Chapter 20
Ver
Humans are the only mammals who can willingly delay the onset of sleep. Every other warm-blooded, hairy creature shuts down whenever the need strikes.
I have kept myself awake for too long, and now my body must compensate.
For seventeen hours, I sleep through Aryl’s voice messages on Charles’s communications platform.
Ver, come to lab. This is important.
Ver, are you really still sleeping?
Are you okay?
ANSWER ME. PLEASE.
Eventually there’s a bang-bang-banging on my vandalized door. Aiyo, what does she want?
“Someone has arrived,” Charles says. “Should I let them in?”
I sigh. I revealed too much to her last night. But there is no way to avoid meeting again. I peek in the mirror and run my hands through my disheveled hair. I tell Charles yes.
“Hey.” Aryl hovers in the entryway, the sole of one foot wrapped around the other ankle. There is relief in her voice.
I lower myself onto the floor, so that I am surrounded by my scattered notes. Aryl approaches and sits next to me. She touches the back of my right hand, as if to check that my body temperature is still hovering around 310 Kelvin.
“When you didn’t answer my messages, my mind jumped to horrible places.”
“Because of my health?” I say, my voice going sharp.
Aryl shrugs. “All the stress can’t be good for you.”
“I am fine,” I lie.
A shadow falls over her face. “What happened to your door?”
Humiliation burns through me. If I could melt down the door with a blowtorch, I would.
“Do you have any idea who did it?” Aryl asks.
I shake my head. “No. It could have been anyone. Anyone who thinks I hurt Cal and wants to intimidate me into confessing. Anyone who thinks Three-er girls claw at powerful men for a living.”
Aryl moves closer to me, and when I don’t move away, she touches the back of my hand again. I shiver. “I grew up on this moon. I know how cruel people can be.”
People were cruel to Aryl? The girl cannot walk a hundred meters without some popular apprentice greeting her. Without someone looking her up and down and gaping.
“Have you looked at yourself?” I say. “What is there to be cruel about?”
Pain suffuses Aryl’s face, raw and terrible to see. A glimpse into the girl I am urgently curious about. “People like us, who are different—we represent everyone who shares our blood.” Her voice is hoarse with emotion. “We can’t afford to make mistakes.”
I look down at our hands, her long and graceful fingers. Like stem tendrils in various states of unfurling.
Aryl clears her throat. “My parents work for Senator Mercure. She’s put them under house arrest without pay.”
Anger shoots up my sore spine. “How is she allowed to do that?”
“The rules don’t apply to some people,” Aryl says. “Speaking of which . . .”
Aryl updates me on Ford’s flight and Jaha’s questioning by the police. I slide my hand away from hers and try not to think about why she grabbed it in the first place.
“I knew I was right about her!” I mutter under my breath. “But we still need to find evidence that we are innocent. The police are wondering if it was us and her, not us or her.”
“We have to look into Ford,” Aryl says, nodding. “After Kricket told me Ford ran off, we used Kricket’s flexitab to call Ford at least ten times. No answer.”
I massage my temple, where a headache is gathering force. “He cannot dodge us forever. We have to clear our names. Not just for us. For our families.”
And for what remains of our dreams.