The knife came down.
Red. Blood.
I did my best to ignore the strange gargle of sound that followed me as I raced down the twisting hallway. When I reached the lift, I jammed my hand against the panel over and over again. But before the door could shudder open, I heard Van Hofstadter’s voice barrel toward me through the silent corridors.
“Ben!” he sobbed. “Benjamin!”
I was still shaking when I stumbled through the front door of my house. The sound of Van’s anguished cries kept echoing through my head. I didn’t even see my father sitting stone-still at the table, waiting for me.
“Terra. You’re late.”
I jumped, nearly dropping my bag on Pepper. There was my father, hands flat on the tabletop, a series of covered dishes laid out before him. And he wasn’t alone. Koen Maxwell sat across from him, his brown eyes wide. He seemed afraid to speak or even breathe. I knew that feeling.
“I know.” I shook my head. “Something happened—”
“I don’t care what happened. I made supper for you so we could eat like a family for once. I expect you to come home at a reasonable time.”
I was doing my best to keep my cool, but I could hear the emotion cresting in my voice already. “Mara kept me late, and then I came home through the engine rooms and—”
“Don’t talk to me about Mara Stone. And the engine rooms are no place for a girl to go off walking alone!” He slammed the flat of his hand against the table. The dishes shook. Koen’s eyes got even bigger. I wondered if he regretted his vocation. But that wasn’t my problem.
“I’m not a girl! I’m fifteen years old—”
“I don’t care, Terra!” He pushed up from the table. As his chair came crashing to the floor behind him, Pepper darted up the stairs. My father towered over me. He was still so much taller than I was. “So long as you live in my quarters, what I say goes, and I won’t have you roaming the ship like some hooligan!”
As if he didn’t roam the ship alone all the time!
“Abba—” I clamped my hands over my mouth. The syllables had squeaked out like a baby’s cry. Beneath my fingers my face burned with shame. My gaze shifted to Koen, who was staring down at the tabletop, pretending he was somewhere else.
My father didn’t notice my embarrassment. He was still caught up in our argument. “Don’t ‘Abba’ me! I won’t have you roaming the ship like some worthless little slut!”
I’d heard those words before, of course. They always hit me just as hard as any blow. Between my clamped-down fingers I let out a small noise. A cry. I fought it. I didn’t want to cry in front of Koen. I didn’t want to let him see the way things were in our house.
So I took off running for the stairs and locked my bedroom door behind me.
I stood there for a moment, trembling. I wasn’t sure if I was angry, or hurt, or terrified, or all of those things; the only thing I knew for sure was that my heart was thrumming furiously in my throat. At last I threw myself face-first into my blankets. The bed was unmade, still rumpled from the morning. My father had given up trying to get me to straighten my sheets in the morning years ago. That used to be our old battle—my messy room, my twisted blankets. Momma had been my defender.
“What’s it matter what her room looks like in the morning,” she asked, “so long as she gets to school on time?”
Now there was no one to defend me. Just like there had been no one to defend Benjamin Jacobi.
And now they’re both dead, I thought, weeping into my pillowcase.
6
Another dream.
I was in the atrium again. I stood in a grove of pines, dressed in my plain cotton nightgown. The perfume of the air was sharp, the ground soft with needles as I padded across it. Barefoot. I should have been cold. The spring was too new for me to go around without boots on. But I didn’t shiver or tremble. The air felt hot against my face.
“Terra!”
I traced the line of trees to the ceiling lights. It was Silvan’s clear tenor, and it came from the treetops. I gazed up into the branches that were splayed out above me like long-fingered hands.
He gazed down between the boughs. He was wearing dark wool—the same uniform coat that Captain Wolff wore, purple and gold gleaming on his shoulder. The brass buttons were unfastened, and the front hung open. But he’d forgotten his boots. Instead he was barefoot too. I could see the pink soles of his feet, clean against the scrubby branches.
He smiled at me, then gestured for me to join him. I fixed my hands to the branches and began to shimmy up. The world bucked and swayed beneath me. But the higher I climbed, the higher the tree seemed to grow. And Silvan wasn’t getting any closer.
“Wait!” I called. “Where are you going?”
“To Zehava!” he shouted, his voice laced with laughter. I paused for a moment, looking up. It wasn’t right. We were on the second level of the atrium. I shouldn’t have been able to see the dome here or space beyond it. But there it was, gleaming black and pinpricked with light.
“Do you see that?” I asked Silvan. Suddenly he sat beside me on my branch. I felt him there, his presence. A wave of warmth began to crest within me. But somehow I knew not to turn and look at him.
Because he’d changed. He put his three smooth, soft fingers against my cheek, and I felt how weird they were, unmarred by the ridges of fingerprints.
Who are you? he said. He didn’t speak through words. I couldn’t hear his voice at all. But I felt him, reaching out to me through the darkness.
Bashert, I thought back. Bashert. Bashert. Bashert. Your heart’s twin. Your destiny.
But when I answered him, he recoiled from me. Surprised or shocked. I don’t know. I felt it again, a hollow echo, as if he hadn’t heard me at all.
Who are you? You’re not supposed to be here.
I turned, but when I did, he was gone, the uncountable stars my only companions.
“Terra?”
I woke with a gasp. My room was black, lit only by the sliver of light that fell through the open door. But then my eyes adjusted, and I saw my brother’s broad-shouldered silhouette against the door frame.
“Ronen,” I mumbled, pulling myself up. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”
“Five thirty in the morning. You need to get up.” His voice was grave. I peeled off my covers. The cold of morning hit me.
I slid from bed, fumbling for the lights. When they came on, I had to blink away the brightness. But Ronen didn’t seem to notice the sudden glare. His mouth was an almost invisible line.
“There’s been an accident. Benjamin Jacobi was found dead last night.”
I froze in place, my feet glued to the cold metal floor. Ronen must have seen the blood drain from my face. “His talmid found him in the library,” he offered. “Underneath a stack of books. Seems he went for one on the top shelf and the whole bookcase toppled on him.”
“Is that what they’re saying?” I blurted.
“What do you mean?” he asked. Lines settled in on his forehead, underneath the line of his thinning hair. That frown made him look very much like my father.
“Nothing,” I said. “Never mind.”
“We have to hurry, Terra,” he said. “They’re doing the funeral before work hours today.”
I squinted into the darkness. We always held funerals soon after death so that the body would have no time to decompose. But it was so early.