Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(22)
The question isn’t how—it’s who.
Crius wants more answers, and he made me read the Ephemeris for most of the meeting. Mathias made me read it again this afternoon. But both times, I couldn’t see.
We’ve lost twenty million people, a fifth of our population. It’s a number too large for me to understand.
What I do understand is that Deke’s sisters drowned. Kai lost his parents. Dad and Stanton haven’t been found. I’m too full of the past to see the future.
Tonight is the first time I get to be with my friends since we arrived. Wave communications finally started working again, so I spoke to Nishi for hours yesterday, filling her in on everything that’s happened since we parted. She was breathless for most of the conversation. It felt strange to share a laugh with someone again—the past three days, it’s been all bows and Holy Mothers from Lola, Leyla, and the Lodestars, and then a bunch of barking and bossing around from Mathias and my Advisors.
Sagittarians don’t bow to their Guardian—they say doing so implies every soul is not equal—so thank Helios Nishi isn’t fazed by this stuff. For her part, Nishi told me that she, Deke, and Kai have been grouped together with the other Acolytes who survived . . . the Acolytes who didn’t come out to our show.
After she said it, guilt choked both our vocal cords for a while. If we hadn’t organized the concert that night. If I’d heeded the warning signs in the Ephemeris. If we’d just stayed indoors . . .
They might have died anyway, a small voice reminds me. The pieces of wreckage that struck the compound killed just as many people as the electric pulse did outdoors.
Nishi said she and the guys have been in Zodai training all day, every day. A Lodestar Garrison trains them in the mornings—while I’m in with the Council of Advisors—and Agatha trains them in the afternoons.
They had to take Abyssthe yesterday, and Kai panicked and refused. Deke was the only one who could convince him that it would be fine, that he wouldn’t pass out and wake up to the destruction of our world.
I Waved Deke a few times, but he didn’t answer. When I asked Nishi about him, she grew cagey and said he’s dealing with loss his own way. I just wish I could help.
This morning, Mathias told me he arranged for the three of them to eat dinner with me in my room tonight. The excitement of seeing my friends is so massive, it doesn’t leave room for anything else. I’ve been distracted all day, and I could tell Mathias and the rest of my Advisors are starting to lose their patience. I’ll need to manage something impressive tomorrow.
The moment she’s in my room, Nishi and I spring into each other’s arms. Squeezed together, we laugh until we’re crying, and then we laugh again.
Like all civilian refugees on Oceon 6, she’s wearing laboratory scrubs borrowed from the scientists, but she’s rolled up the sleeves and added a belt at her waist, so she still manages to look sexy. When we pull away, I turn to hug Deke, but he’s not there. Instead, Kai approaches me slowly, without meeting my gaze. He bows. “Holy Mother.”
I crush him into an embrace, and I don’t let go until he returns it. “Kai, I’m so sorry about your parents,” I whisper into his ear. His hold tightens, and his breathing grows heavy, so we stay locked together a while longer. When we’re done, he looks at me like I’m Rho again.
“Where’s—”
“Holy Mother.” Deke bows at me from the other end of the room, his back against the wall and eyes looking straight ahead. It’s a Zodai stance, the same one Mathias assumes sometimes.
“Deke—” I move toward him, but he edges away.
Nishi marches up to him. “You’re seriously acting this way? She’s still Rho, our best friend—”
“Nish, it’s okay,” I say, even though it isn’t.
Shaking, I pull out a chair at the table Lola and Leyla laid out with drinks, fruit, and an assortment of seafood. Kai sits across from me. Soon, Nishi takes the chair next to mine, and once we’ve started eating, Deke slips into the last seat, his eyes never straying from the tablecloth. He loved his sisters as much as I love Stanton. Of course I understand.
“There are eighteen girls and thirty-three guys, and we’re split into two bunkrooms.” Nishi is rattling off a lot of the same information she told me yesterday, but I know she’s just trying to lighten the mood. “Most of the others are young, between twelve and fourteen.”
That’s probably why they didn’t come to the party. I stab a piece of fruit with my fork and stuff it into my mouth, even though I’m not hungry. “How does the training work if you’re all at different levels?” I ask through the food, trying to latch onto safer subjects.
“The three of us, plus a fifteen-year-old named Freida, are in the advanced group,” says Nishi, passing me her napkin so I can wipe the fruit juice trailing down my chin. “Everyone else works with Stargazer Swayne, who teaches more basic stuff.”
“When are you going home?” I ask her. It’s hard to believe there are people in the universe who can still do that.
“They don’t really have the ships to spare right now. Since there will be representatives from other Houses coming to your swearing-in ceremony, I’m hitching a ride with the Sagittarian envoy.”
The thought of Nishi leaving me to do this alone is unbearable. Now that I’m with her, I don’t even know how I made it this far. After tonight, I can’t go back to the loneliness of the past few days.