Page 84 of The Last Hope

Zimmer gives me a strange look. “Why wouldn’t you tell him about your job?” His voice and eyes soften, and I doubt Stork heard him.

“Leverage,” I whisper, even though this is only a fragment of what I feel. “He’s not telling me anything about him, so he won’t learn anything about me.” Earlier in the night, I explained to Zimmer how Stork knows about me. My birth and all else, but Stork is being tight-lipped so we’ll help with this mission.

Nodding, Zimmer bows forward. “Heya, Stork. Who raised you?”

“Why are you asking?” Stork swigs his drink and licks liquor off his lips.

“I like to know the bare minimum about my bedmates. Occupation, deathday—because no fykking way is someone dying in my bed—and parents who raised you, are they dead or alive.”

“Dead.” Stork raises his glass and finishes off the last sip.

“Question answered,” Zimmer tells me with awiseasssmile, and then he topples my pillow barricade. Chucking them behind our heads.

“Heya, I put those there for a reason.” I retrieve one and pound the pillow back between us, intensifying Zimmer’s confusion.

“All that does is shrink the bed,” Zimmer says, “and there are three of us—”

“Two,” Stork corrects. “I’m not your bedmate,mate.I’m taking the floor.” He sets his empty glass in his liquor cabinet.

“Why?” Zimmer and I say in unison.

I trust Stork.The thought slams at me. I trust Stork enough to sleep in the same bed as him.

Despite his caginess, the parts of me that screeched,be wary of him, Franny!have gradually waned.

Maybe because at StarDust, I feared people learning that we dodged our deathdays—and I was cautious of every candidate, putting all of them at a distance. Even Gem Soarcastle, even Zimmer. No matter how much I liked them, I was afraid they would discover we lived when we should’ve died and they’d turn on us.

All of that has drastically changed.

Now we’re all on the same side with the same goal. And Stork is included in that unifying feeling. He could’ve sent theSaga 4packing. It would’ve been safer for the fleet to oust a handful of bludraders.

Instead, he let them stay.

As much as he can, he’s been trying to work with us and not against us.

Stork is just as surprised by our response as I am. “You’d want me to sleep in the same bed as you?”

“Should I retract the offer?” I question. Sweat drips down my neck, and to ignore the roasting, I try to adjust my bra beneath my tunic.

He smiles softly. “Only if you want to.”

Zimmer clears the last of the pillow mound. “Here. The bed is big enough for five bodies.”

I gape. “Three at most.” He’s too used to sleeping on a mattress crammed with people. I try to recollect the pillows, but Zimmer starts throwing them on the floor.

On his side.

“Give that back,” I snap.

He fixes himself in place, lying back on his forearms, and his smile is as humored as the one Stork constantly wears.

“You two have slept together before,” Stork suddenly states. He’s been studying our interactions.

“Plenty of times. Every night.” Zimmer shrugs.

“Every night?” Stork whistles, looking impressed.

Why would he be impressed bysleep?