Corinne had a plan. She knew how she needed to push forward, and she was certain how important it was that she did so.

She simply wished she wasn’t so very much alone.

Her parents weren’t going to listen. Cécile was—had always been—too much the good soldier to sneak around doing work that was essentially against orders. Corinne’s squad—who weren’t really her squad any more—Corinne trusted their loyalty and that any of them would jump to help her with this, but it was possible that could end up a career-ending decision, and Corinne didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else losing their wings.

Madeleine…Corinne sighed. How many years since they’d had that kind of relationship?

She missed Yeijiro. He seemed like he’d be the perfect co-conspirator. But he was half the empire away. The delay built in to inter-system communication made it barely worth the effort to try to have a conversation.

With all these frustrations churning through her mind, Corinne returned to her workshop. Where she looked up at her own face staring back at her in the nima-glass over her workbench and remembered that, actually, she wasn’t alone.

Corinne touched the mirror, waking the nima. “Lady Snow?”

There was no immediate response, so Corinne cracked open the chest-panel on her suit and pulled out a circuit board, took it over to her workbench and sat down to work.

The first thing that needed to be addressed was the physical damage. For most mechanics, this kind of repair would require robot arms and magnifiers to assist, but Corinne had the nima. She called them to her, directed the tiny sparks of spirit to the circuits, made a game for them of running through the wires to find the breaks. After that, it was a simple matter of control and will to direct them in tiny, focused bursts of swirling heat and new shape to reforge the delicate electronics.

This was exactly the kind of work Corinne loved—demanding focus and a careful touch. Work that demanded the whole of her attention, driving away every other thought.

Corinne made good, satisfying progress, until a voice from above sent a shiver through her. “Good evening.”

Such a relief to hear her. Corinne looked up, and a shy smile immediately broke free at the sight of the exquisitely beautiful masked face looking down at her. But at the same time, a thread of awkward guilt. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“Darling girl, you are never a disturbance.”

But there was something just slightly off about Snow tonight. A tension Corinne hadn’t seen before. “Is everything all right?”

This time, the smile Snow summoned was either genuinely felt, or a much better mask. “There’s nothing you need to worry about. But I can see you are worried. Not about me, I think.”

“No, you’re right. I am…there’s something…” Secrets she was supposed to keep. Except that Corinne didn’t trust the people who were telling her to keep quiet. Lady Snow…

Corinne remembered how the nima had surrounded her, moved with her. How she’d touched Corinne through a mask of flame that hadn’t burned her. The nima loved Lady Snow. What better character reference could there be?

And Corinne was so tired of feeling alone. “Can I confide in you?”

“Always.”

Not that Corinne didn’t recognize how ridiculous a question that had been. Who wouldn’t say yes to that question? But every instinct Corinne had said she could trust Snow. That maybe Snow, who seemed to have a wide breadth of knowledge, would have some idea of what Corinne should do.

“I fought a demon.” There wasn’t so much as a twitch of Snow’s face to give Corinne any hint of whether she had known that already or not. “At the end of Shadow Court—the attack on the fortress. A rift opened as part of that attack and a demon came through and my squad fought it and killed it.”

Snow gave a slight nod, acknowledging, but stayed silent, listening.

“None of that should have been possible, by the way. No one seems to know how it was possible, and no one seems to be working very hard to figure it out. I keep thinking—what if it happens again while everyone is dragging their feet?”

“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. That people are looking into what needs to be looked into.”

Hearing those words—the bland reassurance combined with the implication Corinne was overreacting—it was too much. It was what Cécile had said, what her parents had said, and now to hear it from Lady Snow—it wasn’t what Corinne had expected. It wasn’t what she’d been prepared for. It crushed her.

Snow’s response was immediate. “Corinne, don’t be upset.” All traces of playfulness or disinterest had disappeared from her tone. “Darling, I’m sorry.”

Frustration burned and twisted to anger. “Why is no one worried? Don’t you get it? This thing came into our world. It could happen again!”

“It won’t,” Snow said, sounding utterly confident. “The people responsible have been dealt with.”

What exactly did Snow know? Certainly it was public knowledge that the attack had been subverted and a number of traitors captured. But Corinne was certain there was more to that story. Yeijiro’s closed lips, the scope of the magic involved—there had been more than just a bunch of well organized rebels reaching for the stars.

So was Snow talking from her own secret knowledge? Or was she offering reassurance based on information Corinne knew wasn’t true?

“Even if they have been dealt with, the magic they used is still out there. Someone else could know it. Could use it. And it’s wrong. Even independent of the demon. I went out to the rift today—to where the rift had been. The nima there—something is wrong with them. Still. They were angry. Hostile. They attacked me.”

Lady Snow became very still. “Say that again.”

“I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve never been near a rift before, but I’ve studied plenty and no one has ever talked about anything like this.”

“No, they haven’t, have they?” Snow’s soft, musing tone seemed aimed more at herself than Corinne.

“But no one is listening. No one cares.”

Snow’s crystalline blue eyes focused directly on Corinne. “I’m listening. Right now. As I should have been from the start.”

Something tight and hot inside Corinne relaxed, and she took a deep breath. “So what do I do?”

“Let me think on it.” The tension that had been there at the start of the conversation was back. “We’ll talk again soon.” And just like that, she was gone.