Page 116 of Last of Her Name

“Right. Because we really nailed the whole disguise thing back on Sapphine. We lasted, what, three hours before we were spotted?”

His mouth quirks into a dry smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

I sit beside him, running my palm over my face. He finally lowers the tabletka, letting the holos dissipate.

“When I woke up on Diamin and realized I’d lost you,” he whispers, “it was like something woke in me. Something terrible and savage. I could have ripped the sky in two to get you back. I can’t lose you again, Stace.”

“I know what you mean.” I felt it too, at the Loyalist base, when I attacked Zhar after I thought she’d killed him.

“Would you really have hit that button?” he asks. “Blown the palace and all of us to pieces?”

“No. I don’t think so, anyway.”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought, Stacia would never do it. But you’re not just Stacia anymore, are you?” His gaze probes mine, the worry line between his eyes deepening. “I don’t know Anya. I don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“Oh, Pol.” I shake my head. “Anya’s just … a little stronger, I think. I’m not entirely sure what she’s capable of, either. She scares me too.”

For a moment we sit in silence, listening to the air recycler churn. Pol’s pinned a photo—an actual paper print—above the vent, and it flutters softly in the draft flowing out. It shows my family and his, before his mom died of violet fever when he was six. We’re all standing in the vineyard, surrounded by barrels of grapes. I remember that year; it was our best harvest, and that vintage would win my dad the most coveted award on Afka.

In my memory, Clio was there too, standing beside me. I know I’ve seen that photo a hundred times, because Pol used to keep it in his room above the stables, and I know Clio was in it then.

But now when I look for her, there’s only empty space.

I feel a clutch of grief, but it’s not as strong as it was. I know she’s still out there, waiting for me, calling to me. And I may be the only one who can save her. How can I make him understand that?

Pol’s hunched over, rigid with tension. I can sense the weariness in him; it’s the same weariness that drags at me. We’ve been running and fighting at every turn for the last three months. He’s ready for it to be over, and so am I.

“Are we going to talk about her?” he asks softly.

I suck in a breath. He must have noticed how intently I was staring at the picture, searching for someone who isn’t there.

He waits a moment, and when I say nothing, he begins gently, “Your mother said it was the psychosis that infected all the Leonovs. She was one of their physicians, so she saw it regularly with the imperials. When you were little, she tried to treat you, to make you understand Clio wasn’t real. But it pushed you over the edge, and you went into shock. She was worried you would sustain some worse form of mental trauma.”

“So she went along with it,” I whisper.

He nods. “She said the problem would take care of itself eventually, and that Clio wasn’t doing any harm. So we fell in line. We saw Clio too. We talked to her, included her, made her a part of our lives. All of us in Afka, even the people who weren’t part of the Loyalist cell. But it was all fake. It was for the princess, to keep her sane, because we needed Anya, and Anya needed Clio. So Clio stayed.”

I think of everyone I know back home, and how they must have seen me as the town crackpot. But instead of shaming me, they made me feel safe.

And what did I give them in return? The Union’s missiles and soldiers, razing their homes to the ground.

“How could I not have seen it?” I ask. “She was there my whole life. She was …real, Pol. There had to have been hundreds of times where Clio wouldn’t have made sense. What if she asked you a question and you didn’t answer it? What if I asked you to give something to her, pass her a pencil?”

“We were never really sure,” he says. “But your mom suspected that a part of you always knew Clio wasn’t real. For example, Clio neveraskedme questions. You never had me hand her an item, because maybe a subconscious part of your mind knew Clio wasn’t there. It seemed that when anything happened that contradicted the reality of Clio, your mind rejected it. Erased it, even. I remember once, an aeyla moved into town and got a job at the diner. He didn’t know about Clio. You ordered lunch for you, me, and her. He brought two drinks instead of three, and you told him to bring one for Clio. The guy insisted there were only two of us sitting there, and you got angry, and we left. The next day we went back to the diner and it was like you’d forgotten all about it.”

I look down at my hands. “I don’t remember that.”

“It was a week before the astronika appeared, Stace. A little more than three months ago. That’s what I’m talking about—you just ignored events that didn’t fit with your reality. Your mom said it was normal for your family, the Leonovs, to do that, especially when they were young.”

“Why were our parents loyal to them, then? Why would anyone have followed them if they thought they were insane?”

He shrugs. “The way my dad always talked about them—and it was rare he did, they were all so secretive—it was like they were gods. He said they knew things,didthings that were beyond normal human capacity. That their madness was nothing compared to what they could do. They understood the universe on a different level. I guess that was the Firebird, only nobody knew it.”

“And you put up with me all these years?”

“Stacia.” He hesitates, then turns and takes my hands, his eyes staring intently into mine. “Clio was a part of you, and so she was important to me. Acknowledging her, including her, it became second nature. There were even times when I could almost see her, when I could have sworn there were three of us climbing the trees above the house, or sitting in your room watching geeball matches.”

I watch him with a feeling of desperation, trying to see my past through his eyes.