“They were arguing about you—about who ultimately keeps you.”
“I don’t know anything about it. I thought you were acting alone.” I don’t know why I’m crushed by disappointment, but I am. I thought Hawthorne came to help me because he’s my friend—my only friend. I should’ve known better. I’ve never had a real friend apart from Dune. I don’t even know how to be a friend, let alone make one.
Hawthorne squints at me, as if he notices my disappointment but not the reason for it. I straighten. “I’ll see you at first light,” he says. He lets go of my arm.
I can only nod. Entering the bedroom, I slump against the door to close it. I don’t even bother to wash my face before falling headfirst onto a pillow.
My neck is sore when I rouse from a nightmarish sleep. It’s still dark as I lie in bed, looking around at unfamiliar shadows as dark as the folds of Agent Crow’s leather coat. My heart slows, and I wish that I had thought to pour myself some water before bed.
In my dream, I’d been searching the wreckage of the airships for bodies. Coughing on rock dust, I couldn’t find anyone alive, only pieces of people—hands with red roses still clutched in their fists. Some of the mangled corpses had stumbled from beneath the rubble, their limbs crushed so that they lurched and jounced, dragging broken legs and feet. Some of the dead soldiers had twisted jaws hanging sideways and heads held at strange angles. They crowded around me, pawing my uniform, until I realized I had a silver-sphered Fusion Snuff Pulse in my hand. Pressing the button, it stole their power, rendering them dead once more.
Rising from the bed, I stumble to the bathroom. Undressing and kicking away the ugly blue clothing, I turn on the shower and step in. The heat of it soothes the kink in my neck. When I’m done, I wrap myself in a robe that I find in the cabinet. I leave the bathroom and venture into the drawing room. At the bar, I find a glass and pour myself some cold water from the tap. Sipping from it, I see Edgerton, alone and staring at me. He’s made a bed of the enormous sofa.
“Hello,” I whisper, not wanting to wake anyone else.
“Sun ain’t up yet. You shouldn’t be neither,” Edgerton whispers. He’s shirtless, his gun propped next to his hand. He’s skinnier than Hawthorne and Gilad, but he has the wiry muscles of someone who knows how to fight.
“I had a bad dream.” It’s such an awkward thing to say. I immediately regret it.
He doesn’t know what to make of me standing in front of him with wet hair, in a robe that’s four sizes too big, its hem dragging on the ground, sleeves hiding my hands. “Oh,” he replies. “I despise bad dreams.”
“I do, too.”
“You gotta close the door on ’em.”
“How do I do that?” I set the glass down. He has my full attention.
“You gotta tell your friends about ’em—talk it out—no matter how many times it takes, and then poof”—his closed hand opens and his fingers spread apart—“the monsters go away.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“I’m your friend.”
“You are?”
He nods.
“Why?”
“Because when you look at me, you’re seein’ me, not some good-for-nothin’ cold-water hick from the mountains of Swords. You can tell me about your demons—I’ve experience with ’em.”
Sitting beside him on a fluffy chair, I tell him about the dismembered corpses, the hands that don’t match their arms, the heads on sideways. I leave out the part about the Fusion Snuff Pulse. I’m forbidden to tell him, and he’d be in danger from the authorities by knowing it. He listens, not making a sound until I finish.
“Erebody dies, Roselle. It were their time. This is war. Nobody gets to pick when they go or how. It just happens when it happens. Ain’t no sense worrying about it.”
“They were murdered, Edgerton.”
“Most of ’em Swords done some murderin’ of they own—it’s been going on longer than the few days you’ve been in it. We’re soldiers. We kill things. We get killed by things. That’s the job. You want a different job, you picked the wrong birth order and the wrong Fate to be born into.”
“What if I don’t want to kill things—what if I want to save things?”
“You mean, not be a secondborn Sword?”
“Yes.”
“If there were a choice, what Fate would you pick?” he asks.
I chew on my bottom lip, thinking. “I don’t know. They all have drawbacks because I’m secondborn. I have no voice in any Fate.”
“That’s never gonna change. You have to make peace with it or it’ll destroy you.” He reaches for the strap of his gun. Fishing through a compartment on it, he extracts a white stamp wrapped in cellophane. “I have a chet. I was savin’ it for something really bad. Here,” he says as he extends it out to me. “You can have it. It’ll relax you.”
“No, you keep it.” I rise to my feet, not taking his offer. “I have to be sharp for the press conference.” Edgerton nods and puts it back.
“She’s too strong for that, Edge,” Hawthorne says from the archway. He has his arms crossed, his back against the wall.
“How long have you been there?” I ask. My face burns with embarrassment.
“We all have night terrors,” Hawthorne replies sympathetically.
“Hammon has bad ones.” Edgerton sits up and reaches for his shirt, dragging it on. “Sometimes I have to hold her all night, which ain’t as easy as it sounds cuz neither of us is allowed in the other’s capsule.”
“You and Hammon are . . .”
“She’s my girl.”
“But that’s . . .”
“I know. That’s why we hide it. I’m telling you cuz you’ll find out anyway. You see erething. Are you gonna keep my secret?”
I nod. “You wouldn’t have told me if you thought I wouldn’t.”
“You’re right. You strike me as someone who has secrets of her own that are a lot bigger than mine. You’re no turner.”
“I thought Hammon and Gilad—”
“They’re best friends,” Edgerton interrupts, “but she and me has always been together.”
“Ham and Edge,” Hawthorne acknowledges.
A door opens down the hall, and a blurry-eyed Clara Diamond shuffles into the drawing room, almost running into Hawthorne. “Ugh, why are you people up when you don’t have to be?” she asks, combing a hand through her hair. She trudges to the bar and inputs a selection for coffee. It arrives piping hot in the instant-carousel unit. She takes a sip from the mug and looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Ah, good, you’re awake. We have to get started on your look. Follow me.” She walks toward my bedroom.
“You have to get started on your look,” Edgerton teases me softly. I reach for the pillow on the chair and toss it at him. He catches it, his laughter following me as I trail Clara.
I admire Clara’s lavender-colored hair as she spends the next couple of hours styling mine by hand, not leaving it to the bathroom unit’s automated groomer. She arranges it in long, loose curls, then applies cosmetics to my face, sighing over every scrape that she finds.
Emmitt breezes into the bathroom in a whirlwind with clothing draped over his arm. “I had seamstresses up all night creating this masterpiece for you, Roselle, even though I know you won’t appreciate it.”
He carefully unwraps a Tropo uniform unlike any I’ve ever seen. The top is made of two different fabrics, suede and silk. The suede corset squeezes me at the waist and fits so tightly, it makes it hard to breathe. I shrug into it, and Clara fastens the line of golden hooks and eyes along my spine. The beautiful beige suede creates an hourglass effect.
A beige silk panel, sewn into the bodice of the suede just above my breasts, creates the neckline and the sleeves. It’s so fine as to be transparent, showing off my collarbone and shoulders. The neckline at midthroat has a thicker panel of silk like a choker. Trousers of the same supple suede fit me like a second skin. Knee-high, matte-black leather boots finish the outfit.