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"Your brother, he’s like you" It’s not a question "Different"

"He is" What else is there to say?

"And he’s all right? I remeeneral, caring for the soldiers and the wounded "He’s fine, thank you Took a few bullets forwell"

At the mention of bullets, Cal’s eyes flicker over ers on my scraped face and the dried blood around my ears "And you?"

"I’ve had worse"

"Yes, we have"

We lapse into silence, not daring to speak further But we still continue to stare at each other Suddenly his presence is difficult to stand And yet I don’t want to go

The enerator shudders, its pounding pulse changing rhyth electricity flow or ebb to different parts of the craft

Cal doesn’t feel it yet, unable to, but he doesn’t question my instincts He knows my abilities firsthand, better than anyone on the ship Better than my own family For now, at least Mo for me on the island I’ll see the I’ll be with them, I don’t knoon’t be able to stay on the island, not if I want to do soo back to Norta, use whatever and whoever Farley can give me, to try and find them It already seems impossible I don’t even want to think about it And yetto for with a yellow light that starts to flash over Cal’s door "Areat machine all around us I don’t doubt he wanted to explore, but there’s no room for the inquisitive prince here The boy who buried himself in manuals and built cycles from scratch has no place in this world I killed him, just as I killed Mareena

Despite Cal’s mechanically inclined mind and my own electrical sense, we have no idea what co up out of the depths of the ocean, the whole room tips The surprise of it knocks us both off our feet We collide with the wall and each other Our wounds bang together, drawing pained hisses fro else, a deep stab of , I rub one of ru for the skin healer who could le touch, returning us both to fighting form

More pain crosses Cal’s face, but not fro up the woman who knew his mother was murdered by the queen The woman no one believed "Sorry, I didn’t mean--"

He waves ainst the wall for balance "It’s fine She’s--" The words are thick, stilted "I chose not to listen to her I didn’t want to listen That was eline al session Julian summoned her--Julian, who loved her--and watched as she mended my bloody face and bruised back Her eyes were sad, her cheeks hollow, her tongue ainst the queen, for a truth no one believed Elara killed Cal’s er Queen Julian’s own sister, Sara’s best friend And no one seemed to mind It was soSara with every breath I kno that was a crack in his shield, revealing who he truly was beneath practiced words and gentle sht in front of me

Like Julian, she is probably dead already

Suddenly theof "

Despite the strange angle of the roo in otten the hts spent in alleys, or the obstacle courses of Training I wrench the door open, gasping for breath like a girl drowned But the stale, filtered air of the mersive offersrains, even su to reives , his footsteps heavy and slow behind ive me space If only Kilorn could do the sa handholds and wheel locks to ease hiht of Cal, replaced not by a scowl but by cold indifference I suppose he thinks ignoring the prince will anger hiht hostility Or perhaps Kilorn doesn’t want to test a hu," he says, reachingit to steady ainst the wall in front of e if there ever was one I feel Cal’s heat behindthe indifferent path as well, and says nothing

I won’t be a piece in whatever gah for a lifetime "Hohat’s-her-narin slackens, one side of his ood, Kilorn" I give hi, pat on the shoulder The deflection works perfectly "We should befriends"

The mersive levels out beneath us, but no one stumbles Not even Cal, who has nowhere nearboat He’s taut as a wire, waiting for ht of a prince deferring tobut carry on

So I do Down the corridor, with Cal and Kilorn in tow, to the throng of Guardsht us down here in the first place The wounded go first, tied onto ht Farley supervises, her shift even bloodier than before She e between her teeth A few of the worse off get shots as they pass,moved up the narrow tube Shade is the last of the injured, leaning heavily on the two Guardsh to hiht, and I don’t want any more attention today Still too weak to teleport, he has to fu and blushes furiously when Farley straps him onto a stretcher I can’t hear what she says to hie, instead gritting his teeth against the jarring pain of being hoisted up the ladder Once Shade is safely carried up, the process goes much faster One after the other, Guards the corridor Many of them are nurses, rees of bloodstains