For Darkness Shows the Stars

months.”
    “We could always have a visiting mechanic take a look,” Dee suggested, a mischievous smile on her face.
    “Don’t you dare,” Elliot said. If it were spring, she’d consider swallowing her pride enough to ask Kai for help. But she had a few more months yet. The crops weren’t in any danger. She still had time to fix it without risking Kai illustrating her incompetence.
    By now, many of the Posts not dancing had taken out their instruments and were adding to the din. There was still an undercurrent of melody, if you listened hard enough, but with dozens of string-boxes and pipes, with the drums and the fiddle and the voices and the hand clapping, it was difficult to identify exactly what the song was.
    It was also growing harder and harder to hear the flow of conversation. Over here, a bunch of Grove Posts were talking about the likelihood of getting jobs and leaving with the Fleet. Over there, a knot of North Posts was discussing a drainage problem on the new racetrack.
    Ro came rushing up to her and broke her from her reverie. The girl was breathing hard, her face flushed, her scarf askew. She held tight to Kai’s hand, but he was a few steps behind her, their arms outstretched to their limits. Dee regarded him coldly, and Elliot did her best to keep her eyes averted.
    “Dance!” cried Ro. She held out her other hand for Elliot.
    “No, I’m fine right here,” said Elliot. As Ro captured her hand, she squeezed back to reassure her, but refused to let the Reduced girl pull her to her feet.
    Ro shook her head with gusto. “No! Dance!” She yanked on Kai’s arm to bring him forward, then tried to place his hand in Elliot’s.
    For a moment their knuckles brushed, then they each pulled back.
    “Ro, please don’t do that,” said Elliot. “I don’t want to dance.”
    “And certainly not with me.”
    Elliot’s gaze shot to Kai, but as usual, his face was unreadable. At least tonight he was looking at her, though she found herself fighting the urge to squirm beneath his gaze. His eyes had become so cold, so alien, in the past four years.
    “Certainly not,” repeated Dee. “Not with the way you’ve been treating her ever since you showed up here.”
    “Dee!” Elliot cried.
    “Oh,” said Kai. “Have I been somehow remiss in my duties as a North Post? How rude of me. Guess it’s good I’m not a North Post anymore.”
    Elliot closed her lips over a gasp.
    “None of that, boy!” said Gill. “You’re not too old for me to turn you over my knee. Your da would expect me to if he heard you talking that way about Miss Elliot.”
    “My father would be glad to know I’m no longer forced to pretend I’m happy with a slave’s lot in life.”
    Her breath became choked in her throat. That couldn’t be true. He couldn’t have been her friend all those years simply because she was the master’s daughter. Not all those letters. Not all those hours in the barn. Not what they’d shared.
    “If you are . . . ,” Kai said, and let his words hang in place.
    “Kai!” Elliot cried, and stood. It was a lie. It was a lie because he was still angry at her. It had to be. “Stop it. Stop it right now. You can be as cruel as you want to me, and I’ll bear it with no complaint. But do not take your anger out on these people who have never done anything to you.” Andromeda might hate her because of how the Post girl thought she’d betrayed Kai, but it was Kai who’d left Elliot and the others alone on the estate. They had a right to anger as well.
    “Protecting your CORs, how noble ,” he replied. “And how effective it is—at least when your father’s not around.”
    Elliot blinked, then blinked again, as her eyes began to burn. Ro started to whimper.
    “Any Post who remains on this estate is a slave, and they know it. And if they are afraid to leave, that makes them cowards as well.”
    “That’s it,” said Gill, standing and brushing crumbs of pie from his pants. “I’ve had enough lip from you—”
    “You have no right to belittle the choices made by me and mine, Malakai Wentforth, or whatever you’re calling yourself these days,” said Dee, still seated. Her voice was calm, but then again, she’d been defending her choice to stay after Thom left for years. “Not when you’re off flirting with Olivia Grove all night. She’s a Luddite, too, don’t forget.”
    “Olivia has no love for the estate way of life. She knows we’re the future and embraces it.”
    “Easy