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TO KEVIN LUND:

SURPRISE!

CHAPTER ONE

DIEGO

The old clock tower in the center of the city rang out eight times, and that meant the last ship to the mainland was leaving for the winter. Diego lit a cigarette to commemorate the occasion.

Out on the balcony, Eliana leaned over the railing and screamed out the hours with a mad sort of desperation. So did everyone else in the smokestack district, their voices drowning out the clock tower’s distant gongs. When the crowd roared “eight” and the clock tower fell silent, fires erupted out of the metal barrels lining the curb, the band struck their first note, and people poured out of the tenement housing onto the narrow, winding streets.

Last Night had begun.

Eliana dropped away from the railing, picked up her beer bottle, spun in place in a lazy cumbia. Her wavy dark hair skimmed across the top of her shoulders. Diego dragged on his cigarette and watched her, the light from the fires catching on the sparkles in her dress.

“You didn’t count,” Eliana said, shuffling up to him. The desperation was gone; now sadness tinged the edge of her voice, nothing more.

“I never count.” Diego swigged from his beer bottle. “Don’t see the point.”

She stopped dancing. Her skin was already dewed with sweat—they always turned the heat up on Last Night, one final indulgence before the winter. Diego wanted to lick that sweat away. He’d spend the whole night on this balcony with just her if he thought he could convince her to stay, no parties or parades or any of that bullshit. But Eliana had always wanted to see the mainland. It was one of the first things he’d learned about her. And he knew she was exactly the sort of person Last Night was for. It wasn’t a celebration; it was a wake. Another year gone by, and she was still stuck in the domes, still stuck in the ice.

“You want to go down to the street?” Eliana asked.

No, thought Diego, but he knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Sure.” He grinned. “They’ve got the fires going, and I want to get you out of those clothes sooner rather than later.”

“I’m hardly wearing anything right now!”

“Exactly.”

Eliana laughed, covering up her sadness. Diego grabbed her by the hand and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She pressed her cheek against his chest, and for a moment they swayed together, out of time to the music floating up from the street.

“You want to follow the parade this year?” he asked into her hair, already knowing the answer.

“I told Maria and Essie I’d meet them at Julio’s.”

“Oh, hell.” He’d forgotten about those two. Figures she’d make plans without him.

Eliana smacked him on the arm. “I didn’t know if you were going to show up tonight or not.”

“I wouldn’t miss Last Night, baby.” He kissed her, slow and lingering, trying to forget that he hadn’t seen her for three weeks. “Besides, I figured you’d changed your mind about seeing me, you being a cop and all.”

“I told you, I’m not a cop.”

“Hey, you’re the one with the license.”

“That license doesn’t make me a cop.”

He kissed her again. They left her balcony, Eliana dragging him through her shabby little apartment and down the stairwell and out onto the street. It was brighter there, from the fires, and hotter, too. Women had peeled off their sweaters and coats to reveal bare skin spangled with glitter.

Diego threw his arm over Eliana’s shoulder as they stumbled along the street, dodging dancers and sparks from the handheld fireworks. The fireworks had been banned for years, but you could still buy them a few days before Last Night. Tradition.

Julio’s, that tiny hole-in-the-wall bar Eliana liked, was only three streets over, but the walk took a long time in the crush of bodies. Diego slipped his hand under Eliana’s thin dress, along the bare damp skin of her back, and pressed his mouth against her neck while she wound through the streets, giggling and leaning into him. Glitter showered down from the tenement balconies, sticking to his bare arms and alighting in Eliana’s hair. This shit-hole neighborhood was transformed during Last Night into someplace where you might actually want to live. The whole city was. They might call it Last Night, but it was as bright as day. Light was everywhere. From the fires, from the glitter, from the floodlamps affixed to the underside of the dome, that one glass shield between Hope City and the winds of Antarctica. The city never turned the floodlamps off during Last Night, and so the day never ended.

You didn’t get true sunlight in Hope City.

Julio’s was crowded, people spilling out into the street, holding their glasses aloft. Not exactly Diego’s scene, but he let Eliana push their way inside, shedding glitter and kissing and laughing. It was quieter inside than out, and darker, although just as warm.

“Eliana! Over here!”

Diego recognized Maria’s voice immediately. Hard to miss something that shrill. Still, Eliana had pulled away from him and was spinning in place, scanning for Maria in the shadows. She let out a shout when she found her friend, then grabbed Diego’s hand and pulled him over to the table where Maria was sitting. She was dressed for the parade: tight dress, hair teased high in that stupid way the girls were doing, too much color around her eyes.

Diego wished to hell he’d called Eliana sooner.

“My God, I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Maria leaned over the table and pushed out a pair of wobbling chairs. “I bought you an El Pato.” She slid it across the table.

“So where’s Essie?” Eliana asked, sliding into her seat. Diego sat down beside her.

“She decided to go out with that stupid artist friend of hers, down in the warehouse district.” Maria rolled her eyes.

“Which artist friend?”

“The Independence-minded one.”

“That’s all of her artist friends.” Eliana sipped her drink.

Maria laughed. “True enough. This is the one I think is a terrorist.”

“Oh. Him.”

Diego managed to suppress a laugh at the thought of any of Eliana’s friends hanging around the AFF.

“She tried to convince me to go with her,” Maria went on. “She gave me all the usual lines about how we shouldn’t even be thinking about the mainland and such. But I told her I was meeting you.” Maria glanced at Diego. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything, Diego. Didn’t know you were going to show.”