Eris opens her mouth, closes it just as quickly. Then she yanks on my hair again, much harder, forcing my head directly under hers. She looks down with a hard scowl.
“You’re a Godsdamn hypocrite,” she snaps, teeth bared. “It’s not fair to me? How the hells do you know what’s fair to me? What’s good for me?”
“What did they do to you at the Academy?” I whisper. It is cruel and I know it, but it catches her off guard like I need it to. Her hand slips from my hair and she sits back, turns her weight away from me, the line of her shoulder blade slight under her shirt.
Regret claws at me as the silence grows, and I open my mouth to say something—I do not know what—when her fingers find the end of her shirt and lift.
The fabric hangs hooked in her knuckles, the shallow terrain of her ribs white even in the dull light. Briefly, I remember how she leaned her right side flush against the tiles of the bath, tucked away from the rest of us. I did not think much of it at the time.
The skin is not perfectly white. She peels away the edge of the bandage, just a bit, the small mouth of the first puncture wound ringed with a yellow bruise.
“Eris,” I breathe.
“They knew what they were doing. They were really good, honestly,” she says in a hoarse, horrible voice. The hand not lifting her shirt is hugged around her stomach. “Real smart with it, you know? They only hurt going in, but that wasn’t the point. The tiny forest of needles sprouting from your side for hours is the point. You are so tense the entire time because you don’t know what’s going to happen if you move. Might sink into something important. Might hear something scrape. Might do absolutely nothing, too, that’s the shitty thing. They know how to keep you balanced on the edge of your flinch. Joke’s on them, right? Free acupuncture.”
“Eris,” I say again, because she is so far away, because I do not know what else to say.
“But I won, didn’t I?” she says, but it’s not to me. “I got out. I won.”
Her fingers brush lightly over the bandage and hover there, and then she goes so perfectly still that it scares me. But my fear is gone in a moment, cracked apart by easy, simple rage. This I can understand. That they hurt me and I am going to destroy them for it. That they hurt her and I am going to kill them for it.
“Does it feel like you won?” I ask.
Silence. She shakes her head.
“All right. Let’s keep going.”
Her shirt falls back into place. Eris turns to me with such an unexpected, furious expression, I blink in surprise, and she reaches over to snatch my arm, thumb pressed to my gears. She is on her knees, hovering above me, my wrist in her grip.
“Do not ever deign to tell me what I see in you,” she snarls. “Because I see it all, Glitch. The panels and the glow and the painlessness, and I keep looking, because that fury and that terrible sense of humor and the way that you stare at things as if you truly believe that they’ll be stolen away in the next heartbeat … It’s so much more than what they made you into. How could you not know? I’m not ignoring the pieces they put inside you, Bellsona; I just can’t focus on them when you’re there, too.” She bows her head over mine, a reaper plucking a soul from its mortal shell, and all I can think is, Go ahead. “Like hells I don’t see you.”
I take great care blinking over each feature: the stubborn lip, the furrowed brow, and those eyes, Gods, those damn eyes. Sometimes the darkness in them is too infinite. There is too much potential to drown me within a single look. Bellsona. And I wait for the recoil, the jump to my heart like an electric shock, the lurch of the desperate, familiar plea. Say anything else.
Say it again.
She drops my hand back to the bed and lies down beside it. “I feel ancient,” she whispers, one arm draped over her eyes. “I don’t think I’m supposed to.”
“We are supposed to be children,” I say.
She scoffs, teeth flashing. “Oh Gods, Sona. What a joke. This whole fucking world.”
“So what do you want to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sleep it off?”
“Sleep what off?”
“The war. The era.”
“Fine idea, Glitch,” she whispers. “Just fine.”
But she does not sleep. Neither do I. We stay up until the new hours of the day, and I whisper about sycamores and fleeting dawns and slight dusks and canaries with wings spread wide. By the end of it all, I am completely drained of both words and tears, and have spilled so much of the past onto the sheets between us that I do not have the strength to close my eye, and instead lie still, watching her profile.
