The Daedalus is falling.
Sheering in on an angle, she’s disintegrating in the sky, sections the size of skyscrapers wrenching away from her hull to plummet toward the city below. She’s impossibly huge, and yet my mind keeps seeing a model ship breaking into pieces, as if the enormity of what’s happening can’t be real.
The first chunks of debris are hitting the city below, now, and all the breath leaves my body as I watch one cut a swath four blocks wide through the suburbs of Corinth, cartwheeling in to land and cutting through apartment complexes like a knife through butter. Flames bloom far below us, black clouds of smoke obscuring the ruins. The next piece falls, metal gleaming in the light for an instant before it’s buried in flame and smoke.
I’m watching thousands of people die, and when the bulk of the Daedalus hits, I’m going to watch hundreds of thousands of people die. I can say the words to myself, but though they circle in my head in a horrified chant, I can’t understand it. Corinth is invincible. Corinth is always there. Corinth will always be there.
Corinth is burning.
“Please, no,” Tarver’s whispering again beside me, resting his forehead against the window, tears streaming down his cheeks as the Daedalus screams down toward the city.
It’s like watching a stone land in water—debris goes flying up in the wake of the huge ruin of a ship, whole buildings disintegrating, sending up showers of dust and smoke, twisted metal and flames.
Corinth is burning.
I spin away from the window, and Sofia comes with me. She throws her arms around me, and I pull her in close, burying my face in her hair, and I breathe in her warmth, her life, trying desperately to block out the images of the dying city I can see even with my eyes closed. For this moment we’re not the Knave and the con artist, and there’s no artifice when she pulls me close. When I lift my head, Flynn has his arms around Jubilee, and she’s whispering something in his ear that only has him squeezing her tighter.
And Tarver Merendsen’s alone, still watching at the window, white as a sheet in his bloodstained shirt, as though he’s watching his own execution.
And in that moment, whatever I held against him, whatever part of me blamed him for taking my brother’s place—that part dissolves into nothing. This is a man Simon would have wanted for Lilac. I see that now.
He loves her. Watching the death and destruction below, knowing the creature capable of this has stolen her from him, I know he does.
“Tarver.” My voice is hoarse, and I don’t bother trying to clear my throat. I think my cheeks are wet as well, and they should be. My world is bleeding below us.
He turns his head slowly, and his gaze is haunted.
“We’re not done yet,” I say quietly.
Still leaning against me, Sofia lifts her head. “Damn straight we’re not,” she says, steel in her voice, daring anyone to contradict her.
Nobody does.
“We need to find somewhere to land,” Jubilee says, moving past us to check the autopilot. Beyond her, I see another cluster of debris disappear into the thick cloud of smoke now covering the swath of destruction in the north of the city. “This shuttle was only meant for maintenance, and supply runs to the ship—it’s not fueled to stay up here for long.”
“Where should we be aiming for? Where’s safe? We have no idea if Lilac can find us,” Flynn says quietly, running one hand through his curls and finally looking something less than put-together.
I look across at Jubilee—soldier or not these days, she’s got her soldier’s face on now, gazing at the four of us with no hint of her feelings showing. “Stone-faced Chase,” they used to call her on Avon. I read that in her file. It’s still impressive, in person. And perhaps it’s because I’m staring at her, thinking about the soldier that still lives inside her, that the idea comes. But suddenly, I know where we should go. “I have a place.”
Four heads turn toward me.
“I know a woman, her name’s Kumiko. She’s ex-military.”
“Can we trust her?” Finally, Jubilee speaks.
Sofia asked me that same question about Mae, and I can feel her eyes on me. This time, I swallow hard. “I don’t know. I can’t promise. But you and Merendsen are ex-military, that’ll mean something to her. And she was posted on Avon. She knows what LaRoux’s capable of. I’ve dealt with her before, as the Knave. She trusts him, as much as she trusts anyone. Her place has security, it’s practically a fortress. And she’ll have a medical kit.” I’m trying not to look at Sofia’s hand, at her face where a piece of the plas-pistol cut her chin.