Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(11)

“No,” I say quickly. Her expression hardens with distrust, which hurts because Cancrians don’t use deceit. “It can’t be,” I insist, spilling my evidence: “When I saw the black mass today, at my retest, even Dean Lyll said it was nonsense. He made me use an Astralator, and it confirmed—”

“You saw it again today,” says Nishi, like she hasn’t heard a word past that admission. “You’ve been seeing it for days, and then you saw it again today, and now this—Rho, take another look in the Ephemeris.”

“Why don’t one of you look, you’re better with an Astralator—”

“Because we didn’t see a dark mass in our readings.”

“I failed and had to take the test twice, Nishi,” I argue, my volume rising. “My reading was wrong.”

“Oh, really? So nothing bad happened tonight then?” Her voice breaks, and more tears slip into the air, like tiny diamonds.

I look over at Deke, hoping he’ll disagree with her. After all, he’s always the first to dismiss my reads as silly stories.

Only he’s not paying us attention. He’s just staring at his Wave blankly.

He couldn’t get through to anyone.

“Okay,” I whisper with a sigh. “I’ll do it.”

I scroll through my Wave and find my copy of the Ephemeris. It’s just a tutorial version, so it doesn’t have all the detail of the Academy’s, but it still works. Stanton gave it to me last year, for my sixteenth birthday. When I whisper the command, the star map swells out in a holographic projection the size of a puffer fish. I relax my vision until my eyes cross, and then I reach into my pocket for my drumsticks.

Only they’re not there. Like everything else I own, they’re gone.

My eyes burn.

“I’m sorry, Rho, I shouldn’t have asked,” says Nishi, hugging me in midair. “Just forget it.”

“No, you’re right.” My voice comes out steady and determined. I give Nishi a squeeze back, and then I face the map again. “I have to do something. I have to help—if I can.”

I summon up one of my usual melodies, sans sticks—but the music reminds me too much of our show. I can’t find anything in me to call on.

A blaze of blue flashes through the cabin’s small window, and I look up from the map to the real thing.

Even from this far, after so long of only seeing it in the Ephemeris, Cancer is breathtaking. Ninety-eight percent water, our planet is painted every shade of blue, streaked with barely perceptible slices of green. Cancer’s cities are built on massive pods that float calmly on the sea’s surface, like giant, half-submerged anemones. Our largest structures—buildings, commercial centers, schools—are secured with anchors.

The pods that hold the most populated cities are so vast that whenever I visit one I forget I’m not on land—except when a shift in the planet’s core triggers powerful ripples. We have security outposts in the sky, reachable by aircraft, and a handful of underwater stations that have never been used. They were mainly built for protection, in case life above water is ever threatened.

My home is my soul: Cancer is my Center.

I turn back to the star map, and I gaze into the blue orb as though I could see every detail, down to the tiny whirlpools of color that fleetingly form on the sea’s surface. The longer I stare, the deeper and wider the map seems to grow, until I’m Space-diving through the stars.

All around me, millions of celestial bodies ascend and decline, and as their paths shift in response to distant events like gamma bursts and supernovas, they leave faint arcs in the sky. They almost look like musical notes.

Music of the night, Mom said the ancients called it.

I look to the side of Cancer. Thebe is gone. Then I survey the moons we have left—and all three begin to flicker.

Like any one of them could be next.

Pulse pumping, I pan away from our House and search beyond the twelfth constellation, where the omen appears. It’s not there.

Has it finally disappeared? Or has it moved closer?

I scan the whole solar system, desperately searching for a hint of the writhing blackness, a sign of the opposition in our stars.

Nishiko glides over to me. “You see something. What is it?”

“I . . . don’t see the omen anymore. . . .”

As soon as I leave my Center, the map shrinks back down to the size of a puffer fish—the way it’s appeared to the others this whole time.

“But?” she asks. “Why do you sound bothered by its absence?”

“Because I still felt the sense of danger, only I couldn’t see the source. And there’s . . . something else.” I dread speaking the words, but I have to. Maybe if I’d spoken up earlier, we would have had warning. If I’d just told Instructor Tidus—

“What else? Rho, tell us!” Nishi squeezes my shoulder urgently.

“Sorry—I didn’t mean to keep you in suspense, I’m just—okay, listen. Earlier today, at my retest, I saw . . . I saw Thebe’s light flickering, and then it vanished. Like, disappeared from the map.”

My three friends exchange awed looks. Deke is the first to turn away. “Rho, this isn’t time for one of your tales.”

“Deke, you’re my best friend. Would I really be messing with you after what’s happened?”