Chapter Thirty-Five One Year Later Sargo It's 0700 on a foggy Tuesday morning. Bird and I are walking along the shore on the main beach at Brume. The sky is a close, silver dome, and saltwater spray sheets off the surf as it crashes against the cold, wet sand. One of my hands is wrapped around a mug of hot brew. The other is in Bird’s. Up ahead a black mop with legs that we call Shenanigans jumps in and out of the waves, tripping over his paws and barking at nothing. Bird stoops to grab a stick and hurls it into the Salt. Shanny, predictably, bolts off down the beach at full speed in the wrong direction. We do this walk every morning now, before Shanny and Bird drop me off at the harbor. I don’t work for Azimuth any more—six months ago I opened my own sailing school. I was nervous to do it. Terrified, actually, that it would fail. Spent weeks not sleeping. But I kept trying to remind myself of everything Bird has taught me. To trust my gut. To not think too hard. To take big leaps, every once in a while. Within a month of the school opening, so many kids had enrolled that I had to add an extra morning class. Which means we have to get up far too early now, and Bird is sometimes so grumpy that I just take Shanny to the beach by myself. Sorry—not grumpy Angry. She doesn’t like it when I call her grumpy. This morning, we're both in good, if slightly melancholy, spirits. The Kingfisher will be in Brume today for the first time since Goliath's funeral. We gave Goliath the hero’s funeral Red wanted for them. We all pretty much agreed they deserved nothing less. When Red suggested we build a raft to send Goliath's body out into the Salt and shoot flaming arrows at it, I initially thought he was joking. But he wasn't. Where Goliath came from, he told us, it was a great honor to be buried that way. So that's what we did. Mama J, of all people, had a crossbow hidden away that she said she hadn't used since her days in the Settlement at Naze. At that point, I was too done being surprised by things to question that, or the sureness with which she and Nana dipped the tips of the bolts in grog, lit them on fire, and sent them arcing over the bay. When Bird and I get to the dock at 0745, three kids are already leaning against the chain link fence outside the harbor gate. They're tousle-haired and groggy-looking, but there is a sparkly kind of anticipatory energy in the air. Savage has promised to teach a celestial navigation class while the Kingfisher is in town, and the kids can hardly contain their excitement about learning from a real pirate I wish I shared their excitement. I can’t stand Savage. And I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. I don’t care if he has pulled his shit together and started taking better care of Fid since Fetch left after Z-Day—he’s still smarmy and irritating. And I still don’t believe he was telling the truth about what happened between him and Bird. Sighing, I unlock the gate. The kids and Shenanigans barge past me onto the dock. “What’s wrong?” says Bird. The impatient tone of her voice tells me she already knows. “I’m just not excited to see Savage. And I’m sure he won’t be excited to see me either.” She catches the front of my shirt as I step through the gate, and pulls me toward her. My heart trips as she brings us together and I wonder if I’ll ever stop having that reaction to being this close to her. "I guess you're just going to have to be the bigger man, then," she whispers. "Right?" "Mm." " Right? " She leans closer, bringing that intoxicating scent of cinnamon and oranges and sweet hair right up against me. I pull back just before our lips touch. "Not in front of the kids, Howsley." She rolls her eyes and lets me go. "Be nice to Savage. He knows his stuff and teaching keeps him out of trouble." “Why don’t you stay? Hang out today. You can help out. It’ll be fun.” She folds her arms and eyes me. “So I can act as a buffer between you and Savage? What are you, twelve? You’re grown men. Figure it out. Besides, I have to go to work.” Bird works for Zenith now. Paradi and Electra took over the company after Z-Day, and they hired Bird about six months ago to head up their training program. Teaching their employees how to use QMTP. No one except Zenith employees is allowed to have QMTP installed on their chip—it’s still too dangerous without proper training, and Electra tells me they can’t afford to train everyone. Last month, Electra authorized me to have the QMTP module installed so that I can jump to Pocosín and visit Khala. I think I’m the only civilian who has it. I had to take Bird’s course before they would let me do anything with it. It was fun—turning the tables and being Bird’s student for a bit. Under Electra and Paradi’s direction, Zenith is now focused on finding practical applications for QMTP. They never ended up wiping the code for it from Zenith’s repositories on Z-Day. It was Paradi, actually, who made that call. I think in the moment, she realized what a monumental waste it would be to destroy all that work. So they hired a lot of Anonymity folk and started working on figuring out how to use teleportation to do things that would actually be useful to the people on this planet. Like using it to transport goods, medicine, and resources out to remote Settlements. Getting doctors out to Île Tor. Connecting people. Bird taps her temple. Receiving a message, looks like. I lift my brow at her. “Who’s that?” “Locuaz,” she murmurs, squinting at the air in front of her face. “She and Fetch are heading for Qanat with Yote’s fleet. She says they’ll be there in six weeks.” She taps her temple again and then chews her thumbnail and gazes anxiously out at the Salt. I reach out and pull her against me with one arm. “Hey. Don’t worry about Locuaz. She’ll be fine. She’s been doing this for over a year, remember? And she has Fetch with her now.” “But she’s...such a terrible sailor.” “Yes...” I hesitate. “But Fetch can sail Alma Gemela by herself if she has to. She sailed all the way to Île Tor by herself after Z-Day.” She nods and sighs, but I know she won’t stop worrying. She