“It’s not for you to choose what sacrifice is worthwhile, who should die,” says Tarver. “You might have tried to keep Lilac by lying about her mother, but you lost her when you murdered Simon Marchant.”
LaRoux’s eyes flicker toward me, and I realize his nonchalance on the Daedalus was at least partly an act—there’s guilt in his gaze. He knows exactly who I am. “I—Simon Marchant was a mistake. I intended for him to be sent away. I didn’t expect…His death was an unforeseen side effect.”
Side effect. The words burn through my brain, wiping out everything else. I can’t move, can’t speak, an anger and grief I thought I’d put behind me surging up like a tide. It’s not until I feel a touch on my hand that I realize I’ve closed my eyes; I know before I open them that it’s Sofia, her fingertips brushing against my palm, opening my fist, interlocking her fingers with mine.
“Enough.” Tarver’s voice is quiet, almost gentle if not for the hint of ice behind it. “Where is Lilac?”
“She’s safe.” LaRoux’s gaze meets that of his onetime future son-in-law. The piercing blue of his eyes is all the more intense in the morning light, and the look he directs at Tarver is just a little too wild, a little too fierce. “She’s happy. That ought to be enough for you, if you truly love her.”
For a moment, everyone is silent, shocked. I find myself staring at LaRoux, searching his face for signs of the self-delusional madman inside. For him to believe that his daughter’s change of heart, her sudden willingness to go along with his plans, stemmed from anything other than the whisper taking control of her…He’s insane.
“Happy?” Tarver’s still cold, calm. Ruthless. “She’s one of them. The creature in the rift, that’s what stood at your side, smiling at you, calling you ‘Daddy.’ You say you never wanted Lilac to hate, but that’s all she is now—the thing inside her is nothing more than hate. And you’re what she hates more than anything in the universe.”
LaRoux’s eyes widen even as his brows draw together, and he takes a step back toward the transport behind him. The handful of husks still remaining draw closer around him, clearly ready to shield him if Tarver’s finger tightens on the trigger.
“You’re wrong,” LaRoux snaps, baring his teeth in a rictus that might have once been a smile. “You just can’t stand that she chose me. She’s just the first—the whole galaxy will learn to love me as she does now, again, the way she’s supposed to.”
Tarver shakes his head, just a tiny movement. “The tragedy is that she did. She did love you. Despite everything you did to her, to Simon, to me, to Avon, to the galaxy—you were her father, and she loved you. She took a bullet for you. She’s perhaps the only person, the last person, in this existence to care for you at all.” Tarver pauses for the span of a breath, and then slowly the gun lowers, to dangle at his side. “And you sold her soul to play house for just a little bit longer.”
LaRoux’s lips open like he has to gulp for air. “No,” he retorts, gasping. “No. You’re wrong. You’re wrong. She loves me. She knows what I’m doing is right, and just. She’s my girl. Mine.” The husks move in to surround him, and as he struggles, it becomes clear he’s not the one controlling them after all. They drag him back toward the shuttle, their jostling dislodging the device over his ear so that it clatters to the pavement at their feet. LaRoux doesn’t even seem to notice; his wide, staring eyes are fixed on Tarver right up until the husks close in around him and bear him back into the craft, where the door hisses closed after them.
The engines kick in, LaRoux’s transport and the other orbital shuttle lifting up off the ground. Jubilee shakes free of whatever spell of anger and fear kept her still, and darts forward, raising her gun—only to have Tarver grab at her arm, jerking the barrel down again.
“We have to stop him,” Jubilee gasps, furious, tearing her arm away from her former commanding officer.
“We will.” Tarver’s voice is finally showing his strain, shaking now as he watches the shuttles lift higher, jets starting to turn in preparation to fly away. “But he’s right—his death would stop nothing. Too many senators are already on their way back to their planets with the rift blueprints.”
I move away from Sofia’s side in silence, striding over to the spot where LaRoux stood so I can retrieve the device that shielded him from the whisper’s influence—for all the good it did him. The whisper didn’t need to touch his mind in order to make it snap like a twig. But for the rest of us—if I can figure out a way to replicate the technology here, then it might give us a fighting chance against the whisper.
“We can’t do nothing,” Sofia breaks in. I look over to find her face wet, but there’s so much to read in her expression that I can’t tell if her tears are from rage or grief or fear or all of those combined.
“I know.” Tarver watches the shuttles kick into gear—one angles up, toward the upper atmosphere, as the other bolts off over the city. He eases his gun back into its holster, and I see now that his knuckles are white from gripping it so hard, that he’s forcing himself to let go finger by finger. “We can’t stop them. We have to go to her—to Lilac. And I know where she is.”
“Where?”
“Where all the husks are going—where it all started.” He lets his breath out slowly. “The Daedalus.”
The green-eyed boy is on the run, hiding from those who would take him from the gray world to live among other children of war. His sister’s execution years ago has filled him with a certainty we envy, and as soldiers close in around him at the edge of town, we gather all our strength and reach out across the darkness.
Our pale light flashes amongst the reeds, and the soldiers veer off to investigate it, leaving the green-eyed boy free to run the other way. He turns and comes face-to-face with the girl with the dimpled smile, who has just stepped out of her house.
They used to be friends, long ago, before rebellion tore them apart. Now they stare at each other, silent, until the distant sound of a dog barking startles the green-eyed boy and he takes off into the night.
Later the soldiers will ask the girl what she saw, and she will stare at them with wide, gray eyes, and say, “Nothing.”
TARVER’S MOVING BEFORE THE REST of us have time to recover. By the time we follow him back into the LaRoux mansion, he’s in the kitchen, tossing supplies onto the counter—bread, peanut butter, cheese, pieces of fruit.
I hesitate, glancing at the others. If LaRoux was clearly mad, half-incoherent as those things dragged him back onto the shuttle, then Tarver…He’s not that far behind. He’s got a recently dislocated shoulder held together with strapping tape and painkillers, he hasn’t slept, and the more time passes, the less emotional he seems. He ought to be breaking down—the girl he loves is quite possibly gone forever, and a monster is wearing her face while she destroys humanity as we know it. And yet he’s calmly rummaging through the pantry for supplies.
Jubilee’s the one who moves, finally, taking a cautious step toward her former captain. “Sir,” she says softly. “We need to take a break.”