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“No.”

Her gaze drifted toward the window.

“But I don’t miss surviving every day because surviving was the only thing left.”

The words settled between us.

I knew exactly what she meant.

Earth had been scarcity, checkpoints, laboratories, rules that changed whenever someone powerful decided they should.

Zuna had been abduction, registration, compatibility assignments, and being matched to someone I never got the chance to know. Then Sera’n fighting to let me work. The archive.

Running.

Veyr.

Neither world fit neatly into good or bad.

Ryleigh looked back at me. “I’m not saying this place is perfect.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Good, because it definitely isn’t.”

“I noticed.”

She grinned. “Anik hates when I say that.”

“Does he?”

She thought about it. “No.”

I laughed.

She did too.

Then she picked at the remaining fruit on her plate. “I stopped thinking I had to decide one place was good and the other was bad.”

I looked at her.

For once, she didn’t follow it with an explanation.

She didn’t need to.

Her gaze slipped briefly toward the doorway where her children had disappeared, then down to the curve of her stomach before returning to her plate.

I understood.

“You ever feel guilty?” I asked.

“For being happy?”

I nodded.

“Sometimes.”

That surprised me. She didn’t rush to make it sound prettier.