18. Chapter 18

            Rey only requires a little more primping and prepping before she’s ready for the gala. WR-38 finishes up her hair, then hands her a hand mirror — her first glimpse of her reflection all day. She’s surprised enough by what she sees that she’s not sure whether she should thank 38 or ask the droid to scrub everything off.

            Her face has been covered in something that matches and smooths out her skin tone, and her cheeks are rouged but also sculpted somehow. Her eyebrows have been pencilled, her lash line seems to extend almost to the tips of them, and her eyelashes are so full and thick and winglike that they threaten to fly away. She appears all angles now, no softness. Every part of her either glows or falls away to shadow, save for her lips, tinted what 38 says is rose pink. Rey has still never seen a rose, but at least now she can tell Rose what color they are.

            She likes her hair, at least. With the top half tied back and looped through Padmé’s hair ornament, and the bottom in loose curls that fall down her shoulders, it’s not so unlike the way she normally wears it. Just polished to shine, like all the rest of her.

            Then, finally, the dress is returned to her. The first thing Rey registers as it is briefly laid in her arms is the lightness of it. For all the layers, it feels as if it is something the wind might blow away, like flower petals. The tailor droids have disappeared, so 38 helps her into it, and soon Rey is standing in the middle of a river of purple-red fabric that flows down her body and pools on the floor behind her. She notices that the underskirt fits more closely to her narrow hips than it had that morning. The collar that fastens at her neck is silver, as are the bangles that hold the sleeves in place — if these draping extensions of the dress can be called sleeves. Rey was unprepared for how low it would dip in the back, and how bare it leaves her shoulders, but she does find herself captured by the silver embroidery at the lower hems, where the dress is darkest in color: there are leaves, and blossoms, and creeping vines, all things she seldom saw growing up.

            Kylo took her demand for no heels seriously, at the least. She’s given closed-toed sandals with straps that circle her legs to the knee. The straps are decorative, not practical, but at least she won’t spend the evening tottering around, always one step away from falling flat on her face. Rey still feels as though one wrong move might yet tear her whole ensemble to shreds; at this point, she’s more a decoration than a person.

            “Well,” says Ordula, stepping back to admire the final picture. “You look like royalty.”

            Rey picks up her arms. The sleeves attach to the fabric at her collar, which doesn’t really facilitate a full range of motion. “Is royalty usually this fragile?”

            “Oftentimes, yes.” A small smile plays across Ordula’s lips, but Rey feels very much excluded from the joke.

            The hiss of the cell door makes them both look up. Two Stormtroopers step into the cell, but they address Ordula, not Rey. “Ma’am,” says one, “We’re here to see you to your transport.”

            “It is about that time,” says Ordula amiably. She turns to Rey and takes both her hands, squeezing them briefly. “Best of luck, young one.”

            “May the—” Rey begins, out of habit, but Ordula arches an eyebrow at her and she clears her throat. “May your journey be safe.”

            Ordula nods, and then she goes with the Stormtroopers, willingly. Two of Kylo’s robed guards take their place, silently beckoning Rey to go with them. Rey takes a moment, closes her eyes, and allows herself a single grounding breath, which gives 38 one last chance to adjust her curls. Then she, too, leaves the cell behind, not at all disappointed to see the last of it.

            The guards lead Rey through a maze of lifts and corridors, as usual. When they finally draw up to the last elevator, she sees her full reflection, distorted, in the doors. Even disregarding the strange elongation and truncations of parts of her, she doesn’t recognize the person peering back: a person with tame, shiny hair and no blemishes, with thick dark eyelashes and impossibly pigmented lips. This person, in this dress, has never lugged salvaged capacitor bearings from the corpse of a Star Destroyer across an infinite desert, under a merciless beating sun. No, this person has smooth, perfect skin, and filed nails, and lotioned hands, and looks as though she’s never suffered a day of hardship in her life. Rey has no idea who she is.

            But she has very little time to feel lost in her own body before the doors open, and she finds herself blinking at the sudden appearance of Kylo Ren, flanked by his four remaining guards.

            Her heart jumps. It can’t be more than half a day since they last touched, but it feels like a lifetime. Her eyes find his face before she takes in his attire, and she notices that some cream or lotion has also been applied to his skin to make the bags under his eyes less pronounced. It must not be as thick as what’s on her face, because she can still re-count every mole she’s ever inventoried, and his scar is undiminished. His hair, like hers, is half-pulled back, but his is woven into three braids that meet at the crown of his head in a bun.

