For Darkness Shows the Stars

shuddered to think of the daily indignities they would be forced to suffer as guests of Baron North. Elliot’s father would not care that these were free Posts, nor that they were paying him good money to rent his land and labor. Station was station to Zachariah North. He’d refused even to stay and greet the Fleet, but had instead left those duties to Tatiana and Elliot, while he rode out the “indignity” of being paid and saving his workers from starvation with a prolonged visit at the estate of one of his Luddite friends.
    So much the better. Though Admiral Innovation’s letter had been all that her father deemed proper, Elliot hoped to see the Fleet settled here before Baron North returned and was forced to deal with the reality of Posts over whom he did not have complete control.
    Elliot placed her hand on the yellow plaster walls. This house needed people again. The admiral was bringing his wife and a large staff: shipwrights and metalworkers and captains of the Cloud Fleet. She hoped they would enjoy this house; enjoy the vines and the bright, sunny rooms; the shiny, worn wood floors and the creaking staircase. Elliot wondered what they were like, these free Posts who’d found success beyond the confines of the indentured estates.
    For four years she’d waited for Kai to come back, too, but he never had. Nor had he ever sent word of his whereabouts. In her dreams, she liked to imagine he’d ended up like one of the admiral’s men, content and employed. With his mechanical talent, he’d have made an excellent skilled laborer. But she’d heard too many stories of the things that happened to Post runaways. She’d heard of the dangers in Post enclaves. The brothels and the workhouses, the organ trade and the people who sold their bodies for illegal experimentation.
    Elliot let her hand drop and curl inward. She brushed her left fingers over the back of her right hand, touching each knuckle, tracing the path of each vein. She couldn’t bear to think of Kai like that. She would stick to her fantasy of him being a safely employed mechanic somewhere—though that was a hope she kept to herself. She hadn’t even shared it with Dee. After all, Thom was out there, too, and he was Dee’s common-law and the father of the woman’s babies. Kai was only a friend. Nothing more.
    One of the Reduced nursemaids appeared at the door. The Boatwright was ready to go. Elliot nodded. Somehow she’d make it work. She always did—she managed the farm, she managed her family, and she managed her own heartbreak.
    But perhaps . . . perhaps some of the Posts coming here were runaways who’d found a place of their own. Perhaps one of them had heard something of Kai and could tell her at last where he’d gone. Perhaps he was somewhere in the world, safe and happy, somewhere where a girl like her was straightening a picture frame or smoothing a bedcover in hopes of making the Post that slept there feel more at home.

Four
     
    ELLIOT WALKED BESIDE THE litter that carried her grandfather back to the great house. Behind them, two Reduced pulled a cart holding all of the Boatwright’s personal belongings. He’d attempted to argue with anyone who’d listen during the whole four-kay trip, but the Reduced were trained merely to nod, and Elliot pretended she couldn’t understand his mumbled complaints. It signified nothing, at any rate; her grandfather must be moved from his house, and the Posts must be installed there, for the good of both estates. He might be ornery, but she knew he understood that.
    As they reached the great house, Elliot quickened her pace. There were two horses on the lawn, giant, chestnut-colored things with glossy black manes and powerfully muscled legs. So these were the Innovation horses Elliot had negotiated for on top of the rent money in order to sweeten the deal for her father. Each horse was tethered to a strange, three-wheeled contraption the likes of which Elliot had never seen except in drawings. They must be the famous sun-carts, for each sported a pane of shiny, golden mirrors on the back. The Post housekeeper, Mags, was waiting on the porch, wringing her hands as the horses trampled the grass.
    “Miss, they came early. They’re already in the parlor.”
    “Thank you, Mags,” said Elliot, bounding up the steps two at a time. “Take care of Mr. Boatwright, please. I have to go in to my guests—”
    “Miss Elliot,” said Mags, laying a hand on her arm as she passed. “Perhaps