Page 182 of The Space Between Stars

“The moss?”

In Nelfindar, the same substance that her people honored for its mental clarity and restorative properties had different effects—hallucinations and insurmountable addiction the best among them. The death toll inflicted by the Nelfinden moss trade only bittered the taste most had of Azadonians: a filthy, disease-ridden people, proliferating deadly substances in the streets.

“How?”

“Alchemy.”

Limtush Pharmaceutical. “Why?”

“Sow obedience. Create discord. Finish off the Azadonians.”

“Finish off?” Said like he’d done something to harm them to begin with.

“Got them all sick.”

“Sick—” On cue, nausea crept up her esophagus and her throat tightened around it.

“Made them sick. Wanted them all to die. Made them sick.” He resumed rocking. “I didn’t want them to die. Didn’t even know why they died until after the moss project.”

“By they, you mean Azadonians?”

“If you make the moss bad, it makes the Azadonians bad, too. At least what’s left of them. No one cares when bad people die. Murderers. Underdwellers. They turn the other way, see?” He sighed and turned to look out at the ocean. “Too loud. Too quiet.”

Attilatia clutched at the hems of her pink sleeves. “Lieutenant Limtush initiated the Strikapa?”

“Put it in the water.”

“Why?”

“War.”

“I don’t understand. Tell me how?”

Velinquash shook his head. “None of it ever really happened. I see things. Hear things. I can’t even touch the ground anymore.” He sat with his feet planted neatly on the floor beneath him. “I can’t remember. I can’t. But I know it can’t be true. Because if it were, you wouldn’t be here, now, would you? You’re one of them? The Azadonians?”

After a long while without her answer, he turned back to the window. “But you are so lovely. And I am so lonely. Will you stay?” he asked as she backpedaled toward the door.

The impulse to run from an old man in a chair had never been so strong. “No.”

“Wait,” he wheezed. “None of it really—”

In the unlikely instance that Velinquash had chosen a different ending to his catch-phase, Attilatia did not hear it. The door slammed behind her. She nearly expected someone to be waiting for her on the other side, prepared to place a bag over her head or stick a needle in her neck or slide a dagger between her ribs. Nothing was there. Just an empty-shell hallway.

She made it twenty steps before her back found a wall. She sank to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. Her breath caught and hissed slowly through her teeth. Her eyes welled.

Calm, Atti. Her heart beat in her throat and she tried to choke it down. An Aetech lamp whirred in a sconce on the wall overhead, casting an indigo hue over the hall. It was a calming shade—probably by design, in a mental health facility—that didn’t seem to work for her.

She sat in the cold crook between wall and floor for countless minutes, unable to move. Roskaad’s closest associate had brought down Jenolavia’s dynasty… or would have, if she hadn’t stood in his way. Why would Roskaad have her ask Velinquash? Was it a psychotic game? Was he a pawn of Limtush’s, working against her all this time, who liked to play with his food before swallowing?

Or was he helping her? No sooner had she thought it than she was sure of her answer.

How could she be so sure of something so foolhardy? What could have instilled so much faith in a man she knew nothing about—especially when what she did know was no good?

An ethereal voice pulled her from her trance. “There, there. It will all be alright.”

She looked up. The speaker bore the garb of the facility’s patients. Her short, wiry hair seemed to float around her head like an ebony aura. There was a birdishness to her face, and she gazed down at Attilatia as if she were a worm she’d been asked to empathize with.

Attilatia sniffed and pulled herself up to standing. She nodded at the young woman. “Thank you.”