sleep? Or to stop functioning altogether? She wanted to lie down, right here, and stare at nothing. Was that what it did?

Her eyes closed as the terrible truth settled upon her. Something inside her was broken.

Everyone was shouting at each other. Houston was screaming at her knot. And Romy was just too tired to deal with it all.

“It was him?”

She jumped at the words, glancing over her shoulder at Atlas.

He studied her intently. It reminded her of his expression when they first met. He’d looked at her like she was an experiment.

She didn’t answer.

“If he hurt you, he got everything he deserved,” Atlas said in a low voice.

Did one unwilling kiss, a forced caress, a few pushes, and threats justify killing a man? Romy looked up at Atlas, who watched her still.

You didn’t mean to kill him, his expression seemed to say.

But she had.

She should feel remorse.

But she only felt terror at the memory of his blood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Romy walked at the back. She couldn’t be near Atlas until she knew he was telling the truth.

The ringing had disappeared just before daybreak this morning.

Instinctually, Romy knew its replacement was worse.

A block had descended on her mind that she couldn’t push through. It was as if the denial had made her stronger before. But now that she had confirmation something was wrong, her defence was stripped away.

A fog clouded her judgement, keeping her slightly to the side of reality. It filled her with every breath, but didn’t leave her lungs on the breath out. It was filling her mind, slowly taking over her actions. The floating sensation was back. Romy had become a shadow of herself.

Worse was the glass. That was the only way she could describe it. It felt like Romy’s sanity was encased in a glass cabinet. And she stood paralysed, scared to move for fear the glass would break.

There were cracks in the glass already, in her mind’s eye. The largest was right under her feet—from killing Lucas—with the other cracks branching out in ugly splinters all around her.

One was from Atlas’s betrayal.

Another from the thought of Knot 27 perishing.

Washing the blood from her hair.

Thrym’s avoidance.

Her knot’s wary glances.

“You all right, little skyling?”