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Rig smiled, and both his cheeks dimpled adorably. He was really cute when he wasn’t snubbing me.
The Superiority…they say they want peace, but in truth they oppress us. Their peace is only control.”
Rig was worth wading through the awkwardness for.
“It’s one thing to have power, but if you don’t direct it you can end up making huge mistakes and hurting people.
The closer I got to people, the worse it felt when I lost them.
I got it. I was going and he was staying, and he was scared. Probably for all of us, but I liked to think that he was sparing a little extra for me.
the tree was only as healthy as its weakest branch.
“The Superiority controls us by dividing us,” Rinakin said. “That’s why they wanted us to think the humans were eradicated. They’re afraid of what we can do together.”
I didn’t know enough about human politics to know who was correct, but I did know enough about politics in general to guess that everyone would interpret the law in the way that best suited themselves.
I’d never read the book, though now I wished I had. There were still a few copies on ReDawn. Something about a ring.
That was a seriously impressive shot. Kimmalyn would have been a star, even in the professional leagues.
“But it turns out there is no limit to the number of times we have to learn obvious things.”
“Our slugs are really good at finding each other because Rig and I are dating, and we use the slugs to visit each other so we don’t have to deal with awkward questions, because we weren’t ready to tell everyone. There. Now you know.”
“I meant us,” FM said. “We aren’t giving them up. The politicians will have to come to ReDawn and take them from us.” I smiled. “I’d climb that tree with you.”
“No,” FM said. “But it’s hard for most people to ignore the dominant messaging sometimes, especially when no one is willing to speak against it.”
With so many different ideas, it’s easier to choose what to believe.
“You still think I’m going to betray you?” I asked. “I hope you aren’t,”
“I worry we’ve chosen the losing side on both your planet and mine, and I’m afraid that this is going to go terribly wrong for all of us. But I don’t like the idea of bargaining with the people who’ve been murdering us for generations. I don’t like the idea of peace talks with the beings who’ve been keeping us in a cage.”
“Stop focusing so much on what you aren’t able to do, and try.”
“You’ll be right here,” I said. He looked surprised. “Yes,” he whispered, his voice barely a breath. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
He held my gaze for a moment, and something about the way he looked at me was thrilling and terrifying all at once.
We were supposed to have saved them. We were supposed to have won. Instead we’d barely gotten ourselves out alive. I could have died in there. I almost did.
I imagined the water pulling me down, crushing me the way Juno said it would, all that weight blocking out the questions, the demands, the needs of everyone else. Moments ago all that water had seemed terrifying. Now it felt like release.
I couldn’t remember what it felt like to laugh. I wondered if that meant I had already drowned.
Spensa was amazing like that. And somehow she had confidence in me. Stars, I could have used a little of that confidence right now.
“Mindblades,” Alanik said. “Jorgen, how did you—” “I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Sometimes people are going to make bad choices, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” “That sucks,” I said. “It’s the worst!” FM said. “But it’s not your fault.”
I liked my callsign. Spensa had given it to me, and it reminded me of her.
“Don’t be sorry. You aren’t alone in this. I know you think you are, but you’re not.”
And we all trust you with our lives because we know that at the end of the day, Jorgen Weight is going to do the right thing.
“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be powerless and totally at fault.
“Some things are under your control, and others aren’t. You do the best you can with what you have to work with. And that is what sets you apart—what you do with it.”
She was forgetting herself, her friends, her family, everything, but she still remembered me. She cared about me, deeply and with a ferocity that was totally and uniquely Spin.
Spensa flies among the stars, Gran-Gran said. But you build things up from the ground. She is a warrior, and you are a defender. It’s a different kind of story.
We all have our own burdens, even if we carry them differently.
“You are the Restorer of Lost Souls,” Juno said solemnly. “He Who Hearkens unto Silent Voices, Opener of Locked Doors. Where you go, I will go, shadow-walker.”
Scud, Arturo hated that even more. He was…oh, he was attached to Alanik. Nothing was going on between them yet, but he hoped for it.
That was what I was afraid of. That this was my best. And it was never, ever good enough.
“Like the Saint says,” Kimmalyn said, “if you don’t have anything to say, you might scare your flightleader into thinking you’re dead.”
This was it, I realized. The thing the Superiority feared the most. The power of all of us working together.