            Then the rest of him. His clothing. A purple-red cape that falls to just below his knees, secured at his throat by a silver clasp. A long coat made of panels of fabric and leather, elegant in their intentional haphazardness. Purple-red piping borders the panels, and it’s only that which makes her realize, with a start, that he’s dressed to match her, and that his guards’ robes match her too. He looks as regal as he ever has, and more.

            Kylo also takes her in. And he swallows.

            “Rey,” he says, quietly.

            They stand there, staring at each other. She knows they can’t keep staring forever. Movement in her periphery — one of the guards, moving as if to take her arm and push her forward. Kylo holds up a hand to stop them, and they still. Rey is grateful to be able to step in and stand beside him of her own volition. She turns to face the doors as the last two guards file in behind her.

            Then the doors shut with a finality, sealing them all in together.

            Rey shifts her weight from the balls of her foot to the heels and back, rebalancing, grounding her stance. Maybe it would be wise to tell him, now, what she knows: that Hux is planning a very vague something, and that he wants to involve her in it. But she finds herself wary of the enclosed space, and the guards’ masks, which hide their features. It’s only a hunch, but Rey knows to trust her instincts, and right now they’re telling her that if someone had compromised Kylo’s guard as they had his personal attendant, warning him of potential trouble might be a very good way to get skewered by a vibro-voulge. With Rey unarmed and Kylo’s lightsaber clipped to his belt as always, they might be able to eke out a win, but it would be a near thing.

            Before she can think or act either way, Kylo says, “I heard you were cooperative.”

            His voice is like a faraway avalanche, all broken pieces of rock. It throws her, but only for a moment. “You didn’t exactly leave me much choice,” she points out. “You threw me in a cell.”

            “I thought cooler heads might prevail,” he replies. “With— time. And distance. It was safest.”

            Rey scoffs. “Safest.”

            He’s mostly tamped down on their bond, but she can still feel the misery seeping through it, along with the tiny glimmer of relief that just comes from having her at his side again. “I thought you might not want to join me,” he says. “Even just for the evening. I thought you might resist.”

            She shrugs. “There didn’t seem to be a point in fighting it,” she says, obviously unable to explain her real reason for sticking around. She’ll leave after the Resistance bombers strike, and not before. “Besides, I said I would come.”

            He has, fundamentally, never told her a lie, if one doesn’t count lies by omission. Rey figures that if he understands one thing, it’s the language of promises they make each other. And he does. He says, “Yes, you did.”

            “But that just means I’m here,” she cautions him. “It’s not going to be like it was before.”

            Kylo is quiet for a moment. And then he says, “It could be.”

            She turns her head and sees him standing close to her, leaning toward her, radiating awkwardness and hesitancy. How different he is now than he was the first time they kissed. But as it had then, her stomach lurches at the prospect of being touched without initiating touch herself — not just with him, she thinks, but with anyone. What a farce this is, all of it. And then, just beneath that repulsion, there’s the fear that kissing him might make everything else melt away, as it so often does. She can’t afford that. The ribbon of sadness that winds its way around her insides isn’t helping either. She is all too aware she may never see him again after this, or they may meet only on the battlefield, as enemies. They may never have another chance.

            Oh, that she could kiss him. And oh, how she can’t.

            “I’ll ruin my lips,” Rey says with quiet firmness, looking back at the elevator doors. “You’ve no idea how long it took 38 to get my face looking like this.”

            A brief silence follows.

            “Well, I hate it,” Kylo snaps, some of that old churlishness returning as he jerks his head away.

            “I do too,” Rey replies, and out of the corner of her eye she sees him glance back at her. “But it’s your gala. Your rules.”

            Another pause. “I hate the gala, too,” he admits, with downcast eyes. He holds his shoulders stiff, arms at his sides, and he speaks low enough that even in these close quarters she’s not sure if the guards can hear him. “All of this, I hate. I’d have no part of it.”

            Rey swallows. Of course, this is the entire reason why she’s here, to keep him busy and ensure the gala proceeds as planned. And of course she’s still angry with him for concealing his students from her, for taking students at all. But she can’t help but empathize with him, and it’s somehow comforting to know that she’s not the only one who dislikes standing before a crowd in fine clothes. She remembers telling him, not so long ago, that it’s difficult to stay angry with him. This is why. For all the trappings and all the complications, there is so much at the core of them that is the same.

