For Darkness Shows the Stars

Felicia said now, as the path ended on the shipyard beach. She stopped her horse and waited for Elliot to draw up beside her. “The Groves come to our house often for visits, but I’ve never seen you. I understand it might be difficult, to see a bunch of strangers have the run of your grandfather’s house—”
    “No,” Elliot said. “That’s not difficult. I’m glad to see it filled with people again. I think he would be, too.” She’d been avoiding the Boatwright house because of Kai. But maybe it was time to stop. However much it hurt to be near him now, a stronger impulse prevailed.
    Elliot wanted to hear Felicia’s thoughts on treatments for her grandfather. She wanted to know where the admiral planned to take this wonderful new ship of his. She wanted to hear more about life in the Post enclave. She wanted to know what Donovan and Andromeda and even Kai had seen on their travels. It had been weeks since he’d walked back into her life. She should be over the worst of the pain by now. And if avoidance wasn’t helping, then it was time to try a different method, before the Cloud Fleet finished their mission here and left, with Elliot none the wiser about their lives and their knowledge.
    She still loved the man who called himself Malakai Wentforth. She knew that. But that didn’t matter, just as it hadn’t mattered four years ago. Then, she’d chosen to stay behind. But it didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. It didn’t mean she didn’t want to stand at the edge of the cliffs and stretch her face out toward the sea, toward a world she’d never be allowed to know.

F OUR Y EARS A GO
     
    Dear Kai,
    Come back. Come back for me. I didn’t mean it. I’ve changed my mind. I can’t bear this, Kai. I can’t bear this farm, this life, this world without you.
    You’ve only been gone a month, but it feels like a year. Tatiana lives to torture me. She brings up the Posts’ exodus from the Luddite estates at every possible juncture. And Ro misses you, too. She gives me a sad look whenever I go to see her, and I am alone. She doesn’t understand where you’ve gone. I think she’s afraid you have died.
    I am afraid you have died. I hate not knowing where you are. If you’re safe, if you’re hungry, if you’re alone, if you’re afraid. I don’t know what risks you’ll take, or who you’ll meet. I don’t know if they’ll love you as I do. If they’ll protect you as I’ve failed to do. Tatiana revels in sharing with me horrible stories about what happens in the Post enclaves. I am sure they cannot all be as wicked as she says—after all, most of the runaway Posts just want better lives for themselves. But I spend my nights lying awake in my bed, praying that you do not let yourself be harmed.
    I also pray that you still care for me. That one day you will understand why I made the choice I did. That one day, I will understand it better, too, for right now, I just hate myself for it. I know it’s right, but I didn’t know how hard it would be.
    I wish there was a way to send you this letter, but I’m also glad there isn’t. Because then I would be weak enough to go through with what I’ve written above, to follow you wherever you’ve gone, and if I did, what would happen to the North estate and all the people who depend upon it for survival? So instead, I just turn this letter into another little glider to add to my collection.
    I miss you. May God keep and protect you, wherever you are in this world.
    Yours,
    Elliot

Thirteen
     
    THE WAREHOUSE OF THE shipyard was closed up tight, and Elliot wondered how the builders had enough light to work by. And yet, she could hear the sounds of industry as she approached—strange whirrings and high-pitched whines and the clank of metal upon metal. The horses trotted up the beach, and Felicia waved to a knot of figures standing outside the building. Elliot shaded her eyes from the sun and tried to identify them. The admiral, Donovan, and Kai.
    As they grew closer, she could see even more. They held long sticks in their hands and were scratching figures into the sand as they spoke. She watched as Donovan spun away from the group and began pantomiming whatever point he was trying to make by marching out the space on the sand. Kai threw back his head and laughed, then delineated his own version. They seemed to be arguing some element of design. Elliot marveled as she observed the same quick, precise movements she was beginning to realize all the Fleet