Starglass (29 page)

“I dunno,” I said, shrugging. For some reason that made Rachel giggle.

“You wouldn’t,” she said. At last she dropped my hair. Then she went to the register and fetched a pair of scissors. They were the kind you cut cloth with, all metal and gleaming sharp. I wondered if it would ruin the edge to use them.

“Are you okay with this?” she asked, reaching out to smooth down the rumpled locks of hair once more.

“Yes,” I lied. “I’m great.”

Rachel grinned. She tangled her fingers in my fingers and led me toward the rear of the store. “Good,” she said, and then added, in a whisper: “I’ve wanted to do this for ages.”

•  •  •

Without the heavy weight of my hair, the whole world felt different. Though my stomach had turned somersaults as Rachel had made those first tentative cuts, I had to admit that this was an improvement. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I could see how I’d transformed into someone new—a grown-up. And now, walking through
the commerce district, watching as men turned their heads toward me to follow my progress, I had to admit that it had been a worthwhile sacrifice.

But it wasn’t just the haircut. The makeup and clothes that Rachel had chosen for me changed things too. She’d given me the best stock in her store: a pair of dark purple stockings, a pleated skirt, a pale yellow sweater that was too big on me. It kept spilling down, exposing the blue veins over my shoulders. I’d tugged the sleeves up, but then Rachel had flicked me on the ear.

“Stop it,” she’d said. “It’s supposed to look like that.”

She’d lent me her coat, the olive-green one with the brass buttons. And a cream-colored scarf so soft that it felt like it was spun from the down of a baby bird. The only thing I owned that she’d deemed acceptable were my boots—the ones she’d helped my father buy. Still, even though I wore her clothes, I didn’t quite look like Rachel as I gazed at myself in the mirror. I looked like me, but a new me, a different me. A Terra I’d never met before.

“Are you sure you don’t want money for this?” I asked as I stood in the doorway of the shop. Rachel just shook her head.

“No, just . . . just come visit me more, okay?”

I gripped her and hugged her then, squeezing her tight.

“Thank you,” I said fiercely.

My steps were light down the pavement. It was bitter cold outside,
and my naked ears burned against the wind, but I didn’t care. I just smiled and said hello to the boys who nodded at me as I passed. The weight of their attention was so new, so strange. I almost felt optimistic, but I didn’t allow myself the luxury of that emotion. What I was about to do was terrible. I had no reason to be happy.

I headed to the aft district, where the Council quarters all stood in an orderly row. It was just about suppertime now. People would be sitting down to eat potatoes and cabbage and handfuls of pills to keep them awake until the ship’s lights dimmed overhead. The thought of the pills put a bitter taste in my mouth. Of course, I’d still have to take them every day for the rest of my life if my body was to obey Zehava’s long days and even longer nights.

But I’d never trust them again.

I reached Silvan Rafferty’s front door. They had a buzzer—all the high-ranking families did. It felt odd to jab my index finger into it instead of knocking.

But sure enough, soon the door cracked open to reveal Silvan’s dark-eyed mother.

She didn’t smile. Her red-painted lips were pursed. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Silvan,” I said. His mother tilted her head, dark curls tumbling over her shoulder. Her son took after her—beautiful but spoiled. I drew in a breath. “I’m here to ask for his hand.”

I
’d never seen the inside of a Council member’s home before. Though the gray-faced town houses looked the same from the outside as every other house, from within I could see how the rooms stretched back twice as deep. Past the entry hall and the galley—whose wood-block counters were newer and less deeply marred by generations of dull knives—there was another room. I could see the polished surface of a fine dining table there and, beyond, a long sofa made out of animal leather. It was a sitting area, a new notion for me.
Gatherings on the
Asherah
took place in bedrooms or workplaces or, at best, over meals. And yet Mazdin Rafferty and his wife had a whole separate area of their home for
sitting
.

It was suppertime, but you could hardly tell. Their galley was clean, dim, and empty. I stood by the door with my hands in my pockets and watched as Silvan’s mother went to the stairwell. As she called for her son, I became intensely aware of my tongue. It felt much too big for my mouth. I wondered if this was how Koen had felt the day he’d come to declare his intentions to me.

