Page 26 of Last of Her Name

I draw my knees to my chest and hug them. “Pol, I … don’t know. Look, this is allnuts. Right now, all I can think about is getting Clio out of the Committee’s hands.”

“You’ve always looked out for her, ever since we were little,” he murmurs. “Stacia and Clio, the Twins, your dad called you. As bonded as the moons of Amethyne.”

I nod. “I’m the only person she has.”

“No,” he says, and he reaches out to grip my hand. “She has me too.”

I look down at his fingers, stained purple from the dye. My hand briefly tightens around his, but then I pull away, inhaling deeply.

“Look at us,” I say, trying to lighten my voice. “Not much of a rescue squad, are we?”

“Nonsense. All we have to do is steal a spaceship, join up with a hidden resistance army, battle our way to the center of the galaxy, retake the throne, and somehow not die in the process.” He shrugs. “We’re Afka’s wrestling champion and top mechanic. This will be a piece of seaweed cake.”

I make a face and brush crumbs from my lap. “I’ll settle for just saving Clio and getting as far away from the rest of it as possible.”

His lips part like he’s about to say something more, but then he sighs and falls silent.

We lie back as darkness falls, nestled in the musty cushions. One of the lamps is pricked with tiny holes, so it casts soft beads of light across the ceiling, like a net of stars. I turn off all the others but leave that one on. Pol nods off first, and I listen to him breathing beside me. When he sleeps, some of the worry drains from his face, but there’s still a crease between his eyes. I stare at it, reminded of the tattooed outcasts in the market. Impulsively, I reach out and softly touch the line, and Pol’s face scrunches reflexively. When he relaxes again, the crease is still there.

As I drowse off, I try hard to think about Clio, and how we’re going to get off this planet, and not how warm Pol’s fingers were in my hair.

The next day, we scour the market barges, searching for a transmitter so Pol can try to contact the Loyalists. While he digs through a scrapper’s junk pile, I slip to the stall next door, where a female eeda is selling passage credits.

“Anything to Alexandrine?” I ask her softly so Pol doesn’t hear through the thin stall partition.

She’s smoking a long pipe; when she pulls it from her lips, the smoke releases through gills in her neck. “Sure, if you got a thousand credits.”

“A thousand—” I swallow hard. “What about Amethyne?”

“See for yourself,” she says, sliding a tablet toward me. I press the option for Amethyne. Every departing vessel comes up ascanceled.

“The Purple Planet’s gone full revolt,” she says. “Crazy Loyalists and those savage vityazes, blowing each other up. Bleedin’ shame too. There’s gonna be a wine shortage now.”

“Surelysomeoneis going there?”

She shrugs. “Committee’s put up a blockade. No one in or out. Can’t even transmit a message to the planet. Fools have got themselves into stormy water now. Dunno what they were thinking, kidnapping the princess.”

“She wasn’t kidnapped. And the direktor himself said sheisn’tthe princess.”

The eeda shrugs. “Makes no difference to me. Leonovs, Committee, they’re all the same. Alexandrine thugs looking down on us adapted folk, always busting down doors and making up charges.”

Groaning in frustration, I turn away—only to bump into the next customer.

I stumble as the man reaches out to steady me.

“Get off!” I snap, pulling away.

“Pardon me, I didn’t mean to offend.”

The stranger’s voice is deep and polite. I blink, looking closer, but there’s not much to see. He’s got a gray hood pulled over his face so most of his features are cast in shadow. All I can make out is that he’s younger than his voice implies. He holds a wooden staff in one hand, which makes me think he might be an offworlder too, given how little wood I’ve seen on this planet.

“If you want passage,” I say, “better look elsewhere. This place is a rip-off.”

“Hey!” The eeda glares at me, jabbing her pipe in the air.

The stranger gives a half smile. “Actually, I have a ship of my own. I was thinking of registering it here, in case anyone might be looking for passage.”

My eyebrows rise a fraction. “Oh? Where you headed?”