What does it mean, that she doesn’t want them to?
“So you cannot forgive him,” the whisper in Lilac’s skin supposes, gazing at Sofia’s defiant figure. “Nor can I. Yet you seem to object to his punishment. You should applaud it.”
“No,” Sofia says again.
“No?”
“Every one of them kept their hearts open, despite what he did.” Sofia’s hands are fists at her side. “They still love. They still trust. Even he loves, monster that he is. He let his love for his daughter guide his actions.”
“Love,” Lilac repeats, that one syllable imbued with utter disgust. “We once thought that was something to be admired in you, learned from you. Turns out it’s just part of the disease you call mankind.”
Flynn and Jubilee stand side by side, hands interwoven, as Flynn shifts his grip on his weapon, his jaw squaring.
Tarver stares at Lilac, his desperation writ on his features.
“Love,” Sofia echoes, but with a softness, an ache in her voice that’s the perfect opposite of that disgust. “And trust. And most important of all, the thing you’ve forgotten in all your talk of fate and predestined paths…choice. That’s what makes us human. Love and trust…that’s what we’ve all chosen, over and over.”
Love, and trust. The things that make us human.
They could have been mine, if only I could have leapt. If only we could have leapt.
I pull the thumb drive from my pocket and ease my weight forward infinitely slowly, infinitely carefully. The shaft of light creeping in through the broken side of the Daedalus illuminates my face as I draw close, and as if she can’t help it, Sofia turns her head to meet my eyes.
I wish I’d had a chance to tell her.
The agony on the soldier’s face as he realizes I am not his girl. The terror flooding a thousand minds as the ship begins to fall. A million voices silenced as the city burns. The ease with which I can twist their minds, all this girl’s strength mine now.
It all fades in comparison with watching the blue-eyed man’s mind crumble. His desperation to believe I am still his Lilac, still the little baby in his arms with the peach-colored hair and the dreamy blue eyes, is a vengeance far sweeter than I could have imagined.
Him I will save for last. I will let him see me, know in his heart that I have taken his daughter from him, while he scrambles to convince himself of a lie. The torture in his own soul is far greater than any pain I could inflict upon him now.
But the rest of mankind…they deserve justice.
I HAVE TO LOOK AWAY. I can’t let Lilac follow my gaze and spot Gideon, and I can’t let Jubilee or Flynn see him either, in case they panic and try to shoot Lilac. But I can’t tear my eyes from his, the blue light of the rift bathing his face.
I can feel Lilac’s eyes on me, the weight of her hatred nearly dropping me to my knees. There’s nothing there, no hint that the girl I met on the Daedalus is still in there. Then she turns and sees Gideon, half hidden behind the rift.
In a heartbeat, everything unspools frame by frame—Tarver diving for Lilac, desperate to give Gideon a chance with the virus—Jubilee grabbing for Flynn’s weapon and rolling to find cover—Lilac thrusting out a hand to shove Jubilee, and the fallen block of marble she’s hiding behind, against the far wall—Flynn giving a wordless scream and sprinting toward Jubilee, who lies motionless now…
Lilac turning toward Gideon. She roars her fury, tearing an impossible sound from her human lungs, lifting both hands as the ship around us starts to scream in duet, metal twisting and wrenching at the seams. A shudder runs the length of the floor, and the ground beneath Gideon bucks violently, sending him tumbling from his place by the rift.
He seems to hang in the air forever, and my heart with him. Then he’s crashing to the ground, the thumb drive flying from his hand. He scrambles on all fours, lunging after it—and I scream a warning as a piece of the roof shears away, tumbling down to crush the drive, grinding it into the floor. It grinds every last hope we had into the floor, and I’m reeling, the breath driven from my lungs.
A great chunk of the ceiling drops onto the broken chandelier where it lies on the floor, sending up a spray of glittering glass, and I dive for cover as the deadly shards arc through the air.
“Lilac, please!” Tarver’s shouting, fighting his way toward her as she turns for the rift, which is now pulsing brighter than ever, casting blue light over every inch of the wrecked ballroom. I can’t see Flynn and Jubilee anymore, or Monsieur LaRoux.
Lilac doesn’t even bother turning. She simply lifts one arm, and Tarver goes flying—he connects with the wall with a sickening smack, his gun tumbling from his hand. It ricochets off the heaving floor, skittering across to land at my feet. As he staggers upright, his gaze is fixed on me.
The gun is within reach. The virus might be gone, but there’s still a chance. All I have to do is stoop and pick it up. Aim it at Lilac’s heart. She’s facing the rift. I could move before she can turn.
This instant hangs suspended, the energy from the rift lifting the hairs on my skin, crackling against my face, filling my mouth with the taste of metal.
Gideon staggers to his feet, and our eyes lock. I told him he didn’t know me, so he couldn’t love me. Couldn’t trust me, so couldn’t love me.
But it was never about that. It was never about Gideon, or wanting to let him in, or believing he was the kind of person who could love what he found there.
It was always me. I’ve spent so long convincing others to trust me that I no longer trust myself. My own heart. My own instincts and faith.
My choice.
My muscles tense, ready to move. I meet Gideon’s eyes again, the warm hazel-green flashing with blue light.
This much I know: I love him.
This much I trust.
I’m not the thing LaRoux made me. I’m not the girl I was on the Daedalus anymore. I choose who I am, every day. And I’m choosing now to be me.
In this moment I don’t need to read Gideon’s mind to see into his heart, to share his thoughts—he loves me. All of me. The good, the bad, the struggle between the horrible impulses I can never share and the glimmers of hope for things I’m too frightened even to whisper—he sees all of me.
They’re trying to come through, Lilac said, and in this instant—which stretches to an eternity—I know what to do. I know that what Gideon and I imagined in the arcade is true—they can see us, they know us. Lilac’s whisper said it herself:
You were meant to show us whether you were worth knowing.
The other whispers, in their universe on the other side of the rift, have been watching us. Judging us, testing us, setting us up like pieces on a board to see who we are. And if Gideon can know me, love me, trust me, and I can learn that lesson in return—if we and all our friends and allies can make choices and sacrifices that come from our hearts—then I’m ready for us to be judged.
I’ll let the whispers through. I’ll short-circuit the rift, just as Tarver and Lilac did once before. I’ll make my leap of faith—and trust in their choice.
It’s as Gideon holds out his hand that I realize he understands my intention—and that, in every way I could ever have imagined, he’s with me.