Page 87 of The Last Hope

His silence is my answer.Yes, they did.

“Why would they do that?” I ask, angered tears burning on their ascent.

His hand falls again. “It’s complicated, dove.” He sees my ire. “Don’t hate them.”

How is he not enraged? He has to keep so many secrets. He truly is carrying an excruciating amount of weight on his shoulders—because of an order. Fromtheirorder. “Just disobey them.”

“Disobey?” He laughs. “Okay.”

“Good…?” Can it be that easy?

His brows rise at me. “I wasjoking.”

I sigh roughly.

“Look, I trust in what the admirals wanted,” he explains. “You should too.”

A rock lodges in my throat. I simmer quietly. He’s placed so much trust in his leaders, and now I’m concerned he’s loyal to a fault.

Maybe what the admirals wanted is not what we need.

He seems rooted into this purpose. Even when the secret-keeping causes pain, he’s still barreling ahead.

“I think you hate this,” I whisper.

His chest collapses. “I think you hate me.”

“I can’t hate what I don’t understand,” I breathe.

He nods a few times and then waves an arm with more lightheartedness. “What else can we tell each other in the dead of night?”

My eyes drift. And I spy a globe on the bookshelf next to his shoulder. “Is that Earth?” I ask, peering closely at the blue contours and dots of green.

“No,” he says. “That’s Saltare-1.”

Oh. “I should know that,” I mutter.

“You’ll know more during training,” he reassures me. “Like how those patches of green are an illusion to make the planet appearbetterthan the rest. Saltarians are a prideful race.” He wags his brows, admitting to his own arrogance.

“Wait…” I trail off in thought. “If the land isn’t real, then…”

Stork nods again, and in a whisper, he answers what I’m thinking. “Saltare-1 is a water world.”

TWENTY

Mykal

I messed up.

Truth being, I’ve been messing up a lot recently. With expressing myself to Franny, with making good strides toward my baby brother, and early this morning in the dining hall, I messed up with Court.

We were all right until he sneezed, and the tickle in my nostrils caused me to sneeze. To keep from mimicking me, he forced out a cough. Heads were already turning,Lucretziacrew already staring, and I tried to trap breath and growl instead of hacking a lung.

No willpower of mine could restrain the wretched noise. I coughed loudly. I coughed hoarsely. Court and I began a downward spiral of giving and taking senses.

Drawing too much attention, fear pummeled us both like a furious stampede. We left the dining hall abruptly and ended up arriving early to our master Saltare-1 training. Stork said to go to the indoor garden by noon.

No one here yet but us, I pace and pace on spongy grass. Flower bushes and vegetables are planted jaggedly. Water lettuce grows in corners of a deep pond. Some sort of dark-green ivy weaves and tangles up the walls, and fuzzy moss dangles off the ceiling. It’s a better sight than metal and space, but this isn’t the wilderness I’ve been missing.