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First published in the United States of America by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017
Copyright © 2017 Penguin Random House LLC
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Ebook ISBN: 9780448493572
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For you, the unifiers of our universe:
May we work together to heal our worlds.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
The Houses of the Zodiac Galaxy
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Acknowledgments
About the Author
THE HOUSES OF THE ZODIAC GALAXY
THE FIRST HOUSE:
ARIES, THE RAM CONSTELLATION
Strength: Military
Guardian: General Eurek
Flag: Red
Zodai: Majors
THE SECOND HOUSE:
TAURUS, THE BULL CONSTELLATION
Strength: Industry
Guardian: Chief Executive Purecell
Flag: Olive green
Zodai: Promisaries
THE THIRD HOUSE:
GEMINI, THE DOUBLE CONSTELLATION
Strength: Imagination
Guardians: Twins Caaseum (deceased) and Rubidum
Flag: Orange
Zodai: Dreamcasters
THE FOURTH HOUSE:
CANCER, THE CRAB CONSTELLATION
Strength: Nurture
Guardian: Holy Mother Rho
Flag: Blue
Zodai: Lodestars
THE FIFTH HOUSE:
LEO, THE LION CONSTELLATION
Strength: Passion
Guardian: Holy Leader Aurelius
Flag: Royal purple
Zodai: Lionhearts
THE SIXTH HOUSE:
VIRGO, THE TRIPLE VIRGIN CONSTELLATION
Strength: Sustenance
Guardian: Empress Moira
(in critical condition)
Flag: Emerald green
Zodai: Ministers
THE SEVENTH HOUSE:
LIBRA, THE SCALES OF JUSTICE CONSTELLATION
Strength: Justice
Guardian: Lord Hysan
Flag: Yellow
Zodai: Knights
THE EIGHTH HOUSE:
SCORPIO, THE SCORPION CONSTELLATION
Strength: Innovation
Guardian: Chieftain Skiff
Flag: Black
Zodai: Stridents
THE NINTH HOUSE:
SAGITTARIUS, THE ARCHER CONSTELLATION
Strength: Curiosity
Guardian: Guardian Brynda
Flag: Lavender
Zodai: Stargazers
THE TENTH HOUSE:
CAPRICORN, THE SEAGOAT CONSTELLATION
Strength: Wisdom
Guardian: Sage Ferez
Flag: Brown
Zodai: Chroniclers
THE ELEVENTH HOUSE:
AQUARIUS, THE WATER BEARER CONSTELLATION
Strength: Philosophy
Guardian: Supreme Guardian Gortheaux the Thirty-Third
Flag: Aqua
Zodai: Elders
THE TWELFTH HOUSE:
PISCES, THE FISH CONSTELLATION
Strength: Spirituality
Guardian: Prophet Marinda
Flag: Silver
Zodai: Disciples
THE THIRTEENTH HOUSE:
OPHIUCHUS, THE SERPENT BEARER CONSTELLATION
Strength: Unity
Guardian: Master Ophiuchus
Flag: White
Zodai: Sires
PROLOGUE
WHEN I THINK OF MY brother, I hear his comforting voice.
Stanton’s words have always been my lifeline: They have the power to soothe me, guide me, even save me from my nightmares. I especially love what I call his Stantonisms—catchy one-liners he would come up with on the spot whenever I was afraid.
“Don’t fear what you can’t touch,” he told me the night Mom abandoned us. I used to think it was the smartest thing I’d ever heard, but now I know better.
Everything touches us eventually.
The day Mom left us, I stayed up late with Dad and Stan, the three of us huddled on the couch, pretending to watch the wallscreen while we waited for her to come home. At some point I must have dozed off, and Stanton probably carried me to bed. The sky was still dark when I awoke to the sound of my own scream.
The door to my room opened, and my ten-year-old brother’s familiar voice said, “Rho, it’s okay.”
His weight settled beside me on the mattress, and his warm hand closed around my clammy one. “You’re safe. Everything’s fine.”
My entire body was slick with sweat, and my breaths were coming in short spurts. I could still feel the spot on my shoulder where the Maw from my nightmare sank its fangs, the same place where the real Maw had bitten Stan the week before—only in the dream, Mom didn’t swim swiftly enough to save me.
And as the monster carried me far from my family, its eyes were no longer glow-in-the-dark red.
They were a bottomless blue.
“Is—is she back yet?” I whispered as I fought to free myself from the nightmare’s hold.
