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“I can’t take that…Your fiancé…”

“Gave it to me so I’d remember wherever I went I had him with me But I don’t need a pendant for that But you should be reo, you’re not alone We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“I think you’re my only friend”

“And what do friends do? Friends help each other You carry inary necklace from her neck and put it on hs “Maybe then we’ll both be a bit lighter when next we meet”

“Do you think he’s watching you? Your fi—your husband Not from the Vale, course I know you lot don’t believe But from some

where?” She stares up at me from under her mop of red hair

“No, I don’t”

“I think you’re wrong I think he’s watching you And I think he’s sot a twinkle in his eye” She bundles her coat and heads to the depot, but turns around and runs back to ive me a small kiss on the cheek “You’re not alone either, Philippe”

Sweet little rabbit, if only that were true

SUNGRAVE, THE GREATEST CITY of Io, surges up out of a white, frozen plain riven with fissures venting heat fro out the fors of one of Dido’s chimeras

Carved into Io’s highest rave is a city of black stone obelisks and spires that rides the shoulders of the ines was deereat mirrored lasers carved540-kiloed towers The builders followed the draconic predilections of their great progenitor, Akari, bringing creatures of childhood fables and ancient campfire stories to life in the stone

A necropolis of animalistic spires flecked with topaz, zircon, andthe sky like the petrified re the Boösaule’s crest, so frosted valleys, their ings buttressing their great heights as they crane their stone necks up as if to drink the gases of ht, like scales And deeper in the heart of theout the interior, lies the city itself

The city, like all the othercaused by the war of Jupiter’s gravity on Io against the gravitational pull of Europa and Ganymede The cities of Raa need no helium-3 to survive or power the pulseFields that shield them from radiation and Io’s poisonous air That is why they survived o—their shields could resist boenerators of the Sword Armada’s ships could keep them in orbit Still, I expected Io to be a desolate backwater, beset by rationing and scant starship flight; but the ship that captured the Archimedes was brand new As are rave’s high stone docks like itinerant gnats

I look over at Cassius and feel his unease

Hoere those ships built? On what dock?