Thrym cupped the side of her face with a gentle hand. “It’s about to start raining. Let’s get inside.”

Romy tilted her head back to stare up at the sky and the angry clouds wrung out their water from far above her. It was breathtaking.

She untangled her arm from Thrym’s and stood in front of the shelter, letting the rain wash over her skin. The raindrops were warm and refreshing. She pulled her fingers through her hair, letting the water run through.

“Romy, get inside, you’ll get soaked,” Elara shouted. “Trust me, it’s cool the first time—until you have to sleep in wet clothes.”

Romy stayed where she was for another minute, riveted by the sight, and then ducked inside.

* * *

Romy was glad she’d listened to Elara. The rain showed no signs of abating over the next two days. Their flimsy shelter threatened to collapse upon them every second as the wind battered the structure from all sides. Elara said it was a superstorm, a result of global warming forcing too much energy into the weather systems. It was like five pre-global-warming storms put together.

Deimos somehow clung to life, his nanotech doing everything it could to tether him to this world. But his breathing had turned from rattling to stuttering that morning and he hadn’t regained consciousness at all since she’d found the knot.

Phobos spent most of the time staring at his dark-haired counterpart. He hardly spoke, didn’t sleep—just stared at the struggling body of his brother. It was the best and worst part of belonging to a knot. Living together was joy, but for one part to be ripped away was torture. Romy herself felt like her insides were being cut into shreds. And she wasn’t sure Phobos could make it without his twin.

“If Elara hadn’t flown into K4 we would have never crashed.” Phobos’s voice was hoarse from disuse. “Deimos wouldn’t be lying here like this.”

It was the first time he’d spoken in two days.

Romy shared an uncertain look with Thrym. Phobos was upset and lashing out. But she caught a glimpse of the distraught expression on Elara’s face and couldn’t let it slide.

“We can’t think that way, Pho,” she said quietly. “We were one of the last knots to get to the docks. We got the worst ship.”

“Because of Elara,” he said bitterly.

It was true, Elara always took the longest to prepare, but. . . .

Thrym shook his head. “We’re in a crappy situation. It’s not fair to point fingers. If we thought that way then it could be said that the blame is on you and Deimos. If you hadn’t landed us kitchen duty, we wouldn’t have been so tired and would have been more likely to wake at the first alarm. Maybe it’s Deimos’s fault he’s here like this.”