            Tentatively, she moves her hand closer to his and brushes her little finger over the back of his glove. She hears his breath catch.

            “Why do you do it?” she asks, softly.

            “Snoke was seldom seen,” he replies. “I— am different. I’m active. And while rumors of my involvement in military campaigns may precede me, putting in official state appearances is… also wise. It’s one day a year. I have no reason to hide.” He tilts his hand, skims his finger against hers. “And now I have something to show.”

            Rey notes language that might imply him needing to be persuaded of the importance of public appearances. She wonders who would have the nerve. Hux? She now knows Hux has a vested interest in keeping the gala running smoothly, too. Kylo wanting to distinguish himself from Snoke might have been a compelling enough idea to make him cave.

            She says, “Neither of us wants to be here. It’s going to be a long evening. I guess for the sake of civility, I owe you an apology.”

            “Do you?”

            There’s a tenderness to his voice, not tenderness like gentleness, but like Rey’s pressing down hard on a fresh bruise. He thinks — they both know — that if she were to apologize for the last thing she said to him, it would be a lie on two counts. The statement came from a visceral place, one that she did mean and feel sincerely, and moreover he had asked for her honesty. He had wanted to know what she felt.

            So Rey doesn’t touch that part at all. “I won’t apologize for my anger,” she continues. “I will, maybe, admit that I shouldn’t have chased after you with an axe.”

            He nods. “I accept that.” Then he pauses, takes a breath, gathers his nerve. He bumps his knuckles against her fingertips, and says, “I want you to meet them.”

            “Your students?”

            “Yes.”

            Rey’s heart aches for more reasons than she can count. “To what end?”

            “So they can watch you, and feel how you use the Force. How it’s different. How it’s the same. And they’ve noticed my absence. They keep—” The tip of his ear, just visible between locks of shiny black hair, goes a bit pink. “Pestering me.”

            “About?”

            “My girlfriend.”

            Rey exhales. It might be the start of a chuckle if she didn’t feel so sad. “Well, they are teenagers. They’ll do that.”

            “They will.” He nods agreement, then adds, “It feels reductive.”

            “What, calling them teenagers?”

            “No. Saying you’re my ‘girlfriend.’”

            “Oh,” says Rey, who now feels herself blushing too. She seeks out his forefinger and lightly hooks it with her own. “What would you call me?”

            He doesn’t hesitate. “My partner.”

            “Partner.”

            “My equal in the Light, and sometimes the Dark. My opposite. And—”

            The lift slows to a stop, and the doors open. The guards file out around them in their columns of three, but Kylo stays behind, and Rey does, too. They seem to be at the top of a staircase, nowhere she recognizes. She can hear music and movement and a swell of chattering voices, overlapping and resolving into mere white noise.

            “But you feel how you feel, about me, about all of it,” he says softly, now that they’re alone. He keeps his eyes forward, keeps his finger looped around hers, but she feels it tremble, slightly. “I know there are doors that are closed to me.”

            Rey looks up at him, and sees him set his jaw. “Those doors aren’t closed, Ben,” she says. “You just have to be the one to open them.”

            “So it’s conditional.”

            “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

            He looks at her, and the light catches his eyes, rendering them almost amber instead of deep, dark brown. She’s struck, as she has been before, by how he seems so young, and yet so ancient. “What do you mean, then?” he asks.

            Answering his question would mean admitting that she doesn’t know what she means, or that she knows but can’t say. Besides, there are more important things to tell him. They’re alone: this might be her best chance to let him know trouble is brewing. And she has to tell him. Looking at him now, she doesn’t know why she ever thought she wouldn’t.

            So she opens her mouth, and says, “Ben—”

            Then a hush falls over the din below, and the orchestra beings playing a somber, dignified march. Rey winces, knowing that must be their cue to enter, knowing they have so little time.

            “Later,” Kylo promises, misunderstanding her reaction.

            “But there—”

            “Later.”

            He walks out of the lift, not allowing any room for argument. Rey follows, even as she wonders whether later will ever come.

            They find themselves on a raised platform, with a full view of the gathering below. No one announces their names, or titles: there is no need. The room is dead silent. Rey has never seen so many people in one place before, but as she looks down over the edge she thinks there must be at least thousands in attendance, maybe five thousand, maybe ten. It’s possible that there are more people assembled for this one gala than in the Resistance’s entire active force, and these are just high-ranking officers, or key officials from various subservient systems, not even soldiers.

