I nod. “I always think about how life would have been like if Eo never died. The children I would have had. What I would have named them.” I smile distantly. “I would have grown old. Watched Eo grow old. And I would have loved her more with each new scar, with each new year even as she learned to despise our small life. I would have said farewell to my mother, maybe my brother, sister. And if I was lucky, one day when Eo’s hair turned gray, before it began to fall out and she began to cough, I would hear the shift of rocks over my head on the drill and that would be it. She would have sent me to the incinerators and sprinkled my ashes, then our children would have done the same. And the clans would say we were happy and good and raised bloodydamn fine children. And when those children died, our memory would fade, and when their children died, it would be swept away like the dust we become, down and away to the long tunnels. It would have been a small life,” I say with a shrug, “but I would have liked it. And every day I ask myself if I was given the chance to go back, to be blind, to have all that back, would I?”
“And what’s the answer?”
“All this time I thought this was for Eo. I drove straight on like an arrow because I had that one perfect idea in my head. She wanted this. I loved her. So I’ll make her dream real. But that’s bullshit. I was living half a bloodydamn life. Making an idol out a woman, making her a martyr, something instead of someone. Pretending she was perfect.” I run my hand through my greasy hair. “She wouldn’t have wanted that. And when I looked out at the Hollows, I just knew, I mean I guess I realized as I was talking that justice isn’t about fixing the past, it’s about fixing the future. We’re not fighting for the dead. We’re fighting for the living. And for those who aren’t yet born. For a chance to have children. That’s what has to come after this, otherwise what’s the point?”
Sevro sits silently thinking over what I’ve said.
“You and I keep looking for light in the darkness, expecting it to appear. But it already has.” I touch his shoulder. “We’re it, boyo. Broken and cracked and stupid as we are, we’re the light, and we’re spreading.”
I run into Victra in the hall as I leave Sevro with Ragnar. It’s late. Past midnight and she’s only just arrived to help coordinate the final preparations between Quicksilver’s security, the Sons, and our new navy, which I’ve given her command of until we’re reunited with Orion. It’s another decision that peeves Dancer. He’s frightened I’m bestowing too much power on Golds who might have ulterior motives. Mustang’s presence could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
“How’s he doing?” Victra asks regarding Sevro.
“Better,” I say. “But he’ll be glad to see you.”
She smiles at that, despite herself, and I think she actually blushes. It’s a new look for her. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“To make sure Mustang and Dancer haven’t torn each other’s heads off yet.”
“Noble. But too late.”
“What happened? Is everything prime?”
“That’s relative, I suppose. Dancer’s in the warroom ranting about Gold superiority complexes, arrogance, etc. Never heard him curse so much. I didn’t stay long, and he didn’t say much. You know he’s not that sweet on me.”
“And you’re not that sweet on Mustang,” I say.
“I’ve nothing against the girl. She reminds me of home. Especially considering the new allies you’ve brought us. I just think she’s a duplicitous little filly. That’s all. But it’s the best horses that’ll buck you right off. Don’t you think?”
I laugh. “Not sure if that was innuendo or not.”
“It was.”
“Do you know where she is?”
Victra makes a sad little face. “Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t know everything, darling.” She moves past me to join Sevro, patting my head as she goes. “But I’d check the commissary on level three if I were you.”
“Where are you going?” I ask.
She smiles mischievously. “Mind your own business.”
—
I find Mustang in the commissary hunched over a metal bottle with Uncle Narol, Kavax, and Daxo. A dozen members of the Pitvipers lounge at the other tables, smoking burners and eavesdropping intently to Mustang, who sits with her boots up on the table, using Daxo as a backrest, as she tells a story about the Institute to the other two occupants of the table. I couldn’t see them when I first entered, due to the bulk of the Telemanuses but my brother and mother sit listening to the tale.
“…And so of course I shout for Pax.”
“That’s my son,” Kavax reminds my mother.
“…and he comes on over the hill leading a column of my housemembers. Darrow and Cassius feel the ground shaking and go screaming into the loch where they clung together for hours, shivering and turning blue.”
“Blue!” Kavax says with a huge childish laugh that makes the Sons eavesdropping unable to keep their composure. Even if he’s a Gold, it’s difficult not to like Kavax au Telemanus. “Blue as blueberries, Sophocles. Isn’t that right? Give him another, Deanna.” My mother rolls a jelly bean across the table to Sophocles, who waits eagerly beside the bottle to gobble it up.
“What’s going on here?” I ask. Eying the bottle my brother’s refilling the Golds’ mugs with.
“We’re getting stories from the lass,” Narol says gruffly through a cloud of burner smoke. “Have a dram.” Mustang wrinkles her nose at the smoke.
“Such an awful habit, Narol,” she says.
Kieran looks pointedly at our mother. “I’ve been telling both of them that for years.”
“Hello, Darrow,” Daxo says, standing to clasp my arm. “Pleasure to see you without a razor in your hand this time.” He pokes me in the shoulder with a longer finger.
“Daxo. Sorry about all that. I think I owe you a bit of a debt for taking care of my people.”
“Orion did most of the minding there,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. He returns gracefully to his seat. My brother’s captivated by the man and the angels tattooed on his head. And how could he not be? Daxo’s twice his weight, immaculate, and more well-mannered than even a Rose like Matteo, who I hear is recovering well on one of Quicksilver’s ships, and is delighted to know I’m alive.