For Darkness Shows the Stars

to socialize with the Posts, though it left her pretty much alone, as from all reports the Groves were taking every opportunity to spend time with the Fleet.
    Elliot busied herself with the harvest. It was sparse this year, thanks to her father’s eleventh-hour meddling with her wheat fields, but with the influx of money from renting out the Boatwright estate, they’d make it through another winter, and even have a bit of a surplus. In her spare time, she tried to devise a way to repeat her experiment in a safer way. Perhaps next year she’d bury a plot of enhanced wheat in the center of a conventional field, surrounding it with stalks that wouldn’t raise her father’s suspicions at a glance. Maybe she’d mix her grain in with the normal seeds in order to hide it from everyone.
    Maybe she’d give up on the idea altogether and be the good little Luddite she was raised to be. After all, for all she’d tried to justify her actions, she knew they were illegal. She shouldn’t have experimented on the wheat. This was where the evil began. What was the harm, the Lost used to say, in creating a wheat strain with a shorter growing time, one that would produce more grain per stalk? From there, things became slippery. What was the harm in devising a plant with such a complete array of nutrients that it would render growing anything else for food pointless? What about a plant that could subtly poison the ground so as to make it only capable of providing sustenance for that kind of plant? What about extrapolating all of that beyond the world of plants—to animals? To people?
    Her ancestors twirled in their graves.
    And as she wrestled with whether she would try it again, she avoided the barn and the lab she’d set up in Kai’s old room. It was too hard to go in there now. The instinct she had to always look first at the knothole in the door was a constant reminder of his casual cruelty. His letters themselves were something worse. The words he’d spoken to her that first night, the ones he’d shared with Olivia in the star cavern, and the ones he’d said in front of everyone at the barn had left a tender place inside of her, a rotten spot that would burst if pressed. She’d prefer not to see him, and not to spend time in the room that had once meant so much to them both.
    Elliot had kept herself so busy that she’d almost forgotten Felicia Innovation’s offer to look at her grandfather and give her expert opinion. So when she saw the Post woman walking up to the house a few weeks after the Fleet’s arrival, she was taken aback.
    She met Felicia at the door. “Have you come to see my sister?” Elliot asked. “I’m afraid she’s gone to the Groves’ for dinner today.” It was the first invitation she’d had from Olivia in quite some time.
    “That’s all right,” the older woman said. “Your sister has invited me here to examine Chancellor Boatwright. Didn’t she tell you? Apparently she wrote the baron and he consented.”
    Elliot shook her head. Why her grandfather needed the consent of Baron North to seek medical treatment was beyond her. “Better not mention that to the Boatwright,” she said. “He’s a little short-tempered when it comes to my father.”
    “That is often the case with fathers and sons-in-law, I think,” said Felicia. “I’ll follow your lead.”
    Elliot Boatwright was sleeping when they arrived in his chambers upstairs. He spent most of his time sleeping now, and when Elliot reported this fact to Felicia, the Post woman’s mouth drew into a thin line.
    “What does it mean?” Elliot asked.
    “It means he’s old, Elliot.” But Elliot knew that wasn’t all.
    Once the Boatwright was awakened and had the chance to freshen up, Elliot introduced him to Felicia Innovation.
    “It’s quite an honor to meet you, sir. You once made excellent ships. Several of the boats my husband uses in his Fleet were originally built in your shipyard. You are spoken of everywhere as a great and gracious man.”
    The Boatwright nodded his thanks and grunted a few syllables in response. He shifted half toward Elliot, and the good side of his face was a mask of frustration. He made a quick gesture, but before Elliot had the chance to react, Felicia held up her hands.
    “I know the Reduced signs, sir. I am a Post, remember? And though I’ll understand if you don’t wish to make them in front of me, I want you to understand that I see no shame in them, just as there is no shame in being