Page 261 of Every Almost

Tomorrow, Reyna would figure something out, and then she would tell her.

It was a bad plan. Even Vondra said there wasn't anything to be done.

But it was the only one she had left.

"The Kaelari have to hear it from me directly. If I go myself, if I stand in front of them and?—"

"Rey."

Reyna stopped.

Charlie was in her path, not blocking it, but putting herself where Reyna would have to see her, still leaving her all the room in the world to go around.

"Look at me," Charlie said. "Please."

And suddenly, she had no more fight left. Not when she heard Charlie plead.

So she looked at her.

Charlie's face was wide open. No teasing, no deflection, no barrier at all. The nebula was all over her.

Every part of Reyna turned to her like a magnet, a compass pointing exactly where Reyna should have headed since Charlie landed on the Emberkind.

Her breathing stopped. She looked directly at Charlie.

"I can't lose?—"

You.

She placed both hands over her face and stood there on the brink.

She had four seconds of standing still before it came back up. She lowered her hands and began pacing again.

"The transfer instruction is aform. It's a form. Correspondence, and correspondence can be delayed. Hell, Torvax has held Coalition paperwork under review for two cycles already. It's not that hard, and it's definitely not illegal. Frankly, it's not even irregular?—"

"Reyna."

"—and if it sits in review long enough, the objection has to be reheard, and if it is reheard, I get to be in the room. And so help me, if somebody in that building has to look me in the face while they say it?—"

"Reyna,stop?—"

She was at the viewport again. She turned.

"I am not stopping." Her voice came out wrong. "I've never stopped because that's the job. You don't stop. You just keep going until the thing gives or you do?—"

Charlie said her name again, but Reyna went past her.

She could not look at her because she had looked once already, and it had taken everything she had to not fall apart.

Behind her, Charlie went quiet.

Good. That was good. If Charlie stopped, then Reyna could keep going, and if she kept going, then eventually she would get to the next step, and there would be something on the other side of it, there had to be?—

Reyna's internal rant was suddenly interrupted when the room detonated.

Sound, everywhere, all at once, at a volume that was far too loud for this room yet perfect for whatever was playing. Reyna stopped mid-stride so fast she nearly went over.

"What—"