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I stare at the rough cuffs around my wrists. The skin beneath them is pink and raw. Here I am, shackled again, just like the first night I came to the Embassy.

Tima’s words are quiet. “No. She’s right. You run and they’ll kill you.”

After I’d seen them kill the Padre, after I’d seen the fortune-teller slump, after my attacker at Griff Park went limp—I didn’t even try to get away. Sitting here now, I wonder if I should have.

“I’m sorry,” I say, miserable.

“Yeah? You should be. I never trusted him.” Ro glares at me through a cut eye and winces in pain when he leans forward. His shirt is ripped and bloody.

I look away. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“This? This is nothing. The other guy—guys—they definitely got the worst of it.” He tries to raise his arms over his head—Ro’s victory gesture—but the cuffs won’t let him, and he gives up.

Tima has her head down, making herself small. She is talking to herself. “I can’t stay here. I have to get back to Bru.”

She stares at the cuffs, pushing them back and forth.

When she speaks, she ignores me. “Dol knows why we’re here, Ro. She was with Lucas last night, and he’s not here. Even you can do that much math.”

He looks at Tima. “Or maybe Superfreak here upset the librarian. Didn’t put your little boxes back in the right place?”

I raise my voice. “It’s not what you think. Lucas came to warn me—to warn all of us—but it was too late.”

“If he needed to warn
us
, why was he in
your
room instead of Ro’s or mine?
We
didn’t do anything.
We
shouldn’t be here.” Tima’s eyes are blazing.

“He—Lucas—” I still can’t believe it as I say it. “He told the Ambassador everything. The visit to the Icon, what Tima learned from the records, Fortis’ plans. Everything.”

Tima’s mouth drops open. “There m-must be a good reason,” she stammers. “Lots of reasons. He didn’t want us to go. He didn’t want his life to change. He didn’t want us to hurt his family.”

“Listen to yourself, Tima. Wake up.” Ro stands and starts to pace. “I knew we couldn’t trust him. He set us all up. Us, the Rebellion, Fortis. We’ve been sold out.” He pounds on the door.

I see the metal bulging and denting. I see his fists turn red with blood. I’m too exhausted to stop him.

As we sit in the dim light, I consider our options. “Look, I know we don’t want to talk about this, but with Lucas—”

“Gone rogue?” Ro slams the door again.

“I think we have to.” I look at the two of them. “Tima, is there even a small chance that we can destroy the Icon?”

Tima looks at the ground, composing her thoughts. “Yes, actually. Very small. A lot of variables. We’d need help. I don’t like risk, but I would try.”

“What about the risks? What if Lucas is right and the Lords retaliate? Think of how many people could die. It’s more than just us in danger here.”

“I’ve thought of that,” Tima responds. “Then again, what if the Lords need us, or at least some of us? Think about the Projects.” She pauses. “And tactically, our best chance to move is now, while we still have the element of surprise. What’s left of it.”

I look at Ro, sitting with his eyes closed, head against the door, nursing his banged-up hands—serves him right.

“And?” I look at him, pointedly.

“Come on, Dol, you don’t have to ask me what I think. I’ve always wanted a chance to fight the No Face. If we get it, I say we take it and don’t look back.” He slams the door again with his fist, just to make his point.

I nod. “Agreed.” We know what Lucas thinks. Now we know what the rest of us think.

Then the door knocks from the other side. Ro freezes, staring at it. I feel a familiar surge of warmth, and I wonder—

A voice echoes into the cell. “Right, then. I’m going to have to ask you to stop doing that. If you break the door over my head, Ro, I won’t be able to open it.”

“Fortis?” I stand up, pressing my ear against the door. I’ve never been so happy to hear the Merk bastard’s voice.

Ro grins—even Tima looks relieved.

I hear him working with the door on the other side.

“Good thing I didn’t come empty-handed. It’s a bit sticky, this one. It almost gives a fellow the impression they’ve gone and locked you in. Not too hospitable, that.”

I hear the sound of flint, or maybe a match striking—over and over—followed by the faint splutter of ignition. The scent of sulfur wafts up from beneath the door.

“Stand clear, then, love.”

I step away, pushing the others back with my arms.

There is a pop, and then a flash of light. Smoke snakes up from beneath the shaking door. Slowly, it swings open—

And I see Fortis and Lucas standing in the opening.

“The cavalry, as they say, has arrived.” Fortis looks out of place in the full Sympa gear he’s wearing. Lucas, next to him, looks a bit better in his.

Nobody is speaking.

Fortis cocks his head and says to himself, “Thank you, Fortis. We owe you our lives.”

He smiles. “Hello to you all, and again, you’re welcome.”

I fling my arms around him, though it crosses my mind that the last time I saw him, he abandoned us at Griff Park. Fortis has more than evened the score, I think. But nobody says anything to Lucas. Not even Tima.

“What’s he doing here?” Ro growls.

“I’m here to save you.” Lucas crosses his arms. “Of course, if you’d rather stay here, be my guest.”

“Let me think about it. It’s a tough call.” Ro’s eyes narrow.

Lucas looks at me. “You should think about it. What you’re doing is suicidal.”

Fortis raises an eyebrow. Ro, a fist.

“Lucas—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“No. You’re about to do the one thing that could wipe out the entire planet. There has to be a better way.”

Fortis steps between Lucas and Ro this time.

