Page 53 of The Last Hope
“You can trust us,” the towering boy says, brows cinched like he can’t believe in a reality where wewouldn’ttrust in them.
I shift uneasily and shake my head. “I don’t even know who you are.”
Stork pushes off the column. Sidling next to me, so near that I smell the sharp liquor off his breath, he introduces them with a casual point of a finger. First to the steely-eyed boy. “Barrett Daybreak.” Next to the towering boy. “Arden Shipwreck.” And then to the girl. “Nia Hopscotch.”
Daybreak? Shipwreck?Hopscotch?“Are all human surnames that odd?”
Hand over nose and mouth, Arden muffles out, “All Saltarians takingcastleas a suffix is weirder.”
Not to me. So it goes: we’re all one people, together—or I was once a part of those people. I still feel like a Franny Bluecastle. I don’t know who else I’m supposed to be.
Barrett signs,“Those aren’t our surnames.”
“What?”
“Those are our C-Jay call signs,” Arden replies, still muffled.
Stork pays little attention to them, checking more on the state of the balconies that are filling up rapidly.
Nia puts the tiniest stick in her mouth. “We belong to the Knave Squadron.”
The Knave Squadron.
At StarDust, no one grouped off like that. We just had theSaga 5,which became theSaga 7,and I guess it’s now theSaga 4.Just Kinden, Zimmer, Padgett, and Gem. Off somewhere in space or docked on a new planet.
Mykal eases forward to Nia. “Can I have a stick?”
She quickly plugs her nose and tosses him a pack. “They’re toothpicks. Keep it.”
He mumbles a tongue-tiedthanksand starts chewing on a toothpick.
I start to connect the military attire to C-Jays. So Stork must be one, and instead of asking outright, I jump ahead and question, “What’s your call sign?”
Stork jerks in surprise, and his blue eyes sparkle down at me. But he’s not answering.Of course.
“Tight-Lipped?” I guess.
He smirks. “Try again.”
He’s too pleased. I shut this down. “It has to be that.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s Knave.”
Cold spurts up and ices my brain. This ishissquadron?
He mockingly lifts his brows as mine arch at him—I hate when he does that—and he brings the bottle to his lips.
I see more than his cocky attitude. I see how there’s a chance to find information fromnewsources. No longer needing to rely on Stork, I ask the other three C-Jays, “What does the Knave Squadron do, exactly?”
Each one turns to Stork.
Un-fykking-believable.
Stork nearly laughs, but the gathering crowds seem to preoccupy half his mind.