And then, for the first time since I started the story, Eris moves. Her hand shifts against mine, our fingers threading together, palms clasping. She does not speak. There is nothing more to say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ERIS
The snow on the ground never really seems to melt. The fire is fed constantly, and at night, we fight over the bit of heaven that is the length of rug next to the hearth. Sometimes the bedrooms get too cold and all of us pile into the common room, shoulder to shoulder, blankets layered together. I feed the mistletoe June hides around the apartment into the flames, as is our tradition.
Meanwhile, the construction of the Archangel renders Jenny more feral than usual.
As she stalks around the Hollows—whether it’s toward the river, where the Archangel’s head rests, or down toward the gates, where its feet lie in the slight ravine twisting through the east side of the forest—people who don’t dive out of the way get trampled. She barely sleeps, and the circles under her eyes dig themselves deeper every time the sun rises to find her still milling around, shouting endlessly at no one but herself.
I instantly know what’s happening when Xander bursts into the common room one morning, slams the door, and shoves a chair underneath the handle. If you’re running from someone with that much fear on your face, you’re running from Jenny.
He spins around, and his lips move, emitting no actual sound but mouthing two very distinct words: Hide me.
Juniper and Theo immediately leap off the couch and shove the bookshelf back, causing its sagging contents to spew dust, ushering Xander inside the crawl space hidden behind. Arsen heaves himself on top of the bookshelf once they’ve dragged it back into place, lying flat with his feet dangling over its edge, black eyes rolling closed.
A moment later, Jenny kicks open the door, sending the chair halfway across the room. Nova neatly springs back from her perch on the love seat to avoid her legs getting crushed by the flyaway furniture.
“Hi, Jen!” she chirps cheerfully, hopping onto the abused chair, pulling her feet underneath in a tidy crouch. She places her elbows on her knees and interlaces her fingers, grinning lazily. “What brings you to our humble abode this fine morning?”
“Where is he?” Jenny growls.
“Where is who?” Glitch asks from the couch, so nonchalant that I see Nova bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
Jenny huffs and pulls her hair back into a high ponytail, springing her crow’s feet into full view. “You Godsdamn know who I’m talking about. Where’s your twig boy?”
“Can you stop shouting?” Juniper asks sweetly, throwing a soft gesture toward Arsen. “He’s sleeping.”
Jen’s sight flicks toward the bookshelf, and Juniper swallows hard.
Theo groans. “Subtle, June.”
Arsen’s eyes fly open when he hears Jenny’s hard steps, pushing himself off the shelf a mere half second before she shoves it to the side, revealing the crawl space. Xander yelps and attempts to slip underneath her arm, but she sticks her foot out and sends him sprawling onto the rug. Dust takes the air again as Jen bends down and presses her palm tight against his shoulder.
“Jenny,” I say steadily, choosing my words carefully. “Get the fuck out.”
Jenny looms over Xander, her free palm curling open.
“Give it,” she growls. “I’m not asking again
, toothpick.”
There’s silence as we all wait, and then Xander slowly reaches into his pocket, retrieving something that Jenny snatches greedily. She springs to her feet and takes to pacing around my common room, keeping the item clutched in her palm.
“I leave my lab for five minutes, and I come back to find things moved around. One thing, one key thing, simply vanished. I turn around to see the mute scurrying up the steps.”
“He’s not mute,” Juniper snaps, and Jenny lets out a dry laugh. She pauses her march to look at Xander, still on the floor.
“Let’s hear the explanation, then, motor mouth,” she says, opening her fingers for all to see. “Why in the twin hells would you take this?”
Sitting in her palm is a small jar of blue liquid. A single eye with a copper trail rests inside, its dulled pupil floating above the surface.
It’s slight, but in my peripheral vision I see Sona shift, recoiling as much as she can without actually moving from her spot. By the time I get a good look at her, she’s back to cleaning her blade. Gods, she does love that sword.
