I should argue with her, try to stop her, but instead I let her fade into the night while I consider her words. She felt she had a claim on Jost. That’s why she kept him from me, but I’m not sure why. Except that he’s the last piece of Erik left. I consider the growing ache that only exacerbates the hollowness inside of me instead of filling it. That’s why she kept Jost from me and why she won’t tell me about Erik’s final moments.

Moments that are as much mine as they are hers. So what can she possibly give me now? What doesn’t she have a claim on? I tip the bag upside down and let its contents fall to the earth. It nestles there catching moonlight and reflecting it like a beacon, unwanted but undeniable in its potential.

A small crystal box.

THIRTY

BUILDINGS ARE BORN FROM SCRAPS AND FOUND materials. Babies are born to mothers. Earth blooms into a world of promise instead of mere potential as each of us rebuilds from what’s been left behind. I expected to find myself more alone than ever before. But there are people who fill my time with emergencies and concerns and even laughter.

I find a hodgepodge of rooms that I build into a home and I open it to my strange, collected family.

Sometimes in the crowded streets of our fledgling metro I think I spot my mother watching me. Other times whispers follow me. I don’t go out for weeks at a time after those days, but I’ve started telling my story to Amie. She listens in our cramped living room, without questions. But every now and then she gasps at a revelation, and I’m taken back to our bedroom in Romen. To two sisters whispering gossip in the dark. I leave nothing out, because she deserves to know everything.

A day will arrive when others come for this story and I am determined to remember it.

I will face that moment to protect my family—Sebrina, Jost, and Amie.

And when I’m finally ready to believe again, I will pull a relic of a former life from the high shelf in my closet. A small crystal box—a gift from Pryana, the girl who gave me everything that I took from her, and salvaged by Alix, the girl with a broken heart—that holds the very humanity of my mother.

Maybe one day I’ll seek the answers I haven’t found—from the woman who spies on me from the outskirts of life. I’m certain she has those answers, just as I am sure that she watches Amie and me when she thinks we’re not looking. But I’m not quite ready to hear that story from my mother.

But I share other stories—less dangerous ones. I read stories of heroes who don’t wear faces I know. Stories captured by people long since dead. I slide into books and lose myself in pages.

“Read more,” Sebrina begs as I shut the worn book. She could listen to stories all night.

“You have to sleep sometime, little night owl.”

Sebrina makes a hooting noise and I grin at her, brushing her hair back and giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. We’re settling into this quiet life at a rate I wouldn’t have thought possible. It has its difficulties, but given the choice between tilling soil to plant food or facing the Guild, I’ll gladly choose this life.

“Ad, when will Jost be better?” she asks me, and my heart skips a beat. She still doesn’t call him Dad. I wish she would.

“I’m already stronger,” Jost calls from the doorway, leaning against its frame.

“You two will have your own home soon,” I tell her, “because your dad is healthier every day.”

Sebrina screws up her face. “I like living with you. Don’t you like living with Adelice?” she asks him.

There’s a pained pause.

“Yes, I love it, but she might want her own space,” he says.

“Do you want us to leave?” Sebrina’s eyes are wide and bright. I think they look more like Erik’s eyes than Jost’s, and I shake my head.

“I want you to stay as long as you like.”

I pull the covers up to her chin and tuck them tightly around her like a cocoon. Then I sing my mother’s lullaby, aware that Jost is still here. I close the door softly behind me when Sebrina’s breathing slows into a rhythmic snore.

“I’m sorry about that,” Jost says when I step into the living room.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I tell him, moving past him to sit down.

“She’s getting attached to you.”

“And you don’t like that?” I ask him.

“No, I do.” He dares a glance at me. There is a mournful sadness in his eyes. “I don’t want you to feel trapped, Adelice. You aren’t the one who’s responsible for her.”

“A lot has changed, Jost,” I say.

But we don’t talk about the gulf between us or the loss we’ve endured. There can be no moving forward for Jost and me. The past has left a wound in both of us that can never heal. We both know that.

And yet, things have changed. Jost has changed. He’s quick with his smile and silly with his jokes. But the fire has gone out of his eyes. He’s no longer consumed by guilt and duty. Now a calm wisdom reflects from them. Perhaps he’s more like Erik than I realized. Maybe he needed Sebrina around to show me. But there’s something else. Something I don’t let myself think about even though it niggles into my dreams and lodges in my unconscious mind, playing tricks on me during the waking hours when I catch Jost looking at me.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks. He stretches out his hand and runs a finger along the outline of my techprint. The scarred skin tingles and something pushes against my mind—a thought I refuse to acknowledge even as it trembles through me.