For Darkness Shows the Stars

seemed. Not moving, not blinking, not breathing if that’s what it took to plant this moment into reality. She didn’t care that Olivia and Donovan were holding tight to each other for comfort, that Andromeda had run off to cry, that Horatio was chattering about plants as if he could somehow bring the level of discourse in the room back to the mundane, that the sun was shining or the seeds were sprouting or that the ship lay in the harbor waiting for Kai to sail away on it.
    There are things I need to make you understand.
    Kai had never loved Olivia Grove. He’d loved Elliot— he’d loved her —all his life.
    “And I’m worried,” Horatio was saying, “that if they spread, we might lose as much as half the crop . . . Elliot?” He brought down a meaty hand in front of her eyes. “Did you hear me? Have you seen any on your seedlings this spring?”
    The estates. Right. The estates, and the people she was still responsible for. The people she would always be responsible for, whether Kai loved her or not.
    They stared at each other and then, at last, Kai closed his eyes and nodded his head, just once.
    The estates would always win.
    ON THE DAY OF the launch, Elliot stayed out in the fields all day. If she saw no one, then no one could talk her into attending. No one could force her to watch Kai sail away from her. Everyone else was going: Horatio, Olivia, and Donovan; all the North, Boatwright, and Grove Posts; and dozens more Posts who’d shown up in the last few days from Channel City with sun-carts and tents, prepared to camp out and celebrate the launch. Even her father and Tatiana were going, to keep up appearances. Dee had promised Elliot she’d take Ro to the launch. She’d called Elliot a fool, but hadn’t argued.
    Baroness Channel had come too, and had extended an invitation to Elliot to spend the summer at her estate in Channel City. Elliot was seriously considering accepting. She was bored stiff these days, and once the Cloud Fleet was gone, she’d be in dire need of the kind of distractions a vacation in a city—her first ever—might provide.
    When the sun finally dipped close to the horizon, she figured she should go inside. If she could see the sky, she’d know the precise minute he left her lands. But if she went to the house, she risked running into Dee, who was still staying in the nursery with baby Li. She’d risk losing all her nerve. So instead she stopped by the North barn, under pretense that she should make sure the dairymaids were keeping to their schedule. It was no longer her responsibility—not strictly, but old habits died hard.
    All old habits. As she passed over the threshold, she almost laughed. At last, she’d gotten her wish. If she wanted to, she’d never have to set foot in this barn again, and she’d be freed from the tyranny of that knothole. But, as always, she looked anyway, and stopped dead.
    Tucked inside lay a tiny white paper glider.

NOW
     
    Dear Elliot,
    I can wait in silence no longer, but I’m afraid I’m already too late. I am trapped between agony and hope—believing I have no right to speak, but knowing more how much I’d regret it if I did not. Tell me I’m not wrong. Tell me that, this time, you will accept my offer. Because I’m making it again. I want you with me, Elliot. It’s all I have ever wanted. I offer you everything I have—my world, my ship, my self—perhaps they will be enough to replace what I know you would be giving up if you came with me.
    Come with me.
    I know what you owe the estates. I know how many depend on you, and I know I’ve no right to want you for my own. Come with me, Elliot, and I promise I’ll bring you home in time for harvest. I’ll be happy to shorten my mission if I know I’ll spend every day of it with you by my side.
    I have loved no one but you for these four years. For all my years. I have been cruel to you. I have been unfair to you. But I have not been inconstant. I was so angry because I loved you so much. I want to believe that you still feel something for me, too, that I am mistaken in fearing you don’t, the way everyone—including you—was mistaken thinking that Olivia Grove ever meant anything to me. You can’t imagine the relief I felt when I learned she’d come to care for Donovan—and I couldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t deserve to.
    I was foolish, and I know now that I paid attention to her because it bothered you, but it was the wrong thing to do—I toyed with her, and