"I don't know what I'm going to do, Datz."

"It wasn't your fault, Dhurke. It was a stray bullet."

"And now it's infected and I don't know how I'm supposed to tell Nahyuta that his brother's going to die."

"If you need me to, I can do it. Better sooner than later, if you ask me."

"I know. He's my son, and I need to be the one to talk to him."

"I'm basically his other dad."

"He doesn't like you as much."

"Ha. Guess that's true."

Dhurke didn't take them to the rendezvous location himself. It was too dangerous, and so one of the Dragons did instead. So the last time that Apollo saw Dhurke was that early, early morning before he and Nahyuta were rushed away to some broken down dock with nothing but the clothes on their back and fake passports in their hands.

"Nahyuta is going to use your last name for a while, okay?" Dhurke had said before they left. (He had no idea that it was going to be the last time he would ever see his home in the mountains again.) "He can't be Sahdmadhi until the dust settles. And you won't tell anyone his real name. Do you understand?"

Apollo didn't understand what Dhurke meant, but he agreed. He agreed for Nahyuta too, because he had stopped talking to Dhurke since they learned they were being sent to America. Dhurke said Apollo would like it more, since it was the country where he came from.

On the first night at the children's home, Apollo couldn't believe that this was the place he was supposed to be. His English wasn't good enough for people to understand anything he tried to say, and Nahyuta had to do all the talking for him. He hated that. And what was worse was that he didn't translate what he said right, and everyone treated him like he was stupid. They fussed over his injury from the Queen's Guards' raid, and they kept stabbing him with needles and forcing him to swallow pills.

"I don't like it here," Apollo said to Nahyuta that night. They were sharing a bed, even though they weren't supposed to. Nahyuta was going to be with the older children, but he was the only person who could understand what Apollo was saying, and he was the one who he cooperated with when his bandages needed to be changed.

"Dad will be back for us soon," Nahyuta whispered back. His green eyes were dull and tired. He smelled like antiseptic instead of dirt and river water. "That's what he said."

"When do you think that'll be?"

"Soon. When the dust settles. When you're better," Nahyuta said vaguely. He was just repeating what Dhurke had told Apollo earlier. "Just go to sleep, okay?"

"Bless you. Bless you, bless you, may the Holy Mother bless you."

"She would curse me if I turned away an innocent, unrelated to our country's political affairs."

"A lot of people would have."

"That being said, I know that you have the late Queen Amara's son with you."

"…"

"I'm sure you know that Her Majesty has been searching for her nephew."

"You know that the only reason for that is to be used as a hostage. The entire kingdom hates him."

"You should have thought of that before refusing the righteous justice of the Mother's court. Being a parent means that your actions hurt more than just yourself."

"It wasn't that simple."

"Nothing ever is."

"…"

"For Apollo's sake, I will give you one week before I tell Her Majesty about Nahyuta."

"How magnanimous."

"I am being quite magnanimous, Dhurke Sahdmadhi. The only reason I haven't called the Royal Guard to this temple is so Apollo won't lose his caretaker. I could take him in myself, but we both know that wouldn't be good for him."

Datz had always told Apollo that he was a natural at school, but he was starting to think that Datz was a big, fat liar.

Mathematics was the only subject that Apollo could keep up with, but everything else was so difficult. His tutor from Kurain Village helped things make sense, but it didn't seem that she was going to keep coming for much longer. Her visits were becoming less and less frequent, which was too bad since she could speak Khura'inese. Even though her accent was a strange one that Apollo had never heard before, it was nice to have a grown-up talking for him.

He knew that Dhurke was going to be a little while longer, but he hadn't thought about what staying in America would be like. He hadn't thought about needing to continue school, or struggling through conversations with other kids his age, or needing to follow Nahyuta around everywhere.

It had always been Apollo who was the trailblazer between the two of them, but Nahyuta was the only one that anyone would talk to, and it wasn't fair. Everyone acted like he was stupid just because he couldn't understand them and it made him want to scream sometimes. Even in Khura'inese, his brother was quiet and timid, and it was worse when he was stumbling through conversations in English. He wished that he'd be pushier sometimes.

