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storm raged in my belly, even as Tateh talked on and on and I didn’t hear a word.
    “So you understand?” he was saying. I shook the image from my mind, and forced my gaze back to my father. He still clutched his mug between his hands, holding on so tight I thought the ceramic might burst.
    “Yes,” I said faintly. “It must have been hard for her.”
    “You have no idea.”
    My father pressed his mouth into a line; he wouldn’t say another word. Instead, he got up and spilled out the remainder of his tea into the sink. I guess he wasn’t thirsty, not anymore.
    “Go to sleep, Alya,” he said, and kissed my hairline. Without waiting for me to follow, he trudged up the stairs—to where Momme waited, tucked beneath the covers in the bed they shared.
    In the bed she would rather have shared with Miriam. Miriam, my teacher. Your mother. Her lover.
    Lover. I feel my tongue form the syllables even now, as I write you this. They loved each other. In flesh. In heart. I know it now, see it so clearly in every breath of laughter and little word they shared. I see it in the way your mother looks at me, as if I’m some sort of ghost. Did you know, Benny? Have you always known? Did it make it strange when I first wrote to you? Did it cast a shade over our kisses—like it was merely something that fate had decided, like it was something out of your old books, and not our own hearts that planned our course?
    Do you know why it ended?
    Of course, it would have been forbidden. For two women to love like they did. But Momme is stubborn. She wouldn’t have let something so important fade without a fight. A fight. What was theirs about? After ten years or more of sharing kisses in the dark, they had an argument. And then were torn apart, until you and I and the Council’s plans conspired to stitch their lives back together.
    Does this change anything for you? It doesn’t for me, though it raises half a dozen questions even as it answers so many more. Who were our mothers when they were young? What tore them apart? And how can we avoid their fate?
    Benny, I love you. I love you . Please tell me that you love me, forever and always, too.
    Yours,
    Alyana

86th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing
    Benny,
    I was dreaming about work. Your mother was telling me to get Mar Schneider’s cake ready for pickup, telling me what words to write on it with the bag of frosting. But no matter what I did, the letters came out wrong—like gibberish, like nonsense. HBATHY RRRTHDY, HAPPPPPPTH, BIRADAD HAP. Soon, the cake was smeared with blue, incomprehensible. Miriam was yelling at me, even though she’s never yelled before, and I clutched the bag of frosting to my chest and hoped she would stop, squeezing my eyes shut.
    And then they opened, and I was in the darkness of my room, but the yelling hadn’t stopped. She was there, your mother, somewhere in our quarters. Her voice shook with anger. Momme’s did too. I climbed from bed, setting my bare feet so carefully against the floor that I thought I might glide down the hallway. I came to rest at the top of the stairs, just past where they could see me. All I could see was their shadows: Momme and Miriam, by the door. Tateh, sitting at the galley table, his head in his hands.
    “He told me he was in love. And I believed him! I should have known it was all one of your plots. I should have known that you were behind this!”
    “Behind what ? You think I’ve been playing matchmaker for our children?”
    “I just came from my quarters, where he admitted he’s one of you !”
    One of you . What have you been keeping from me, Benny? What secrets exist between me and my parents, me and you?
    Your mother went on: “He’s just a boy, Liora. He’s too young to get involved—”
    “A boy ? He’s nearly nineteen years old! Perhaps he would have been married years ago if you hadn’t kept him tucked so tightly under your wing.”
    “I had to keep him safe! I know what comes to men with his