“All right, children. That’s enough. I’m here because your
friend
Lucas here told my friend Doc—who woke me up and tossed my toasty arse out of a warm bed to come paddle in the cold all the way out here and save you people.” He gestures to the door. “Now, if you don’t mind. Less talk. More walk. Follow me, or I’ll leave you to rot.”

I feel a surge of adrenaline and anxiety. The Sympas are getting closer. “He’s right, we have to go now.”

We walk down a corridor where he unlocks a door leading to another corridor and a dead end. I look at Fortis. “This was your plan?”

He responds casually, inspecting the wall. “Yes, actually. I think I’ve got it.” He cocks his head at me. “Oh, and by the by, this one—little Grassgirl—is on the house.” I barely have time to curl myself against the floor when the wall blows and I feel the concrete rubble raining all around me.

I cough. Dust fills my lungs and stings my eyes. I look up to see that Ro and Tima are out through the wall—or
the hole that has replaced it. Lucas sits motionless, eyeing the gray dust that covers him.

I look at him, but he ignores me.

Fine.

I step toward the hole, but Fortis intercepts me, grabbing my arm before I can go through it.

“One thing—though I know we have to go. The Sympas won’t be far behind.”

“They’re going to know you were here, Fortis. What if we’ve endangered the whole Rebellion?”

Fortis shrugs. “They’ll just know a Merk came and blew you out of the Pen. So what? That’s our bread and butter, love. Fortis the Merk would never pass up an opportunity as rich as this one.” He eyes Lucas. “Brass Buttons over there makes it all worth my while, as far as anyone knows.”

“Great.” Lucas is despondent.

“Here’s the thing. There’s one part of this plan you’re not going to like.” Fortis looks me squarely in the eye. “You’re not going to survive the escape. In fact, you’re going to have to let Hux kill you.”

“Excuse me?” He isn’t joking. “That doesn’t make sense. Hux isn’t going to kill me. Neither is Doc or Orwell, for that matter. He isn’t even real.”

Fortis lowers his voice. For once, he sounds as serious as things are. “You can’t think you’re going to run wild
and free in the peonies after this, can you? You’re messin’ with the big dogs now. You, Doloria, are going to have to die. You more than anyone.” He wags his head toward Ro and Tima. “More than the rest. Believe me, I should know.”

A thought comes to me. A glimmer, something familiar.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.

“You mean, I have to die like you did?”

“What’s that?” He knows what I’m asking, but he’s going to make me put it together myself.

“You designed Doc, didn’t you? You’re his friend, the one who left. The one who’s dead to him.” I try to remember the exact words, but I can’t. All I remember is that Doc had a friend, and lost him. Fortis. It has to be.

Fortis shrugs, but I don’t stop. “You named him. The science fiction books—and the jokes—and all the Latin—that’s you. Doc is yours.”

“Ah, there’s a story there, love. A good one. But first I have a little question for you.”

“What?”

“Can you shoot a gun?”

Without another word, he shoves a Rebellion pistol into my hand and pushes me through the hole in the wall, hard.

There is a loud thump and the wall next to where I was standing turns to rubble.

The Sympas are here.

I take off running as Fortis fires. As I round the corner, I know there are more feet coming after me than just Fortis.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Lucas right behind him.

We don’t resume the conversation until we are in sight of Fortis’s boat—at least, the boat he hijacked from the Sympas. Searchlights crisscross in the air above us, slicing through the night with laser precision.

I try not to look at the dock, where two Sympas lie facedown along the foaming shore. “Casualties of war,” says Fortis, grimly.

He climbs through the shallow, rocky water, not far from where I stood with Ro yesterday.

“Come on. Hurry it up, then, they’re fast buggers, the whole lot of them. Fast and rather unfortunately armed.” Fortis stands there in the center of the skiff, waving us in. His long coat flaps like ragged wings around him. Ro leaps into the boat, nearly capsizing it. I scramble along the rocks after him, carefully hoisting myself over the side. Tima and Lucas stand on the shore.

“You coming?” Tima looks at Lucas, then at us.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Lucas?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not going with you.”

Tima nods.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She looks at him for a long moment, her silver hair whipping in the wind. “I know. But I have to go.”

She leans in to kiss his cheek, and he pulls her into an awkward hug. They cling together, just for a moment, but I have to look away. It’s so personal, and so not something for me to see.

Or feel.

Maybe they’re more like Ro and me than I thought.

I hold out my hand to Tima, and she takes it. We aren’t friends, but we aren’t enemies. Not anymore.

As I pull her into the boat, Tima calls over my head to Lucas. “Take care of Brutus for me—”

I hear the shout back—“Promise.”

Brutus.
That’s when I realize, between Lucas and her dog, Tima’s leaving the only family she’s ever known.

I look back at Lucas. His green-gray eyes meet my blue-gray ones.

We don’t say goodbye. We can’t.

But inside, I can feel him, pulling back. This is the way our separate paths must take us.

My mother may live in the past, but she pulls me one way. His lives in the present, and she pulls him the other.

So I let go. It’s all I can do.

Lucas looks small on the shoreline and only gets smaller, the farther we drift away.

“Were you serious—I mean, about me dying?” I scoot in the boat until I am next to Fortis, or nearly next to him. As close as the wet bench seats will allow.

Tima stares back at Santa Catalina. Ro stares the other direction, toward the Porthole.

Fortis keeps his eyes on the shoreline and one hand on the motor as he talks. “I did it, long ago. It’s bloody difficult, what with all the ways the Embassy can track a person. Your digital signature, it’s everywhere. But Hux can do it. He’s done it before.”