Since coming to America, they had been put in this place called suhn-frour; it was full of a lot of other kids who also were separated from their families for one reason or another. It was the most people Apollo had ever seen, and it was also the most he'd ever heard other kids scream. With no other way to make them stop, Apollo had tried throwing things at them, to varying degrees of success. It still hurt to move most of the time, but the power of anger and spite compelled him.

After being forced to swallow some more pills, Apollo had been shouted at for picking fights. He'd shouted back, demanding to know why he wasn't allowed to defend himself. He probably sounded crazy to them when he did. Maybe they'd talk to him less seriously now too.

"They said that you should get one of the grown-ups in the future," Nahyuta said quietly later that night. They had a flashlight under a blanket so they could play cards after bedtime. It was a game that one of the older Dragons taught him and Nahyuta on a day it was too rainy to go outside. "And to be more careful so you don't hurt yourself!" He scolded in an angry whisper. "You want to get all the way better, don't you?"

Apollo ignored him. The extra attention had been nice from Dhurke and Datz, but he was over it since they weren't around right now. Now, he had to put up with being touched and poked by American doctors. "They can't understand me." He placed a card down. "One four."

"You know how to say a few things," Nahyuta countered. "You can't say row'd?" He shifted the flashlight to go through his hand.

Apollo scowled. "They wouldn't understand what I meant."

He gave him a look. "You've tried?"

"No," he admitted, "but every time I try to say something, no one understands it." He hit the palm of his hand on the pile of cards in between them. "It's your turn!"

Nahyuta pursed his lips and set down his card. "You just need to practice," he grumbled. "One five."

"You need to talk louder too. They won't listen to you if you're scared of them."

"I…" he flushed, ever so slightly. "I'll try." He pointed to the card he'd set down. "Go, it's your turn."

Apollo put down his cards: five of spades and an ace of hearts. "Pretend you're like me!" He exclaimed. He reached for the flashlight and held it between his legs. "Or pretend you're Dhurke, chasing down a guard. "Two sixes," he added.

"Uh-huh."

"It helps!"

"Being loud is embarrassing." He put down his play. "One seven."

"Bullshit! Bullshit, bullshit!" He slammed his hand over the pile and snatched the card up. A two of hearts. "I knew it!" He pushed the cards in his direction.

"Apollo!" Nahyuta hissed.

On cue, the door opened, and Apollo heard someone marching towards them and snatched the blanket off their heads. She took the flashlight, switched it off, and began to berate them as quietly as possible even though a few of the other boys had already woken up from the intrusion.

Nahyuta was mumbling apologies most likely, not doing them any favors.

As clear as he could manage, Apollo held out his hand and said the English word for flashlight. And take , and please while he was at it. And she was so impressed with him, she giggled at him and handed it back, ruffling his hair. She then said something else—probably a warning or something—and left soon after.

"Guh'd ny'te is how you say bye and it's nighttime," Nahyuta said when she left.

Apollo waved the flashlight in his face. "And that was how you say 'please can I have my flashlight back'."

He couldn't see his face, but he could hear Nahyuta laugh at him. It was the first time he'd laughed since they came to America. Maybe even since that horrible raid, come to think of it. It made Apollo excited to tell Dhurke about how well he'd adjusted—and show off how much better at English he'd become. He almost hoped that he'd take long enough for him to speak as well as the other kids his age to really impress him.

"Nahyuta's going to go with Apollo to America."

"What? Why?"

"He doesn't want to leave Apollo alone. He's still shaken up about the past month. And… It's better that he's away from here than being a hostage. Or executed."

"You have a point."

"Amara will understand."

"Of course she will."

"She deserves to meet her son. And help him with…whatever it is that he has, but she can't do that if he's dead."

"It is probably for the best, Dhurke."

"I know."

"I know I'll miss them, but they'll still have each other."

"Nahyuta's angry with me for suggesting I send Apollo away while he's still hurt so I don't know if he'll talk to me before the boat leaves."

