Page 33 of Storm Echo

Any deviation from the calibration guidelines will lead to severe side effects, including but not limited to mental decline, memory loss, erasure of personality, myocardial infarction, lung disease, and major neurological changes.

—Classified Report to the Psy Council by PsyMed:

Pharmaceutical Development & Testing. Project Manager:

Councilor Neiza Adelaja Defoe (circa 2017)

HE DREAMED THAT night. According to the Silence Protocol, Psy weren’t meant to dream, but Ivan had always dreamed in vivid color. He’d wondered if his nocturnal stirrings were a remnant of his unusual childhood, but then one of his cousins had mentioned a dream—so it appeared the Psy Council had lied about dreams, too.

Or, he’d simply been raised with people whose Silence was as imperfect as his own. Most outsiders would see Grandmother as having the most perfect Silence of all, but Grandmother was also the head of a family that would coolly and calmly dissect any enemy who dared come for one of their own. Mercants took family with dead seriousness—and they didn’t only see family in the perfect.

Ena Mercant’s devotion was not a thing of Silence.

As for Ivan—his color-drenched dreams had been the only real freedom he’d had as a child. Things had changed, his life his own; perhaps that explained why the hues of his dreams had faded. Tonight, however, the dreamscape glittered, awash in the light of the woman formed of stars who stood in front of him under the canopy of a forest giant.

Lifting her hand, she laughed. “I’m made of stars!” Delight in every syllable. “Look!”

He took her hand,felt it, though he couldn’t have explained the sensation. It wasn’t of flesh on flesh. It was as delicate as starlight … and yet not. And though he wasn’t a man to hold hands with anyone, he allowed her to wrap her starlight hand around his and tug at him.

Because he knew her, even if she was clothed in stars.

“Come on!” she said. “There’s a lake over there—I can see the moon’s reflection.”

Releasing his hand halfway there, she ran to the water, her movements sinuous and graceful. “Cat.” His whisper didn’t reach her where she now knelt by the lake.

“What do you see?” he asked, coming down on his knees beside her.

She pointed down at the water, and when he looked, he saw their reflections. His hair dark and his face shadowed, except for the side illuminated by her light. She was stars on the water, a creature of such beauty that it seemed impossible she should exist.

Reaching out a finger, she dipped it mischievously in the lake, the motion reminiscent of a small cat playing with a bowl of water.

“Why did you do that?” he asked as their reflections rippled.

A shrug. “For fun,” she said with a laugh. “Want to go swimming?”

“It’s cold,” he said. “You shouldn’t get cold right now.” She needed to conserve her energy.

Her smile faded, and she went down into a seated position with her feet in the water of the lake. “I’m hurt.”

Echoing her, he dipped his own feet in the water. He could’ve sworn he’d been wearing boots just before, but his feet were now bare, his jeans rolled up. “No, it’s just exhaustion. A little rest and fuel and you’ll recover.”

Head lowered, she leaned her body against his. “Inside,” she whispered. “I’m hurt inside. I can feel it.” She spread her hand over her heart. “They’re all gone.”

He understood loss, understood loneliness, and so he did the one thing he did with no one, not even Grandmother. He put his arm around her, holding her to his side, this fragile creature of starlight.

“I tried to save them.” Her voice trembled, wet and broken. “I tried so hard.”

“I know.” That was why she’d been lying under all those bodies, with an ax in her back. “No one could’ve asked more of you.”

Her shoulders jerking under his arm, her tears sparkles in the air. He didn’t know how to deal with tears, but he knew what it was to lose the very foundation of your world, to become a planet with no sun, a place of ice and frost.

Shifting, he slid one arm under her legs while keeping his other around her back, and scooped her up into his lap. “You’re not alone,” he told her. “I’m here.”

No answer, but she stayed against him, stars dazzling his vision.

Pressing her hand over his heart after her tears faded into a silence heavy with pain, she said, “Why is your heartbeat so strange?”

He looked down, saw the glow of arteries and veins shining through his T-shirt. They pulsed a vivid orange with an edge of scarlet. “That’s the color of Jax when it’s heated up. Some people like to drink it.”

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