We mutually pause, take a breath. Going back and forth the way we have, it’s like we’re circling the same planet but from slightly different axes. So excruciatingly close to coming together but missing by a hair each time we pass.
“When?” he finally says, and for the first time I’m concerned I might have given him too much information. Because what if? Nico is technically the enemy after all. I’d never in a hundred years think of him as that, but … what if?
“I don’t know,” I say quickly, but it’s the truth. I have no idea.
“Soon?”
“Possibly.”
“Veda…” Nico squares his shoulders so he’s sitting straighter, no longer leaning in toward me. But it’s not his sudden distance that strikes me, it’s his eyes. His lack of a dimple. He sees what I’m doing, that I don’t fully trust him for the first time in forever.
And he’s right.
My Sun, he’s right.
And I’ve got to do the only thing I can to get him down to the Lower. Not only for the cause but for his own safety. If he stays, especially as an Imperi officer, soon to be directly under Raevald’s thumb, what if the truth comes out about who I am—it’s no secret we’re close friends. We’ve not shied away from pushing the bounds of our society in the past. He could be labeled a traitor, sympathizer to the Night, untrustworthy—he could lose everything anyway.
If I could quickly and fully convince him of that right now I would. But I can’t. It’s clear he’s not coming with me. Not tonight and certainly not willingly.
With a deep breath, I steel myself. I become Lunalette, the one who’s foretold to set the revolution into motion, bring the Night to victory. The one like my mother, fighter and spy. Perhaps this is how I become her. Perhaps this is my first act. And act I must.
“Nico…” I speak softly and scoot closer, bridging the space he created between us. “If I knew when, I’d tell you.” Only if you joined the Night. “Truth is, I have no idea. We’re not near as organized as the Imperi, not close to as battle ready.” It’s not a huge secret. “I’m so sorry…” I am. I inch even closer, take his hand, my other already in my pocket, gripping that cold glass vial. “I’m pushing you too hard.” I place my forehead to his.
Our noses grazing, he says, “It’s all right.” I pull my right hand out of my pocket, glass vial tucked against my palm, needle sticking out between my middle and forefingers, the cap still on, but easily popped off with the slip of my thumb.
He wraps his arms around my waist. “I believe in us,” he whispers, and he’s so close his words wash over my lips. “We can both do good. Apart, yes, but also together.” He places his hand just above my heart, runs his thumb in an arc. “Ad astra.” Nico places a barely there kiss to my lips. Again, “Ad astra. I believe in us.” A couple of layers below where his thumb makes a constant arc, back and forth, my scar tingles.
But my act, my mission is compromised the moment Nico pulls me in, wraps his arms around me, and kisses me like it’s our first and last kiss ever. His lips are warm, soft, laced of spearmint. When I wrap my arms around his neck, Nico clutches the back of my jacket, pulling me even closer.
“Veda…,” he whispers against my lips as I run my fingers up the back of his neck, into his hair, kissing him more deeply, my head completely spinning. Everything around us a blur.
I’m caught off guard by how much I don’t resist. By how quickly I pull away from my mission and this is bigger than me and Lunalette, all for the boy before me and ad astra.
Truth is, I can’t simply throw my cares away to the stars. Not this time. For once with Nico, it’s not so simple.
Neither is drugging him to convince him to join my side of this revolution. It’ll never work. He’d never trust me again, much less come around to our side.
What was I thinking?
As if waking up from a trance, I abruptly pull away, hide the syringe up my sleeve. I plan to shove it back in my pocket. But as I do, my fingers get tangled in Nico’s jacket and I drop the vial. It clanks against a clump of stones on the ground and shatters.
Nico jumps and pushes me away. He stands up. Glancing all around, he sees the broken syringe and looks back and forth between it and me.
He’s frozen, staring straight at me, betrayal and anger and hurt written in the way he shakes his head. How he doesn’t say a word. So quiet. Too quiet.
“Nico…,” I say, slowly getting up from the bench, “it’s harmless. Only meant to … I mean, I wasn’t going to—”
“Stop. I don’t want to know. I can’t know.” He glances back at the shards of glass, the liquid spilling, slicking the rocks beneath it. “You shouldn’t be here.” He peers up toward his house. “It’s not safe.” He gazes across what feels like endless space between us. “For either of us.”
I nod. My hands are shaking and I force them to my sides. Caught between the shame that I nearly attempted it and the disappointment that I couldn’t find some other way to convince him to come with me, pain pricks behind my eyes.
And the pain, the burn of fresh tears trying to surface, isn’t so much about the failed mission. It’s Nico. Behind his anger, his betrayal, I see the same pain that’s about to double me over. Together, we’re coming to the same realization. Peeling back something I think we’ve always known but refused to admit. And the truth of it, the hurt below the truth, is enough to split me in two.
Because despite our differences, despite that we had the world stacked against us, I always hoped, believed, something would magically change. That it would somehow, eventually work out for Nico and me. That the stars would align and the seas would calm and we’d be there to see it all. Together.
I now understand that’ll never be.
And that’s what I can explain to the Sindaco when I go back. Nico and I aren’t like him and my mother, because they were on the same side. We’re not.
“I’ll go,” I barely manage.
“Good.” He backs away.
But wait! I want to shout. Please! Come with me! Trust me!
He tightens his jaw, shakes his head, and takes another step back. “It’ll be better this way. We can’t—”
But I don’t get to hear what “we can’t” do or be.
Dorian bounds out from around the corner, a single sharp needle in his hand.
Nico makes to pull his sword from its hilt, but before he can, I throw every last ounce of strength I have into my legs and slam my body into his, sending him tripping over his own feet and into the pond. Dorian halts, steps toward the water after Nico, but stops short when a soldier, shining a light through the thick trees in our direction, shouts from the top of the hill. “Denali! That you?”
I jerk the needle from Dorian’s hand and throw it against the rocks so it shatters next to what’s left of the first syringe. We run for it.
Two vials of moonroot wasted.
Without Nico.
Both of us seething with anger, out of breath and in a cold sweat from sprinting through the snowy forest to get away.
But we do get away.
We run straight for the same den we came through yesterday. The soldiers continue sounding the warning, but their whistles grow fainter the farther away we get and I wonder if Nico somehow stalled them. Would he even?