For Darkness Shows the Stars

been good at reading the winds, yes, but not able to fly himself.
    Andromeda was still explaining the complexities of the calculations involved in determining when one might jump, the subtleties of the observations, the amount of training that her brother and Kai had undergone to be able to do both in an instant, to gauge the distance, to leap . . .
    And all the while she was doing it, she was wringing her hands behind her back and casting nervous glances at the boys with her strange, crystalline eyes. The eyes she shared with her brother Donovan. The eyes, Elliot realized, that looked like blue-green versions of the ones Kai had finally let her see.
    All three of the Cloud Fleet captains had those eyes. Those strange, superior eyes that let Andromeda drive through the woods in the dark, that let Kai wander around the barn at night without a lantern, that let all three of them stand in the sanctuary and see insects instead of stars. Kai had known, even in the blackness, that she’d been standing in the whisper zone. And he wouldn’t look at her. Kai, who had once been able to communicate so much with a mere glance—he would never let her see into his eyes. She thought it was because he was angry, but it was much worse. He was afraid she’d see it. And now she had.
    That wasn’t all. The jumps they were making—they weren’t merely improbable—they were impossible. As impossible as Donovan’s virtuoso performance on the fiddle. As impossible as Kai catching her when she fell off the horse on the beach, even though he’d been fifty meters away.
    Andromeda wasn’t scared that the boys would fall. She was scared that the Luddites on the cliff would see something they shouldn’t. Something that shouldn’t be possible at all. Something that had been impossible for generations, for the safety of the world.
    No.
    Kai.
    No, not her Kai.
    Elliot stared at Kai in horror. He was still dancing around on the ledge but he noticed her and froze. His arms dropped to his sides. Even across the gulf of years and distance, he could read her. His smile faded. His mouth opened.
    “I think I get it,” said Olivia. So did Elliot. “You mean like this?”
    Andromeda tried to grab at her, but even with her reflexes—her swift, inhuman, abhorrent reflexes—she was too late.
    Olivia jumped.
    Olivia fell.

Twenty-three
     
    THE WIND HAD PICKED up, but the most it did was catch the edges of Olivia’s russet skirts, twisting them around her like a current in a bloody river. She slammed against the stone and bounced hard, once, twice, before her body caught on a ledge of the nearest tower, a few stories below the cliff’s edge.
    “Dear God,” Horatio shouted. “Olivia! Olivia!” He rushed to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
    Elliot ran to his side and drew him back. Olivia lay crumpled there, a flower crushed beneath a boot. “Careful,” she whispered. “Let the Fleet captains go.” After all, they could.
    Already, Kai was climbing down the side of the spire, feeling out handholds in the cracks. Already, Andromeda was rummaging through the boot of the sun-cart for a piece of rope. Up on the tower ledge, Donovan was shouting directions down to Kai, easily spotting then notifying him about footholds and loose stones.
    “She’s not moving!” Horatio cried. “She’s not moving!”
    Elliot wrapped her arms around her friend. “Shh. Don’t look.” She squeezed her eyes shut, her previous outrage all but forgotten in the moment. Please, Olivia, please. Don’t be dead.
    When she opened her eyes again, Kai had reached the girl. He held her head in his hands, and even from here, Elliot’s merely human eyes could see the red that stained his skin and the rocks beneath Olivia’s body. Andromeda returned to the cliff edge with her rope and tossed it, easily, to Donovan, who caught it just as easily. Their movements were the same as always—graceful as a cat’s, precise as a machine’s.
    It was horrifying.
    Below, Kai bent his face close to Olivia’s. “She’s breathing,” he shouted, and the words reverberated across the chasm. Horatio shuddered in relief. Donovan lowered the rope, which Kai tied to Olivia. With Donovan’s help, he climbed with her to the top of the tower.
    “Can you make it across while carrying her?” Andromeda called.
    Kai looked at Elliot as he answered. His tone was flat. “Yes.”
    Of course he could. He was a superhuman.
    “Don’t look,” Elliot said softly to Horatio.