            Kylo stands at her side, hands folded in front of him, taking stock of the scene. Nothing unites two people more quickly than a common foe, and while the guests may technically be aligned with Kylo he too sees this entire ritual as an obstacle to overcome. She feels through the bond that he believes they are better than any of the people looking them, that Rey alone is worth ten thousand people, and another ten thousand over again, and that this is a comfort to him. It’s an honest sort of arrogance, borne of his bloodline and his power and his respect for her as an equal in all things. If only the galaxy operated on such principles, it might be a simpler place. It would also be worse off.

            Rey takes a breath as holodroids zip out seemingly from nowhere and swarm them, capturing their images from all angles for projection in various parts of the room, and for broadcast and distribution across the HoloNet. A siren sounds in her mind, telling her that this is not the place for her, that these are not her people, that the weight of so many expectant gazes may be impossible to bear. She should flee, says that part shaped by years of solitude, the part that finds comfort in silence and stillness, the part that’s paralyzed. But she doesn’t flee. She hasn’t frozen in the face of a perceived threat in years. She just needs a moment.

            Kylo gently places a hand on the small of her back, the leather of his glove a familiar comfort to her bare skin. He doesn’t press her forward. He waits for her to take the first step.

            Rey looks down the stairs. She is unsure of the etiquette here, but she can’t really be bothered with etiquette, because if she doesn’t gather up her skirts she knows she’ll trip and tumble all the way down. She pulls them up away from her feet and begins the descent, and Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, moves with her.

            This chamber, she sees now, is a converted hangar, likely one of the only spaces on the ship that can fit so many. Large swaths of black fabric have been draped over walls and pinned to the ceiling, as have red banners adorned with the hexagonal First Order insignia, but there’s no livening up the space, except by the warmth and breath of thousands of bodies. The stairs lead down to a dias, where they branch, and on the dias Rey sees a throne: Snoke’s throne, although it belongs to Kylo now, with chairs to either side and a table set in front.

            Everyone stands for their entrance, as they had the previous evening: some by the sides of circular tables, and some around the edges of an area designated for dancing. Rey rolls her shoulders back and keeps her head raised, even as her gaze flits around the room, assessing threats. The robed guard stands to one side of the steps, and the Knights of Ren, still masked but in slightly more coordinated ceremonial honor, to the other. To the left of all of that, a massive orchestra, with too many instruments for her to name. She spies Hux, standing behind his chair a few seats to the right of the throne. In the crowd, by tables close to the dias, she sees some of the dignitaries who had approached Kylo the previous evening, some of the women who had flattered her appearance.

            Kylo looks out over the crowd, too, but more at the space above all their heads than at their faces. He doesn’t seem to seem to register any single person at all outside of her and them.

            They reach the dias together, and she knows without instruction that this is where they diverge. Kylo walks to the right stairs, and Rey walks to the left. She recalls what he said the previous day: that they would enter from opposite sides of the dance floor, and come together in the middle. And so they do, walking with an eerie synchronicity even when they’re parted.

            When Rey finally sets foot on flat flooring again, she takes a breath. She hadn’t realized that she’d had her eyes on her feet for those last few steps. She raises them as she proceeds toward the center of the floor, and the sight of Kylo walking to meet her in all his finery makes her breath catch in her throat.

            She clears it as he draws close to her, and she picks up her arms so she can place her hands on him, and he can place his on her. She looks up at his face, so close, then to the side. So many distractions: the holodroids flitting around her, the orchestra readying to play, all those pairs of eyes, the thoughts of the gala attendants, their breathing, the rustling of their finery. With the rift between her and Kylo, will they even be able to pull this off?

            Kylo senses her trepidation and inclines his head down to her. “Close your eyes,” he whispers.

            “What?”

            “No one else is here,” he says. “Close them. Remember.”

            She closes her eyes, and they’re like they were yesterday, almost. How much she feels like she’s aged in a single day. But once the room is out of sight, it’s easier to pretend they’re alone, that the only things in her universe are his breath on her hair, his hands on her skin, his heart beating in time with hers, so loudly that she thinks she can hear it over everything else. He’s also nervous, she realizes, but there’s pride there, too, at holding her in his arms in front of everyone and claiming her as his, just as the scar on his face marks him to the galaxy as hers.

