And yet, as her mother spoke, Andi couldn’t catch even a glimpse of brokenness in her tone, in the sparkle of her eyes. In the way she drank a glass of bubbling pink liquid that a servant drone brought in for her.
“All the things you’ve missed,” her mother said as she gently tugged the brush through a knot at the back of Andi’s head. “There’s so much, I can hardly consider which to tell you first. Dahlia Juma, from your Academy year, do you remember her?” She waved a hand, her polished nails sparkling like her dress as she tossed back her golden head and laughed. “Of course you do—you two were always at odds with each other. Well, she’s engaged to the son of the head strategist on the general’s team! You’ll see her tonight, I imagine.”
Her words faded away as memories took their place. Andi lost herself to them.
Andi’s mother, rummaging through her massive closet, flipping through dress after dress as Andi stood in the doorway, begging her mother to tuck her into bed.
“I’m busy, darling. There’s a ladies’ banquet tonight at Rivendr Tower, and I’d so love to be seen. Perhaps tomorrow.”
The memory fast-forwarded to Andi sitting at the glass kitchen table, silent as her mother shared the latest society gossip and her father flipped through his holoscreen, nodding absentmindedly at Glorya’s words.
Andi, on stage at her dance recitals, watching as her parents arrived late, shuffling their way to the front of the crowd.
Andi, seated alone in the Academy office, sporting a bloody nose and facing down another punishment.
General Cortas coming to greet her. Offering her a chance to become a Spectre.
Andi and Kalee together at a military ball. Andi’s mother, parading around the room, making sure everyone knew who she was. “That’s my daughter,” she’d said. “The youngest Spectre in Arcardian history.”
Andi, cuffed at her trial, watching her mother sob silently into a silver kerchief. But when it came time for them to stand up in her defense, her mother’s tears had stopped. She’d never lifted a hand, never spoken a word to protect her daughter.
Later, in Andi’s cell, Glorya hadn’t come to say goodbye.
“Darling?” Her mother’s voice drew her back to the present. “I asked if you’d like to attend the luncheon with me next week? Only the best of the society girls will be there—”
“I won’t be here next week,” Andi cut in. “I’m leaving as soon as this job is done.”
Her mother laughed. “Nonsense, Androma. According to your father, once the Ucatoria Ball is over, the general plans to lift your punishment. It will take time, I’m sure, for people to get past what you did, but surely your rescuing Valen will help them along.” She gently patted Andi’s cheek, frowning at the metal implants. “These don’t suit you, darling. Whatever have you done to yourself?”
She sighed, then bubbled over with words again. “No matter. Imagine the suitors you could have. Why, you might even find yourself betrothed to the general’s son. Think of the headlines on the feeds! A romance to defy the stars. There will be plenty of negotiations, of course. Your father will have to speak to the general, see if he can land you a public interview after your pardon, perhaps even with your father and me there, as well, so the people will—”
Andi stood suddenly, cutting her mother off.
“Did you get my messages?”
Glorya looked momentarily caught off guard. Then she smiled, took a sip of her drink and shook her head. “Oh, you know how those things go, dear. Busy schedules. Hard to keep up with them. I did so want to respond, but your father...he advised against it. For our own protection.”
“But you got them,” Andi said. “You saw how badly I needed you. I was starving. I was stealing scraps from garbage piles.”
Her mother wrinkled her nose. “Now, that’s a silly thing to do.”
Andi’s mouth fell open. “You’re screwing with me, right?”
Her mother looked like she’d been slapped. “A lady does not speak in such a way, Androma! I know I raised you better than that!”
Heat grew in Andi’s face, rising from her neck to her cheeks, soaking down into her skin, turning her words to fire. “You didn’t raise me at all, Mother. You let me waste away, alone, halfway across the galaxy, while you attended parties. While you drank your bubbling concoctions and shoved the truth down deep.”
She slapped the pink drink from her mother’s hand.
It dropped to the floor, where the glass shattered. Broken the way Andi’s heart had been the very last time she’d seen her parents’ faces in the crowd. Turned away from her. Ashamed of their own blood.
She understood their reasons. She knew the Arcardian ways, and yet she had never actually been faced with the reality of them. The harshness with which her planet was run.
“Androma.” Her mother lowered her voice. “Calm down. This is a special day.”
“It’s not special at all,” Andi hissed. She took another step backward, realizing how taken in she’d been. How stupid, to share even a moment of her time with this woman after all her father had said.
But she’d wanted to believe. She’d wanted a chance to get one of her parents back, even if losing the other hurt.
“You abandoned me,” Andi said. “You let me escape this planet alone and afraid after what happened. I could have died, just like Kalee. She was more to me than you ever were. She accepted me for who I was without dressing me in diamonds or pearls or throwing me on a stage in a glittering costume to dance for all the world to see. Now she’s gone, and I’m still here. And you’re acting as if nothing ever happened. As if this,” Andi waved her hand between the two of them, at the ever-widening gap, “could ever be anything real. The two of you turned out to be just as traitorous as I was, by letting me go free. What would your precious Arcardian society think of that?”
Her mother was now taking steps toward the door, that smile still plastered on her face, and now Andi realized that her father had been right. Her mother truly was broken. Glorya Racella was completely swept up in her fantasies about the world. Andi wasn’t the subject of a painting or a photograph. Her mother was. All of Arcardius was, too, like a beautiful, shimmering diamond, tempting to touch, but sharp enough to cut like a knife when you actually pressed your fingertip to it.
This was not her home.
This woman before her was not her family.
“Father said I was dead to him,” Andi said. Her mother reached the door, the smile finally slipping from her face. “But I’m beginning to realize that, despite all that’s happened, the day I left here was the day I finally came to life.”
“What have those beastly girls been pouring into your brain?” her mother tried again. “Really, Androma...”
Andi held up a hand.