by Alexa Donne
“I was not invited.” Klara took a heavy draw of her wine.
“And I’m the unfortunate niece,” I explained. “When I go to those things, anyone old enough to remember my mom asks me all sorts of questions, how I felt about her ideas, if I would want to run myself. Aunt Freja hates it.”
“Oh? Was your mom a politician, then?” Evgenia asked.
“Kind of,” I said. “Her dad was captain, so she grew up around it. She was really into social welfare, improving conditions on the ship and in the fleet. But she never ran for captainship. Aunt Freja was better suited to it.”
Klara made a lemon-sucking expression. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that my mom didn’t like all the red tape and the glad-handing.” It seemed to satisfy her. She returned to her starry night.
“So when is this sham election being held?” Evy banged on.
“The day after the Valg Ball,” I said. “Once engagements are announced, new partners moving to the Scandinavian will be eligible to vote. Everyone will be so happy and hung-over, she’ll win in a landslide.”
“But of course she will. She’s unopposed, remember?” Evgenia threw back her head and laughed. “You lot are as bad as we Russians used to be.”
Her wrist tab pinged, and she put down her paintbrush to check the message. First she furrowed her brow, then worried her lip and read with intense concentration.
“Everything okay?” I asked, and immediately she brightened.
“Oh, yes, of course. It’s just Elliot and his grand ideas. He wants to get away from the Valg, go visit an old friend on board the Lady Liberty. We’re leaving tonight, apparently.”
I was confused. “You’re taking a vacation from a vacation?”
“Something like that. But it’s only for a few days. A mini-break,” Evgenia said breezily.
An idea began to crystallize. “Can I go with you?”
Evgenia blinked at me with surprise. “Why would you want to do that?” she squeaked.
“I have to meet with someone.” I felt out my plan as I said it. Yes, this might work. “Miranda Fairfax. If you’re going anyway, I can hang a ride with you.” The opportunity was too perfect. They would pay the expensive docking fees I could never afford, and I could talk my way in front of Miranda. Messages weren’t getting me anywhere.
“Ooh, can I come too?” Carina chimed in, clapping her hands with glee. “We haven’t been in ages, and I’ve heard it’s too much fun!”
“I’d have to ask Elliot,” Evgenia stammered.
“I’m sure he won’t mind. He’s a peach,” Klara tittered. Wait, was she doing what I thought she was? “It’s been too long since I visited the Lady Liberty too,” she continued. “Almost six months. Besides which, Mum is in a tizzy about missing supplies, and I just cannot deal with her. I need a break. We’ll make a girls’ trip of it!”
“Okay, but we weren’t going to be gone for long—”
“Perfect! We can’t miss too much of the Valg, anyway,” Klara chirped, suddenly playing the part of the ringleader. “Let’s meet at five. We can get there in time for dinner!”
Suddenly this was Klara’s mini-break, and we were just going along for the ride.
“The more, the merrier,” Evgenia said tightly. “I’m sure Elliot won’t mind.”
From her reaction, I wondered if he did mind. Was this mini-break to get away from me?
Now that I’d gone and invited myself along, it had started a chain reaction that led to my sister and cousin crashing the party. But I couldn’t pull out now. I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity to pitch myself in person. Screw Elliot being uncomfortable. I was going to do this for me. It was about time something good came from his disastrous return.
Sixteen
“Be sure to bring back beer,” was all my father had said to me when I told him we were leaving for a few days, his mind one-track and his concern for what I did with my time hovering just above zero. Carina he pressed into a tight, lasting hug and demanded she return as soon as possible.
Klara and Nora met us in the main foyer, a large trunk sitting beside them.
“You call that an overnight bag?” I asked, eyebrows wrenching up.
“Yes,” Klara replied matter-of-factly, and I knew better than to argue. We set off for the very back end of the ship, where transports like ours docked, Nora trudging along behind us, dragging the bulky trunk, rendered unwieldy by ancient wheels.
