I couldn’t get Nike’s lecture on Dark Stars out of my head. It was like the beat of a never-ending song, ever present. 

I wandered through the halls, then through the Atrium, until I found myself in the gardens. I laid on the ground and stared up at the sky as the sun set. The moon was rising. A few leaves drifted around me. It should have been calming. But I felt worse than ever. Alone in the silence of the gardens, I could hear my questions even louder.

Then I heard footsteps. A leaf crunched under their feet. Suddenly, Leander’s head loomed in my view, as he rocked back and forth above me.

“Huh, didn’t take you for a girl who liked gardens,” he said.

“I didn’t think I was either,” I said.

He laid down next to me, his hands under the back of his head. He made a noise of approval.

“It’s not so bad,” he said before letting out a yelp. He picked a beetle off of his designer jacket and tossed it as far away as he could.

“I take it all back,” he said.

“I thought it’d be a great place to think,” I said, smirking at his antics.

“And?”

“And then I realized I didn’t really want to think,” I confessed.

“So let’s go spar,” Leander suggested.

“We always spar,” I said with a sigh.

Leander looked at me, surprise in his eyes. I just sighed again.

“I see,” he said. “Get up.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We’re getting out of here.”

**

Leander drove us out of the Siderus Society like a bat out of hell. The car swerved, throwing me against the window. Then he accelerated, and I could feel myself pressed back against the car seat. He really could be a maniac behind the wheel. 

We skidded to a stop outside an ice cream store.

“This is where we’re going?” I asked.

“Yup,” he replied jovially.

Inside, the walls were painted like swirled rainbows. The ice cream was even more colorful, and the flavors had names like merry, merry, strawberry and airy berry cranberry.

“I’ll have two scoops, surprise me on the flavors, caramel, sprinkles, waffle cone—ooh, and whatever those things are, too,” Leander told the worker. Then he looked expectantly at me.

“Uh, vanilla in a cup?” I said.

“Vanilla,” Leander repeated. “In a cup,” as if I’d added injury to insult.

We took our ice cream and sat at the window. A couple of teenagers ran by outside, shoving each other and laughing. A girl pushed a boy and ran off, grinning, and the boy gave chase, reaching out and pulling her towards him. He tickled her and they both fell against the wall, cackling, as their friends egged them on. 

I remembered similar nights with my friends in high school, feeling like we owned our nights, even when we weren’t doing much. It all felt so…mundane. So normal. And now—so alien. 

“So, what’s wrong with you?” Leander said.

“What?” I asked, startled.

“You’re moody. A touch dramatic, but I suppose at this age, you’re allowed to be,” he said. “Clearly, something’s bothering you. And even the best ice cream store in the city can’t fix it.”

I shoved a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth. I let it melt slowly in my mouth. Leander just waited.

“It’s this lecture we had,” I said. “About Dark Stars.”

I swirled my ice cream with the spoon.

“And Ophiuchus.”

Leander leaned back. “Ah,” he said, a note of understanding in his voice.

“They don’t know anything about it,” I said, the words bursting out of me. “They don’t know anything abouthim.”

“You’re right. They don’t,” he said carefully.

“Ophiuchus is kind. And he cares so much,” I said. “And the things they were saying about him. About Dark Stars. Awful things.”

“Yes,” he said. I didn’t know if he was agreeing with me specifically or merely agreeing. But I couldn’t stop myself.

“They’re wrong about Ophiuchus,” I said, digging my spoon into the ice cream. “They’re wrong about it all.” I practically growled the words out.

I suddenly felt exhausted. As if everything I’d been bottling up had just poured out of me. I let go of the spoon. The ice cream was a lost cause. I shoved the cup away from me.

Evidentially, Leander had lost his appetite, as well. He dropped his scoop and cone into my cup with a mournful sigh.

“The knowledge we have on Dark Stars, and Ophiuchus by relation, is limited,” he said. I’d never heard him so formal. “You won’t find anything in the library. They’re left out of our history books. The other Astrals won’t talk to you about them. It’s forbidden.”

“Forbidden?” I asked.

“Knowledge of Dark Stars is dangerous. So it’s limited to the Twelve,” Leander said.

“You’re one of the Twelve,” I said to him. 

Half of his mouth smirked up at me—and he looked like the Leander I knew again.

“There are things I can’t tell you,” he said. “And there’s so much I don’t know myself.”

“How is knowledge dangerous?” I asked.

He laughed at that—a bit bitterly.

“Trust me, someday you’ll wish you knew less,” he said. 

But I still wanted to know. I wanted to know what they were hiding about Ophiuchus. About Dark Stars. I wanted to know what was hidden.