            Music swells from the orchestra. Rey senses Kylo’s first step before he takes it, and steps with him. They move as they were meant to: together.

            And as he sweeps her around the floor, as her dress flares out around her and his cape flutters behind him, Rey wants to rail against the unfairness of it all. How well they fight together, dance together, fit together, and yet how unlikely it is that they’ll never be able to be together unless one of them bends. He must be the one to do it, much more than her: the Force will never find balance while the First Order reigns, while darkness reigns with it. There’s no avoiding that. But maybe after all that’s transpired, they can yet learn from each other. And while the part of her that clings stubbornly to principle insists there’s nothing to learn from him until he rights himself, she wonders if that’s quite true. Slowly, so slowly, she’s seen him adopt some of her patience, and mercy, and humor, or find them again within himself. She ponders, coming away from all of this, what she has learned from him.

            They dance on with ease. In their moments of serenity it’s difficult to believe they’ll end up any way but together. With her eyes closed, Rey feels like she can almost see their afterimages in the Force. They are twin flames, she and he. Whipped about by the winds of fate, nonetheless they burn the same.

            But then she hears a massive noise, a creaking, a shuddering, and she opens her eyes. What she sees makes her gasp. The massive hangar doors are opening, and beyond them, beyond the magnetic shield that ensures the hangar retains its pressure, the procession begins. As Kylo turns her, she glimpses two Resurgent-class Star Destroyers gliding past, a trail of TIE fighters in their wake, falling into a formation and then breaking it to form shifting complex shapes before finding their places again. Kylo notices her fascination, and on their next turn he lifts her, partially showing off but also giving her a better view of the demonstration. When he places her back on the floor, she finds the steps again, easy as breathing.

            Slowly, one by one, then in pairs, other couples return to the dance floor. As they pick up the dance in the middle, whirling around Rey and Kylo, Rey realizes that in truth, neither she nor Kylo have much in the way of grace at dancing, given her newness at it and his ever-present rigidity. But they make up for it with something more, she thinks. Anyone watching them would never claim they were poor dancers, because of the natural way they match each other’s movements, beat for beat, step for step. It’s something that cannot be practiced. It’s something that just is.

            Beyond them, the ships continue to pass, not just capital ships and starfighters but smaller cruisers and frigates, too. How long would it last? An hour, maybe two? The pageantry of it all is impressive, but Rey can’t help but see in each ship another burning village, another planet rendered scorched and barren. Kylo senses her unease, and the next time he twirls her out from him he pulls her in close to his chest. Their steps become neater and tighter until they barely cover any surface area aside from the tiny square in the middle of the dance floor they’ve marked as theirs.

            And at last, the song crescendos, and slows, and the dancers slow with it. On that final, note, the lingering resolution, Kylo dips her, low, as he had in his chambers, and holds her there as the music fades, and polite and persistent applause from the onlookers takes its place.

            The song may have ended, but the spell isn’t broken. Rey looks at his head, bowed over her breasts as he holds her, and realizes they’re both quivering with exertion, and with so much more.

            Kylo pulls her upright, setting her back on her feet. The hand on her back slips around to her waist as she comes to stand on her own. She looks up at him, all unsaid words and unasked questions. But she feels that tug again, and remembers how she thought about it when she first came there: if the universe had its way, they would always be touching. If he had his way, too. And she’s beginning to think she wouldn’t mind that fate, not like she had when they first kissed, but there’s so much in their way. So much, but in these moments, so little.

            “I’m still angry,” she whispers, although her heart isn’t in it.

            “I know,” he replies, but he doesn’t sound hurt. His gaze finds hers and holds it. “We’ll— talk about it.”

            “Talk?”

            “Like… ‘normal people.’” The corner of his mouth twitches. “That’s what you said.”

            “That’s what I said,” Rey agrees.

            He disentangles their fingers and raises his hand, reaching out as if to stroke her cheek. But before he can, someone nearby clears their throat. And when the throat-clearing goes unacknowledged, that person says, “Ahem.”

            Rey and Ben turn toward the voice, and find Hux looking at them, stooped in a half-bow, his hand outstretched. “Supreme Leader,” he says, “I was wondering if Rey’s next dance might be mine.”

            “I’m truly surprised he didn’t kill you,” Rey says, once the orchestra starts playing the next song and the dancing begins anew.