"He'll understand when he's older."

Nahyuta pulls his head away from the door when Dad begins to cry. Thinking back to it, it would be the last time he would hear him cry for the rest of his life. He wishes that he'd stuck around to overhear the rest of the conversation, but his eleven-year-old self had been too scared seeing his unwavering father cry.

He wasn't sure why, but American kids were mean. Not the ones at school, but the ones at suhn-frour were. More than once, Apollo found someone going through his things. They'd never taken anything from him (yet), but the grown-ups weren't doing anything about it. All that happened was that they would lose their dessert privileges—desserts that weren't even good to begin with. Probably bought from the market in bulk and sealed in plastic packaging.

As a "home heating present," ("Housewarming," Nahyuta would correct irritably, but Apollo always ignored his corrections like that) one nice lady gave him a lockbox with a key, but one of the older boys had just broken it open with a rock, so Apollo retaliated by breaking his face open with a rock.

Holy Mother, he'd gotten in trouble for that. Even some kind of officer came in to talk to him about it. He was wearing the same kind of uniform of the scary men who'd taken Apollo and Nahyuta after they got off the boat from Khura'in.

The man couldn't speak Khura'inese, so had to speak in English slowly, repeating himself at least once or twice every sentence. It was a lot more than he needed to, because Apollo didn't want to listen to him. No one seemed to care about his things, or his feelings. They only cared that he'd broken another kid's nose and the people who were going to adopt him were mad about it.

Apollo had been sentenced to only fifteen minutes of play outside a day as a result, so he didn't know what Brock got punished with, but he hoped that it was something.

Maybe he'd get in trouble for pulling Nahyuta's hair and laughing at him for the way he talked. Sometimes it seemed like they cared more about his injustices than Apollo's, just because he was cuter and listened to everything they said like a good hierophant.

It was stupid that his cowering was what got the attention of the grown-ups, but they only cared about getting upset with Apollo. What about him made people like him more?

"I'll try," was Nahyuta's best response when Apollo confronted him about sticking up for himself.

When Apollo gave him a dirty look that would have normally gotten him slapped for being disrespectful, Nahyuta sniffed and turned his nose up at him. "Why don't you just learn English?" He said rudely.

"I'm trying!" Apollo shouted at him. "I'm not as good at it!"

"Then stop telling me what to do! At least I'm not getting in trouble for being a violent hooligan!" Nahyuta said with a huff, turning on his heel and walking away

Apollo scowled after him, crossing his arms. "Baby," he muttered under his breath.

Even though they fought about it, it did something because Nahyuta did begin to speak up more for himself and Apollo both, but it sometimes turned into Nahyuta bossing him around and talking over him. The grown-ups liked it too and they started talking to him through his brother instead of going to him directly.

It was nice sometimes, not needing to make an idiot of himself, but he knew that it was making his English worse. He would probably stop though, once Apollo got more comfortable with talking to grown-ups.

Even though he hides it better, Nahyuta hates America. He hates how different he looks, and he hates that he can't speak with their slurred vowels and harsh consonances. English is a difficult language to master, and Apollo does not make it any easier. Sometimes, it feels like he doesn't even try to learn it on his own.

Nahyuta hates how he shakes whenever he tries to speak to someone; once, he'd been so upset by trying to explain Apollo's outbursts that he needed to rush to the bathroom to throw up before the conversation was over. Datz was right—he is too timid and shy for his age. Too bad that he is being forced to learn through trial by fire instead of at home, in his mother tongue.

Thanks to all the medicine that the Americans forced Apollo to take, he is expected to make a full recovery (minus, perhaps, some stiffness, but not enough to affect him anytime soon), but the scar he got from it was a cruel reminder of some of the worst months of Nahyuta's life. It makes him nauseous whenever he catches sight of it: his brother's skin crudely bubbling and rippling unevenly where the wound once was. To Apollo, it's a badge of honor and proof of the Holy Mother's blessing over the Defiant Dragons. He wishes that he knew the extent his brush with death and so he would be more careful about getting into physical fights, but maybe it's better this way. It is for the best he doesn't remember the panicked shouting from Datz, or the urgency in their father's voice when the wound started to change colors and smell like an animal left to rot in a trap.

