I disagreed on both accounts. I never believed that Verena preferred the dark over the light; I thought she just didn’t like change.
I was similar to her in that way.
By the time Elio parked my pod in the filthy alleyway behind our house on the east side of Condor, my nails were bitten to nubs, and I’d worked myself up into a nervous frenzy. Another pod, a far cleaner and fancier one, was parked just in front of us. I didn’t have to squint through the shadows to know it belonged to my parents. If they beat me and Elio home, then my mother must have been flying ridiculously fast.
Meaning she was ridiculously mad.
Elio and I hurried up the walk to the front door, almost tripping on a pile of trash strewn across the stones. Another day in paradise. Any one of us could have cleaned it up, but every member of my family put an enormous amount of effort into pretending we weren’t swimming in stolen gold and priceless artifacts.
The house buzzed with activity when we stepped over the threshold. White lights bounced off the high ceiling in the entryway, giving me an instant headache after the darkness outside. I could hear a few of my cousins arguing from one of the upper hallways, and when I closed the door with a snap, a group of them poked their heads over the banister.
“Cora’s home!” Mina yelled, her aura glowing like pink soap bubbles as she threw her hands in the air. She was four years old—and the only person in our house who was ever happy to see me.
Mina waved, then ducked back into her bedroom, four of my other cousins following suit. That left only Blair, who mounted the banister and slid backward from the second floor to the foyer, dismounting with a sloppy grin on his face.
“I can’t believe you actually came home. You have bigger balls than me.”
“Shut up.” I slapped his arm and he swayed before grabbing Elio to steady himself. Elio immediately scooted closer to my side. “Where are my parents?”
“In the kitchen. Probably planning your funeral.” His smile widened. He looked strangely happy for someone who wouldn’t see a payday this week because of my screwup.
I leaned forward to smell his breath. “Have you been drinking?”
“You insult me, Cora. There are children up there.” He pulled a fat pipe out of his pants pocket. “I’ve been smoking. Just a bit of moon dust.”
“You’re repulsive.”
Blair shrugged and took a long drag of the pipe. “It’s perfectly legal … just not on this planet. You might want to take a hit before you go into the kitchen and talk to Mommy Dearest.” He turned to Elio, saying in a false whisper, “You know, Cora couldn’t steal a bag of cash if it had two feet and no clothes and … and…”
“And was dancing naked in front of me?” I finished. “At least I can finish a sentence, human blunt.”
The tips of Blair’s ears filled with a dark blush. “Don’t hate.”
“That stuff is going to rot your brain.”
His bright yellow eyes narrowed at both Elio and me. He puffed a cloud of red smoke in our faces before heading up to his room. “At least I’ll be rich.”
“Always a delightful boy,” I muttered once he had locked himself behind his door.
With Blair gone, I had no choice but to continue through the house and confront my parents in the kitchen. Sure, I could hide in my room for a while, but they would find me. And then everything would be a million times worse.
“I feel like we’re heading to the gallows,” Elio said. His tiny fingers gripped mine and squeezed. “Earthans used to kill people that way. I saw it in a net program.”
“Stop worrying. They won’t be angry with you.”
We crossed the foyer, stepping carefully over several crates of rare geodes that were due to be smuggled to traders on the outer fringes of the galaxy, and continued down the long passage to the kitchen. The hall was always too messy to walk in a straight line. Every few steps we had to dodge boxes and bags and more crates, each one full of objects that my family either stole for our trusted buyers or stole for ourselves with the sole purpose of turning around and selling back to the owners for double or triple what they were worth.
This had been going on for as long as I could remember. Longer even. The stealing, the conning. We hit up every planet and moon in both the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies. Triangulum was the newest conquest, and it was also proving to be the one that was making us the wealthiest.
When I finally pushed open the kitchen door, I noticed that my parents had assumed their usual positions—backs to me—standing halfway between a table filled with protein pouches and a table covered in “priceless materials.”
Many things in this house were considered priceless, but others could be loosely translated to useless piles of junk. Case in point: The headdress that my mother snatched right off the brow of the long-ruling Queen Adona of Oprora VII? Priceless. A set of Earthan badminton shuttlecocks from 1985? Junk.
Cruz and Evelina Saros were hoarders, plain and simple.
“Someone will have to go back to Vaotis and take care of the guards,” my father said, tearing into the shiny silver wrapper of a protein pouch. “They saw too much.”
“Killing over a dozen guards will draw the kind of attention we’ve been working so hard to avoid.” My mother tilted her head, considering. “But if we really have no choice…”
I made a noise halfway between a gasp and a whimper, forcing both Cruz and Evelina’s attention my way. I’d never killed anyone, but if those guards died, wouldn’t that make me partially responsible? I was the reason today’s job had failed, after all.
Evelina yanked out a chair from the elegantly carved ivory dining table. It was a new addition to the kitchen, meaning she had recently stolen it. “Cora. Exactly who we were looking for.”
I sank into the chair while Elio cowered behind me, his ears twitching nervously. “I can explain.”
“Can you?” A threatening black storm cloud pulsed like a heartbeat around her head. It was almost unbearable to look at her when she was this angry. Just like the rest of the men and women born on Condor, Evelina and I had the same bright yellow eyes, the same pointed ears, the same silver hair that I preferred to tie up, because otherwise it fell in a frizzy mess down my back. We had the same pigmentless, pale skin, an outcome of living in an endless night, but right now hers was flushed pink with fury, and I knew I was about to get it.
“Listen,” I said, “I know what happened today looks bad, but—”
“Looks bad?” Evelina screeched. “Looks? That was the biggest job we’ve had all year! Not only are we out ten million ritles, not only did you ruin our relationship with our client, but we have to send someone back to Vaotis to clean up your mess. Your face must have been on every security monitor on the planet—the galaxy even! And now that the guards saw that infernal device you made, they’ll be on high alert!”
I brushed my fingers over the VED concealed in my pants pocket. “It was fully charged. I don’t know what happened.”
“You neglected to account for the possibility that it might not work. And then your pod got ticketed. Oh yes, I know about the ticket.” She grinned like she’d just won a criminal of the year award. (Though that ceremony wouldn’t occur for another six months.) “For all you know, the officer who ticketed you also put a tracker on your ship. What will you do when they come knocking on our door? How will you explain everything that’s in this house?” She spread out her arms, showcasing the stolen goods stacked in the corners.