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“Please,” she gasped “Tell me if Lucky and Mali are okay And Nok and Rolf too Are they still in the cage? Is Nok’s pregnancy okay?” Cora gritted her teeth as Tessela pressed the apparatus to her other palm “Just tell me!”

Tessela finished and holstered the apparatus Cora looked down at her hands A strange pattern of lines and pinpricks covered her pals The half circle on her ring finger was more prominent than the others The pinpricks there radiated out like a star In the cage, the Kindred had branded each ith constellations to pair theether; but these concentric circles and rows of tiny ht sky

“I don’t understand”

“You aren’t , not yours”

Fian released her, and she sank back against the wall She squeezed her fists, curling her fingers around the lines and symbols that now marked her as Kindred property

With a ruain to reveal the doorway She jerked her head up

A new figure filled the doorway

Black eyes

Skin the color of copper

A scar on his neck and a bue of his nose—imperfections on an otherwise perfect face

Cassian

Focus? She could barely breathe The first time she’d seen Cassian had been in her dreael Now she knew: he was ainto his ret for what he’d done to her hadn’t changed that

“You,” she said “All of you” She jerked her chin at Tessela and Fian “You think you’ll always be in control, but huet out of here—and I will—I’ to show everyone on this station what hus They won’t be able to deny it anymore” She hoped they didn’t detect the tremor in her voice that whispered freak in the back of her head

Cassian folded his hands calmly “That would be unwise” He motioned to Tessela and Fian “Leave us”

Fian and Tessela obeyed like clockwork,in unison toward the door, which sealed closed behind theht from the wall seams spilled over Cassian’s skin, softly reflective, alod Nok had talked about from her childhood stories in Thailand

“Fian’s uniform, in case you did not notice,” Cassian continued, “has the twin-knot design of a delegate on the Intelligence Council, the highest governing party on the station and a collaboration aent species My position as Warden is powerful, but the delegates will always far outrank me Those of us syly toiled, over the course of many rotations, to infiltrate it; you should be thankful Fian is on our side, not theirs If a true delegate witnessed you saying such things, you would never leave this chamber”

“You can’t threaten me”

“I aaze skierprints on the black panel “You are not the only one in danger If they were to learn of my involvement, they would demote me to the lowest position—a star sweeper, sent to clear astral debris in a solitary ship Ninety-five percent of star sweepers are killed by asteroid collision in their first run”

Cora balled her fists harder Like she cared what happened to him She wanted to hate hih iven her stars, when she couldn’t sleep He’d saved her life, when Fian had nearly strangled her He had stood in the artificial ocean surf, and uncloaked his stoic emotional walls, and looked at her with real eyes, not black ones, and whispered to her with real emotions, not hidden ones

And he had kissed her

She looked away Nothing here is real, she reminded herself Love most of all

He took another step into the roo with his all-black eyes, but his head tilted toward her clenched left fist, then her right

“I want to help you” His voice was softer “Our goal is, ultimately, the same If you can read even a small piece of my mind, then you know that is true”

“If you’re going to apologize again, forget it,” she cut hiood of humanity That you broke my mind so that I’d evolve to the next level” She paused “That what you felt for me was real”

But this ti piece of fabric from a deep pocket in his black uniform and held it out

She took it hesitantly, too curious not to, and let the smooth fabric unroll Straps A hem

An ankle-length dress

It wasn’t like the formal robes both male and female Kindred of low status wore Nor the white sundress she had worn in the cage This was gold and silk, richly arette smoke and a perfuner scents It was a real artifact fro, which sht

“What is this?” she asked

She’d expected to spend the rest of her life in the cell They wouldn’t kill her—that would go against their unbreakable ed, or worse

“This is a second chance,” Cassian said evenly “For both of us”

2

Cora

CORA LET THE DRESS’S sh her hands and settle on the floor in a pool of silk “A second chance?”

She could guess what the 1930s-style dress eries—private clubs that re-created different time periods from Earth—where they dropped the emotional cloak they wore in public to let their pent-up emotions run wild Less-desirable humans were kept there as servants and oddities for entertainment Cassian had taken her to one to warn her about what happened to children who disobeyed It had been called the Teas were made to perform tricks

Why human places, human times? she had asked him

There is no society, nor habitat, better suited for the cultivation of experiences than the human world, he had answered

Now, she narrowed her eyes “Putting erie is hardly a second chance It’s further punishment”

“I have little choice The Intelligence Council cannot learn of your escape attempt Fian convinced them that your enclosure failed due to technical difficulties, and that the re wards should be transferred to alternative facilities Only Fian, Tessela, and Serassi k

now the truth” He paused “I have ement with Serassi in return for her silence Fortunately, Fian and Tessela have always been sympathetic to our cause”

“Our cause?” Cora shook her head “I don’t have anything to do hatever you’re planning” Her mouth felt very dry, and she started to turn toward the water spout, but he rested a hand against her shoulder

His eyes, black as they were, see to do with our plan A plan that has been in the works for nearly six hundred rotations—almost twenty human years We call it the Fifth of Five, because if we are successful, huent race” He ran a hand over the back of his glove, changing a setting, and then traced so lines appeared, like a double helix, with five dots in the center Whatever substance he riting with only lingered a few seconds before disappearing

“This is the covert symbol of the Fifth of Five The first four points represent the current intelligent species: Kindred, Mosca, Axion, and Gatherers The last one represents humanity But we cannot raise humanity’s position without you I am not the first leader of the Fifth of Five initiative Nor are you the first human we have set our hopes upon Hundreds of Kindred have been involved in the clandestine effort to declare huenerations The irony is that you cannot even see that we are atte to help you”

She paced tightly “Helping us? If you want to help, why don’t you try finding out if Earth still exists”

“The stock algorithm predicted POD986 That stands for Probability of Destruction ninety-eight point six percent—”

“Yeah, I know, chances are humans have destroyed Earth But even if there’s a tiny chance it’s still there, it couldto us Our homes Our families Our entire world”

He looked at her with eyes that revealed no eh to pick up the dress “Take this You will need it”

HE LED HER THROUGH the austere hallways that formed the public world of the Kindred’s station They passed walls that gloith starry light, and a few open nodes like the one they had once used to board a transport, and then there was a rush of air and chatter as the ceiling opened into a three-story-high marketplace Cora’s feet slowed She had been here before—to this very market, or one like it It wasartifacts—human and otherwise—and a few hunchbacked Mosca traders with their eerie breathing masks and red jumpsuits There was even a sole Gatherer, one of the y, ht-foot-tall creatures Cassian had once warned her never to look at directly