The last three days had felt like watching several different vid files in sequence, but with nothing in between them to connect them. Every time I blinked, I found myself in a new place with different faces around me. Blink—sitting on the living room couch, barely listening to Maddox as she tried to reach me. Blink—standing in the bathroom, my hair wet, staring at a girl in the mirror whose face should be familiar, but was that of a stranger’s. Blink—walking down the corridor with my friends and family, each step closer to our destination filling me with dread.

Blink—staring at two dark gray metal boxes on the dais constructed in the back of the cafeteria, long crimson banners laid across them, the tails touching the floor.

The room was a den of noise, filled with the thousands of incidental sounds that were produced when a large number of people gathered. The squeaking of chairs being dragged against the floor, the sharp barks of coughing, the creak of uniforms, skin sliding on skin, the constant murmur of voices, each one like a strike against my cold and clammy skin.

Someone said something just next to me, their voice sounding as if it was coming from underwater, but I couldn’t hear the words over the whoosh of the blood rushing around in my head. My mouth was dry, and when I swallowed, it felt like my esophagus had been filled with small rocks, tight and choking. My knees trembled, my breath came out in a wheeze, and then a hand, warm and solid, slid into mine and squeezed slightly.

I looked over to see the strong lines of my brother’s face peering down at me from behind his thin wire spectacles, and felt like I was seeing him for the first time, even though I vaguely remembered seeing him and my father earlier in the hall. I blinked at the thick, dark beard that had sprouted on his normally cleanshaven face. His thick, wavy hair was also a touch too long, like he’d forgotten to get it cut, and was tied at the top of his head in a small, neat bun.

He looked concerned and sad, and there was something in his eyes that told me his heart was broken, and he really didn’t know what to do about it. I knew exactly how he felt. My efforts to sort through my own emotional turmoil still hadn’t yielded any results, and now that we were here, I was woefully unprepared.

I turned away and looked back up at the boxes we were drawing near, my breath catching in my chest. Alex guided me the entire way, moving forward at a resolute march, his back and spine stiff, and I allowed him to lead me. Up the stairs we went, the steps creaking loudly in my ears. Then between the two boxes, up, up, up, until he stopped just short of the top.

I stared at the floor for a second and struggled to find the courage to look, while Alex’s hand tightened in mine. I heard his sharp intake of air, followed by a slight, choked sound, and squeezed my eyes shut, knowing who he was looking at.

Knowing who I had to look at.

I lifted my chin, pointing it in the direction of the top of the box, and then slowly slid my eyes open, confident that this would be the only way I could do it, and hating myself for being such a coward.

My mother was lying there, nestled inside like a pearl in an oyster. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, her eyes closed. As if she could be sleeping. Sternly.

I would’ve laughed at my own observation, but my heart went ahead and decided to break instead, horrified that I could even think of cracking jokes at a time like this. These were the final moments I was going to get with her, and I still didn’t know what to say.

Scipio help me… she looked so lifelike. I half expected her eyes to open. For them to focus on me, and for her to smile at me—something she had almost never done when she saw me, until the end. She began to blur around the edges, and I realized that the tears were coming again. My eyes seemed to have a never-ending body of water contained within them these days.

Ugh, I was doing it again! If she woke up right at this moment, she wouldn’t smile. She’d probably be like, “Liana, crying is a selfish use of your time. You should be doing something productive like catching my killers.”

The thought only made me want to cry harder as her imagined words reignited the feelings of failure that haunted me.

Alex shifted beside me and slid his hand from mine to move a piece of her hair out of the way so that he could rest his fingertips against the high arch of her cheekbone. “She’s so cold,” he said, his voice empty and devoid of any emotion.

I swallowed back my tears, trying to put on a brave face. I realized it was Alex’s first time seeing her since the vid of the challenge had been broadcast live to the entire Tower.

“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Tears escaped my brother’s eyes as he blinked, looking at me. “When was the last time I was home?” he asked in way of answer.

That had been… almost a year ago. When he’d come home to celebrate our birthday. I looked up at my brother, my heart aching for him, understanding almost perfectly the agony he was experiencing at this moment. He was angry at himself for not going to see her more, and feeling selfish for not making time for her.

It was funny how we forgot things in moments of grief. My mom hadn’t exactly been the kindest or most comforting individual while we were growing up, and she and my brother had butted heads constantly about his decision to join IT. Not that Mom hadn’t supported him serving the Tower in any way he could; she just didn’t understand why he couldn’t use his skills inside the Citadel as a Knight. Her words, not mine, and the very ones that had led to a massive fight between the two of them. It was why he hadn’t been home in a year.