“I loathe coming down here,” Klara said as we rounded the final corner and the Sofi’s aft door came into view. While she wrinkled her nose in disdain, I breathed a happy sigh. This was home. It was dingy and kind of falling apart, but it was mine.
Quietly I keyed some commands into my wrist tab to turn on the heating in additional rooms—any Klara might make use of—in order to avoid her complaining about that as well. I groaned at the realization that this trip would use up a lot of resources with her on board. And Nora, too, it seemed. I noticed, for the first time, that she had a small rucksack tucked under her arm. Klara apparently could not travel for even a few days without someone to wait on her.
We made our way past the maintenance hold and my workshop to the living quarters. I called out, announcing our arrival, and Evgenia popped out of her bedroom, blinking red-rimmed eyes at us.
“You’re early!” she chirped, sweeping each of us into a warm hug. “Forgive my face. This place gives me the most terrible allergies.”
“I truly do wish you’d come stay on the Scandinavian proper,” Klara said. “This place is dusty and awful. No offense, Leo.”
I smiled thinly as I always did.
“Elliot!” Evgenia shouted out. “Our guests have arrived.”
He popped out from the adjacent lounge, shrewd eyes sweeping over our party. With his mouth pressed into a firm disapproving line, he nodded politely at each of us. I could feel discomfort radiating from him. Elliot was clearly not happy that I was here, crashing his mini-break. Then his eyes fell on Nora, to whom he offered a flash of smile.
“We’ll be a full house, then,” he said. “Sleeping arrangements may be tough.”
I hadn’t thought about that.
“I’ll stay in the guest quarters, like usual,” Klara immediately sang out, claiming the last remaining available above-decks rooms. They were a small but standalone apartment, with a master bedroom, bathroom, small living room, and servant’s room, perfect for Nora. With Elliot in my room, Evgenia in Carina’s, and Max and Ewan—absent though they were—in my father’s apartment, that left the only option for Carina and me: the old below-deck servant’s quarters. Elliot’s old room. I swallowed hard.
Carina looked equally put out, having done the mental calculations herself and come to the same conclusion. But she bore it well. “Let’s go, Leo,” she said. “We should drop off our bags downstairs.” My heart swelled to see my baby sister slowly but surely growing up. Immediately Elliot put her to another test.
“Could you take your sister’s bag down too?” he asked. “I need to talk to her about something.”
I was sure the surprise on Carina’s face reflected my own. But my sister nodded, accepting my bag without protest, and headed in the direction of the kitchen and back staircase. I turned to find Klara and Nora already gone, having doubled back behind us to the guest apartment. Evgenia popped back into her room, too, leaving me and Elliot alone.
“What is it?” I asked as neutrally as possible. Inside, my body was thrumming with near panic. Was he going to ask me to leave? No, he couldn’t—Carina had just taken my things downstairs. Was he going to address why things had gotten awkward last night? Or, worst of all, could it be to confide in me his secret romance with Nora, to get my congratulations or endorsement?
“Follow me,” he said more than a little cryptically. But I did, too curious for my own good. He led me all the way forward and upstairs to the bridge. We emerged into the half-moon space, and I flinched to see the control panels and screens gray from dust.
My poor disused ship.
“What is it, El?” I forced a nonchalance into my voice, leaning casually on the back of the captain’s chair.
“Do you still know how to fly this thing?” he asked.
“Of course. I haven’t in years, but I can. Why?”
“It turns out it’s actually a good thing you invited yourself along, because I think we need you to pilot.”
“So you are annoyed that we’re here!”
He bristled. “Evy and I had our own plans, so yes.”
“Listen, it got out of control, with Carina and Klara inviting themselves along and then Nora coming along too.” I paused, looking for a reaction out of Elliot at the mention of his maybe-girlfriend. Nothing. “I’m sorry to put you out, but I need this trip to the Lady Liberty. You have the money for docking fees, and I don’t. I need to see Miranda Fairfax, and her office is ignoring my messages.”
Elliot seemed to soften at that. “Is it about your water-filtration system?”
I nodded. “Did you see the latest news on the usefulness measure? It may impact the private ships as well.”