“Is there a specific reason you wanted that, Xander?” Glitch asks evenly. Her eye flicks toward the one in the jar.
I don’t expect him to answer besides with an icy stare. But to my surprise, the kid’s eyes are glazed with tears.
“You don’t want it,” he whispers. “You hate it. You want it destroyed.”
“And you thought you would do that for me?”
Xander swallows hard and nods. Sona runs her tongue over her lips and stands, placing the oil rag gently on the table.
“Why would you do that for me?” she murmurs.
“You realize you could’ve ruined us?” Jenny spits. “You realize how dead I would’ve made you if—”
Xander motions at her to stop with a wave of his hand, and then grins, in a sick, dipshit kind of way that says blatantly, I literally couldn’t care less.
Jenny lets out a short, disbelieving breath. The jar still in hand, she points rigidly at Sona.
“You have your test run this week. And if I catch any of you rats anywhere near my lab before then, I’ll make sure the Council receives a hefty organ donation by dusk.”
Everyone stays silent as she strides away, listening for the fading footsteps and the slamming of the stairwell door to signify safety. Nova begins to laugh.
“You’re batshit, Xander,” she crows. “Do you have a death wish or something?”
Xander ignores her, rising to his feet and tweaking his shirt collar, where Jenny’s iron grip has left the fabric crimpled. His eyes go to rest on Sona’s steadily held blade, the sure hand encased in the intricate silver knuckle guard. The glance is fleeting, but nonetheless, I know what he sees. It’s the same image that’s been throbbing inside my head for weeks now, burning like a fresh cut every time I look in Sona’s direction: her form glistening in the forest’s autumn shadow, blade steadfast in a tight fist, and an unflinching gaze leveled up at the Berserker. I saw the scene only for a split second before another Windup demanded my attention, but I saw her. A fight she couldn’t possibly win, and yet her stance screamed otherwise.
Xander saw it, too. Just as I had against the Valkyrie, Sona had stood confidently not because she thought she would come out of the battle alive. She did it because the weapons were now turned toward her, and off her crew. Our crew.
Sona saved his life, and now he’s trying to return the favor. He broke into Jenny’s lab and stole the eye, hellsbent on saving her.
From winding?
No. A lump unearths at the base of my throat.
“You don’t really want to kill all those people, do you?” Xander rasps.
The look on her face. The look on her face could shatter me, if it was turned toward me, but it’s not; Xander holds steady under it, because he had the gall to do what I should have, what I can’t. Her hair crowds her shoulders messily. I think that’s what keeps me from seeing the hitch in her breath, but I know that her tell is in her hands, and I know that when they curl into themselves like they do now, she’s bracing herself.
Massacre. That’s what I’m putting on her shoulders; that’s how we’re finishing this. Because how could the end of war not be as barbaric as the rest of it? Why should we have hoped there was any other way?
Before I even register that she’s placed the sword in her belt, Sona has stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Xander’s thin frame. The embrace is quick, and Xander blinks in surprise as she straightens and places her palm lightly on his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she says, smile and voice soft. “It was very kind of you to think of me.”
Xander drops his gaze, hand treading up to hers. At first I think he’s going to bat away her gesture, but instead he coils his fingers around her wrist and flips her palm toward the ceiling. Her gears come into full view, a meager amount now, but steadily blooming. Lightly, his fingertip taps against her forearm panel, on the first tattoo, the one I put there myself.
* * *
We make it a few more days before Jenny tries to kill one of us again. A midday run has the kids thrumming with restless energy, but because I’m ancient and dead tired, I’m grateful to find the common room empty after my bath, save for Sona comfortably cross-legged on the couch. She has one of my books in her hand, a blush staining each cheek.
“Oh Gods,” I say.
Her sight touches on me and she holds it while she turns the page. “This is filthy,” she says evenly.
“It is not.”
