I still can’t breathe.
From his pocket, Reykin pulls out a silver case like the cigar case Clifton uses. Inside, it’s different, though, with a secret compartment behind the narrow green cigars. From it, Reykin takes out a chet. He tears off a corner of it. “Stick out your tongue,” he orders. “I’m only giving you a little. You can’t take a full one again. You’re too small. It’ll wipe you out.” He places the small piece of chet on my tongue, where it melts.
Reykin sits down and puts his arm around me. I lean my cheek against his chest. After a few minutes, I can take a full breath again.
“Better?” He squeezes my shoulder.
I lift my cheek. “I need a shower.” Reykin helps me up. I’m weak, as if I just sprinted for miles. I shake off his hands, not meeting his eyes. “I’m okay now. You can . . .” I nod my head toward the bathroom door.
“Oh. Okay. You’re sure?” He hovers closer to me.
“Yes,” I growl.
“You don’t want me to stay and help you into the shower?” I glare at him. “What?” he scoffs. “I’ve seen you naked before, Roselle. Who do you think bathed you after I found you beaten half to death?”
“Out!” I point to the door. He stuffs his hands in his pockets.
After he leaves the bathroom, I take a long shower, trying to wash away the scent of fear. I’m relieved to find my bedroom empty when I exit the bathroom. I select a dove-gray lounging outfit and dress quickly in the closet. I towel-dry my hair and braid it in one thick plait. The sound of voices leads me to the den, where Diamond-Fated anchors on a visual screen report on preparations for the Secondborn Trials.
It’s dark in here with all the windows turned opaque. Reykin sits on the couch against the wall, his long arms resting on his thighs, his hands clasped, scanning the images in front of him as if he’s searching for someone. I lean against the frame of the doorway. The sharp planes of his face have a blue tint from the light of the visual screen.
The scene cuts from the secondborn candidates registering for The Trials. Reykin eases his back against the charcoal suede of the tufted couch. His hands absently rub the tops of his thighs.
I enter the den. “What are you watching?” I ask, sitting beside him on the couch.
“Pre-trials.”
“Why? You can’t possibly like them.”
“I don’t.” He gestures to the moving images in front of us. “Ransom has skills. He’s brilliant and he’s not half-bad with a fusionblade.”
“You expect to see your brother register as a competitor?”
His worried gaze shifts back to the screen. “Like I said, Ransom’s brilliant. He knows the odds of winning this travesty are slim, and he knows that, even if he were to survive it, he wouldn’t come out with his soul intact.”
“You’re assuming he got to keep his soul after his Transition.”
Reykin winces. “You kept yours.”
“Did I? I don’t know if that’s true.” I’m different now. I’m not sure I’d make all the same choices I once did.
“You know you did. You saved me on the battlefield when you could’ve killed me.” He picks up my hand, rubbing his thumb tenderly over my scar.
“Fat lot of good it did me,” I tease him. “You’re worried he’s like you. You’d risk everything not to be their slave.”
“I’m hoping he’s not like me—or maybe I’m hoping he’s exactly like me. I don’t know,” Reykin growls. He lets go of my hand and rubs his face where the shadow of a beard is forming. “I just want to see him again.”
“I hope you do.” I rest my back against the soft cushions and pull my feet up next to me, leaning near him. He smells like lemongrass and a soft hint of cologne, the scent I remember from his bed in Stars. The piece of chet relaxes me—not to the point of sleep but enough that my head feels heavy.
“How long has it been going on?” He pretends interest in statistics about would-be competitors on the screen.
“What?” I feign ignorance.
“Your panic attacks.”
I shrug. “I’m fine now.”
“How long?”
I sigh. “On and off for a while. Never as bad as what you just witnessed. I’ve always kept it from blowing up. The chet I took yesterday—the one that almost got me killed—was my first. I didn’t know I shouldn’t take that much.”
“How have you avoided a full-blown panic until today? Done anything dangerous to trigger adrenaline and combat the panic?”
I stare at his profile. “How did you know?”
He turns to me with eyes that could pull me out to sea. “Adrenaline doesn’t always work. You think I was carrying those chets around for you?”
“Oh.” Something about his admission makes me feel better. We’re more alike than either of us wants to acknowledge. I know where I stand with him. He doesn’t lie to me. He tells me exactly what he’ll do if I don’t go along with the Gates of Dawn’s plans. No guessing. We’re friendly for now, but that ends if I ever decide that his cause isn’t for me. Reykin, Daltrey, and Dune make more and more sense the longer I’m around them. What if I were in a position of power? Could I make the kind of changes that would save secondborns? If so, isn’t that worth the fight? Or is that the chet talking?
The price of power is my brother’s life, at the very least. Many more people would have to die for Dune and Reykin to attain the influential positions they would need to topple the Fates Republic. The most likely outcome of the plot to destroy the Fates Republic is that we’ll all be tortured and killed for treason. I don’t care about any of it now, though, and I know that’s the chet talking.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
“Very,” he admits.
“Me, too. Did you know that I can order anything I want here and they’ll send it to me? Anything. I don’t even need merits. I can have as many crellas as I want.”
“Do you like crellas?”
“I love them,” I admit, and then whisper, “I don’t even know most of the food items on the food dispensary’s menu.”
He smiles. It might be the first time I’ve ever seen him smile. I feel like I ate an entire chet. “What don’t you know?” His dark eyebrow raises in a cunning arch.
“What’s ‘foie gras’?”
He stifles a chuckle. “It’s duck liver or goose liver.”
I wrinkle my nose. “It sounds gross. Do you like it?”
“No. It has a peculiar aftertaste.”
“If I’m stuck with you until tonight,” I say, “I’m going to make you my official translator.” I rise and walk toward the kitchen. Over my shoulder, I ask, “Coming?”
He catches up, his hand brushing past mine, though he doesn’t seem to notice. “First, let’s put Phoenix back together. He can be our official taste tester.”
The theoretical joy of a food fest just lost some of its appeal, but I try to shrug off the sense of dread at the thought of being intentionally poisoned.
Phoenix is still lying inoperable on the table. Reykin opens the case he carries in his pocket. He extracts a star-shaped programmer and inserts it into one of Phoenix’s ports. The star whirls until it resembles a sun. When it winds down, I ask, “What was that?”
“That was a stockpile of malevolence,” he says with a smug smirk. He motions for me to help him, and together, Reykin and I reassemble the mechadome.
After lifting it from the table and rebooting it, Reykin gives it a series of voice commands through his moniker. He tells it to terminate the vases on the bureau, and Phoenix waddles over to them, lifts its vacuum arm, and emits short bursts of air that topple over each small urn one at a time. Shards of glass scatter on the floor.
“Um . . . I liked those,” I mutter.
“I’ll buy you new ones,” Reykin replies, just like a privileged firstborn who has no idea of the value of things like that.
“They’re not exactly mine.”
Reykin orders the bot to suck up the pieces. The mechadome performs each order without a hitch, but its hover mode is still broken. “I can’t test its new weapons in here. We’ll have to do it later.”
“Good. I’m running out of vases.”