Sorrel never found out if a lawyer would take her case. The following day, after nine hours of nightmare-plagued sleep, Sorrel opened her door to find a man in a crisp suit and a briefcase standing there.
Her threat of a lawsuit must have spooked Owl Sector. They were offering her a settlement of sixteen million glimmer. Sorrel, who really wanted to go back to living her comfortable, boring life and not worry about the City justice system, accepted.
The following day, when she had slept better and was feeling more normal - despite having a Ghost following her around in a limping sort of way - Max showed up at her door. He looked as if he had actually showered and slept for once, his shaggy blond hair neatly combed. His Hunter gear had been cleaned, too - she could smell the remnants of leather polish.
"I brought you this," he said, holding up a pretty white Ghost shell with red scrollwork. "And I brought the tools to install it." He lifted a small toolbox in his other hand.
"Come on in!" Sorrel exclaimed. "Oh, Vox will be so happy. Look at this shell!" She took it from Max and turned it this way and that, admiring the engravings.
Max glanced around her living room, taking note of the music playing on the stereo. "Hey, I know this song. Fallen Kingdom?"
"I've been listening to those albums you gave me on loop," Sorrel said. "They make me ... forget."
For a second, the events of the last few weeks loomed between them, an almost tangible presence that neither of them wanted to talk about. Max broke the silence by lifting his tool set. "Call your Ghost and let's get started."
They sat at Sorrel's small kitchen table. Max took the shell apart and demonstrated how it attached to a Ghost's core, letting the Ghost move it around with their Light field. Vox was ecstatic and flew around and around, twirling her new shell, until her strength gave out and she plopped into Sorrel's hands.
"How much do I owe you?" Sorrel asked.
Max shrugged. "It's a gift. Don't worry about it."
Sorrel traced the designs on Vox's shell with one finger. Ghost shells weren't cheap. She'd looked them up that morning. Of all things, she didn't want to beggar Max. She wasn't Erica.
"Owl Sector settled out of court. I have sixteen million glimmer in the bank right now."
"Wow," Max exclaimed. A fierce light flickered in his eyes. "I think you should have sued them anyway, but ... that's a pile of glimmer."
Sorrel smiled sadly. "It'll keep me going for a while. I lost my job at the store for disappearing in the middle of a shift. They were apologetic, but I've already been a problem employee with the makeup and everything. So yeah. I'm unemployed."
"I'm sorry," Max said softly, looking away. "I feel like it's my fault."
"It was Erica, not you," Sorrel pointed out. "She basically abducted me right out of the parking lot. And I was dumb enough to go with her." She'd been kicking herself for that for days.
"No, I mean-" Max broke off and drew a breath. His gaze roamed around the living room before settling on Sorrel, as if mustering his courage. "I'd just broken up with her. Like ... ten minutes before she grabbed you. I think she was taking revenge on me, doing all those experiments on you. And I'm ... Light and Darkness, I'm so sorry, Sorrel. You've been caught in the crossfire of my relationship mess this whole time."
Sorrel gazed at him, her green eyes glowing a little brighter than usual. Why was her heart beating slightly faster? "You broke up with her?"
"She sent me these letters," Max said, and launched into the sordid details of Erica's relationship demands. Sorrel listened with a revolted expression. The longer he talked, though, the happier Sorrel grew without understanding why. A smile kept slipping onto her face.
"And to top it off," Max concluded, "Erica's having to stand trial before a tribunal at the Vestian Outpost. Apparently, she's the one who stole that globe and smuggled it into the City. She stole a gauntlet thing, too, and was using it to call the Aphelion once it had found a suitable host. She was incubating its power in a host body, and planned to siphon it into a Guardian. Her idea, I think, was to balance the Light with Darkness the way Awoken are. Except in a Guardian, both forces would be a thousand times stronger."
Sorrel shuddered. "It wouldn't have worked. The power coming off that thing was poison."
Max nodded. "Erica committed an atrocity. It's why she's being tried before the Awoken. She endangered Earth, and the Reef-the whole solar system, really. The Aphelion was working its way free. She'll probably be sent to the Prison of Elders."
There was a short silence. Sorrel went back to tracing patterns on her Ghost's shell. Any mention of the Aphelion sent her back to that moment when her head had been chained to the globe, feeling the monster strip the power out of her. It had been exactly like having her guts torn out.
"Any side effects?" Max asked.
Sorrel shrugged. "Nightmares. But I had those before." She didn't mention the semi-seizures that came with them. "Vox is healing and healing me, so I think I'll be all right." She touched the scarred side of her face. "My Lightmark is coming back a little. The crescent on my cheek, here."
Max nodded, and he squinted as if she'd hit him - or he was trying not to cry. He stared at the table for a long moment, biting his lower lip. Sorrel wanted to reassure him, somehow - but that's what she had been doing when he flinched. He must be eaten alive by guilt.
"Come visit me in the Tower tomorrow," he blurted, meeting her gaze again. His eyes were brilliant blue, slightly glassy with unshed tears. "I'll show you around. We can grab lunch or dinner. It's my day off work and school, and I was just going to derp around the Tower, anyway."
Sorrel nearly refused. But as she looked at those tears, the agony in his face, she realized he was trying to make things right in the only way he knew how. Poor Max - she had learned to read him so easily.
"All right," she said, pushing aside her own apprehension about visiting the lair of the Guardians. "I think I'd like that."
