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“What can that be about?” I wonder out loud, but Erik doesn’t respond. When I turn to repeat the question, there’s a dazed look on his face.
“Erik?” I prompt, touching his arm lightly. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, but I notice how he swallows against the words.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the female refugee watching us, her son still huddled against her. She shivers in the breeze created by the slow movement of the aeroship.
“Hold on,” I say to Erik.
Approaching the woman slowly, I bend and run a hand over the boy’s finely cropped hair. He smiles at me. I shrug off my coat and move to wrap it around the woman’s shoulders. She steps back and shakes her head.
“I don’t need it,” I insist.
“I couldn’t,” she says simply. “I can’t pay you for it.”
Whatever happened to her in Arras, she’s unwilling to owe other people for favors, but there are going to be a lot of things she can’t pay for on Earth with that attitude. Thanks to Jost, I know the one way to get her to agree.
“I’m not doing it for you,” I tell her. This time she lets me wrap it over her shoulders. Jost taught me a parent’s love trumps everything else, even pride.
The woman swallows hard and mouths, “Thank you.”
I give her a small smile and turn away, tears pricking my eyes.
Warm, scratchy wool falls over my shoulders. “Adelice Lewys, you have a good soul.” There’s a trace of huskiness in the thick words.
I tug the corners of Erik’s jacket closed. “So do you, Erik.”
He shrugs and looks away, but I grab his hand.
“You do,” I say.
Erik opens his mouth to respond, but suddenly a group of men appear on the deck, shouting instructions and dragging the ropes that tether us to the slub in the Interface. They throw the tethers up and stop our progress. I catch Falon’s arm as she rushes past us.
“What’s happening?” I yell over the din of activity around us.
“The estate is under attack,” she calls. “Dante’s ordered us back.”
She doesn’t linger to answer any of the million questions I have. The estate is under attack? Has the Guild come after me? Do Kincaid’s men know I am gone? And then one question stops me cold:
What will happen to my mother?
THIRTY-ONE
THE AEROSHIP MOVES TOO SLOWLY FOR MY taste so I pace the length of its deck until Dante appears, with Falon at his side, carrying a stack of vests in his arms. I haven’t seen him since Falon informed us what was going on, but as he approaches he lifts a finger to my lips.
I shake my head. “No, I have to know what’s going on. Who’s attacking the estate?”
“It’s a group of Remnants,” Dante says. “They’re probably after your mother.”
“My mother?” I repeat in disbelief.
“A rescue mission?” Falon asks, holding out a vest for me to slip into. “Remnants aren’t loyal like that, Dante.”
I dare a glance at Dante and his eyes stay cool and distant. He’s lying to Falon—and to me—but why?
“Kincaid can’t know you’re gone,” Dante says. “He’ll have been alerted to the attack, so we can’t waste time. We need to beat him back there.”
“We need to get to my mother,” I add. No matter what’s happened, I can’t stomach the idea of her falling back into a Remnant pack.
