Scarlet made a face at her. “A new pair of tennis shoes would be nice.”
Her grandma pulled a bit of cake off her fork with her teeth. Though she was still grinning, there was a heavy seriousness in her gaze when she set the fork down and reached over to remove the gun from the box. Her movements were confident, controlled. She looked like she had picked up a thousand guns in her life, and maybe she had.
“Don’t worry, Scar,” she said, not looking up. “I’ll teach you how to use it, although I hope you never have to.” She gave a little shrug and set the gun on the table between them, the barrel pointing toward the kitchen window. “I just want you to know how to defend yourself. After all, you just never know when a stranger will want to take you somewhere you don’t mean to go.”
Her words were foreboding and Scarlet found herself eyeing the gun as goose bumps scrabbled down her arms. “Thank you?” she said uncertainly.
Her grandmother swallowed another bite of cake and pointed her fork toward the second box. “Open your other present.”
Scarlet was more hesitant with this one. The gift was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand and wrapped in a clean dish towel. Maybe it was poison darts, she thought. Or a taser. Or—
She lifted the box’s lid.
Her grandmother’s pilot pin sat on a bed of tissue paper—a star with a yellow gemstone in its center and gold-plated wings spanning to either side. Scarlet took it into her palm and looked up.
“That was given to me on the day I was promoted to pilot,” her grandmother said, smiling at the memory. “And now I want you to have it.”
Scarlet curled her fingers around the pin. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I hope it will protect you in flight as much as it protected me.”
Her heart began to throb. She almost dared not hope …
“In flight?”
Her grandmother’s cheeks dimpled with mischievous glee. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to start teaching you how to fly the podship.”
* * *
“The mulch will protect the garden over the winter,” Michelle said, raking a layer of straw over the cutting garden. Hollow stems and wilted leaves still jutted from the dirt, mere remnants of the colorful dahlias and lilies that had filled the bed throughout the summer. “You want to make sure it’s thick, like a heavy winter quilt.”
“I know,” said Scarlet. She was perched on top of the wooden fence, her face cupped in both hands. “I know what mulch is. We do this every year.”
Michelle’s mouth bunched to one side. She straightened and thrust the rake toward her granddaughter. “If you’re such an expert, you can finish the job.”
With a saucy eye roll that seemed reminiscent of every thirteen-year-old girl Michelle had ever met, Scarlet hopped off the fence and took the rake from her. The straw rustled and crackled under Scarlet’s worn tennis shoes. Michelle took a step back to watch and, pleased that Scarlet did indeed seem to know what she was doing, she grabbed the pitchfork from the stack of dwindling straw and went to turn the compost pile.
The low hum of an approaching hover made Michelle’s heart skitter—a reaction that had become common over the past eight years. Her farm was situated on a little-used country road, with only two neighbors beyond her on the lane, and they mostly used podships like she did, even for short trips into town. Hovers were a rarity, and her paranoia had grown worse with every week and month that passed. Maybe she should have relaxed over the years, when no one had come asking questions about Logan, when no one had inquired about her connection to the Lunars or her knowledge of a missing princess. Clearly, after all this time, no one suspected that she was involved—in fact, most people believed that the princess was dead, just as they’d been told years before, and that rumors of her faked death were nothing but fanciful gossip, especially as an eventual war with Luna seemed more and more inevitable.
None of this calmed her, though. Rather, with every day that passed without any retribution coming her way for her decision to harbor Selene, the more certain she became that someday, someday, her secret would be discovered.
“Is that a hover?” Scarlet asked, leaning into the rake and squinting at the black speck rolling over the farthest hill.
“Probably just another obnoxious escort salesman,” said Michelle. She jerked her head toward the house. “Go inside, Scarlet.”
Scarlet scowled at her. “If it’s just a salesman, why do I have to go inside?”
Michelle fisted a hand on her hip. “Must you always argue with me? Just go inside.”
With another eye roll, Scarlet dropped the rake onto the half-covered garden bed and stomped off toward the house.
Michelle didn’t release her grip on the pitchfork as the hover came closer. For a moment, she thought it would pass by them and continue on to the neighbors, but at the last moment it slowed and turned into her driveway. Michelle was by no means a connoisseur of hovers, yet she could tell this was an old model. Old, but well maintained. Its windows glinted under the late autumn sun as it came closer.
She glanced back once as she heard the house’s back door clamor shut, then went to greet the newcomer, holding the pitchfork horizontally like a javelin. She had no qualms about being called crazy. She had no fear of frightening off a solicitor or some hapless city dweller who had gotten turned around on the unfamiliar country roads. She didn’t mind her reputation so long as it kept curious strangers off her property.
It wasn’t a stranger, though, who opened the door.
He had hardly changed in the years since he’d helped her set up the bomb shelter for the safekeeping of Selene. The same wrinkles, the same graying hair.
Until he met her gaze and she was forced to reconsider.
Maybe he had changed, after all. There was something in his eyes. A panic of sorts that was even more anxious than it had been ages ago. A wide-eyed haunting, a barely discernible twitch at the end of one brow.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Michelle beat him to it, yelling, “Whatever you’re selling, we’re not interested!”
Logan hesitated, his mouth still open. It took him a long, long, long time to recover from her unexpected rejection. This, too, was a change. He had always been so quick before, so sharp-witted, so clever.
“I … I am sorry to bother you…,” he stammered. His eyes darted past Michelle to the windows of the farmhouse, and she saw them stall for a moment. Just as she’d expected, Scarlet was watching. “I need your help,” he started again. “I … I think I’m lost?”
Michelle lowered the tines of the pitchfork to the soil. “Is something wrong with your vehicle? It was making a strange noise when you pulled up.”
Logan’s attention turned back to her, and his expression cleared somewhat. “Yes, I fear so. Unfortunately, I’m a regular dunce when it comes to fixing … things.” He gestured hopelessly at the hover.
Feigning annoyance, Michelle turned toward the hangar. “Sounded like some old cooling gel. I have some in here, and I can draw you a map to wherever it is you’re trying to get to.”
She didn’t look back, but she could hear Logan’s shoes crunching on the hard, cold soil as they crossed to the hangar. She didn’t look at Scarlet in the window, either, though she could feel her granddaughter’s suspicious gaze following them.