Cy bends down to kiss me. It’s a strange thing to be kissed and not be able to kiss back. I want to scream, to hit him, to make him stay with me. My vision blurs as he hovers over me. He stares for one long moment, emptying his soul into mine, letting me collect what I can.
Cy plucks my lifeless hand off the floor with his warm hand, holding it to his chest. I put all my effort into one last plea. Tears stream out of my eyes and trickle down into my scalp.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You have the only part of me that’s important,” he whispers. “Keep it safe, Zel.”
Cy’s dark eyes, confident and steady, find mine. My eyelids finally fall, as sure as a dropped stone returns to the earth.
EPILOGUE
“DON’T YOU WANT TO PUT ON YOUR NECKLACE?”
Dyl sits with a book in her lap, legs crossed, in the sub-basement with me.
“I’m fine,” I say, but her nagging makes me smile. Just like old times. Yet her comment is on target. When I get this involved with my repairs, I sometimes hold my breath for way too long. Dyl bangs on the hood of the char, and the noise makes me jump.
“Hey!” I protest. “This is a very old char.”
“C’mon. Let’s get some lunch.” She tugs my sleeve, careful not to pull on the bandages covering my arms. The burns Micah inflicted a month ago are still raw in some places. Since I’d used up all of Cy’s brew in Aureus, I’ve been healing the old-fashioned way.
“Marka said I’ve got a new shipment of books,” she says casually, but I can sense her excitement. Since she’s been in Carus, we’ve all worked to transform Wilbert’s room into a real library. Ana and Dyl are the librarians-in-chief. They practically bark at you if you don’t treat their books like fragile glass.
I close the hood of the char with a gentle thud, then polish the shiny round logo with my sleeve. The little blue and white circle with the letters BMW sparkles when I’m done. Marka got the parts, though they were expensive. She figured the char would help keep my mind off things. By things, she meant Cy, of course.
Dyl and I zoom up the transport. She’s gotten her color back finally, and I swear she’s grown an inch since she got here. Her face is still thin, but her eyes have a sparkle. I don’t remember seeing her look so real before everything happened. It’s like I only saw her in two dimensions all my life.
“I don’t know why you’re so into those antiques,” she says.
“I’ll give you a ride one of these days when I can fix the fuel cells. You’ll love it.”
“You and driving. Whatever.”
“You and books. Whatever,” I retort. We both smile and Dyl kicks my leg. She knows exactly where all my wounds are and aims precisely where it won’t hurt me. We both know each other’s tender spots, seen and unseen, with geographical precision. It’s a dance we have now, trying hard to boost each other up instead of down. A helium sisterhood.
Dyl fiddles with Dad’s wedding ring around her neck. This is one thing that’s still raw. The sight of his ring turns my blood to acid, but I don’t let it show.
When Dyl recovered enough from the miscarriage, I told her everything about Dad. The experiments, the truth about his job, what he did to me. To our mother. She didn’t believe me, so we went to Dad’s holoprof program. We triggered the truth with only a few words. In the middle of Dad’s apology, Dyl turned the program off, just like that.
“I can’t listen to his lies,” she’d whispered. His regret felt so untrue. Like his holo, they’re ghost apologies. We cannot forgive. Not yet. But when Dyl touches his gold ring, I know it means she hasn’t let go of him for good. Or maybe it’s the opposite—that the dead can’t let go of us.
Ana gave her the book of poetry back soon after, but she didn’t want it. Dad’s poem reads so differently now, particularly the last line.
Almost as dear as you.
Was it Dyl or the both of us that he valued below all else? I don’t know. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s this: A broken heart can break further. We’re still picking up the pieces, but every shard still draws blood.
As we walk through the hallways, Hex catches up from behind. “The wonder twins.” He hangs two arms around me and two around Dyl.
We both snort in unison. We may not look alike, but we’ve been inseparable. Except at night. I’ve given Dyl my old bubble room, which she adores. After dark, I crawl into the cave of Cy’s room. She knows not to follow me in there.
Hex tweaks both of our heads. “Vera’s looking for you guys.”
“Why?”
“I think she wants to turn you both green this time around. You know, so you can all outnumber me in more ways than just estrogen.”
I reach up and smack his cheek. “Poor Hexy.”
“Eh, g’off me.” He wiggles his head away from my hand and wanders off before we can embarrass him more. He may be the only guy in Carus now, but he’s okay with it. After I lost Cy, he suddenly grew the resolve to go for Vera. They practically suck each other’s faces off whenever they’re in close proximity.
We dodge into the kitchen, grab a stash of baked goods and jugs of green soygrass and honey shakes, then head upstairs. Marka and Vera are sitting under the broad winter sun, enjoying the hot, still air. The clear enclosure covered the agriplane two weeks ago when winter hit, yet another onion layer to Neia, but it’s welcome. We all love the balmy greenhouse the agriplane has become. Me more than the others, perhaps.
After a few minutes of chatting, Marka takes me aside to peek under my bandages. “They’re still coming along,” she says.
“I’ll be fine.”
“There will be scars, you know. Big ones.”
I shrug. The physical stuff doesn’t bother me at all. But Marka doesn’t let go of me. I smile and touch her hand. “It’s just superficial.”
“Those aren’t the ones I’m concerned about.” Marka lifts my chin and observes my face. I can tell she’s sniffing the air around me. Even though her pills left my system long ago, I have a weird ability to sense things better. Maybe it’s my sense of smell or sharpened intuition, I don’t know. But I know with certainty that Marka is intensely worried about me. She misses Cy too. She’s as terrified for him as I am, sleep deprived from wondering if he’s frozen in the hallways of Aureus, or working to the bone, paying off a debt for who knows how long. Possibly forever.
“You need to get more sleep, Marka. I’m fine.”
She lets go and sighs, stroking my hair. “I don’t know how you do it. How you keep it together.”
I put my arm around her waist and we walk back to the group. I worry about Marka too. About how alone she is, and how her fierce protectiveness constantly injures her, microscopically tearing at her generous heart. I’m not sure which part of mothering surprises me more these days. The pain, or the wealth of love.
We reach the chairs, where Vera and Dyl are discussing the intricacies of photosynthesis. It’s part of her schooling now. Each of us plans to teach Ana and Dyl one high school class every few months instead of relying on the holoprofs. Vera’s been relentless with paleobotany. I never thought the evolution of sunseeds would be so fascinating to my sister. Then again, I’m learning a lot more about Dyl than I ever cared to before, and I love it.
“Don’t stop, I’ll be back,” I say, and they return to their discussion. I head for the rows of new crops. The spiked blood-orange leaves contrast with the plasma fence glowing against the horizon.
I push up my sleeves and carefully touch a different type of scar. After we came back to Carus, I’d gone straight to Cy’s room to find a single image up on his screen by the tattoo machine. A couple in silhouette, staring down a radiant, infinite tunnel filled with light and angels. Paradiso: Canto XXXI was written underneath. After I read the translation, I had the image and part of the verse tattooed onto my right arm.