Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(67)

I put an arm around her. “Thank you. Thanks for saving us.”

She elbowed me, hard. “It’s your fault we’re in this mess in the first place, and if you keep anything else from me, I’ll kick your ass.”

Normally I’d be like, You’ll try, but she’d earned my genuine repentance. “Look, I really am sorry. But you know, if they’d leveled with us back in training, maybe I’d have known better. So it’s maybe not entirely my fault . . . ?” I tried a coaxing smile that used to work on some of my counselors, the soft-hearted ones anyway.

With a sigh, she said, “Fine. I accept your apology. And . . . thanks to you too. I didn’t crawl through Nadim’s organs. You did. And look at you!” She lowered her hands and glared at my hands. “Is that the best EMITU could do?”

“It’ll heal. And it doesn’t hurt, which is all I care about right now.” I flexed my fingers a little and winced. “Okay, it almost doesn’t. Just feels weird as hell. Also, I love you, Bea, but you need a decon shower.”

“I know,” she said. “I also need to crawl into bed and pull the covers up and pretend this never happened, or I’ll never sleep again. What are we going to do if this doesn’t work?”

I just shook my head and used my newly useful fingers to chart a course to the red giant’s glow—a glow that would wake Nadim.

I hoped.

That optimism died in the hissing, atonal light of the star we orbited for almost a full day, to no effect. I could hear the star—what Nadim would have called its song—but to my limited human understanding, it was a frightening, metallic hiss of roaring radiation. I knew because I processed the energy as sound through the console speakers. Couldn’t take more than a few minutes of it before I shut it off, but I hoped it would be the healing balm that the Leviathan needed.

But Nadim didn’t awaken. I sat up, staring at the screen until my eyes ached, listening. Pressing my hands to the wall. Calling his name out loud until my voice went rough and cracked.

I felt silent inside. Dark as the space between stars. Wake up. I wanted to scream it, pound on the walls until my hands were bloody, until he heard me. We were here. Around a star. And he wasn’t coming back.

Bea brought me a cup of hot tea with lemon and honey. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d eaten or slept. Too long. I drank the tea too fast, and didn’t care that I burned my mouth. Bea sank down on the floor next to me. “Anything?” It was just something to ask. She knew I had nothing to tell her. I just shook my head. “I did some reading. Maybe it just takes longer. Maybe the star isn’t giving off the kind of radiation he needs.”

“How would we know?” My voice sounded thin and rough, and I tried some more tea. More carefully this time.

“Without Nadim to tell us? Maybe we need to call Typhon.”

I shuddered at the thought. “And say what, exactly? This is Nadim’s last chance. If he doesn’t graduate up to the Journey this time . . .”

“He needs to live, doesn’t he? We can worry about the rest later.”

I wasn’t sure Nadim would feel that way, but Bea was probably right. We had to do something. Anything.

“I’m afraid we’re losing him, Bea.”

Nadim dying meant we died too. Maybe we could get a message off. Maybe someone would hear it. But honestly, neither of us could be sure.

She sank down to a crouch beside me, staring into my face. “Is he still bleeding?”

“No, the wound’s clotted. I think this is just his . . . condition. He can’t wake up.”

“What about installing that device you built?”

I’d thought about that, but there were no instructions, not in the assembly room, not in the console. That, presumably, was information that would have gotten loaded later, before he went on the Journey.

Nadim had told me that he didn’t need it on the Tour because he stuck to the approved routes. That he didn’t take risks. So what had he done wrong?

Before he’d fallen asleep, he’d bonded with me. I couldn’t shake the knowledge that this was because of me.

“We’ll activate the distress signal,” she suggested. “Maybe one of the other Leviathan will answer it.”

Neither of us liked it, but there were no more options that either of us could find. We were probably ending Nadim’s chance for the Journey; from what Nadim had told me, that might mean he’d be sent off, alone and exiled. We’d lose him. He’d lose us.

But at least he’d be alive.

And alone, I told myself. He doesn’t want to live that way.

I didn’t either, now that I understood how it felt to be a part of something bigger.

With clumsy hands, I fiddled with the console. I missed voice activation via Nadim. Hell, I just missed Nadim. How long has he been out, now?

“There may not be anyone in range,” Bea said. “By the time our message reaches them, real-time, Nadim might have gotten the starlight he needs or—”

“There is no ‘or.’” My entire body tightened just thinking about it. Past that point, we’d lose power to these machines. Nadim wouldn’t be manufacturing breathable air for us or keeping us warm. Long after we suffocated or froze, Nadim would die.

“Okay.” Her tone was gentle, like she was a doctor about to deliver bad news.