For Darkness Shows the Stars

hem-dropping would disguise the fact that they had been made for someone smaller all around. And even the nicest of them featured the pale, drab Luddite colors. She finally settled on her darkest dress—the faded black mourning gown she’d worn four years ago at her mother’s funeral. It didn’t fit quite right, since she’d filled out a lot since she was fourteen, but it would have to do. She brushed her long black hair and pinned it up so it fell loose down her back, realizing even as she did that it hadn’t been cut in four years, either. Her mother used to trim it for her. Lately, she just braided it to get it out of the way.
    It was an all-too-common occurrence around here. Hasty repairs, because Elliot hadn’t the means to really fix problems, stopgap deals struck with debtors who deserved repayment, pleas to the North Posts to be patient a little longer while Elliot tried to hold the estate together and bring in another harvest. Who had time to mess with clothes and hair?
    By the time she met her sister at the front door, their neighbors Horatio and Olivia Grove had joined her. The Groves were another old Luddite family, though their estate was a fraction of the size of the Norths’. Horatio had inherited the estate three years ago as a young teen, and together with the help of his Posts, had managed to make their orchards and vineyards quite profitable by the time he was twenty. Elliot often wondered if she would have been capable of the same, had she been more talented at battling her father.
    “A dress, Elliot?” Horatio asked wryly as she greeted him. “Not to be outdone by these fashionable Posts?”
    “Oh, so you know what they wear?” she asked.
    He chuckled and nodded at his little sister. Olivia Grove was clad in a scarlet gown Elliot had never seen before, and she was pretty sure the sour expression on her own sister’s face was due to wondering if her icy blue dress looked tired and dingy beside it.
    “Got it for her in Channel City this summer,” Horatio said. “There are Posts all over there now, all of them dressed in the gaudiest outfits you’ve ever seen—” He cut himself off as a sun-cart pulled up outside the door, carrying Felicia Innovation and Donovan Phoenix. “A bit like that, actually.”
    “I think you’ll like them, Horatio, turquoise overcoats or not,” she said.
    “I know I will.” He grinned. “They have sun-carts. They’re my new best friends.”
    Elliot flashed her friend a quick smile, but it evaporated quickly as another sun-cart crested the drive. She felt more than saw Kai in the second cart, the way you can tell when the sun hits a patchy spot of cloud on an overcast day. The chill reached her before she even caught sight of his cold expression, of the way he was still steadfastly refusing to look in her direction. But she refused to give in to the temptation to smooth her skirt or her hair as the cart pulled up with Andromeda behind the wheel. She wondered if Kai thought she’d changed as much as she thought he had. If so, it could hardly be for the better.
    Elliot’s features, which had been harsh and solemn even when she was younger, hadn’t softened with age. Her dark brows were thick slashes over the deep-set, almond-shaped eyes she’d inherited from the Boatwright side of the family. The round snub nose came courtesy of her grandfather as well, and the skin that turned brown in the sun, then sallow in the dark winter months. She’d also gotten his full lips, though, and her black hair took on ruddy highlights every summer. But Elliot was no beauty, and she knew it.
    Her mind’s eye was filled with the shade of Ro’s new scarf, the deep verdant green that had suited her more than any of the tans and browns she’d worn her whole life. Elliot had never envied Ro—not her fair face nor her bright hair, nor the easy happiness with which she greeted every day. And she wouldn’t start now. Nothing, not even presents from Kai, made up for the fact that Ro was Reduced.
    “Hello!” Horatio called, waving at the Posts. “Pleasure to meet you! My name is Horatio Grove—I live on the estate next door. That one’s my sister, Olivia.”
    “Good morning,” said Andromeda, nodding. “I assume you are the Groves we have to thank for the bushels of apples sent to the Boatwright house.” Andromeda’s every word seemed to be carefully weighed before it was allowed to pass her lips, and even as she spoke, Elliot noticed her unusual eyes