“My universe?”
“Everyone’s submitted a prediction of what they think the universe we land in will be like. Come do yours quickly before they’re all screened,” she says eagerly, and I’m led away from the group toward the back of the space where there are a dozen enclosed white booths. She hands me a black drink in a shot glass.
“Take as long as you need. You paint a detailed picture in your mind of what you think we’ll see as soon as we go through the portal, and when the image is clearest, down this drink. Whatever you envision will imprint on the walls around you for an instant and then disappear. But it will be re-created holographically in a different terminal so that you can actually see what you imagined.”
“What is it?” I ask, sniffing the telltale licorice scent of Abyssthe.
“It’s an aural tonic.”
My hand shakes at the name. Immediately, I see Stan and Aryll, when they tried these at the Taurian festival after I was given the title of Wandering Star.
Stan’s soul projection was an image of our home and our family.
“I don’t want to,” I say, handing it back to her. She looks confused yet curious, and before she can press me, I ask, “Did Pandora tell you about the Tomorrow Party?”
I remember Pandora mentioning it was Mallie who inspired her to sign up for the armada in the first place.
“No, I haven’t seen her since Helios’s Halo. I came because I Saw myself joining. I’m one of the newest members.”
“You Saw yourself?”
“Back when we could still See visions in the Psy . . . yes, I foresaw that I would join this Party. And of course it’s not surprising to find you here. If I had any doubts about any of this, they’re quieted knowing it has the Wandering Star’s blessing.”
She bows her head slightly, and I feel a line of sweat forming along my hairline. I know I should keep quiet, but my conscience is shouting at me, and I can’t help myself.
“Mallie, the truth is I don’t—”
The place falls silent so abruptly that I stop speaking. I survey the room, and I gasp along with everyone else as hundreds of silver bubbles are released at once, and they float into the air above us. As they glide gently along the ceiling, I see that each one contains a different imagined galaxy. They’re everyone’s visions of various universes.
Colors and shapes swirl within each bubble, and as they dance together they create an ethereal and entrancing light show. I see blue worlds and new constellations and unknown stars, and I think of the earthlings when they washed up on Phaetonis, tiny and tired and terrified. I try to picture how it would feel to peel back a layer of existence and glimpse a larger universe.
And I’m ashamed to admit that a small part of me is intrigued.
? ? ?
When the party ends, Aquarius offers to escort me back to my room. While we walk, I want to say something about the people I met, something that will make him think I’m coming around so he’ll tell me more about the portal. But instead I ask, “Why are you being so open with me? How do you know I’m not a double agent?”
I instantly bite my lip, regretting my bluntness, but to my shock, Aquarius laughs. “Because you’re so honest that you can’t help yourself,” he says, still smiling. “Also because trust is a two-man operation: It won’t work unless we both feel it. And, more to the point, because you trusted me with a secret about your mother even when you didn’t know who I was or whether I was trustworthy.”
“How can you expect me to listen to anything you say when just yesterday you had my world destroyed and my family and friends killed?” I try to keep the hatred out of my voice, but it’s an especially impossible feat when I’m walking through sand-and-seashell halls that are constant reminders of what he’s taken from me.
He stops and faces me, just a few feet shy of the east wing staircase. The light under my skin is feeble since by now the drink’s glowing effect has mostly worn off, but Aquarius still shines as luminously as a full moon in a black sky.
“I am sorry for your pain, Rho.”
I’m not sure he’s capable of remorse, but even if it’s a performance, the apology sounds real.
“I understand this makes me a monster in your eyes, but you are the first human whose life I have felt invested in. I don’t think I ever fully understood the weight of mortal emotions until now, when for the first time in millennia, I have something to lose.
“Ophiuchus . . . he was different.” His voice grows so soft that it feels steeped in memories. “He had a vulnerability to him, a special ability to access the purest parts of his core, and it enabled him to think as both man and god.”
“Do you regret what you did to him?” I chance.
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t look upset so much as pensive. He starts climbing up the polished pink staircase, and I follow a step behind.
“I don’t see the past the same way you do, so I don’t have regrets,” he says as we spiral upward.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a reason there are no lines in nature. There are only circles. O’s. Everything works in cycles, even immortality, because everything is happening simultaneously: We are all growing, we are all dying. Time is just how we give small moments meaning. It contextualizes our existence. But it’s like a railing on a staircase: On its own, it’s nothing.”
We step off the spiral stairs and pad down another sand-and-seashell passage. “We’re so obsessed with the future and the past,” he goes on, “but neither of them truly exist. There is only the present. This moment.”
His words send me plummeting back in time, to the day Mom left. Stan’s story about a little girl who got lost on a new planet and wouldn’t let herself enjoy it because she couldn’t let go of her home. And a different Stantonism jumps out at me from that story instead of the usual one.
Every second is a choice we make.
Aquarius stops outside suite number nine, and the concerned way his sunset eyes sweep my face makes me think of Dad the morning after Mom left us. He looks like a parent trying to explain something difficult to their child.
“Rho, we can never be free of Time’s rule because none of us are truly immortal—not even the stars in the sky. But life is forever. Existence is eternal. Your compassion for your fellow humans is admirable, but the Zodiac’s thirteen skills were divided among thirteen worlds, not people, because it’s the survival of the species, not individuals, that matters.”
I don’t want to think that way.
I could never think that way.
So I cut directly to what I want to know. “What will you take for Nishi’s freedom?”
His brow furrows and his expression grows puzzled. “I don’t understand. I want her to survive the Last Prophecy. I want her to come with us. Don’t you?”