She found her Smarteye and fought back a wave of fresh tears. If Liv hadn’t stolen it, would she still be alive? Would she be alive if Aria had given the Eye back to Sable on the balcony?

It nauseated her to think of Hess and Sable’s meeting. Their deal to go to the Still Blue together meant turning their backs on countless innocent people. She thought about Talon and Caleb and the rest of her friends in Reverie. Would they be chosen to go? And what about Perry, and Cinder, and the rest of the Tides? What about everyone else? The Unity was happening again, and it was more horrific than anything she’d imagined.

The thought of seeing Hess made her stomach turn, but she needed to. She’d connected him with Sable. She had done her part in helping him find the Still Blue. Now he needed to follow through on his part of the deal—and if he failed her, she’d contact Soren. She didn’t care how it happened. She needed Talon back.

Pulse racing, she applied the Smarteye. The biotech worked, attaching to her eye socket. She saw that the recordings were gone. Only the icons for Hess and Soren remained on her screen. She tried Hess and waited. He didn’t come.

She tried Soren next. He never showed either.

35

PEREGRINE

Later, Perry climbed up to the roof of his house and watched the Aether coiling in the sky. He’d plunged into the ocean after Kirra left, needing to wash her scent from him. He’d cut through the waves until his shoulders burned, then returned to the compound, his body tired and numb, his mind clear.

As he rested his head against the roof tiles, he could still feel the movement of the ocean. Closing his eyes, he drifted on the blurry edge of a memory.

He remembered the time his father took him hunting, just the two of them, on the afternoon Talon was born. Perry had been eleven years old. A warm day, the breeze as soft as a breath. He remembered the sound of his father’s stride, heavy and sure, as they’d walked through the woods.

Hours passed before Perry realized his father wasn’t tracking, wasn’t paying attention to scents. He stopped abruptly and knelt, looking Perry in the eyes in a way he seldom did, spots of sunlight dancing on his forehead. Then he told Perry that love was like the waves in the sea, gentle and good sometimes, rough and terrible at others, but that it was endless and stronger than the sky and the earth and everything in between.

“One day,” his father had said, “I hope you understand. And I hope you’ll forgive me.”