“Silvan?” his mother called. She looked at me sidelong, arching her plucked eyebrows at me. “Sil? There’s a girl here to see you! That Fineberg girl!”

She waited, her head inclined. I waited too, for the pound of adolescent feet against the stairs. But no footsteps came. She let out a small sigh, lifting her hand from the banister.

“Go on up,” she said. I hesitated, peering up the stairs. Part of me couldn’t quite believe that I was going to do this—was going to ask a boy for his hand. And Silvan, no less. I glanced at his mother, but she’d already walked away, leaving me alone there gripping the rail. So I made my way up the narrow steps.

Strains of music whispered through the gap beneath Silvan’s bedroom door. I knocked once, twice. That’s when I saw the panel next to the door, the same kind we had in the labs. I pressed my palm
against it. The door was unlocked, and it shivered open.

Silvan’s room was massive, almost as big as the entire lower floor of my childhood home. Most houses had metal furniture built right into the walls. But Silvan’s room was full of dark, sturdy wood—a four-poster bed, a polished desk, and a dresser. Embroidered hangings of flowering gardens shadowed the walls.

He sat in the middle of all of it, nested within his bed, clutching a small guitar against his chest. Broad fingers ran aimlessly over the metal strings. Every note sang out as if he had plucked it from the air just for me.

At my arrival he lifted his chin. His fingers froze on the strings as the notes rang out, then faded. Then his smile grew.

“Terra!”

I couldn’t help it. I grinned at the sound of my name. Then, remembering myself, I gave my head a solemn nod.

“Silvan,” I replied. I watched as he set his guitar down on his bed. Finally, in one single, graceful motion, he jumped off it. As he sauntered over, I felt myself flush. I could smell him again, feel the sharp heat of his body. It made me want to lean into him, to touch my lips to his neck.

I fought to remember that Silvan’s father had killed my mother. This was no time to wax poetic about the way he
smelled
.

“You cut your hair.”

He reached out. I saw the hazy shape of his hand in the corner of my vision. His fingers were broad and strong. And they moved as if the world belonged to them.

“I did,” I said, leaning back even more. My hair fell out of his grasp, but a smile lit his lips nevertheless. I saw how straight his teeth were, and how very white.

“I like it,” he concluded. Then he turned, sauntering toward his bed. He perched on the end of it. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? Come to complain about the probe? You should get in line for that one.”

Silvan sat with his shoulders squared, his heels striking the footboard. Glossy curls cascaded down his shoulders. Normally, I would have drawn a steadying breath, trying to calm myself. But looking at him, at the way he smirked at me, it didn’t feel necessary. Standing there in Rachel’s coat, my hair tucked behind my ears, I felt for the first time as if my whole life had been headed for this moment. Like something made sense.

I would marry Silvan. And then I would poison him.

“No. I don’t care about the probe,” I said, lying like it was nothing. “I’m here to declare my intentions. Silvan, if you’d have me, then I would be honored if you’d consent to marry me.”

Part of me expected that he’d be shocked—or that maybe he’d recoil, disgusted by the thought. But Silvan’s eyebrows only lifted.

“When did you decide you wanted me? Was it our vocational ceremony? When Wolff made me the next captain? Or was it today, outside the labs?”

My voice was flat, but I was surprised to find myself telling the truth. “I always wanted you. But I missed my chance, and then you belonged to Rachel.”

A grimace crossed Silvan’s features. “Oh, that rubbish. Poor girl. It’s not her fault I could never marry some shopgirl.”

I made myself nod, as if I agreed—as if I even understood. But how could I? I’d never been the son of a Council member.

“And what about Maxwell?” Silvan asked. “The clock keeper. Aren’t you promised to him?”

“No. Almost. But then I told him how I felt about you, and we broke it off.”

Silvan pushed himself off his bed again. He swaggered close, standing so near that I could practically taste him. When he spoke, his voice was husky.

“And how do you feel about me?”

I couldn’t lie. Not with him this close, so close that I could see the dark stubble shadowing his cheeks and the way his black eyelashes trembled. I told him the only truth that would do any good now, the only one that would help me.

