A rickety metal stair ladder descended. Holden went up first, his steps unsteady at first, but more sure the higher he went. Muskrat paced at the bottom of the stair anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Teresa said to her. “This is why I told you to stay in my rooms.”
“Go on up,” Amos said. “I got this.”
Teresa put her hands on the bright metal and climbed up toward the hands of strangers reaching out to help her aboard. And behind her Amos, balancing without his hands because his arms were filled with dog. The black wound on his side didn’t appear to bother him. The man waiting for them laughed when he saw Muskrat, and the dog wagged uncertainly at first.
The locker room seemed to be on its side, Holden and a bald, dark-skinned man embracing and grinning at each other. Timothy—no, Amos hauled up the ladder, and the airlock door closed behind her.
She’d practiced for this moment. I’m Teresa Duarte, and I’m giving you back this prisoner in exchange for passage out of Laconia. Now that it had arrived, it seemed like that was all just given.
“You got to come up to the flight deck,” the dark-skinned man said. Alex, Holden had called him. “We gotta get out of here, but I’m not letting either of you two sons of bitches out of my sight.”
Teresa followed them, unsure what else to do. Amos walked with her through the sideways lift and flight deck. A beautiful older woman with curly white hair pulled down almost over her eyes was waiting there. When she saw Holden, she took a long, shuddering breath. The prisoner took her hand.
“All right,” Alex said. “Everybody strap in. We’re off this mudball.”
A rough cheer rose all around her, and Teresa surprised herself by joining in. Amos took her by the shoulder and led her to an ancient-looking, thoroughly disreputable crash couch.
“You’re gonna need to strap in, Tiny. I got an idea what to do with this one,” he said, pointing a thick thumb at Muskrat. “So you just stay here with Naomi and the captain.”
“Naomi,” Teresa said. “That’s Naomi Nagata?”
“And this is the Rocinante,” Amos said. “And I don’t know who most of the rest of these people are, but one way or another, we’re home.”
And then he was gone, leading Muskrat into the belly of the ship and leaving her to stare up into the monitor. It felt strange, like she was in a dream, but also mundane as walking down a slightly unfamiliar hallway. She was here. She was leaving.
The ship shuddered, hissed, started to rise up.
“You want me to kick on the main drive?” Alex asked over the sound of the thrusters burning. “I could slag that whole palace if you want.”
“No,” Holden said, “leave it be. We still have friends there. Elvi, for one.”
“Oh,” Alex said. “Should we go get her?”
“No,” Holden said. “She’s where she needs to be.”
The Rocinante rose, pushing Teresa back into the cool, blue gel of the couch. The ship shuddered and hummed as it rose, and then when they were high enough from the ground, a new, deeper thrum began, and they leaped upward. Into the darkness of space. Leaving everything behind. She closed her eyes, trying to decide what she felt. If she felt anything, or maybe everything all at once.
Her home, everything she’d ever known, was falling away behind her, and all she was certain of was that she never wanted to go back. The princess was getting hell and gone from fairyland.
A sharp alert caught her attention at the same moment the pilot—Alex—said something obscene. She looked over at him, and his face was ashen.
“Alex?” the woman said.
“We been target locked,” Alex said. “We took too long. It’s the Whirlwind.”
Chapter Forty-Nine: Naomi
Because the Rocinante was built to land on its belly, Holden stepped onto the flight-deck wall. He looked thin. More than thin, he looked like he’d been ill for months. The lines around his mouth were deeper than they’d been, and his grin looked less like his usual easy joy and more like surprise that anything good had actually happened. He looked bruised at heart, but only that. Not broken. He didn’t look broken.
He met her eyes, and something in her chest that she didn’t know could relax relaxed. She took a long, shuddering breath. Jim took her hand. She’d thought that would never happen again, and here he was, touching her again.
“Hey,” he said, too softly for anyone to hear but her.
“Hey,” she said back.
Amos, behind him, looked wrong. His skin was gray and his eyes were a uniform black. She’d seen kids on Pallas affect the same look with dyes and scleral tattooing, but on Amos it didn’t look like an edgy fashion choice.