The following day, Max met Sorrel at the bottom of the Tower lift and the guards let her in. This made her nervous, but Max was reassuring. "They hardly ever stop anybody. Lots of commerce goes on in the Tower. They'll know you next time."
Sorrel didn't relax until they arrived on the busy Tower Walk, seventy stories up in the windy autumn sunshine. So many humans and Guardians all mixed together! Some Guardians were off duty and went around in casual clothes, only identifiable by their Ghosts.
She had rigged up a sling across her chest for Vox to ride in, since the Ghost couldn't fly very long. Vox rode with her blue eye peeping out, amazed at the bustle. In Sorrel's head, she said, "I always hoped that someday, you and I could come here together." She stirred the image of the spider rig in Sorrel's memory, along with a sense of hopelessness-Vox had been without hope for so long. Sorrel raised a hand and stroked Vox's shell.
"It's pretty busy today," Max said, pushing through the crowd. "A lot of fireteams just got back from strikes. Come on, I know a quiet place where we can hang out."
He wound his way expertly through the passages and pavilions that made up the Tower Walk, then led her up a set of stairs to a small balcony off to the side of the main thoroughfare. Someone had set up a small table and two chairs there. It was sheltered from the wind on two sides, but open to the sunlight.
Sorrel sat down with a relieved sigh. "I didn't know there were so many Guardians. Do you ... do you know a Titan named Tony Atkin?"
Max shook his head. "Sorry, no. I actually looked him up after that meeting with your mom. He's marked missing in action. Seems he took off to join the Sunbreakers and nobody's seen him since."
"Oh." Sorrel gazed across the City to the Traveler. She was nearly on eye level with it up here, and had a clear view of the vast cracks and holes in it from the Red War. "If I do ever decide to be a Guardian ... it would be to find Dad. Or find out what happened to him. See why he left Mom, and if he'd come back."
"You'd need a ship," Max said. "And a team. And ... maybe a detective."
She looked up to see his eyes sparkling mischievously. "You're not a detective yet."
"No," Max said, leaning his chair back on two legs. "Not until I graduate in the spring. And after that I still have to train with a senior detective for a few years. But maybe by then, you'll have made up your mind."
Sorrel turned and watched the Tower Walk through the corner of a doorway. The Guardians moving past seemed like normal people. Soldiers with hard lives, sure. But she saw several who wore uniforms meaning they worked in the Tower, and others who clearly had just returned from the wilderness. The desire to escape the City walls and see the ruins of Earth's great civilizations crept through her again.
"Tell me about Guardians," she said. "How do they pick their classes?"
Max explained, and Sorrel asked more questions. They talked for an hour, then two. When hunger loomed, they bought lunch at the Tower food court, and ate it in the shelter of their little corner table.
Sorrel stayed until the sun sank behind the Traveler. Then Max escorted her home - without offering his sparrow. This wasn't lost on Sorrel, but she wasn't sure how to bring it up. Whenever that look of guilt crossed Max's face, she was more and more ashamed.
Sorrel visited the Tower many times over the rest of the fall and winter. The more she learned about Guardians and the Vanguard, the less strange and frightening it seemed. Max invited along Jayesh, Kari, and Madrid, giving Sorrel a chance to see how other Guardians acted in a casual setting. They were just people, she was surprised to learn. Soldiers who defended the City in a myriad of ways, and had sacrificed part of their humanity to do it.
Once, Max flew Sorrel out to the Iron Temple on Fellwinter's Peak. The vast temple with its echoing halls and ancient statues filled her with awe. But she didn't want to become an Iron Lord, the way Max did. Her aspirations were smaller, her wounds different from Max's and requiring different sorts of healing.
When the snow began to melt as spring approached, Sorrel quietly joined the Vanguard and became a Hunter. Her training carried her well into mid-spring, working under Cayde-6, whom she liked very much. She attended Max's graduation, as well as Jayesh's wedding to Kari.
And then one day, Sorrel packed her gear and left.
"I'm going on patrol," she told Max. "I might be gone a few years."
"A few years!" he exclaimed, aghast. "Why?"
"I want to see Earth," Sorrel said. "Live on my own. Experience freedom. I need to find dead ghosts for parts so Vox can be repaired. And just ... I need to breathe, Max. I can't breathe in the City or the Tower anymore."
She couldn't articulate the stifled feeling that plagued her. It had been why she climbed eight-story buildings after work to watch the sun set. Her soul longed for the freedom of the wilderness. And yet … was that who she truly was? Awoken? Guardian? And now Hunter? Sorrel had lost track of herself.
She didn't want to see the distress in Max's eyes - it meant that he still had feelings for her. Sorrel just wasn't ready to deal with that right now.
Max forced a grin. "Well. Good luck out there. If you ever need help ..."
"I know who to call," Sorrel finished. "Thanks. You've been a good friend, Max." She hugged him briefly. His arms encircled her mechanically, giving her a brittle hug in return.
"Zero," Sorrel said to his hovering Ghost, "take care of him."
"I will," said the Ghost.
Sorrel's last glimpse of them was Max standing at the lift, watching the doors close behind her, the spring wind blowing his cloak across him. The expression on his face almost made her turn back.
But no. The wilderness called, and a Hunter must answer. Perhaps, out there, she could finally make peace with the stranger she'd become to herself.
And she had to start by finding out what happened to her father.
The end