“That you’re beautiful.” It was the truth.
Oy gevalt
, it was
the truth—but only a tiny part of the truth, the smallest sliver. My words didn’t alight on the Children of Abel, or the poison, or Momma. They didn’t touch upon the boy I dreamed about or anything that had happened with Koen. But before I could think of those things, before my lies showed in my face, Silvan crushed me in a kiss.

It’s all part of the act
, I told myself as his soft, full lips pressed to mine. But the truth was, I was starved for this—his hands, warm through layers of wool and cotton, firm against my lower back. I’d waited so long to be kissed and had been touched only in dreams, and it was never enough, at least not compared to this, his hot, panting mouth on mine.

He finally pulled away.

“You could have said something sooner, you know,” he said as I pressed my hand to my mouth.

“Could I?”

“Yes. I’ve been watching you. You’ve grown quite lovely. And a botanist. That’s a specialist position. A worthy match for a captain.”

“Unlike Rachel.” An ugly accusation rang in my words. But I kept my gaze hard, afraid that if I let it soften, then the rest of it—the whole truth about my purpose there—would become clear. Silvan’s mouth twitched.

“Unlike Rachel,” he agreed. But what he said next surprised me. “Rachel’s a good person. I cared for her once. But we were children then. We’re not now.”

Guilt clenched my stomach. I thought of the bottle that waited for me in Artemis’s room.

“No,” I agreed. “We’re not.”

Silvan watched me for a moment, his expression surly. Then he gave his curls a shake. “I have an idea,” he said, cracking a bright smile. “Why don’t we wed the day we enter orbit? We can be married in the captain’s stateroom, Zehava dawning above.”

I saw it in my mind. Silvan would look handsome in his uniform, his long hair tied back. But it was still hard for me to see myself dressed in harvest gold standing beside him. Still, I knew which answer was the right one. I gave my swift reply. “That sounds perfect.”

Silvan took my hands in his. For some reason I expected them to feel cool, like Koen’s always did. But they weren’t. His skin was warm, as soft as a baby’s. He had the hands of someone who had never worked. He pulled me to him and kissed me again, no less deeply than before.

“Good,” he said, panting. “Good.”

•  •  •

The next day after work I sat on Mara’s front stoop. The light was better out there than in Artemis’s room, even as the artificial sunlight faded from the overhead panels. I could hardly feel the cold of the day—I was too busy for that. My sketchbook sat on my knees, my pencils spread out around me on the step. I picked up a dark red pencil and layered it over the crosshatched blue I’d already set down.
I was drawing a new variety of foxglove. If Mara could build high-protein wheat, I saw no reason why I couldn’t reimagine a version of the pretty flower, its heavy bells laden with pollen, that wouldn’t be quite so dangerous to grow. As I shaded in the delicate blue that lined the inside of the petals, I heard footsteps on the path.

“Hello, Terra.”

There stood Koen, wool scarf knotted at his throat. The smile he gave me was grim—but hopeful, too. I felt a wave of emotion crest inside me, but I stuffed it down. I did not speak.

“What’s that you’re drawing?” he asked.

I slammed my sketchbook shut, holding it in front of my body like a shield. “Nothing,” I said. “What do you want?”

Blushing, Koen lifted a hand and touched his tangled hair. “Marry me?” he asked, his voice lifting weakly at the end.

“You don’t want to marry me, Koen. You don’t. I know you don’t.”

“But I do!” he protested. He held his hands out to me. “If we were married, then you wouldn’t . . . you wouldn’t have to marry Silvan. And, you know, do what the Children of Abel asked. Van would stop them from doing
anything
to you. He’d protect you, if you married me.”

I sighed.

“And then you can pretend like you’re a normal person. A normal boy. But you’re not, are you?”

The heat over his face was bright and high. His mouth formed a
small, wavering line. “Maybe I’ll never be normal. But you wouldn’t be normal either. It would be okay, though. We could be friends. I miss—I miss being friends.”

Sometimes I missed it all too. Not only Koen but those meetings in the musty library, touching my hands to my heart and pretending like I was fighting for something pure and just. But the wounds were still there, raw and festering underneath my hard skin.

“I want to be friends too,” I murmured. “But I don’t think I can, not yet. And I know I can’t marry you.”

Koen stared down at the paving stones that lined Mara’s front walk.