“Boredom is definitely an emergency,” he replied. I assessed the uniform again. He could’ve used a size larger. It was tight across his shoulders and long torso, showing too much wrist, and his trousers showed too much ankle, but the normal guests would never look that close. “Besides, there’s almost two hundred people on this ship, and I’m excellent at slipping away. Don’t worry, Entoo disabled the vids on the lower deck. I’ll be fine.” He spun me around to the music.
I fumbled as I followed him. “Dad willabsolutelyknow you aren’t crew with those ankles showing.”
He lowered an eyebrow. “I don’t see him, though. Do you?”
“Not yet…”
He sucked in a breath between his teeth. “I think your friend is right, Starlight. You should really let loose a little bit. Undo your braid.” To emphasize, he picked up the end of it slung over my shoulder and twirled it through his fingers. “I bet your hair’s really pretty down.”
Heat crawled across my cheeks. I pulled my braid out of his grip. “You don’t know me.”
“But we did go through a very traumatic thing together. That must count for something?” He spun me back into him. He was nefariously smooth for a thief. It was hard to keep my guard up. “Besides,” he went on in that low voice that was almost a whisper, in a conversation only we could hear, “like I said, I was bored and I could hear the party all the way down in the galley. Veebee said I couldn’t miss it.”
Skeptically, I eyed him. “She did?”
“Well, she saidshecouldn’t miss it,” he corrected, “which just means I had to check it out for myself, too!”
I hesitated. Dad hadn’t come to the party yet. He wouldn’t join until he was sure the ship was in the clearand we were well on our way to Alderaan. “I guess…”
“Veealsosaid your brother came back,” he added, his voice a little softer. Though his eyes were blankets of black with starry-white motes, I could still feel where he was looking, and at the moment he was most definitely looking at me—studying me. I wondered what I looked like through them. I wondered what kind of girl he saw. “Are you all right?”
My eyes widened at the question. “I—I mean—why wouldn’t I be?”
“I dunno. Vee said he left years ago, and she seemedverysuspicious that he was back.”
“Vee sure told you a lot.”
“I have a very trustworthy face,” he replied.
No, he did not. He had a very handsome face, but trustworthy? I was afraid to trust him with anything I said, though it wasn’t for fear that he’d use it against me. It was for fear that he’d learn something I never let anyone find out.
N2-0 melted the music down into a slow and sweet beat, and in reply the dance floor ebbed, too. We swayed to the music, turning. He put one hand on my hip and guided my hand to his shoulder, then folded his fingers through my free one. His hand held mine with confidence, warm and calloused where mine was soft—and,oh, the story that told. We were from two different worlds. I bet he had seen enough corners of the galaxy to fill a book, while I…
I hadn’t seen much of anything at all. The walls of this ship. The itineraries. Countless faces and names.
For a moment I wondered what it would be like out there in the galaxy with him. Outside of these walls.
Dangerous—this boy was dangerous.
So close to him, I felt my heart beating quickly in my throat. I remembered how it had felt being this close to him before, how he smelled like dust and far-off places. I let myself think for a moment that he’d escaped the galley just to come dance with me. That was what would happen to the main character in Mom’s favorite serial. If this wereUnder the Tan-Tan Sun, then he’d have snuck into this party just to have a dance, risking the sharp-eyed ambassador and ex-communication from the Assassin’s Guild.
But the reality was, when I looked up into his strange and handsome face, he wasn’t looking at me at all.
He was watching someone behind me. Something sharp and dangerous flickered through his eyes—barely there and then gone. “Sadly,” he said, “I think our dance is cut short.”
I didn’t understand. “What?”
“Arie!”
I let go of Sian quickly and spun around to my brother. Val dipped through the crowd to me, holding two drinks. One, I guessed, was for me. What happened to that pretty guest he’d been flirting with? “Oh, Val. Hello.”
“Who were you dancing with?” he asked suspiciously, glancing around me.
I felt my body stiffen. “Um, this is—” I was about to make up a lie, but when I turned back to Sian to introduce him, he had, in fact, disappeared. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was good at slipping away. I hadn’t even seen him go.Thattrick would’ve been useful on Coruscant. “Just a seasonal crew member I know. He—he comes aboard sometimes for work.”
“What’s his name?” he asked, searching the crowd, but my dance partner had vanished. “He was getting pretty close.”
I crossed my arms. Anger lit in my belly. “Wellyouseemed pretty close with that guest earlier. The one with the golden earrings?”