Stan squeezed my fingers, but the pressure felt faint, like I hadn’t surfaced to full consciousness yet. “No.”
&nbs
p; “Is she . . . coming back?” I whispered even softer.
He was quiet a long moment, and I grew fully awake as I awaited his answer. Then he slid up and rested his back against the bed’s headboard, sighing. “Want to hear a story?”
I exhaled, too, as I nestled under the covers beside him and closed my eyes in anticipation. I’d take a Stan story over pretty much anything on the planet.
“There once was a little girl whose name I can’t remember, so let’s call her Rho.” His comforting voice wrapped around me like a second blanket, and I felt my heartbeat finally slowing down. “Little Rho lived on a tiny planet that was about the size of Kalymnos.”
“But how can a world be that small?”
“Are you telling the story, or am I?”
“Sorry,” I said quickly.
“Let’s try this again: Rho lived alone on a very small planet, in a different galaxy where things like small planets were possible, and if you worry too much about the science, this story will end. Anyway, little Rho knew everything about her world: the name of every nar-clam, the shape of every microbe, the color of every leaf. Her home was her heart, and her heart was her home, just like Helios belongs to the Houses and the Houses belong to Helios.”
His words painted pictures in the black space of my mind, burning up the darkness with their light. “But one day,” he went on, “a huge storm rolled through her planet, and little Rho was blown into the atmosphere, caught in a whirlwind that tossed her about the cosmos and stranded her on a strange, much larger world.”
“But what about her home—”
“It sounds like you don’t want to hear the rest of the story,” he said, sitting up suddenly, “so I guess I’ll just go.”
“No, no, I’m sorry, I want to hear it,” I pleaded, tipping my head up on the pillow to stare at Stanton’s gray profile.
“Then no more interruptions,” he warned, settling back against the headboard, and I mimed sealing my lips shut. “Anyway, she landed on a new world, and instead of the sea surrounding her, she stood on a field of feathers.”
“Feathers?”
“Huge feathers. They grew from the ground like grass, and they were every color and design you can imagine. When Rho walked, the feathers tickled her bare feet so she couldn’t keep from smiling with every step.”
I squealed with laughter as something soft suddenly brushed the soles of my feet, and I curled into myself and shrieked, “Stan, stop!”
“Yeah, she reacted just like that,” said my brother, and I could hear the ghost of a smile in his voice.
“Only every time she laughed,” he went on, “Rho’s mind forced her mouth back down into a frown. She shouldn’t be happy, not when she was so far from her home. She had to get back. She had to be serious.”
“Were there people on that planet who could help her?” I asked—and then I cringed as I suddenly remembered I wasn’t supposed to be asking questions.
“Actually,” said my brother, “almost as soon as little Rho started walking across the field, she ran into someone. A purple bird that was human-sized and wore a wreath of flowers around its head.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what Rho said. And then the bird spoke to her.”
“It spoke—?” I asked, awed.
“In a normal—if not slightly squeaky—voice, it said, ‘Welcome, friend. Why do you fight yourself?’” I giggled at Stan’s high-pitched bird impression. “Little Rho’s shock at meeting a talking purple bird turned into confusion as she considered his question, and she asked, ‘What do you mean?’
“The bird pointed with its beak to Rho’s feet. ‘I can see the ground pleases you, yet you won’t allow yourself to feel pleased. Why do you resist the pull of the present in favor of a pain that is clearly past?’”
“That sounds like something Mom would say,” I blurted, and then I sucked in my breath at my own boldness.
Stan paused only a second, and in that instant it occurred to me that he probably didn’t want to sound like Mom right now.
“Little Rho’s shoulders sagged with the weight of her sadness, and she said, ‘I’m upset because I’ve left my home, and now I don’t know how to get back.’ The bird frowned. ‘But why should that be upsetting? Every bird must leave her nest, and once she does, she can never return. The nest dissolves because she doesn’t need it anymore.’”
A sense of unease settled in my stomach, and I went from enjoying Stan’s tale to not wanting to hear its ending. “I don’t like this story. Let’s start a new one.”
“That’s not how life works, Rho,” murmured my brother, sounding older now that he wasn’t speaking in character. “It’s like in a game when you’re dealt a hand you don’t like, you don’t get to ask for a new one. You have to change your hand for yourself.”
“How?”
“By playing through it.”
I didn’t understand what he meant because I didn’t want to try. There was only one thing I was waiting to hear from him. “Is Mom coming back?”
