For Darkness Shows the Stars

quickly took her leave of her hosts and turned toward the path leading home. If she ran, she’d have more time to prepare herself, but then again, she might be in worse shape.
    What was certain, however, was that she had no time to think about Kai. She rubbed her hands over her wrists, which still tingled where he’d touched her. His grip hadn’t been hard enough to hurt, but it had hardly been tender, either. And his words . . . she’d known he was angry, but now she wondered if he hated her. If he’d always hated her.
    Had he hated her the day her mother died? Had he hated her the day after?
    No. She refused to believe it. Hating her now was bad enough, but she could survive it. She’d been doing well these past four years, like a fallen tree that clung to the ground and continued to grow, despite all odds. Elliot’s roots were buried deep, and nothing Kai could say would convince her that the soil was any less solid.
    The temperature had plummeted in the hours since the sun had set. They’d have a frost tonight. Above her head, branches waved in the autumn wind, sending dry, crackling leaves into the air, and swirling them into eddies and tiny tornadoes at her feet. She couldn’t see them well in the darkness, but she heard their crunch and whisper, and caught glimpses of their movement. They were lucky in the islands, she had always learned. Lucky to be free of wolves and bears and giant, fanged-toothed cats. There were rabbits, and possums, and egg-eating stoats, but nothing that could hurt a person. She’d read stories, growing up, where children were attacked by lions or eaten by wolves, but she’d never feared the darkness or the forest. The Luddites ruled the world.
    Elliot was barely one hundred meters down the road when she heard the crunch of gravel beneath wheels. She turned, and saw a sun-cart gaining on her, its headlights unlit, even in the darkness. The cart pulled up beside her. Andromeda and Ro sat inside.
    “Get in,” said Andromeda. “I’ll take you back.”
    Absolutely not. “This isn’t necessary—”
    “Of course it is,” the older girl said. “You’re terrible at protecting them, but you’re all they’ve got.”
    Elliot climbed into the car. “I am doing this because the cart will get me back to my house more quickly.”
    “I am doing this,” the Post girl said, her tone world-weary, “because I don’t think I’ve been entirely fair to you.”
    That was putting it mildly. In the privacy of the darkness, Elliot thought it safe to roll her eyes.
    “Yes,” Andromeda said, as if in agreement. “I don’t have too much pride to admit that.” She took off. Within moments, the sun-cart seemed to have reached full speed—or at least as fast as it went on reserve power. They whizzed past the shadowy silhouettes of trees and bounced hard over tree roots and dips in the trail. Elliot couldn’t even see the path in front of the wheels, but it didn’t seem to slow Andromeda down. At least she could be certain of reaching home in time. She might even catch up to her father.
    “Besides,” Andromeda went on, “there must be some reason you can collect all these Post admirers. And I hear Ro here has excellent taste.”
    In the darkness, Elliot squeezed Ro’s hand. How much of their conversation could the Reduced girl pick up? “I thought the prevailing opinion would be that someone Reduced doesn’t know any better.”
    “My mother was Reduced,” said Andromeda. “Still had more sense than most people I know.”
    She steered them around a corner at a speed Elliot found imprudent, given the darkness. She couldn’t see a thing ahead of her. “Don’t you want the headlights on?”
    Andromeda grunted and flicked a switch. Elliot and Ro flinched in the sudden glare, but Andromeda didn’t slow down at all.
    “Care to tell me what your father has against music?” Andromeda asked abruptly.
    “It’s not music,” Elliot replied. “It’s control.” It was always control.
    Three years ago, Baron Zachariah North had caught wind of the unofficial orchestra operating on the North estate. Where some of the estate lords would have taken advantage of the spontaneous resource—as if they’d come across a patch of natural gas or a seam of coal—Baron North had been displeased. He’d not authorized any such endeavor, and he wouldn’t have approved of it at any rate. Music was a distraction from his laborers’ duties, much like school or books or more than the