“Do you think anyone will follow us?” Merrick asks, and maybe I don’t know him as well as I think I do, but I’d swear he sounds hopeful.
“Not a chance,” Ian replies. “The port doesn’t have any aerial support. They might get a message out to the capital—there are ships stationed there. But we’ll be long gone before they manage to get in the air.” He moves to stand beside Beckett. “Set a course for Vistenia.”
“Vistenia coming up, Captain,” she replies in her usual snarky tone. It lacks the sharpness she uses with Kali, though.
Max returns a lot sooner than I expect him to, especially since he’s carrying a box that smells divine. “The provisions are mostly dehydrated crap, stuff that will keep longer than a few days. But there was some fresh food as well.” He places the box on the floor between us.
My stomach rumbles and my body acts on autopilot as I get out of my chair and shift as close to the source of those amazing aromas as I can get.
“How did you make that so fast?” I ask Max. “You were only gone a few minutes.”
Gage enters carrying plates and cutlery. “I’ve been cooking since the supplies got here,” he answers. “But I figured we’d all prefer to eat in here, where we can keep an eye on things.” He starts handing out the plates while I crouch down and stare at the bounty before us.
“Stop looking at it and eat,” Kali suggests. I was so intent on the food that I hadn’t even noticed her standing beside me.
I know I should wait, should let everyone else fill their plates first—it’s the way of the Sisterhood—but I’m so hungry, I can’t do it. Instead, I start piling my plate with a still-warm roll, some green fishgalen-based dish I don’t recognize, and a couple of scoops of roasted vegetables and yellow rice.
Beckett is still in the pilot’s seat, so I make a plate for her, too. I add an extra roll and an extra serving of fishgalen because she looks like she needs it, then carry it over to where she’s fiddling with the console in front of her.
She glances between me and the plate, and her eyes widen. “For me?”
I nod. She’s so surprised when someone does something for her—it makes me think that it’s been quite a while since anyone’s taken care of her. It also makes me want to shower her with every kindness I can.
“Thanks,” she mutters a few seconds later, already shoving a forkful of rice in her mouth.
I turn back to retrieve my own plate and find Merrick watching me. His eyes are narrowed in that way he gets when he’s thinking hard about something he doesn’t particularly like.
In this case, I’m afraid what he doesn’t particularly like is Beckett. I know it’s probably just because he’s worried about my safety—Beckett just came off a prison ship, after all. But the more I get to know her, the less that matters to me. She’s a good person. Different, yes. Hurt, for sure. Maybe even confused. But I can see she’s decent. Really decent.
I give Merrick a serene smile—one that tells him he has nothing to worry about. Somehow, though, it backfires, because he looks even more concerned.
But I’m too hungry to worry about it right now, so I grab my plate and sit down cross-legged on the floor to eat.
We don’t have fishgalen on Serati for an obvious reason—no water, no fishgalen. So the colorful chunks of green flesh coated in some sort of creamy sauce I’ve never tasted before are extra delicious. The rice—also something that isn’t served in the monastery—is incredible, too. I savor every mouthful and don’t stop until my stomach is about to burst.
“Good?” Kali says with a smile.
“So good,” I agree.
“You know, I think food tastes better when you’re hungry,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s because you’ve never been hungry before,” Beckett tells her in a snide tone.
Kali bites her lip but doesn’t respond, and Beckett goes back to eating.
Ian disappears and comes back a minute later with two bottles dangling from his fingers. He hands one to Max and then pulls the stopper and takes a long sip. “Fuck, I needed that. It’s been a long few days.”
“Are you going to tell us what happened down there?” Merrick asks.
“Yes, just not yet, because I’m fucked and I need a drink.” He takes another long pull and then holds the bottle out to Kali. “You want some gerjgin, Princess?”
“Can I have it in a glass?”
He smirks. “Scared you’re going to catch something?”
“I think it’s probably too late to worry about that,” she mutters. Then her eyes widen as if she’s just realized what she said.
Ian laughs. “Don’t worry, Princess. I won’t tell anyone you kissed me on a rooftop under the setting sun.”
All of us are watching them now. It’s like watching a story play out in real time.
“Is that how you remember it?” Kali glares at him.
He lifts a brow. “We can try it again. See how you remember it the second time.”
“Third,” she mutters, which only makes him laugh harder.
She growls deep in her throat, then snatches the bottle from him and takes a really big gulp. Her eyes widen, but she swallows and hands it back as if it’s a challenge.
“That’s my girl,” Ian says with a smirk.
She narrows her eyes at him. “You’re a jerk. You know that?”
“Never pretended to be anything else, Princess.” He tilts the bottle to his lips, but not before giving her a wink that makes her snarl a string of uncomplimentary things （almost） under her breath.
I can hear them, and I’m pretty sure Ian can, too, but he doesn’t look the least bit upset. Which doesn’t make any sense to me. If Beckett said something mean about me now that we’ve kissed, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from crying.
But Ian just takes another pull of gerjgin before passing the bottle to Merrick while Gage hands around glasses. I take one, and Max pours some amber liquid into it from his bottle. I’ve had fruit liquor in the monastery but never gerjgin, which I believe is alcohol distilled from some sort of grain.
I sniff it. It has a warm, musky smell that isn’t the least bit unpleasant.
I take a small sip and roll it on my tongue. It’s hot and harsh, but I like it. I swallow and take another sip. Almost immediately, I can feel the heat in my belly. I definitely like it.
I empty the glass in one swallow, then look up to find Max watching me, a small smile on his face.
“Can I have another?”
He grins and tops off my glass with a waggle of his brows.
I scoot back to lean against Merrick’s chair, then peer around me. These people are all so different. So vibrant and alive, even their bad parts. And I know it’s a really wrong thought, but if the Caelestis hadn’t gone down, I wouldn’t be right here, right now, with them. People probably died on the space station, and I hate that so much, but since I’m here, I want to notice everything. Do everything. Feel everything. One day soon, I’ll be back in the monastery, where I’ll spend the rest of my life locked away forever.