Page 9 of Until the Stars Fall

“We’re not. I mean, I’m not busy.” I walked past her toward the steps. Manners, Gemma. I turned back around. “Thanks for the crackers and soda.”

“Anytime,” he said, settling back down to his work and not sparing a glance for me.

Back in the lobby, Hannah detached my hovercart from the wall. “I’m so excited that you met my coven!” She leaned in. “What do you think of Beck?”

The arc of my eye roll stopped short at seeing a line of duct tape running along a window crack. No, several window cracks.

“Holy shit, Hannah! You can’t use duct tape on spaceship windows!” I stepped back from the bank of windows, fight-or-flight kicking in. “The pressure alone should have taken those out, not to mention the radiation seeping in!”

Hannah waved her hand dismissively. “It’s okay, Gemma. We have it covered. Sure, it’s been a blur since this launch slot opened up, but we’ve got it all under control.”

“Things weren’t under control with that spell on Level 1,” I fired back. My heart pounding, I scanned the lobby. Everything was intact. Not a single leaf fluttered on the small trees dotted down the walk, except for one under a vent. No crushing force of the vacuum of space, no flesh-melting radiation. No new cracks breaking out across the windows.

I breathed deeply, willing the hormone spike to pass so I could think more clearly. As bad as the cruiser had looked from the outside, the inside was so much worse than I’d imagined. And my sister and I were stuck on this deathtrap, hurtling through space with—

“Are those solar sails?” I cried, pointing out the window at the large, fabric-like structures jutting out from the side of the ship. “Hannah, those were recalled twenty years ago!”

“Welcome to the WitchCraft!” Hannah said, grinning from ear to ear and throwing her arms wide in an attitude of proud ownership. She laughed. “Get it? It was Beck’s idea. It used to be called The Shooting Star, but we renamed it.”

I was still pointing at the sails, my face slack with horror. Hannah gently pulled my arm down and turned my panicked face away from the window by the chin. “We’re in good shape. I promise. I know you can’t do magic anymore, but trust me. We’ve got it covered.”

I pressed my hands to my chest, ignoring Hannah’s oblivious mention of my lie, willing my heart to slow to normal. I needed to be alone. This was it. This was my limit.

I let her lead me to the elevator, her long, flowered skirt swishing.

“You’re on Level 2, Suite 205. Right around the corner from me and Summer.”

The copper elevator doors parting before me were carved in an intricate, swirling lotus mandala. Lovely, but I’d bet the machinery was old enough to be hydraulic.

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid apart like an old man struggling up from his chair. A whoosh of manufactured air prickled my skin as I pushed my cart in after Hannah.

“So the tech in this ship is, at best, fifty-one years old? And at worst”—I gestured at the old-fashioned bank of depressible floor buttons as Hannah pressed two—“—eighty-five years old?”

She cocked her head. “Yeah, I guess that math tracks. It was the height of luxury in its day. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s got four roomy suites, plus eight other rooms for guests and staff. Most of those are full of luggage and backstock now. But the ship itself was free. Can you believe that Summer’s great-uncle left her the whole junkyard and this ship too?”

“Imagine that.”

Hannah picked at her chipped purple fingernails, ignoring my sarcasm.

“It took us almost two years to muck out the rats and roaches, clean it up, prune the ship’s forest, figure out how to make it run again, and move in.”

“You know that shooting stars are just dust and rocks that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, right? Are you sure this junkpile can survive entry on Gaia? Not to mention getting through the Bifrost.”

The most frightening prospect of our journey was the manmade traversable wormhole that the International Council named after the Rainbow Bridge from Norse mythology. “You think a shield made out of paint and rocks is gonna get us through that unscathed?”

The elevator chimed, and the doors opened on a hallway lit with retro incandescent lighting. Hannah stepped out first, waving her hands dismissively.

“They’ve almost figured that out.”

I sputtered, trying to speak. My cart dipped low over the threshold onto the carpet, and I wanted to sink to the floor beside it. “So in two months, we’re either going to break apart in a wormhole or burn up in a fiery crash onto Gaia?”

“Psshh, no. Neither.” She rounded a corner and pulled a metal key from her pocket—an honest-to-God metal key on a long, purple velvet ribbon necklace—and turned it in the lock on Suite 205.

“Hannah,” I demanded, following her into the room, “this is serious!”

My sister sighed, her voice rising. “Summer and Beck are working on it, and I have full confidence in them.”

“But Summer’s a geometry teacher, and Beck’s—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “What do those two know about ships entering the atmosphere?”

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