Interlude: A Quiet Foreshadowing

  The café’s warm lights glowed against the polished table as Kael and Kessa lingered over the last crumbs of their muffins. Gribble had wandered off to debate icing techniques with Merrin, leaving the twins with a rare moment of quiet.

  Kessa leaned back in her mismatched chair, swinging one leg lightly. “So,” she said, almost too casually, “do you feel it yet?”

  Kael blinked. “Feel what?”

  She waved her hand vaguely, like she was trying to herd an invisible idea into a single word. “You know. The thing. The shift. The whole… ‘we’re doing something real now’ feeling.”

  Kael looked out the viewport. Hauler ships arced away from Nettle Station like fireflies drifting toward a soft blue dusk. He watched their contrails fade into the velvet of space.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Everything’s exciting. And terrifying. And… new. But also familiar. Like we’re just stepping into something Uncle Jorin always meant us to find.”

  Kessa smirked. “Wow. Emotional Kael is out. Should I get him a muffin?”

  He elbowed her lightly. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Muffins solve emotional crises.”

  But then she sobered, just a little.

  “You think he planned this? Us inheriting the Starling?”

  Kael considered that. “Maybe he hoped for it. Maybe he just trusted us to make something good out of whatever he left behind. He always said life is built out of small things.”

  Kessa tilted her head thoughtfully. “Small things like muffins?”

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  “Small things like moments,” Kael corrected softly. “Like this. Like people. Like stops and starts and conversations you don’t forget.”

  She stared at him, slower now. “You’re really feeling it.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “I think this is going to be more than just hauling cargo.”

  Kessa drummed her fingers on the table. “Because of the clients?”

  “Not just them.” His eyes drifted back to the viewport. “Because of the people we’ll meet. The people we’ll become. And… whatever Jorin wanted us to find.”

  Kessa raised a brow. “You think there’s something he left for us? Besides the ship?”

  Kael hesitated, then nodded. “I found something in his logs. Just a hint. A line about a ‘small star’ and a ‘large truth.’”

  The words hung between them like a soft chord resonating.

  Kessa didn’t joke this time.

  She leaned forward, voice low. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” Kael said. “But I think… I think we’re supposed to.”

  Silence settled, warm and comfortable as a blanket.

  “What if it’s big?” Kessa asked quietly. “Bigger than us?”

  Kael smiled faintly. “Everything big starts small.”

  Kessa stared at him for a long moment—really looked—and then her expression softened.

  “Okay,” she said. “Then we look for it. Whatever it is. A star, a message, a mystery—whatever he left. We’ll find it.”

  Kael nodded. “Together.”

  “Always,” she said, and held up her muffin wrapper like a toast.

  He lifted his own.

  Their wrappers crinkled softly as they tapped the edges together.

  Cheers to small things, the gesture seemed to say. And to whatever big thing they were slowly walking toward.

  Outside the viewport, the soft glow of the jump-lanes shimmered like threads waiting to be followed.

  Kael felt something in his chest settle, like the beginning of a promise.

  Kessa grinned at him, eyes bright with mischief and something deeper.

  “Ready to see what’s out there?”

  Kael smiled back. “Yeah. I think we’re just getting started.”