“I’m not much of a shot,” I tell him. In truth, I hate guns.

“I don’t want you in tactical gear to use you as a sniper,” Cormac says with a huff. “I only thought it would be nice if you survived until our wedding day.”

Hannox mutters something under his breath.

Part of me wants to flash him my ring. The part of me that’s feeling smug about winning out over the bossy Hannox. But since my engagement to Cormac is something I’m neither proud of nor looking forward to, I keep my fingers to myself.

“And her hands?” Hannox asks.

“Gages won’t be necessary. Will they, Adelice?” Cormac says. “We’ve come to an arrangement.”

The weight of the ring is heavy on my left hand as he says it. I’ve agreed to this, which means small mercies like unbound hands and trips into rioting sectors. I’m not sure if I’m coming out on the better end of this bargain.

“It’s a bad idea,” Hannox says one final time, but Cormac’s angry look silences him.

When Cormac walks away, Hannox hands me tactical gear without offering to help me put it on. I struggle into the thick black vest and scratchy nylon pants, hooking and strapping while officers rush around me. The goggles pinch my nose, so I leave them perched on my forehead. It isn’t long before the tactical teams in the sector meet us at the mouth of the rivet. Cormac speaks to them in a hushed voice, and I can’t hear the explanation of what’s going on within the sector.

When we finally set out to view the area, the streets are empty. Given the near panic of the ship’s crew during our flight, I expected looting or mobs of angry people. But the capital is as still as death.

“I thought you said there was rioting,” I say to Cormac as we ride through in a large motocade. I see no one, even though our van shines floodlights onto our path.

“There will be rioting soon,” Cormac says.

“How do you know that?” I ask him.

“Experience.” His mouth twists into a rueful smile.

“Oh.” Had there been other riots? How had they started? What had he done in those metros? I want to ask him these questions, but I keep quiet, listening to the terse conversations between the officers in the truck and paying attention to Cormac’s reaction to the empty streets.

A blackout happened once in Romen when I was a little girl. There was no warning. No way to anticipate what was about to happen. Amie was only a toddler, and we were both outside playing in the yard while our mother finished the dinner dishes. I picked blades of grass and held them to my lips, blowing a stream of air across them to create a high-pitched whistle. Amie laughed and clapped her hands while our mother watched us from the kitchen window. And then there was no sky.

It was as simple as that. In one moment I sat under the rose-tinged hues of sunset, entertaining my sister, and in the next, the world was black, blanketed in a sudden and absolute night. I remember the sounds of screaming, the wails of terror echoing through the darkness, but it wasn’t until my mother lifted me onto her hip, Amie perched on the other side of her, that she shushed me with a gentle: “Quiet now. It will be okay, darlings.”

I’d lost my screams in the dark, unaware that the sounds I heard came from my own throat. Dad met us at the stairs, and mercifully, there was still power in the house. But none of us could tear our eyes from the missing sky. It was the absence of it—how half of our reality had vanished—that made it hard to swallow. Dad ushered us into the basement and headed back upstairs as we huddled in our mother’s arms against the wall. I ran my fingers along the bricks behind her back. They were solid. They were real. They wouldn’t disappear.

I had never touched the sky. It was too far from the ground, even on my tiptoes, even when the programmed clouds floated so close that they seemed within reach.

“Are the clouds real?” I asked my mother.

She blinked at the question. “Of course, Ad.”

“But we can’t touch them,” I pointed out. I could touch this wall. I could touch her and Amie. I knew they were flesh and blood and stone, but I didn’t know what a cloud was or why the sky was sometimes brilliant blue and other times dull gray.

Now I realize my mother could have explained more about the looms and why this was happening. Instead she simply said, “No, we cannot.”

It wasn’t an answer, even then. It was a clue. It was a different way to look at my world. We could not, according to my mother, but someone else could. It was the answer that stilled my breath as a girl. It stills my breath now.

Right now, in this metro, families wait behind drawn curtains or in cramped basements, and parents offer words of reassurance. But they repeat the practiced lies of generations: This is normal. It will pass quickly. Don’t be afraid. And I know they say those things not merely to calm their children and stop the onslaught of innocent questions, but also to calm themselves. The population of the Eastern Sector has every right to believe this is a blip, a temporary issue that will resolve itself soon. But it’s been hours since we received the news of the blackout and soon must feel like a lie even to those saying it now.

“Halt!” an officer yells, and the van squeals to a stop. In the middle of the road stands a man. He doesn’t blink as our bright lights wash over him. It’s as though he’s daring us to drive forward and crush him.

A group of officers scramble out of the transport with their weapons drawn.

“PC!” an officer orders, but the man doesn’t reach for anything.