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“They’re mine,” I repeat.

Then I really do step away from him.

“Ara,” he says, tightly.

“What?”

“I came over here because I also want to renew our alliance. Our friendship.”

“It’s too soon for that,” I state.

“Then I call for a truce.”

I feel blinded. He’s dizzying. “A truce,” I echo dumbly.

“I lost my patience. In the baths. I know I made a mistake. I have been trying to rectify it.”

I let something like a scoff leave my lips. “Rectify it how?”

He says, patiently, “In many ways, Ara. Helping you, being one of them⁠—”

“Are you talking about Cosmer’s trial? Because it doesn’t count as helping someone if you only do it because Dezeeves made a deal with you⁠—”

“I made no deal.”

I’m silent for a second.

Coming to my senses, the sun from the window warming my face, I choke, “Then, Dezeeves asked you to⁠—”

“I made no deal,” he repeats, “And Dezeeves did not ask me. I approached him. And offered.”

“No,” I spit. “No. There must have been something in it for you.”

His body seems to loosen as he says, simply, “You. Your life, which the IR charge put at risk.” He looks away. “That’s all that was in it for me.”

I sway on the spot, stunned.

“Do you agree to it? Peace between us?”

I’m still gaping. My lip trembles. “I’m…”

The sound of crackling static kills the sentence I didn’t really know how to form. Meg must have reconnected the radios.

And then the ship is alive with noise. I jump as every radio band in the room, at the same time, blasts Cosmer’s voice. It’s loud enough to shatter the sky.

“Dezeeves. Dezeeves. Dezeeves. Are you receiving, Dezeeves. I could do this all day, Dezeeves⁠—”

“Shut him up!” Dezeeves yells.

“I’m trying,” Meg insists, struggling with multiple dials.

I rush over to them, searching the sky.

“How can he be radioing us? I thought he was frozen⁠—”

“Must have worn off.”

“But then… he should be going home.”