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up, sharpening his once gentle face.
    He coughs when the breeze sends another cindery plume our way. “Earlier, I stood in the chow line with Yamada’s daughter, Miyu. She seems all right.”
    â€œOh?” I strain to keep my voice light. “And what did you two talk about?”
    He ignores my question. Looks me dead in the eye. “Have you decided?”
    â€œDecided what?”
    â€œAre you going with her, or staying here?”
    Bear makes it sound like a critical fork. As if choosing one forever excludes the other. “Manjor isn’t so far. Wouldn’t take more than a few days to get there.”
    Just the idea makes him sigh. This look, I know. This is my pacer, trying to talk me out of a rust-fool route.
    â€œWhat?” I shrug. “Why shouldn’t I?”
    â€œIt’s not safe in Manjor. You realize how many IP troops have moved into Bisera since the last race, right?”
    â€œI know that. But we’re talking about my inheritance, Bear. James probably left me the better part of a fortune.”
    â€œThat’s right. A Sixer fortune. Bet the money’s all tied up in trusts and stocks and you’d have to deal with corporates and contracts and never mind the risk of leaving the Strand right now.”
    â€œWe could do a lot of good with those kinds of credits.”
    â€œWe need more than credits. We need allies, and training, and time. We need a safe place to regroup.” With both hands, he points at the charred ground. “ This is what we need.”
    He is so sure, and it’s the biggest change of all. This absence of uncertainty. We have traded places.
    â€œI know you think I’ll always follow you, but I can’t keep doing this. I can’t.”
    â€œBear, what is wrong?”
    â€œYou wanted me to leave Castra. You begged me to join this revolution. Well, you know what? I have, Phee. I’m not going to Manjor. Not when I have a job now. Flight command’s clearing me for duty in two more weeks. I’ll have my own fighter and I’ll get assigned a copilot . . .” He trails off, like he’s too strangled to get the last words out.
    Copilot. Partner. I’ve been replaced. Rust, how the notion cuts me to the heart. We stare at each other, both trying to mask our wounds. I am jealous; he is furious and impatient. I swear, he practically growls at me. “I just don’t understand why you’d even consider crossing that border again. Not when . . .”
    â€œWhen what?”
    He pauses a second too long. He looks me in the eye again, before finally spitting it out.
    â€œNot when there’s a billion-credit bounty on your head.”

    I am too distracted to push through the forest of poppies and climb tonight. Instead, I skirt the stalk-line, running my hand along the tangle as I pass. This will be the first night, since arriving, that I’ve abandoned my nightly ritual of visiting the highest blooms. Getting above, finding that place where I can whisper to unfurling petals and all-knowing stars. But I don’t have the energy to spare, not when I’m this furious. I’m exhausted, but there’s no way I’m going to bed.
    At headquarters, Zaide lets me in, no questions asked. But inside, when I ask to see the direct feeds from Castra, the rest of the night crew tries to turn me away, giving me some bull-sap about protocol and how I’m not an officer, and how I’m not supposed to be in the communications room at all, and how about I wait until the morning, when they can check with Hank first. But I won’t leave, and just when the shift leader’s about to call Hank, Commander Larken steps into the hive.
    While everyone else salutes, fists over hearts, I gape at him.
    â€œYou didn’t leave,” I say.
    â€œI’m staying for the time being.” He says it likes it means a thousand years. And the way things are shaking out, I’m