He was quiet for a stretch, and in our silence his breaths grew louder, until they rose and fell in rhythm with my own. When at last he spoke, his voice was so low I barely heard it.
“I think our nest is gone.”
Tears spilled from my eyes because I knew my brother wouldn’t lie to me. Mom wasn’t coming back.
Stan crushed me to his side as I cried, and he continued narrating his story in a tone as soft as my sobs. “‘That sounds like a terrible life,’ little Rho said to the bird, horrified at the thought of never seeing her home again.
“But the bird’s beak widened as it smiled and shook its head. ‘Judging is a waste of time because most of what happens in our lives is out of our control. The only choice we get is what we do right now, with this moment. Every second is a choice we make.’”
I sniffled as I slid my face up on his shirt, which was stained with my tears. “So little Rho can choose to smile or frown as she walks through the feathers,” I said.
“Exactly,” said my brother. “You can get through anything, Rho. You just have to let go of your fears and keep moving forward.”
“How?” I asked.
He was quiet a moment, and then he said, “Don’t fear what you can’t touch.”
I sat up a little, sounding the line out in my mind. There was something empowering about it, and I loved how neatly it declawed the monsters I couldn’t fight, like my visions and my nightmares. And I knew then that I would survive the loss of Mom because I had Stan.
My brother was my strength, my guiding star, my anchor. It wasn’t just the times he saved me from my nightmares—it was the love and faith and patience he showed me our whole lives.
With Stan by my side, the monsters couldn’t touch me.
As long as my brother was safe, my fears weren’t real.
1
THIRTEEN MASKED SOLDIERS SURROUND ME in the cadaverous Cathedral on Pisces.
Heart hammering, I search beyond their white uniforms for a sign of my friends, but no one else is here. The lights of the Zodiac constellations hang overhead, and in the center, Helios is already starting to go dark. Half the sun is swallowed in shadow.
“Wandering Star Rhoma Grace,” says the Marad soldier directly in front of me. His greasy voice reminds me of Ambassador Charon of Scorpio. “You have been found guilty of Cowardice, Treason, and Murder. For these crimes, we sentence you to instant execution.”
My pulse pounds as thirteen cylindrical black weapons are simultaneously trained on my chest.
“Do you have any final words?” asks the Charon-like voice.
I try to speak in my own defense, but my mouth won’t open. I try to run, but my legs won’t move. I try to pinch myself, but even my fingers are paralyzed. This can’t be happening—it isn’t real—they can’t touch me—
“FIRE!” he cries.
My scream freezes on my lips as blue lights flash from every Murmur and blast into my chest at once, the pain so agonizing it incinerates my insides.
My body collapses to the bone floor, and the force of my fall is so strong that I blow right through the ground and get sucked down to an even deeper dimension of this hell.
I land on a flat field of prickly black feathers that scratch at my bare feet. The charcoal clouds above me darken and swirl, like a storm could blow through any moment.
My Lodestar suit has been replaced with a thin white dress, and the chilly air bites at my skin. A large silhouette materializes in the gray distance, and as it comes closer, the first thing I notice is it’s not human.
Its legs are thin as sticks, and tucked into its sides are great feathery wings. Something about the birdlike creature feels familiar, like I should recognize it, but I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
Lightning strikes the ground, illuminating the bird-man’s features: It’s missing an eye, its wings are studded with spikes, and its beak is soaked in blood.
I let out a high-pitched shriek right as thunder shakes the earth. Rain starts pouring down on me as I spin and run in the opposite direction.
My feet slide on the slippery feathers, and the soaked fabric of my dress clings to my skin as a shadow falls over me. I look up to see the bird-man diving down, its talons bearing on my head—
I roll into a ball, and the ground suddenly falls away, sloping down into a sharp descent. The lower I tumble, the faster I go, bumping my elbows, shoulders, and head on the slippery feathers again and again and again, until land runs out, and I roll into a roaring river.
My skin stings when it slaps the water, and I gasp for breath as the current tosses me around. The bird-man’s shadow falls over me again, and I dive underwater to escape it.
Almost immediately, the river starts to shrink until it’s too shallow to swim. When my head is in the clear, the creature’s talons reach down again, too close to evade—
I cry out as sharp nails pierce my shoulders.
Blood leaks out from the gashes, and it gurgles up my throat, my nerve endings searing in maddening agony until I hear my bones snap in the creature’s claws—
And then blackness entombs me.
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