always worries when Locuaz goes out of range to do work with Yote and the Neozapas. I brush hair back from Bird’s face and press my lips to the soft, cool skin of her forehead. She hums and puts her arms around me. “So you know...” I say slowly, “that the one year anniversary of Z-Day is coming up.” “Mhm.” She mumbles it into my shoulder. “Which means that the one year anniversary of us leaving Brume for the first time is this weekend.” She pulls back and looks up at me. “It is?” I stifle a sigh. She still seems to have such a hard time remembering things like that. “Yes. Which means it’s also the two year anniversary of the day we met. And the anniversary of the day my moms died.” She squints at me. “I feel like you’re coming to some sort of point here...” “I was thinking...” I wrap my arms all the way around her and put my chin on top of her head, “that we could take a trip on Panga this weekend. To Naze. To celebrate. Or...maybe celebrate is the wrong word. Observe.” She’s quiet for a long time. “Or...it doesn’t have to be Naze. If you don’t want to go there. If it’s...too soon.” “It’s not that,” she says. “I don’t have any problem going back to Naze. The thing with Fife is...done, I think. I haven’t seen her since that night we all almost died blipping to Blenny’s bathroom.” I push her away and frown down at her. This is news to me. “Really?” She nods. “Do you have any idea...why that is?” She shrugs, shaking her head. “Rav thinks it’s because our ‘unfinished business’ was resolved. Rav basically thinks she was haunting me.” “Haunting you.” “She thinks we had unfinished business and during that blip where I dragged you and Fetch and Locuaz through hell with me, we finished it.” “Hm. Do you know what the business was?” She nods thoughtfully, staring out across the water. “Honestly? I think we just needed to say goodbye.” She looks distant and momentarily fragile, and I pull her to me again. “Okay. So you don’t mind going to Naze. So why don’t we?” She sighs and turns her cheek against my shoulder. “I can’t. I have to work.” “Again? Why do they need you to train people on a weekend?” Another sigh. “It’s not...I’m not...things are kind of crazy right now.” “Because of the Exiters?” “Yes.” She pulls away and leans against the fence. “They’re just...loud, stupid assholes. But people are starting to listen to them. Which is infuriating because they don’t have all the facts. They don’t understand what Z-Day was really about. They just think Axioma’s plan was a better solution than what we’re working on. It’s like she’s some kind of deity to them. They literally worship her.” “Hm.” I scratch my chin, an unsettling thought occurring to me. “Axioma’s...contained, right? There’s no way she could...” Bird shoots me a look. “She’s my problem, Sargo. I’m on top of it.” “Okay.” I put up my hands. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to question you.” I just know what it means when Bird says she’s ‘on top of something.’ She usually isn’t. She sighs. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to...it’s just crazy right now. Yesterday someone tried to start a riot outside Zenith headquarters.” “They what? An Exiter did this?” “There was a rally. Some woman was yelling about how Electra and Paradi are persecuting people by not releasing QMTP to the public.” She eyes me. “ You’re still the only non-Zenith employee they’ve authorized to have it. People think we basically signed a global death sentence when we stopped Axioma from going ahead on Z-Day. They don’t think this planet can be saved. Anyway, protestors started getting agitated. Shoving each other. It escalated really fast, but the peace force dispersed them.” “Why didn’t you tell me this?” She folds her arms. “I’m telling you now.” “That’s not what I...” I rub the top of my head, trying to tamp down my frustration. The number of things she forgets to tell me is really starting to drive me crazy. Sometimes I wonder if she’s really ‘forgetting’ or just...hiding things from me. “I don’t understand how what you do at Zenith has anything to do with the Exiters. I mean...you work for them, but it’s not like you have anything to do with making policies. You train people. You shouldn’t be dealing with the Exiters. Isn’t that Paradi’s job?” “It is...” She shakes her head. “Look, it’s complicated, okay? I just have to go in. I’m sorry.” She won’t meet my eyes, and that nagging, unwelcome feeling I’ve had recently when we talk surfaces. That she’s not...telling me the whole truth. She offers a weak shrug. “Maybe you should go by yourself. You could take Shanny. Have some space to observe your moms’ anniversary in peace.” I sigh and rub my beard with the back of my hand. “Yeah, I guess.” “Mr. Sargo?” I feel one of the kids tugging on the back of my shirt. Bird smirks. She lifts one eyebrow and mouths, “ Mr. Sargo?” I raise my eyebrows back at her, and her eyes flare, like she’s reading my thoughts. Her smirk turns wicked. “Keep it in your pants, Paz,” she mouths. I turn around. Malick Dawson is standing behind me. “When is the pirate getting here?” I grit my teeth. “Soon. And for the last time, Dawson, you can just call me ‘Sargo’.” “Sorry, Mr. Sargo.” He nods nervously and sprints away down the dock. I rub my face with one hand. A featherlight touch traces a line down the back of my neck. I shiver and turn around. Bird grins and lifts her eyebrows. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Sargo. ” She whistles for Shenanigans. As I watch them walk away down the dock that leads to Panga —to our home—something swells so painfully in my chest that I have to open my mouth to breathe against it. All those times I walked away from her. And then I came so close to losing her. Stupid. I was so stupid. I rub my sternum with the flat of my hand. This feeling in my chest is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Like a kind of unbelievable happiness, and at the same time, an unbearable longing. So sweet and yet so painful. It floors me. It undoes me. It takes my breath away. It almost makes me forget how angry I am that she’s hiding things from me.