Page 128 of The Only Way Out Is Up

I know! But you’re not…

[Query: not what?]

Not responsible, I carefully don’t send. It’s not your fault.

It’s my fault.

I’m sorry, I send again, after a few moments. Get on the table, please? If we’re going to do this, I want you in the best shape we can manage.

With a slowness that emphasizes his wounded pride, Star unfolds and climbs up on the worktable. I undo the bolts that secure his carapace and lever it open with an ugly screech. Talk to me about the damage.

Star runs through his functionality while I poke at his innards. It’s not a pretty sight; his systems are multiply redundant, but sigils have popped all over. The sight of the cracked oranges and yellows gives me a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some of the wire is torn up as well, and of course two legs need replacing.

“Fucking stars,” I mutter. “This is going to take all night.”

[Apologies: I will endeavor to take less damage the next time I save your life.]

You know that’s not what I meant. I take a deep breath. Let’s get started.

Time blurs. If working on Star normally feels like a dream, this is a nightmare, with exhaustion and pain and the impossible deadline bearing down on me like crushing weights. I move as fast as I can, tearing my fingers on jagged bolts and feeling the strain on my busted rib. The back of my head starts to hurt, an insistent itch that grows into a dull, throbbing agony. When I explore it with my fingers, I find two twisted lines of stitching running from the nape of my neck up to my scalp. The urge to dig in my nails and scratch is almost overwhelming.

Sometime later—minutes, hours—I hear the workshop door. Bradley, maybe, or one of the other servants. I don’t look up.

“Taj?” Ky’s voice, very small.

“Busy,” I mutter, coiling threading wire around my finger.

“You need to eat.” She sets something down on the edge of the worktable, a covered bowl of soup and a tureen of something mashed and steaming. “And you should rest.”

“I don’t have time. I’m not even going to be able to get Star back up to baseline, and I’ve got to think about what Alzimyth is going to put me up against. There are too many—”

“Taj.” Her arms fold around my shoulders from behind, her head next to mine. Her voice drops to a whisper. “It’s not your fault.”

I freeze, my throat working. I can feel tears pricking at my eyes.

“How can you possibly say that?” I whisper back. “Of course it’s my fault.”

She squeezes me a little tighter.

“I haven’t even thought about them for days,” I say. “I’m supposed to be doing all this for their sake, but I couldn’t spare a minute to wonder if they were okay.”

“Worrying about it wouldn’t have helped anything,” Ky says. “You couldn’t know that Alzimyth would do this.”

“I should have known.” I almost don’t recognize my own voice, the anger there. “I should have known all of this was…”

“Was what?”

“Too good. A chance to save everyone, to leave the Heap? Coming here, living like this, living with you? It’s not—” I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow desperately. “I don’t get to have this. I don’t. It’s not the way life works. It was always going to end badly.” I had reached too high, asked for too much, and the price for my hubris could be everything I love. “I should never have gone back to Yesod.”

“If you hadn’t, I’d be dead,” Ky says softly.

An image flashes through my mind, Ky’s face as Pader’s meaty hand squeezes the life out of her. The resignation there. I shake my head, and tears patter on the table.

“I can’t save everyone,” I say. “I can’t.”

“Listen.” She holds me tighter. “There are powers in the world no one can stand up against. That no one even understands. You can’t blame yourself for them or take responsibility. You can only pick up the pieces.”

Anger rises in my chest. “That sounds like something your father told you.”