But I ignore him and lower my eyes back to the map. I recognize most of the constellations, Pyxis and Perseus, Leo Minor and Indus, and I’m able to orient the formations. It takes me a moment, but finally I spot the Lyra constellation, and the brightest star in the array—Vega. The very star I was named after, and the star that is the northernmost point of my tattoo—inked into my neck, just below my hairline.
My hand hovers over the mirrored Lyra constellation on the table, my finger settling on the point of light that is Vega. The star on the hovering map instantly changes color, from a soft white to a solid black.
I pull my hand away, startled. My ears start to ring again, a nervous fluttering inside my ribs. I hesitate. Once I enter the constellation marked on my body onto the map in front of me, there’s no going back. The map will mark the coordinates, the way, the route to the other place.
But… there was never any going back. Always forward. And this map is the last point of no return. The last stop, charted by my ancestors.
“What the hell are you doing down there?” the man yells. “If you’re just stalling, I’ll tell Holt to kill him.”
I swallow down the tightness in my throat. “I just need a minute.”
Mom’s words tremble in my mind.The stars belong to you now.She was giving me not just the sky but a responsibility. She was giving me the stories of the first Astronomer, a past I would bear, one that is being written as I lean forward and touch the rest of the stars in the Lyra constellation, and each one blinks from pale to black. My eyes scan the map, finding Hercules, the many-starred constellation that trails down my spine and around my ribs. I press each point of light, watching them all turn dark. I do the same for Corona Borealis, to the Virgo constellation, until the tattoo on my skin ends at Lorvus on my right foot—a constellation that depicts a raven. I touch each star on the glowing map, linking them, until I reach the last two—the brightest—Tova and Llitha.Binary stars, Mom called them. Two suns caught in one another’s orbit, with a single planet spinning on an axis around them both.
At last I let out a shuddering exhale, and take in the expanse of the hovering, layered map before me, with a series of stars now darkened, connected, mirroring the same stars on my skin.
The coordinates have been set. A route made.
I draw in a cold breath, and from some distant place below me, I hear a soft hum. A buzzing from deep within the belly of the ship as if a wind were being stirred up through an open window. The map flickers slightly, and then the hum grows louder, followed by a subtle shaking.
I’ve awoken it, after a hundred years of rest. It finally stirs.
A flare of light catches my eye. Across the dimly lit room, a door appears, lit from the other side. With my ears ringing, I cross the room, sensing that the space is much larger than I can see—much wider and deeper and cavernous. A place that I could lose myself in, so I keep glancing back, orienting myself to the glowing table, and the shaft of soft light from the opening in the ceiling. But as I get closer to the door, I already understand what it is, what is waiting for me.
Mom explained how I would need to find a smaller room within the larger ship. So small, it would only be large enough to fit a single person. A room that was more important than all the others within the ship.
When I reach the narrow door, it slides open on its own, light pouring out from the small space waiting on the other side. I edge closer, peering into the compact room, where a single metal chair is fastened against the wall, and a panel of glass to the left is illuminated. Within the glass, the map of my tattoo is already hovering, points of light connected.
The constellations I entered on the large table are somehow linked to the panel in this smaller room.A lifeboat, Mom called it. And at the bottom of the panel, below the map, is a blinking white light. There are no words, just a pulsing, shivering glow.
But I sense its meaning—I understand its purpose.
Once I press the button, thelifeboatwill move, it will break free of the larger ship, and follow the course I’ve set.
Nervous adrenaline climbs up from my toes, rushing down every vein, throbbing in my eardrums.This is it.What I was always meantto do. But everything is more complicated now. Because of Noah. If I press the button, I will fulfill the final chapter of my story, the moment my ancestors had planned for, waited for, sacrificed everything for. But if I press the button, I will be leaving Noah behind.
And leaving him behind means letting Holt kill him.
I close my eyes and scratch my hands through my tangled hair. This is why I didn’t want to let myself tumble into the endless, impossible, heart-cracking need of his eyes. Why I tried to ignore it, push it away. But then his fingertips touched my skin, my lips, and I let this reckless, stupid thing happen. I let my heart spill out into his hands, messy and burdened and dangerous.
And now he will die if I leave him behind.
So I cross back through the dark, shadowed room, past the table, to the ladder. My hands are cold, numb, and they slip off the first rung—still soaked from my swim. My body begins to tremble—a delayed reaction, the adrenaline wearing off. But I grab the ladder again and manage to pull myself up, legs shaking. At the top, the man doesn’t even help me over the edge; he’s distracted, staring out at the ocean.
Once I’ve pulled myself free of the dark hole, I sink onto my stomach, breathing, shivering. “I did it,” I say, teeth clacking together from the cold. “I did what he wanted. I found the ship. Tell Holt to let Noah go.”
I lift my head, but the man isn’t even listening—his eyes are trained out at the sea, where the waves have grown larger, thrashing against the side of the island. I peer up at the drowned sky, thick with rain, and the air is swarmed with tiny sparks.
Like thousands of fireflies caught in the downpour.
I turn my gaze to the beach, where two men are dragging Noah closer to the water, like they’re preparing to slit his throat and dump him into the sea. “Tell them!” I shout at the man, but he’s still not listening—his eyes caught on the churning sea, as if it both frightens him and has caught him in a dizzying daydream.
On shaking legs, I push myself up, the cold sunk into my bones, my entire body soaked, then start down to the shoreline. “I did what you asked!” I shout, hands cupped around my mouth. I think I hear one of the men yell something back, but it’s lost to the wind. If I can’t hear them, then they can’t hear me.
I don’t want to sink back into the icy water—I don’t want to battle the waves back to shore—but there’s no other way.
I have to swim back.
I have to leave the ship behind.