“I did see that. And the latest on visa regulations as well. We don’t have one for the Lady Liberty. Which is why we need you. People of a . . . certain class are exempted from preapproval to dock.”
“So I’m like your Trojan horse?”
“You get us to dock; I’ll pay the docking fees.” He extended a hand, as if to shake on it. Touching him was out of the question, even for something as casual as a handshake. Any contact, and he’d feel my thready pulse, catch on to how frazzled he made me.
“I’ll do it,” I said, playing it cool. “Obviously. But what was your plan before I showed up?”
“Honestly? I was going to pretend to be your dad.”
“Like he’d ever deign to pilot! Let alone beg customs to let us dock.” I laughed.
“Yep, I realized that too. So I probably would have invited you anyway.”
“Isn’t the point of this whole trip to get away from me? Escape me and the Valg for a few days to visit old friends?” I repeated Evgenia’s reasoning, tacking avoidance of myself on for good measure.
“I’m not trying to get away from you, Leo,” Elliot said quietly. Then he coughed, and ducked his head. “But I do wish you hadn’t brought Klara along.”
“Have you met Klara? She brought herself along.” I didn’t mean to be funny, but it made Elliot crack a smile.
“And, uh, you brought Carina, too. I can take a hint. I’ll talk to her tonight. Any luck trying to get her onto someone else?”
Oh, wow, this wasn’t awkward at all. I took a bracing deep breath. “I haven’t checked in with her, but I can tonight. She was supposed to reach out to a few guys she matched eighty percent or higher with.”
“Yeah, we were a sixty-four percent, which is a bit of a stretch.”
“She was very worried about Klara’s seventy-two.”
Elliot’s eyebrows quirked up. “You know, if someone had said yes to me at speed dating, we might know our percent match.”
“I said no to everyone,” I defended, feeling my cheeks heat. “And why would we want to match with each other? We’re just friends now.”
The statement hung between us. I watched Elliot, and he watched me, both of us carefully neutral. Yes, then, we were friends now.
“I checked; you said yes to a bunch of guys the other day,” he said. “One of them was a ninety-three percent.”
“Are you stalking me?” I was half joking, half willing my heart to return from my throat back to my rib cage.
“I was curious.”
I took a moment to make my way over to the main console, to wake Sofi up. I needed the space to breathe, figure out the next thing to say. We’d been docked with the Scandinavian for years at this point. I hoped she could still fly. She turned on, at least. With a slow, grinding whir, the black-under-gray console lit up dim blue, the screens flickering to life.
“Carina changed my answers in the app,” I said, searching for a scrap of something I could use to dust the console. “It was quid pro quo to get her to consider new guys. She picked a bunch of them at random.”
I settled on the edge of my skirt as a dustcloth, but just as I was about to swipe at the desk keyboard, a white square of fabric whipped in front of my face. A handkerchief. I swiveled, raising an eyebrow at Elliot.
“I’m a gentleman now,” was all he said. And I was some lady, forgetting to line my own pockets with a similar tool.
The cloth kicked up a tempest of dust motes, and we both jumped back, coughing.
“You haven’t flown anywhere lately, I see,” Elliot said.
“I’ve needed every scrap of solar power for basic ship functions and, well, the docking fees. So no joy riding for me, or grand vacations.”
I turned back to the console, taking a seat and pulling up the fly controls. I could feel Elliot hovering behind me. I waited a beat, leaving him space to say something. The moment lingered, heavy with intent.
“Are you going to ask Mr. Ninety-Three Percent out?” he asked finally. His voice was soft, edging on playful. “That’s practically love-match levels.”
“There’s not going to be a love match,” I said matter-of-factly. I would never love anyone but Elliot, I’d realized. Any iteration of him was one I would love to the edges of the universe. Not that I could say that to him. “This is why I have to speak to Miranda Fairfax, get this license agreement. If I can make my own money, I won’t have to marry anyone.”
Elliot didn’t respond. I felt only the breeze at my back that signaled his departure. I was left to the stars, winking at me from the window, and the warm console under my hands as I nudged Sofi back out into the black skies.