Her finger traces the page. “She watched her fiercely, and she was senseless for it, because she knew this was the turning point, the setting of the linchpin…”
She swings over the back of the couch while I grapple for the book, up onto the window ledge, tall frame leaning against the glass. She hasn’t stopped reading. Kneeling below on the cushions, I have to tilt my head all the way back to see her properly. “Rot, Glitch!”
“She knew that her universe pulled taut around this girl, would eventually collapse around this girl, this force—” Sona pauses. Her chin tilts toward the window, and then she says, “Chest.”
“What?”
“Mecha chest.”
I climb up the back of the couch and look out, where the Hollows’ central courtyard has been overtaken by the Archangel. The crates from the Waypoint held only the defining details: a silver breastplate, greaves, arm guards, and an equal parts interesting and terrifying set of hands, each finger ending in a curved talon. A black metal halo rounds its crown. Half of the campus could cozily camp above its shoulders.
The thing is hideous. Whatever elegance the Archangel pieces hold is vastly overshadowed by Jenny’s doctored parts—the Berserker’s thighs, most of the Argus’s torso, not to mention random bits and parts of the innards. It doesn’t matter. The thing just has to fly.
On the Archangel’s sternum, Theo sits on Arsen’s shoulders, Nova on Juniper’s. Xander is officiating the chicken fight. He got a whistle from somewhere, and its shriek claws at the glass.
“They’re dead,” I hiss.
“Jenny,” Sona remarks. My sister has appeared on the mecha’s hip with a look that would level the gates of the hells.
The effect is immediate. The kids fall off one another and ping off in different directions. Something flickers in Arsen’s hand, and suddenly fog is rolling off the mecha in tendrils.
“Come on,” I say, and we peel from the window. I lead her up the hallway and to the front door, flipping the lock three seconds before five pairs of fists begin whaling against it. Snickering, we sit back against the wood, heels scrubbing against the muddled carpet—we really need to clean—as they screech on the other side.
“Eris, please,” Theo begs.
“Glitch! Glitch, let us in!” yelps Nova.
“I’ve decided to blow apart the door.”
“Arsen, do not,” I snap.
“Hold this, June. Thank you.” Something hard smacks against the door. Sona, undis
turbed beside me, untucks my book from under her arm and picks up where she left off. “You better back away.”
“You will smear us against this carpet,” Sona calls.
A round of shrieks. Then Jenny’s grating voice, mere feet away. “There you are, you little shits, I am seriously about to—”
“Scatter!” Juniper shouts. The rush of panicked feet on the steps, Jen’s growl winding out, and then it’s quiet.
Sona’s lips are parted slightly as she reads. One thumb rests lightly on a crease at the bottom of the page, where I dog-eared the paper the last time I read it.
“Why are you watching me?” she asks, and heat rushes to my cheeks before I realize she’s reading aloud again. “Because I cannot seem to stop. Because there is only meant to be you and everything else, and yet it is this: you as everything. But I say none of this—”
I put my hands behind my head and my head between my legs. “Our door might blow up and us with it. This is not the last thing I want to hear.”
“Is it not?” She glances at me. “These pages are worn to threads, Eris.”
“It’s not like we have the Academy’s sprawling selection.”
There is not one closed bedroom door in this hallway; I see the corner of Nova’s pink comforter, June’s bird nest collection teetering on her dresser, chess pieces scattered on Xander’s floor. The unstuck corner of a poster depicting forest fungi species bows above Theo’s bed; Arsen has his walls smudged with charcoal drawings. A stack of paperbacks teeter on the edge of my dresser. There’s nothing in Sona’s room, Milo’s old room, save for some clothes on the wall hooks—once mine, now hers—and a neatly made bed; she hasn’t slept in there since Milo tried to kill her. The first time.
Gray light trickles in from the window at the far end of the hallway, paling the blue wallpaper. Sona’s toes dip into the rays, mine in the shadows, curling beside her shin. June insisted on painting her nails yesterday; Glitch wanted them black, like mine.
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