            “He may not know much, but he knows that would be passé,” says Hux. He leads her with stiff precision, although he holds her at arm's length, as if her mere proximity might sully his noble personage. He wears the same uniform as always, pressed and clean, although tonight a number of medals adorn the front of it. Rey wonders if he ever tires of that outfit, and how many of those medals he bestowed upon himself. “You bring a date to these affairs, you can’t expect to hoard them. Other people will ask them to dance. It’s a courtesy. An honor, even.”

            “You’re honoring me?” Rey doesn’t bother keeping the skepticism out of her voice.

            “In theory, but you’re also honoring me,” he corrects. “They did good work on you today. You truly do look like royalty.”

            Rey grimaces, both at his flattery and because she’s quickly learning it’s not as easy for her to dance with a partner who isn’t Kylo Ren. Hux executes the steps with perfect adequacy, yet Rey still feels that she’s always a near-miss away from stepping on his toes or tripping on her own train. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a tragedy, true, but she’s not sure how she’s also expected to carry on a conversation while performing this balancing act. She imagines it involves not having to count one-two-three one-two-three in her head. “I’d really like it if we stuck to business, thanks.”

            “This is business.” He spins her out, as Kylo had, and then back in. “Surely you must have thought about what kind of Empress you’d make once he wed you.”

            Rey scoffs, then looks over Hux’s shoulder for Kylo, who has decided to abstain from dancing for the time being. He’s returned to his throne, and sits on it with hands on his knees. A man in a general’s uniform is making a valiant effort to engage him in conversation, but he is far too busy glowering at the back of Hux’s head to care. Apparently a few snide remarks exchanged at a party is no big deal, but dancing at a gala is a step too far.

            Rey doesn’t disagree. She hadn’t anticipated needing to dance with anyone else, and the amount of exposed back she’s showing means that the customary hand on her waist unavoidably touches bare skin. Thank the Maker that gloves are part of Hux’s uniform; she might have staged a riot otherwise.

            “Ironic, really,” Hux says, answering a question that no one had asked. “If not for your misguided ideals and the unfortunate circumstances of your birth, choosing you might be the only good decision Ren’s ever made.”

            “Small matters, then,” Rey says, half-rolling her eyes at him.

            “In the scheme of things, yes. You have poise. Made up, you’re not entirely displeasing to look at. There’s a rags-to-riches narrative to be spun around you, which would inspire envy but also aspiration. You’re more perceptive than Ren, and therefore an asset to him. And last night people seemed to find you likeable, which—” He wrinkles his nose. “There really is no accounting for taste.”

            “There isn’t,” Rey assents. “They made you a general, didn’t they?”

            Hux doesn’t seem insulted. He smiles at her, which is worse. “I made myself a general. I’m not ashamed to admit that I dirtied my hands to get here. Not unlike you. Well— no, that’s not true. I didn’t spend any time on my back.”

            Rey ignores this. A reaction is what he wants. “How’d you do it, then?” She pauses, then she ventures, “Poison?”

            “Sometimes.” His tone doesn’t change, which unsettles her. They could be discussing the weather. “As it happens, my own father succumbed to poison, although you’d be hard pressed to prove it.”

            Rey’s voice wavers with anger as she says, “But you had trouble with Kylo Ren.”

            “Ah. That nonsense.” He spins her again. Out, from him, and back in, so her back presses against his chest for the next few steps. “He’s a sentimental fool. I didn’t think he’d share that wine with you.”

            “So it was you.” He admits to it so casually. The pounding of her heart nearly drowns out the music. “You were the one who poisoned me.”

            Hux doesn’t seem to see any point in denying it. “I orchestrated it. Although I must say, I’m sorry that—”

            “Stuff it,” Rey snaps, and Hux very nearly recoils from her. He clearly isn’t used to being spoken to like that. “I almost died,” she hisses. “You almost killed me.”

            “I don’t know why you’re so put out. It didn’t take.”

            “It didn’t—” Impossible laughter bubbles up within her. She pushes it down, down. “It was a very near thing!”

            “But wasn’t it illuminating?” He sends her out from him once again, and when he pulls her in they’re the standard distance apart. They launch straightaway into a quarter turn, narrowly skirting around another dancing couple. “Ren finally revealed a truly exploitable weakness. You.”

            “And now you think you have me in a bind,” Rey says, keeping a tight rein on her fury so she can keep him talking. He loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and eventually he’ll tell her what she needs to know. And then she can tell Kylo. “You think you can use me to get to him.”

