For Darkness Shows the Stars

will discover what I’ve done, because I know I did it for the right reasons. I’m not scared that we’ll all starve next winter, because I hold in my hands the instrument of our salvation.
    And most of all, I’m no longer scared that I made the wrong choice three years ago. Whatever it meant for us, I know that I was meant to stay here. For them. For this wheat. For the future.
    Even if I never see you again, I remain,
    Yours,
    Elliot

Fourteen
     
    AS THE AUTUMN DREW to a close, bringing with it swifter sunsets and frigid days, Elliot was glad her duties kept her far, far away from the shipyard and Kai. He’d made his position clear at their last meeting. She saw no reason to try to speak to him again. But there was plenty of work to be done, especially since her father still hadn’t returned from visiting his Luddite friends down south. She had to prepare the Reduced barracks and the Post cottages for winter, she had to throw a harvest feast for all the laborers on the estate, and she had to make all arrangements for the food they’d be importing to tide them over to spring. Elliot found that sometimes a whole afternoon would pass without her thinking of Kai—much as it had been before he’d returned.
    But she dreaded the coming dark months. For the past two years, she’d spent the depth of winter reading or working on her experiments. Now that her experiment had succeeded, she wasn’t sure what she’d have to occupy her time, other than thoughts of the boy staying on her grandfather’s estate and internal debates about whether she should risk replanting the wheat she’d worked so hard to develop.
    Late in the season there was a break in the weather, a mild spell, like autumn’s last gasp of warmth before winter took charge. And in the midst of the mild days and nights, an invitation arrived on the North estate to a party. Both of the Miss Norths were invited, but when Tatiana heard that every Post on the North estate was invited as well, she declined. At that point, Elliot thought she had better go, lest the Innovations think her absence was due to the same reason.
    “They say he may marry Olivia Grove,” Dee told her as they walked through the woods on the way to the Boatwright house on the night of the party. They brought Jef and Ro with them, though the young Post boy was growing frustrated with Ro’s regular detours off the path in search of remaining fall leaves. He’d complained twice to his mother, who’d just shrugged and smiled. He’d learn patience with the Reduced. He’d have to, to work on the estate.
    “I believe you’ll find that rumor originates with Tatiana’s housemaids.” Elliot’s sister had grown obsessed with the notion, probably because of how much it terrified her. Elliot would allow no other possibility, not even as she noticed how Tatiana had begun incorporating stronger colors into her wardrobe and had even added a braided gold fringe to her fall jacket. That a Post would marry had been Tatiana’s first shock; naturally it would give way to the fear that a Post would marry into a Luddite family.
    “Oh, no,” Dee said. “It’s all the talk among the Posts at the Grove estate.” Dee pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She grew larger by the day, and Elliot wondered how long it would be before she was unable to perform her duties. Her father would surely force Dee to be confined in the birthing house then. “Apparently he and the other two Cloud Fleet captains are over there constantly. They say Miss Grove is in love with him.”
    “Since when does being in love with someone mean you get to marry them?” Elliot asked. “Olivia Grove is fourteen years old. She’s not marrying anyone.”
    “You only say that because you’re a Luddite,” Dee replied. “I was fourteen when I met Thom, and we had Jef a year later. Things work differently for Posts.”
    Elliot brushed her fingers over the back of her hand, remembering being fourteen. Not so differently. Of course, things hadn’t worked out so well. “What makes you think that a rich free Post could love a Luddite?”
    Dee gave her a look. “I have heard of a poor bonded Post doing so.”
    “That’s different. The poor Post”—this hypothetical poor Post who might have once, long ago, loved some hypothetical Luddite—“would have something to gain.”
    “I don’t believe it,” Dee insisted. “And there’s something to gain even for free Posts. They’d bring money to the estates in