Amy walked until the voices blurred behind her and the torches smeared into orange streaks along the red wood. The courtyard where Aurora stood shrank to a memory behind her back as she shut her eyes tight. These past two months, her life had taken a turn for the worst. She thought of Kristo, of Thomas, and the loss still hurt. Ahead, Sunji’s palace corridors stretched in cool stone and carved beams, the moonlight washing the red paint pale. Her boots whispered over the floor. Her heart hadn’t figured out whether it was broken or just… loose in her chest.

  She could still feel the ghost-pressure of Milo’s presence, his voice smooth and cocky.

  Heal it, then. And see what survives.

  She pushed the echo down.

  “Amy?”

  The voice came from the shadow of a supporting pillar, soft and breathless.

  Like the continuation of a bad dream, Princessa stepped into the lantern glow, silk skirts whispering around her ankles. Her eyes were the same as Amy remembered from Karl’s rebel caverns, wide and a little overeager. The eyes that had once cried with her in the bunk and then, later, looked through her in the hall.

  Seeing her now felt like pressing on an old bruise.

  Amy stopped. The urge to keep walking tugged at her heels.

  Princessa wrung her hands, then hid the motion behind her sleeves. “I—I saw you leave. I thought—” She swallowed. “Are you okay?”

  The last word caught oddly in Amy’s ears, just a little off, as if someone had tilted it. Amy frowned. “What?”

  Princessa blinked. “Are you… okay?” She slowed the sounds without quite knowing why.

  Amy regarded her in silence.

  Images surfaced unbidden.

  Princessa’s hand warm around hers in the resistance base, soft, shocked tears when Amy whispered how Samantha killed Kristo, promises of eternal friendship. Then Princessa lying saying, haven’t seen Bennet since yesterday morning!

  But none of it sat like anger in Amy’s chest. She sighed. All she felt now was thin, familiar hollowness.

  “I’m not dying,” Amy said at last. The shared tongue felt heavier on her tongue than it used to. “So… ‘okay’ is relative.”

  Princessa flinched, but stepped closer anyway. “I know I don’t deserve… I mean, after Libbet—after what I did. Or I guess… didn’t stop or do.” Her voice wobbled. “But I’m trying to fix things.”

  Amy sighed. “I’m not mad. We can still be friends.”

  Princessa’s eyes shone. She nodded quickly. “I know. I just—” She bit her lip. “I don’t want you to go alone. I don’t want to leave you again. Not again.”

  Not again.

  The words slid under Amy’s guard. The ship’s hold flickered up in her mind: iron smell, darkness, chains clattering. The way everyone had always left her alone with the worst of it.

  Amy sighed, tension loosening just enough to feel like exhaustion.

  “…Fine,” she said. “You can walk with me. But I haven’t forgotten what happened between us. I still feel…”

  Used.

  Princessa’s mouth trembled into a small, grateful smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’ll take that. Thank you.”

  She fell into step half a pace behind Amy. They had barely reached the end of the covered walk when another figure appeared, leaning against a carved pillar beneath the eaves. The hairs on Amy’s arm stood up.

  Bennet.

  For a fraction of a second, the sight of him ripped her backward.

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  His fingers bruising her wrists, the ice-blade shaping on his hand, his boot slamming into her stomach, his arm shattering under her black ice, his scream tearing the sky.

  Amy’s body reacted before her mind caught up. Her shoulders locked. Her weight shifted subtly away from him.

  But Bennet had followed them here, which meant he had aligned with them. And this Bennet was… smaller. Not exactly in height, but in presence.

  His arm was bound in stiff bandages beneath his sleeve, the shoulder held close to his body. Pale scars traced the side of his face where her nails had torn flesh desperately.

  The lazy warmth that once lit his eyes was gone; whatever easy charm he’d used in the cafeteria felt like a dream.

  He didn’t come closer. Thankfully, he didn’t open his arms anymore. He stayed where he was, frozen, as if any movement might be interpreted as a threat.

  “Amy,” he said. His voice was rough, scraped thin. “I heard you were leaving.”

  The sentence didn’t land quite right. There was a half-heartbeat where her mind had to reach for what he meant, like listening underwater.

  She said nothing. Her heart was loudly. Not again.

  “I’m…” He glanced down at his useless arm, then away, jaw tightening. “I’m staying. With your mother. I’m going to help fight what’s coming. I might be injured, but water still answers me with one hand.” His mouth twisted, like it was a joke at his own expense and he knew it wasn’t funny.

