Page 58 of Shadows of Stardust

I look back to Zandrel.

As near-unreadable as the stark, brutal planes of his face truly are, I can’t find any threat or deception there. No mocking or cruelty, nothing but what I might be able to convince myself is a stoic determination, like the matter is already completely settled in his mind.

“Unless you and your sister plan to do something nefarious once you’re reunited, it’s a risk I do not mind taking. Especiallyconsidering the laughable state of the show’s security measures. It’s like they want someone to try it.”

He says that last part almost under his breath, and in another universe I might laugh.

God, this is absurd. All of this is absurd. So absurd, I’m having a hard time believing any of it is true.

An Auxiliary ex-mercenary signing on to my personal mission to find my sister.

While we’re both on Mate Match.

While we’re living together.

While we’re pretending to be head over heels in love.

I feel like I’m about to double over with laughter. Or tears. It’s honestly even odds right about now as we stand in silence and size each other up.

Can I really trust him?

With my fate, with Savvie’s, with this last best shot of seeing her again hanging in the balance?

“We’re not,” I say quietly. “Planning anything, I mean.”

“Good,” he says with a brisk nod. “Then it’s settled. We’ll find her, keep up our ruse for the producers and the cameras, and both get what we want out of this.”

“Alright.”

The word feels like jumping off a cliff.

My stomach heaves, my chest plummets, and even while part of me knows having Zandrel in this with me just sent my chances of actually finding her skyrocketing, I still can’t shake the sense that I’ve done something cataclysmic. I’ve ruined everything. I’ve put my trust in the hands of the one person who could most easily pulverize it into a million pieces.

“Alright,” Zandrel echoes, then thinks for a moment. “I’ll need to know more about what she’s doing here, where you think she might be, anything that can help us make a plan to—”

“Tomorrow.”

Zandrel stops short, brow furrowing, like he can’t understand why I wouldn’t be ready to start tackling this thing head-on, making a plan, getting the parameters of the mission established.

And fair enough, maybe I don’t fully understand, either.

I just… can’t. Not tonight. Not right now.

Not when the world beneath me still feels like it’s hanging sideways off its axis and not when Zandrel is still all business, approaching this like it’s barely affecting him. Just cold, hard facts, a puzzle to be solved, an objective to accomplish.

Who am I, in the face of all that confidence, all that strength?

Just a human, alone in the universe and in way, way over my head. Facing the bleak reality that I never could have done this on my own.

It all crashes into me, and the only thing I want is to retreat and tend my wounds for at least a night before facing all of this with him.

Zandrel opens his mouth to argue, and I hold up a hand.

“Tomorrow,” I repeat. “I just… I need some time.”

I can almost hear his question—time for what?—in the silence between us, but he doesn’t ask it. It’s a mercy, if only a small one, because I have no idea how I would answer.

Instead of waiting around for him to ask, I turn and leave him standing there, retreating into my bedroom.

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