* * *
It was a short trip to the Lady Liberty, since we were on the same side of the orbit roster. What ate up the better part of two hours was all the red tape to secure a flight path and landing dock for us, which required my best diplomacy skills and a little name-dropping. We hadn’t seen the Fairfaxes since my mother was alive, but you can bet I mentioned Miranda Fairfax no fewer than six times in the course of my conversation with Brent, the terse logistics manager for the famous American ship.
I was as vague as possible when it came to the occupants of my ship, save for also mentioning Her Royal Highness Klara Lind at least three times. If they knew about Evgenia and Elliot, we’d get into sticky territory in terms of visas. Still, eventually I got it settled, and so we found ourselves docked by evening, just in time for dinner. Bully for Klara.
We made for an awkward boarding party. I led the way, seeing as the Sofi was registered under my name (Father having transferred it to me to avoid subsequent paperwork), and it would be my rank—and ship—that garnered us easy entry at customs. Klara trailed behind me, silently fuming that in this case her name and higher rank were unimportant.
She made me pay at dinner, metaphorically and literally. Not only did Klara choose the most expensive restaurant in the New York Ward, but she spent the entire meal flirting with Elliot like it was her job. But Elliot politely rebuffed her at every turn, which should have made my heart soar but instead was like watching a slowly escalating horror show.
Every time Elliot countered one of Klara’s jokes, softly chided her for an ill-formed thought, Carina bloomed a bit more in her chair. She radiated hope. In turn, Elliot squirmed with every smile my sister threw his way. With every contrite or miserable look that he and I shared, I settled farther into the sticky bog of my own feelings. Anger boiled in my veins that Elliot expected me to be sympathetic toward this mess of his own making. But elation buoyed me up toward the ceiling with each reminder that he was interested in neither my sister nor my cousin. Self-loathing quickly followed, that I would find joy in my sister’s misery.
When the meal was done, Elliot insisted on picking up the whole tab.
“We absolutely must go swimming,” Klara gushed as we exited the restaurant. “I’ve already calle
d ahead to get us special access to the pool, and I’ve arranged for a bit of shopping.”
She dragged us to a fancy swim boutique where a timid shopkeeper nodded us inside without a word.
“Everyone pick out a suit. Even you, Leo. It’s on me.”
So it seemed this was her revenge. Night swimming. Bathing suits mandatory.
Carina didn’t need to be told twice to shop; she was already rifling through the racks, Klara by her side. Elliot was off somewhere too.
“Let’s knock their socks off.” Evgenia grabbed me by the arm and steered me toward a display of vintage pieces. “This one has underwire!” She handed me a magenta one-piece with a sweetheart neckline and ruching on the bodice, then picked out a similar one in emerald for herself.
Evgenia lowered her voice as we made our way to the fitting rooms. “So, dinner was interesting. Elliot’s stopped flirting with your family members, so that’s progress. Now all you have to do is admit your feelings. I’m sure he feels the same way.”
“No, we’re just friends. We’ve talked about it.”
“You have?”
“Not directly. It’s obvious.”
Evgenia exhaled a deep sigh, then muttered something in Russian.
The suit was perfect, hugging my curves while hoisting up that which needed to be hoisted. I kind of looked hot, if I did say so myself. Still, I wanted Evgenia’s opinion, so I stepped out of the changing room and into the foyer.
“Klara, I think these are too small—”
And there was Elliot mere feet in front of me, in nothing but a pair of formfitting black shorts. My hands flew to my chest in a futile attempt to cover myself up.
“She picked out your suit?” I asked, trying but failing to avoid scanning the length of his body again. I caught Elliot doing the same with me.
“Yeah, I uh, prefer looser swim shorts. These are a bit tight.”
“I think they’re fine.” I coughed.
“Your suit is really nice too. The color’s great.”
We both nodded. A sense of déjà vu washed over me, like the other night in my bedroom, only this time, Elliot was nearly as naked as I was. But bathing suits weren’t nudity, I reminded myself. This was normal. We were normal.