Why are you here? she wanted to scream. Would they swagger back to the mess when she was gone, reenacting the downfall of Alexei Nabiev?
The door of Koslen’s office opened. They dissipated their spark like three guilty schoolboys. It flashed along the lines of the Weave, and Linné let hers go.
Colonel Koslen watched her, with his eyebrows—and, somehow, his mustache—raised. “You two,” he said to the boys. “If you have so much time to waste, you can waste it on pot duty in the kitchen. Get out of my sight.” His voice turned slightly soft, slightly sweet. “Would you care to join me inside, miss?”
“Yes, sir,” Linné replied. He stepped aside, and she had no choice but to let him hold the door for her. When she looked back from the threshold, Tannov and Dostorov had already disappeared in the fading light.
Maybe she should have said goodbye to them. But the old Alexei wouldn’t have, either.
She and Koslen sat again. “I’ve spoken to your father’s staff,” Koslen said.
“That was quick,” Linné murmured.
She hadn’t meant for him to hear, but Koslen said, “He’s quite concerned with your welfare. He was under the assumption that you were at a school.”
Which demonstrates exactly how much he cares. She had never worried that her father might come to look for her when she’d run away. His life and love was the war, and it left him no time for children.
“It turns out that you are very much in luck, Miss Zolonova.” In luck. That probably meant her father was coming to pick her up personally. “It is still an unofficial decision at the moment, but…”
“But what?” Linné leaned forward. Too late she remembered she should call him sir, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“There has been a decision to found a regiment devoted to women’s service at the front,” he said.
Don’t get too excited. It was probably nursing, or preparing the dead for burial, or something else that involved staying behind the lines.
“What do you know of flying machines?” he said. His mouth twisted, like the very speaking of it left a bitter aftertaste.
Her heart crashed. “Airplanes? The Weavecraft of the Elda, sir. Illegal witchcraft.”
“Hmm. Well, the commander may still have a use for you. She’s searching for girls with experience in engineering, weaponized spark, or—” Koslen hesitated, frowning. “Other kinds of magic.”
Other kinds of magic. He could only mean Weave magic. The thought of it sent a shiver along her skin. The Weave blanketed and protected the world. But those who used it pulled its threads out of order, warping them so that swaths of land lay dead and abandoned, while the tangles fostered a dangerous crush of magic. The Elda worked the Weave and didn’t seem to care about the consequences. But Weave magic had been illegal in the Union since before it had become the Union. Were they so desperate that they’d turn their backs on their principles?
Or perhaps they were only desperate enough to let the women turn their backs on their principles. Linné fought, once more, to keep her voice steady. “With all respect, sir, I would serve the Union better stationed with the regular army.” She knew how to fight, knew how to take care of her friends. Knew how to advance and how to try her luck for a Hero of the Union medal. And she knew that what she was doing was right. She was saving the Union, not destroying it.
“If you serve on the ground, then you shall serve in the offices of Mistelgard,” Koslen said. “It’s the best I can do.”
So that was it. If she joined the women’s regiment, she’d be forever tainted by her connection to the illegal Weave. If she said no, she’d be sent back to her father a failure. A disobedient failure, at that. Two things her father despised, all rolled up into her.
“How can I be a pilot if I’ve never used… other magic?”
“If you’d rather go home, I can arrange for you to be on the next transport.” The colonel turned toward the radio.
“No.” The spark flashed through her, so hot she thought it would burst from her clenched fists and make a smoking hole in the office floor. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t be a secretary. She couldn’t leave her friends at the front to face the Elda while she sat locked in her house, serving penance to a father who didn’t care what she could do. Who cared only how good she made him look.
Koslen half turned to study her. His finger brushed the knob of the radio.
Bitterness filled her throat and she clung to her rage. If she let go, even for a moment, it would come crashing out, and Koslen would declare her unfit, even for an experimental regiment, even for an illegal one. “I would be honored to join the regiment, sir.” She squeezed her fists until her nails cut her palms, until the sting drove her spark back in. She’d made a promise to herself, years ago, to fight like her father, to fight despite her father.
And I will, she thought, glaring at the top of Koslen’s bent head. No matter how many men like you get in my way.
3
SEIZE YOUR CHANCES
The latch scraped on Revna’s front door around midnight. Mama came in, a gray shape with a sleeping Lyfa in her arms. She let out a sigh as she leaned on the door to close it.
“I’m home,” Revna whispered from the bed.
Mama half screamed. “Oh my—” She clapped her hand over her mouth, banging Lyfa’s head against the door. Lyfa began to cry.
“Here.” Revna reached out, and Mama came forward, depositing Lyfa in her lap. Mama’s face was as gray as her uniform. Dust and ash coated her hair, ringed the inside of her nose, powdered her lips. When the tears spilled over, they left tracks on her cheeks that smeared when she palmed at them. She bent down and pulled Revna into a hug so tight that Revna could feel the trembling in her arms, her legs, her shoulders. Lyfa sobbed between them, confused and tired and rubbing her sore head.
Mama wrestled out of her coat while Revna held Lyfa, rocking her gently. “Lyfa,” she murmured, and her sister’s wails diminished. Her hearing was coming back, though she could think of better ways to find that out. “What’s your favorite constellation?”
Lyfa sniffed. “Oryxus Brenna,” she said in her small voice, still sticky with tears. She was four years, three months, and she could say star names that Revna had never known.
“Good job.” Revna squeezed her tight. Lyfa would be a brilliant astronomer when she grew up. If they made it to the other side of the war. If they could afford to buy her books on physics and astronomy and mathematics. If they could persuade the men-only science academy to take her. And how was Mama going to do all that once Revna was arrested for using the Weave?
As Mama washed Lyfa with a cloth and changed her into a nightshirt, Revna wriggled out of her uniform. Then she took Lyfa and lay down. Stripes of pain still wound their way up her leg. Her prosthetics rattled against the wall, weary and terrified. She focused on the sound of Lyfa’s breathing, trying to match it as it slowed.
Mama ran the wet cloth over herself, then slid into the bed on the other side of Lyfa. Normally she slept in the loft, in the bed she’d shared with Papa before he’d been taken away. Now she pulled Lyfa close and cupped one hand around the back of Revna’s head, stroking her hair.