I licked my lips and looked away from him, envious that he, at least, could understand the source of his pain. I had regrets as well, but they were just part of the equation. I wanted the whole picture. The real one, not the one my imagination seemed to procure.

Like how life would’ve been had she survived the Tourney. I always seemed to picture the three of us sitting together and having dinner, just talking and laughing, but finally getting along. My mother helping me figure out what was really going on in the Tower, working side by side.

If you had asked me three months ago if I had ever thought that picture was possible, I would’ve laughed in your face. And to be honest, if my mother had survived the Tourney, that image of us would still be unrealistic. There had been miles and miles between us that would’ve taken a long time to cross.

But maybe it hurt so much because it hadn’t been that far outside the realm of possibility.

There was something there, some hidden truth that I hadn’t accepted, and I started to dig deeper, wondering if that was it—the source of all of my pain.

Someone cleared their throat behind me, breaking my thoughts into a thousand pieces, and I slowly turned to see my father standing there, a hostile look on his face. “People are waiting,” he rumbled, and I felt a sharp spike of anger. My hands curled into fists.

The urge to hit him was so strong that it was blinding. How dare he try to rush me through this. This was the last moment we were ever going to have with our mother, and he wanted us to just move it along?! I was finally getting somewhere with my own issues!

My brother grabbed my wrist before I could even lift my arm to swing, knowing my body language well enough to understand what I was about to do. He pushed me back behind him, and then stood nose-to-nose with my father, glaring at him.

A sudden hush told me that people were noticing the standoff. I honestly didn’t give a damn what they thought, and would’ve allowed Alex to knock the ever-living crap out of my father, but I couldn’t let him. Much like he’d stopped me seconds ago, I had to return the favor. Because we couldn’t do this in front of her. Not at her funeral. She’d be so angry with us for ruining the last day we were ever going to be together, and I’d never forgive myself if I let her down like that.

God, even dead, she was making me feel like a ten-year-old child who’d been caught doing something wrong.

“Stop it,” I said sharply, tugging on my brother’s arm. “Not here. Not in front of her.”

Alex looked back at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes glistening, and then nodded once, not even bothering to give one further glance to our father. He stepped around me, clearly needing some space, and I gave him a moment alone with Mom so he could say his goodbyes.

I used the time to stare at my father. He glared back at me, but I ignored it, suddenly too tired to care. Instead, I just looked at him. He’d lost weight in the face, and now his beard seemed to wilt instead of bristle. The lines in his face had deepened, becoming almost crag-like, and the bags under his eyes gave them a droopy look, like they were almost too heavy to look at anything but the floor.

Even with him looking like crap, though, I couldn’t find a shred of sympathy for the man. I resented every inch of space he was taking up. I blamed him for my mother’s death. Blamed him for being too weak to rescue himself from the sentinel. Blamed him for poisoning her own team against her. And most of all, I blamed him for not believing me—and for turning against my mother when she had.

Neither of us spoke for a long, tense moment, and after enough time had passed, I realized that neither of us would. So I simply turned my back to him. Alex was pressing his lips to Mom’s forehead and whispering something in her ear, and suddenly the pain was back in full force. He glanced at me, offered me a tremulous smile, and then moved away, heading for where Astrid and a few other individuals were standing behind a podium and talking quietly.

I watched him go, and then turned to my mother and took a step closer to her coffin. For a long moment, I wasn’t sure what I should do. All I could do was stare down at her.

And then, for the first time since she’d died, I talked about it. Softly, gently, and in a voice only she could hear.

“I’m going to be honest with you… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here,” I said hoarsely. “I’ve been… This has been hitting me really hard, Mom.” So far, so good, but this was harder than I’d thought it would be. Just be honest, I told myself. It’s not like she can yell at you anymore.

I gave a weird chuckle at my own dark joke, and then immediately felt bad again. She was dead. She could probably hear my thoughts. I looked around, chagrined, and then sighed again.

“I guess there are no more secrets between us, huh? Which is good, I suppose. It makes things a lot easier. Although, it feels a little bit one-sided.” I paused, the realization that she was gone hitting me all over again and trapping me in a moment of pain. I pushed it aside, and tried. “Mom, I think… I think what I’m the angriest about is that… is that time was stolen from us.” I sighed and wiped my tears away. “Stupid, right? I mean, you were a hard woman, Mom, and I’ve been used to doing stuff on my own for so long now. We probably would’ve torn each other apart long before we ever figured out what was going on and –”

That was unfair, and I stopped. Once again, I was talking about unknowns. And that was the problem—there were too many of them. I had no way of knowing whether our relationship would’ve gotten better or fallen apart, and I needed to stop pretending I did and just admit that my grief was a byproduct of the knowledge that I was never going to find out.