  He looked up, meeting her gaze fully. There was no twisted smile now. There was just raw, stripped guilt. And Amy felt it twist in her chest.

  “I don’t expect you to forgive me. Ever,” Bennet said. He spoke slower now, aware of something in her face. “I just—wanted to say… I’m sorry you were there for the worst version of me. I’m… trying to kill that person.”

  Princessa shifted behind Amy, her guilt folding in on itself.

  Amy’s fingers curled at her sides. Milo’s old contempt flickered at the edge of her mind—ah, ceremonial apology—but she let it pass.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said quietly. “I’m really sorry about your arm, I didn’t mean it. But I’m not going to pretend I’m safe with you either.”

  Bennet swallowed. “That’s… fair.”

  The breeze stilled as an awkward pause stretched.

  “Good luck,” he said finally, the words tumbling awkwardly. “Out there.”

  Amy nodded once. It was all she had for him.

  He turned away, back toward the inner courtyard to fight in Aurora’s storm. His silhouette looked smaller as he walked, the boy who had once lifted her backpack now half-bound in his own consequences.

  Silence settled between Amy and Princessa for a moment. Amy’s head felt oddly full and far away at once.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Princessa asked quietly. “You keep… looking at me like you’re not hearing everything.”

  Amy blinked, realizing she’d been half reading Princessa’s expression instead of her words.

  “It’s not you,” Amy muttered. “It’s… me. My head.” She swallowed, suddenly cold. “Back on your mainland, I never thought about what language we were even speaking. Milo. Cerceras. Something made it all… line up.”

  And now it was slipping.

  Of course it was. Cerceras was fading out of her veins, and with him went whatever strange translation he’d threaded through her mind.

  “Just talk slow,” she added. “I’ll catch up.”

  Another set of footsteps approached, steadily.

  Julius came down the colonnade with the calm of someone who’d spent a lifetime walking into other people’s disasters and trying to soften the edges. Amy remembered how he endured Karl’s abuse. Tried to appease him. Tried to hold everything together in his own little world.

  “Amy,” he greeted, voice low.

  This time, the way he said her name landed clean. The rest of his sentence came a little thicker, like it had to travel farther to reach her.

  The hold flashed again: Julius standing in the doorway, helpless as Karl thundered past him; Julius sleeping on the floor across from her, waking at the scrape of a plate; Julius saying You want me, not him. So talk to me, with his voice full of shame.

  It hurt less than it used to. But it still hurt. But all these people were changing. Or desperately trying to.

  And she felt pity.

  “You’re really going,” he said quietly.

  “I have to.” Her throat tightened. “If I stay, I won’t stay as me.”

  Julius studied her for a long moment. Even though it had been two months now, he seemed older now. Lines around his eyes deeper. Still that same fragile mix of fear and hope he’d worn in the cargo hold, but steadier, like he’d finally learned where his backbone was.

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. “And I believe in you.”

  Princessa glanced between them, biting her lip.

  Julius stepped closer, slow enough that Amy could step away if she wanted to.

  “I know I failed you,” he said quietly. “On the ship with Karl. I told myself I was helping by staying where I was.” His mouth twisted. “But…I…”

  Amy huffed out a breath and smiled calmly. “Humans are complicated, Julius,” she echoed herself from what felt like a lifetime ago. “It’ll all be okay.”

  He swallowed, looking away as if preventing tears from coming out of his eyes. He squeezed her shoulder once. “Be careful in Sunji. Empress Mel is… skilled. I know I’m new here, but I know a viper when I see one.” His gaze drifted past her to the distant roofs. “We don’t know this place orr its rules. And we barely understand a word anyone out there is saying. The road ahead for all of us will be…dangerous and tricky.”

  “I grew up under Mel,” Amy said. “And under… others.” Milo and Aurora in a previous life. One where I barely have any memories. “I’ll manage.”

  Julius nodded. “If anyone can figure out what to do, it’s you.”

  He stepped back, leaving her space again. “If you ever need an old coward trying to be better, I’ll be around. Probably running logistics and apologizing to teenagers.”

  Princessa let out a choked laugh. Amy’s lips twitched.

  “Goodbye, Julius,” she said.

  “Not goodbye,” he replied. “Just… different sides of the board for a while.”

  He turned and left.

  The air felt thinner without him there. Quieter. More hers.

  Amy and Princessa reached the western gate.

  And then there was a boom.