“The Artistry Pride.”
He finally meets my gaze, and I know why he’s frowning. Supposedly, nothing stays in place in Artistry because the scenery is always changing. We could never hope to navigate that world without a guide.
I sigh. There’s only one Leonine I know who might be willing to help us.
But I really hate having to call on him.
? ? ?
I send Traxon Harwing an encrypted message from my Wave, and I hope to Helios that Hysan can’t trace the transmission.
The Truther agrees to meet me at the Friend gate outside the Artistry spaceport. Before disembarking, Ophiuchus changes into a red Major uniform. He couldn’t fit into one suit, so we had to sew two together. I also give him my invisibility collar, and before disembarking I activate it.
I wish we had two so that I could vanish with him.
We walk into a terminal swarming with eclectic Leonines showing off a dizzying array of traveling styles—pajamas, courtsuits, floor-length dresses, animal costumes, beachwear—and we hang back from the crowd so that no one runs into Ophiuchus’s boulder-like body. I feel the heat of his giant presence at my side as we follow the flow of passengers toward the main transportation hub, and my gaze finds the brilliant blue sky beyond the windowed wall.
Like Aries, Leo has a small secondary sun, but instead of red this one is golden and looks like a mini Helios. Mountaintops break through the foamy white clouds in the distance, and I watch what looks like planes or large birds diving off the tallest peak and soaring toward the small sun. Then I squint for a closer look as the birds or planes begin to drop off, freefalling like they’ve been shot down, and disappear from view.
It takes me a moment to realize they’re people.
“Sun-sailing!” says an excitable Leonine in a constellation-patterned jumpsuit. She suddenly slings an arm around my shoulder and pulls me up to the window, and I spy a half-moon tattoo on her cheekbone.
“See that point there?” she asks, touching a spot on the glass. “That’s Mount Luz. It’s our planet’s highest peak. We have a sport called sun-sailing where you change into these protective suits with wings and try to catch a solar ray and ride its energy wave. There’s a net waiting to catch you when you fall!”
She turns to me, and I notice the crescent tattoo on her cheekbone has shape-shifted. It’s now phased into a full moon. “Interested? I can get you a discount—”
An invisible grip yanks on my arm, pulling me away from the girl and the window. “If you buy tickets, tell the salesperson I sent you!” she calls after me. “Name’s Solay!”
I stay close to Ophiuchus as we’re funneled down a winding path that dead-ends in two queues: one is for Leonines, the other is for out-of-House visitors.
I’ll meet you on the other side. I hear Ophiuchus’s voice in my head as his hand pulls away.
“Thumb out, please,” says the Leonine sitting behind the podium of the visitors’ queue. The holographic nameplate on her purple uniform reads HERRA, and I’m mesmerized by how the color of her afro changes with every customer. When she helped the Sagittarian couple ahead of me, her hair was bright blond, but now it’s turned inky black.
Her device registers my identity, and the words WANDERING STAR RHOMA GRACE flash before us. I guess my location isn’t a secret anymore.
Herra shoots to her feet, and panic flares in my chest as she surveys the area around us like she’s searching for a Zodai. Then she looks at me again, and her face splits into a broad grin.
She tugs on her right sleeve, revealing a tattoo on her wrist: It’s the glyph of me wrangling the snake into submission that I saw on Centaurion.
“It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am,” she says, her afro now a shocking shade of pink. “Welcome to the Lion.”
“Thank you.”
I’m still trying to process what happened as I step forward into the main transportation hub, when a bloodcurdling scream pierces the air.
The crowd around me parts in half, and my brain stalls as a troop of Marad soldiers marches toward me. They must have set up an alert for my astrological fingerprint.
I stand frozen, my pulse materializing in my throat, as the porcelain-faced army comes closer and closer. Where the Helios is Ophiuchus?
The soldier in the lead lifts his Murmur. I will my legs to move, but I’m paralyzed in place, the way I was when I faced the Marad tribunal in my nightmares. I squeeze my eyes shut as he aims his weapon—
“CUT!”
The Marad soldiers groan and talking abruptly breaks out all around me. I open my eyes to see stylists approaching the soldiers to adjust their masks, while some people in the crowd pull up holographic scripts to review.
“Who is this girl in the middle of my shot?” demands the same man who yelled “cut.” “Why is she just standing there? Can somebody get this crab to scuttle off my set? NOW!”
When I realize he’s talking about me, my muscles grow even more leaden, like my body skipped over the fight-or-flight debate and went straight for surrender.
An invisible hand wraps around my arm, and when Ophiuchus tugs, my legs miraculously work again. I turn away in time to avoid the handful of harried Leonines who were running over to chase me off.
I’m relieved when Ophiuchus leads us through the exit, and at last I can breathe fresh air again. I have no idea where the Friend gate is, but the Thirteenth Guardian seems to know the way because we’re charging through the crowd.
WELCOME TO ARTISTRY
I look up at the huge, color-changing holographic sign hovering high in the bright, dual-sun sky. All around me, hundreds upon hundreds of people are posing for holo-captures with the words in the air behind them. Since the plaza is so packed, eventually Ophiuchus has to slow down to keep everyone from noticing the violent ghost in their midst.
He’s already knocked at least five people to the ground.
Holograms of the most famous stars in Zodiac cinema float through the tourists, telling them about the Artistry Pride. “Ever wish your life was more like a movie?” asks the hologram of the Cancrian actress who plays Amara in the galaxy’s most popular holo-show. It follows the love triangle of the last human survivors after the Zodiac has been wiped out, and the characters are inspired by the three Guardians behind the Trinary Axis.