And that hurt. I’d lost any chance of ever getting to find out, and it was tearing me apart. I was torn between a young girl who desperately craved her mother, and a young woman who knew that our relationship hadn’t been perfect, but had wanted to work on it anyway. And there was no way of ever finding out now what that would’ve looked like.

“I really wanted us to get better,” I told her, my voice coming out thick from the tears that were now spilling over. “I really wanted us to be a family. I know it’s stupid and sentimental, but that’s really what I wanted. I thought I’d never have it—I gave up hope—and then you… you decided to try. You… You gave me hope, and now it’s just gone, and I’m so hurt… and mad. I can’t seem to get my head on straight about it. I just… I just wanted you to be my mother. That’s all I ever wanted.” I paused, and then in an even smaller voice, added, “And I was starting to think it’s what you wanted, too.”

And I now had to accept it wasn’t going to happen. That it had never been mine to have in the first place.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I finished lamely. “I’m going to get through this, and then I’m going to find the people behind this and make them pay. They stole something from us that we can’t ever get back, and even though I can’t predict what would’ve happened between us if you had lived, I can go after them for what they stole from us. I hope it’s enough.” It didn’t feel like enough, but it was the best I had.

I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, like Alex had. Her skin was like a slab of marble, cold and hard. Another tear slipped down my cheek and splashed onto her forehead, and I quickly wiped it off, knowing that she wasn’t able to do it for herself anymore.

I took one last look at her, trying to memorize every detail I could, and then moved away, heading for where Alex was talking to Astrid. Astrid looked up and greeted me, but the numbness had settled back in, like a heavy mantle around my shoulders. Reality seemed to fall away, and even though I was looking right at it, I remained unmoved by it.

Blink—Astrid walking to the podium. Saying a few words. Stepping off.

Blink—Min-Ha Kim’s son, Yeong-Jay, saying something, standing tall and stoic under the bright lights of the stadium.

Blink—another speaker. Lieutenant Zale. I stared at him, a seething anger burning in me. He abandoned his team—my father, Min-Ha, and my mother—to try to win the challenge, and now two of them were dead. He had no right to stand there and speak for them. None at all!

Suddenly my brother reached out and grabbed my hand, and I realized I had balled it into a fist and was shaking all over. I withdrew back into my numb state, not wanting to start a fight.

Blink—speaker after speaker comes and goes. Friends of my mother, friends of Min-Ha, all of them talking, sharing stories, and saying goodbye.

I was glad that I had decided not to give a speech, though I knew people out there would condemn me for it. I didn’t care. I hadn’t talked about my mother with my friends, so there was no way in hell I was sharing anything with the public. Besides, my feelings weren’t for public discussion. I’d only just discovered the source of my pain, but that didn’t mean it faded away immediately, and the moments between us were extremely personal. Especially after I’d spent my entire life sharing her with others—not just my family, but the Knights who had worked with her, who knew her better than I did in so many ways.

What I had was private because the good moments with her had been few and far between, and I couldn’t bear to part with them, especially now that I understood the source of my pain came from the uncertain future between us. They were part of our history, and the truest memories of her, for good or bad. I mourned over the fact that I’d never hear her say “I love you” again, or get annoyed at her meddling, but I didn’t share. The thoughts were mine, and I wasn’t going to share them with anyone.

And it seemed my family agreed, because my brother and father also stayed silent. I found myself hoping that Mom would understand our reticence. That our thoughts were now open to her, our motivations clear, and completely un-malicious. We just… didn’t want to share.

So we stood there for hours while other people spoke, one right after another, a parade of faces and voices that all seemed to blur together until suddenly I looked up and realized that Astrid was back at the podium, speaking.

This was it—the end was in sight. I straightened my spine some and pushed through the haze, forcing myself back to reality to hear the final remarks before making my escape. I had no intention of staying behind for the wake, but there was only a narrow window of time when I could get out before anyone spotted me and tried to draw me into conversation, or offered their condolences. I couldn’t handle it, and I wouldn’t, so I needed to know the moment Astrid was done speaking.

“—know that this loss will linger in the days to come, and I realize that the tragic circumstances regarding the final challenge have left us all hurting and filled with confusion.” She sighed and glanced at me, her mouth pinched slightly, her eyes remorseful. “I have been authorized to help assuage some of that confusion. As you are all aware, a sentinel—a robot created by the Knights to help establish order in the aftermath of Requiem Day, all of which were retired shortly thereafter—was used as another obstacle during the Tourney. Scipio lost connection with the sentinel shortly before the start of the challenge, and attempted to shut it down remotely, but failed, and as a result, two fine Knights lost their lives. An intensive investigation by the council has determined that faulty firmware in the sentinel kept a critical software update from occurring, one that was necessary for Scipio to maintain the connection. This was a well-documented problem with the sentinels in the past, and although both the IT Department and the test designers thought they had compensated for it, it seems they had not.”