            “I know it.”

            “Well, I’ve been thinking.”

            “Have you? What a shock.”

            “Your whole scheme hinges on Kylo Ren believing your word over mine.” Rey straightens, defiant, holding her head high. “And he won’t.”

            “No,” Hux agrees, voice mild. “He won’t. But he might find the Resistance spy I’m detaining in the lower portside hangar very convincing.”

            Rey’s eyes widen, and although she tries to smooth her features back to something acceptably neutral, she sees a slow, triumphant smirk spreading across Hux’s face and knows there’s no point. She’s given herself away.

            “Oh, you’ve only yourself to blame for that, I’m afraid,” he continues, with barely contained glee. “With perspective, I became suspicious of how emboldened you were after our trip to Canto Bight, considering how humiliated you seemed at the time. I did my due diligence. I had my men question that shop girl who works for your friend Ordula. With enough prodding, she sang like a bird.”

            Vaguely, Rey recalls the green-skinned Twi’lek girl, Dessa, from Ordula’s. She had minded the shop while Rey and Ordula spoke. Seething, Rey asks, “What did you do?”

            “She hadn’t heard much,” Hux says, ignoring this question. “But she’d heard enough. Enough for me to know that I was on the right track, that is. From then it was a question of how to get the spy aboard without alerting your Resistance friends and scaring you off. Imagine my surprise when I heard you’d already asked for her.”

            Rey’s head spins. Through this whole conversation they’d never faltered, never lost the rhythm of their dance, twirling and swerving between the other pairs, but she knows that’s not why she’s dizzy. “That was chance,” she says.

            “I thought Jedi didn’t believe in chance. Perhaps it was the will of the Force.” That smirk widens. “I was waiting until the last moment to take her, but you provided a better excuse. When Ren was sulking over your outburst earlier, I suggested that a companion might do you good. Women do so love to talk amongst themselves, and you’d been starved for company. And he told me you’d already asked for a woman by name. That woman. The shopkeeper from Canto Bight.”

            Rey breathes out through her nose, nostrils flaring. “She won’t talk.”

            “Maybe not at first, but I have my methods.” Rey must look unconvinced, because Hux adds, “And Ren has his. In case you’ve forgotten.”

            She hasn’t. Kylo Ren’s invasion of her mind paled in comparison to the later experience of Snoke wrenching her memories to the surface one by one, but she could never forgot it. That Force technique had worked on Poe, and on her, to a point. It would work on Ordula. Ordula may not know all of the details of Rey’s mission, but she certainly knows that Rey is a plant. That would be enough to bring everything crashing down around them both.

            And while Rey doesn’t believe that Kylo would strike her down in anger, it’s still possible that he might have Ordula killed. If he didn’t, Hux certainly would. And no one needs to die for Rey today. “Let her go,” she whispers, fiercely.

            Hux looks bored. “She’s rebel scum and a spy. I can’t have her out in the galaxy stirring up trouble.”

            “Then don’t— kill her.” Rey’s mind races. Ordula seems like the type of person who’d figure her way out of a cell block, given time. “Just lock her up.”

            “Your sentimentality will be your end someday,” he drawls. “But fine. It will be done, provided you uphold your end of the bargain.”

            A chill runs down Rey’s spine. She has a bad feeling about this. “And you haven’t told me what that is.”

            “Nothing of consequence,” says Hux, extending his arm to allow Rey to spin out from him one more time. Rey wishes she could keep spinning, off of this dance floor, far out of reach of Hux or any of his schemes, leaving him alone with his ambitions.

            Alas, she only has a moment of freedom before he pulls her back into him, tight, a pole-snake wrapping around its prey. This is closer to Hux than Rey has ever wanted to be, and she bites down hard on her back teeth. She cannot punch his lights out in the middle of a First Order gala. She cannot, she cannot.

            He lowers his voice, and continues. “Nothing you haven’t already done, in a sense. But you’re probably the only person capable of it, and that’s why I’ve gone to such great lengths to secure your cooperation.”

            Rey wishes he would just get to the point. She feels like a climbing rope pulled tight, fraying at the middle, threatening to snap. Staring straight ahead, over his shoulder and out through the gaping hangar doors, she asks, “What is it you’d have me do?”

            Hux leans forward. “I need you,” he murmurs against her ear, a sickening warmth to his breath, “to kill Kylo Ren.”