Adela ducks around the wing, finally throwing a glance our way. “Interior?” she asks, rapping her knuckles against the rear.
Gal pushes off the fence and crosses the lot to open the cargo ramp for her. I don’t want to watch her greedy eyes take in the space that’s been our refuge, but I also wouldn’t dare leave the Umber heir alone with her. I follow Gal across the lot, wincing when the hazy layer of cloud shifts and sunlight beams down on the back of my neck. The afternoon heat is nowhere near as oppressive as yesterday, but any bit of sun changes that fast.
By the time I duck into the Beamer’s cool, dark interior, Adela’s already scrambling up the cargo-bay ladder, making a beeline for the cockpit. She ignores the crew bunks, the head, and the kitchenette—she only has eyes for the ship’s controls. I glance into our room as I pass it, the lump in my throat growing at the sight of two slept-in beds.
“Console outfit looks standard,” Adela calls from the cockpit. She’s planted herself in the pilot’s chair already, and something in me bristles territorially. “Nothing’s obviously missing. Few enhancements here and there, but that’s what you’d expect when a ship’s…Well, you know.”
Neither of us confirm what she’s fishing for, but neither of us has to. The ship’s stolen military property from another empire. If we let her use that fact to negotiate, we’ll get slaughtered.
“Let’s see how she flies. Hold on, kiddos.”
Gal dives for the copilot’s chair, and I wrap my hands around the headrest as Adela spins up the engines with a casual flick of her wrist. The rotary thrusters roar, bumping the ship a few feet off the ground, and we wheel in the air, the vacant lot shrinking beneath us. “We never agreed to a test drive,” Gal mutters, but Adela only cackles in reply.
I grip the headrest tighter, my legs braced for the worst. We gain altitude at a miserable rate, complaints echoing from all sides as the Ruttin’ Hell puts up its best fight against its pilot. Adela flies like a drunkard at first glance, but there’s a method to her madness that an experienced eye can pick out. She’s a minimalist with the thrusters, giving them only what she needs to keep us off the ground, and rather than sticking to a straightforward vector, she curves along the paths she means to take.
In short, she’s flying the Beamer right into its weaknesses, and the ship shows it. I flinch as the rear of the craft groans and the rotary thrusters sputter. Gal glances back at me as we arc out over Isla’s northern suburbs. He looks mildly nauseated. The way Adela’s flying is a negotiation in and of itself, and there’s no countering it.
We’re losing. By how much depends on how quickly we fold. I give him a short nod.
“Seven K,” he says over the scream of the struggling engines.
Mercifully, Adela levels off on a steady vector and flips on the autopilot. “Come again?” she asks, even though it’s clear she heard him the first time.
“We’ll take the initial offer. Seven K for the Beamer, no questions asked.”
Adela grins with her butcher’s smile, and I have to tear my gaze away.
* * *
—
We save the minutiae of the deal until we’ve landed safely back in the vacant lot. I perch on the end of the cargo ramp as Gal and Adela wrangle the details inside, staring bleakly at the life we’ve stuffed into the pair of backpacks waiting at my feet. It’s done, I keep telling myself. Gal and Adela shook on it.
But I can’t shake the sensation that we’re throwing away our biggest asset for something so intangible. If that money disappears into the digital void, these bags will be all we have left.
A hand comes down on my shoulder, jolting me from the spiral of my thoughts. A strange, guilty relief washes through me as I realize it’s metal. “C’mon, kid,” Adela says. “No need to sulk. You cut a good bargain, all things considered.” She glances back into the ship’s interior, then bends closer. “Your boyfriend’s doing a sweep to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.”
“He’s not my—”
“Shut it. Look, I can’t help but notice your circumstances. Yours, especially.”
With a jolt, I realize her accent is shifting slightly. The broad vowels of Corinth are falling away, leaving a familiar sharpness in the cadence of her voice that sends a chill up my spine. But it’s not all the way Umber—there’s a painful collision between the clipped syllables of an Umber voice and musical tonality of an Archon accent, one I’m all too familiar with.
“I think I get why you would have deserted an Umber academy,” Adela continues. “And if that really represents your feelings, I wanted you to know there’s a place for you in this empire. I can introduce you to some people.”
Panic wipes out every rational thought in my head. If she’s hinting at what I think she’s hinting at, I can’t afford any part in it—not when my sole mission is to keep the Umber heir safe. But I can’t let on that I’m escorting an Umber prince, which means I need a better reason to reject her offer than the fact that Gal would have a full-blown panic attack if I have anything to do with Archon refugees.
If she’s hinting at what I think she’s hinting at.
“I…I can’t…” I stammer, switching my gaze back to the packs before the smarting in my eyes gives me away. “We’re just trying to get home to our families.” I’m so used to lying through omission that the flagrancy of the one I’m telling right now burns on my tongue. I have no family to go home to. Gal’s mother has made sure of that. By all rights, I belong with people who can sympathize with the pain that’s hollowed me out.
Adela lets out a sigh so surprisingly soft that my eyes flick her way to make sure it’s hers. I expect her to look angry or betrayed, but there’s nothing but tired sadness written over her sharp features. “Fair enough,” she says. “But look, you seem like good kids. If you need a place to stay for now, I know a guy with cheap rooms that get cheaper if you use my name. I’ll point you in his direction.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, and at least that sounds earnest.
* * *
—
True to her word, Adela guides us to a run-down building on the northern edge of Isla’s downtown, where the owner sees her face and immediately halves the price of a tiny room on the third floor. It’s about the same size as our academy bunk, but something about the grimy lightlessness of the place makes it feel far smaller.
And of course, there’s only one bed.
Gal flops onto it, throwing down his oversized pack with a heavy thud. We tried to take everything that could possibly be useful, from the tools in the toolbox to the ration packs in the kitchenette. My shoulders ache from my own load, which includes the deflector armor I wore during our escape, all the clothes and towels I could find, and basically anything else that wasn’t bolted down.