I frowned, trying to understand what she was saying. It didn’t make any sense to me—and it definitely wasn’t the truth. If there had been a real investigation, it would’ve been looking into where the sentinel, an obsolete and defunct piece of tech created a hundred years ago, had even come from. Because I knew from our past brushes with it that it hadn’t been a part of the Tourney. In fact, it had been working for someone else entirely.

But Astrid hadn’t mentioned that, which meant this was a cover-up. This must be the story made up by the council so that they could conduct further investigations in secret without alarming the public. The council didn’t want anyone knowing that someone had stolen one of their sentinels—it would make them look weak and ineffective.

They didn’t want to take responsibility for the actions, or lack of action, as it were. They didn’t want to see that Scipio and the Tower were corrupted. They didn’t want to admit their little system was broken.

I narrowed my gaze at Astrid and clenched my teeth, wondering if she had anything to do with it.

“Those responsible for the failure have given themselves up freely, and have been penalized with a lowering of their rank, for their failure to perform their duties correctly. They have also been demoted within their department, and are expected to write personalized apology letters to the families of those who were lost. I understand that many of you feel this isn’t enough, but this was an accident.”

She turned and looked at me again, and I met her gaze, letting my anger bleed through. Astrid had been my mother’s mentor. Her friend. If she was participating in a cover-up, then I wanted to know why. Her eyes widened, and then narrowed derisively, and she turned away to face the crowd. Her reaction confused me a little, because while she looked angry, it didn’t seem to be directed at me.

“I know it’s hard to accept in the light of all the tragedy, and we’re all looking for someone to blame, but this incident was not malicious. If anything, we were fortunate that more lives were not lost to this situation. To the families of Min-Ha Kim and Holly Castell, there are no words I can offer that will comfort you in this time of darkness, and for that, you have the sincerest condolences of both myself, and the council.

“Now, I know many of you must be asking what happens next, and wondering about the future of the Knights. With the investigation now concluded, I have been authorized to make one more announcement regarding the council’s determination concerning the results of the Tourney. While the tragedy surrounding the final challenge may be close to our hearts, it still pleases me greatly to be able to make this announcement, here in the presence of all of you. And most importantly, in the presence of our future Champion and her family. After much consideration and due diligence, the council has determined that the results of the Tourney will be upheld. Liana ‘Honorbound’ Castell is the confirmed Champion, and rightful leader of the Knights!”

The crowd burst into applause and cheers, but all I felt was horrified and enraged. They’d made their determination and decided to announce it here? Right after feeding us that pack of lies about the sentinel “malfunctioning”? I couldn’t believe this—couldn’t believe that Astrid would even play a part in this. They’d covered up my mother’s and Min-Ha’s murders, and now they were distracting from that with “good news”, and Astrid was acting as the mouthpiece. How could she do that to me, to my mother? Didn’t she or the council have any sense of decency?

I glared at her as she stepped down from the podium and made a line straight for me, coming to a stop a respectful distance away.

“If you’ll accompany me,” she said to me, dismissing my brother and father with a respectful bow of her head. “I’ll show you to your new quarters.” I stared at her, and then nodded. I clearly had a few things that I needed to ask her about, and this gave me an excuse to get out of here before I was swarmed by people.

She studied me for a second and then turned to head toward one of the side doors that was guarded against the general public’s use. I started after her, but stopped when Alex continued to hold my hand. Glancing back, I saw him looking at me with a speculative light in his eyes, and he took a step closer.

“I want to say congratulations,” he said, his voice soft. “But first, something tells me that what Astrid said up there was a pack of lies. And you haven’t told me anything about what happened. I know that sentinel was the same one we saw at Dinah’s, and I know someone was controlling it. You and Dinah said as much. Liana, what is going on?”

I opened my mouth to tell him, and then hesitated. Alex was in a precarious place already, given that he was a member of IT and under heavy scrutiny from the head of the department just because he was my brother. He already knew too much, and even though he was protected by Dinah Velasquez, a powerful and mysterious woman who had been helping us from early on, that protection would only go so far. If he tried to get involved, he could get caught—and I wasn’t about to lose somebody else I cared about.

And yet he stared at me, determination and anger glittering in his dark eyes, and I found I couldn’t lie to him, either. So I stalled instead.

“Not right now, Alex,” I replied, carefully pulling my hand from his. “I’ll net you later, once things calm down.”

Then I left, pointedly ignoring my father’s scathing look and following Astrid out into the hall and away from my mother.