Attempts to eavesdrop on the adults' conversations prove to be largely unhelpful—they speak too quickly for Nahyuta to understand them—but he understands that they are struggling to find someone who can help them submit their necessary paperwork. No readily available attorneys can speak Khura'inese, and translators are few and far between. Datz's fake passports proved to be good enough to get them into the country but fell apart quickly after a little scrutiny.

A part of Nahyuta hopes that they don't figure anything out so he and Apollo can go back home, but the immediate danger to them makes it unlikely.

Apollo seems to adapt better to America than Nahyuta does, even though, logically, he knows that isn't the case. Unlike him, it isn't immediately clear that Apollo is from Khura'in, and he has no trouble forcing people to listen to him when no one will. Nahyuta is positive that he would have learned more English by now if he didn't constantly speak for him, and he can clearly defend himself against the other kids at Sunflower.

Maybe Dad had been right about Apollo. The thought makes Nahyuta feel bad about himself, but that was probably how their father felt about it too. Obviously, he would have been fine, and most of the adults were going to be extremely attentive to him since he'd been so badly injured. It probably would have been more difficult emotionally if he'd been completely alone, but he would have adjusted and marched forward. Like he always did, and Nahyuta never could.

He wonders, is he only regretting his idea of going with Apollo because it's more difficult than he'd thought it would be, or had he simply made the wrong call?

Nonetheless, it makes his stomach twist in guilt some more and he tries to not give it too much thought. He needs to dig in his heels and be as loud as Apollo wants him to be.

Or maybe about seventy-five percent of how loud Apollo wants him to be. Very few people can ever be as loud as him.

It had been one long year, but Apollo still believed that Dhurke was coming back for him. Apollo tried to keep writing him letters, although he hadn't the slightest hint of whether they were going through or not. His English had improved by leaps and bounds, and he could chat with the other kids at Sunflower; at least the ones that didn't mind his accent or think that he was faking it.

"Where are you going?" Apollo asked Nahyuta one afternoon. He was already pulling things out of his school locker and it was still some hours before school was over. "Are we leaving early today?" He asked.

"Just me," Nahyuta said distractedly. "Selena will still be here though, so get her to help you with your English homework during lunch." The corners of his mouth were pulled into a deep frown, and he wouldn't look Apollo in the eye.

"What's going on?" Apollo pressed, walking closer. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," he said tersely, shutting his locker. "Don't worry about it. I'll tell you about it later," Nahyuta promised.

"You'd better," Apollo said under his breath.

"Speak English," Nahyuta scolded lightly, a frown forming on his face. "You won't learn if you don't. And I won't always be around to translate for you."

Apollo scowled at him. "You don't need to translate for me anymore, Yuta," he said. Nahyuta hated being called that, especially with the dragging vowel in the middle that Americans spoke with. "And Dhurke will be back for us soon, won't he?"

Nahyuta sighed and shook his head. "I'll see you when you get back. Don't hit anyone again," he added as he swiftly turned on his heel to leave.

It took Apollo far too long to realize what had happened. In fact, it didn't even occur to him until one of the other kids at the children's home warned him that the director was in the building today, and that he was on the second floor with a couple of adults and one of them was Khura'inese. And that he wasn't allowed in the upstairs bedroom until they left.

They're here to take Nahyuta.

Apollo's heart leapt to his throat when he raced up the stairs. God, he didn't know what he was supposed to do if they got separated. How would Dhurke find them? How would they take him back from people who wanted to be his new family?

He flung himself into the door, practically knocking it into the woman standing right on the other side of it. "Nahyuta?!"

"Apollo!" Ms. Rector snapped, catching herself on the wall. "Did Patty not tell you to stay downstairs?"

"Don't go with them!" Apollo blurted. "You have to stay here until—"

"Apollo!" Nahyuta interrupted, hurrying to his side. "You need to go downstairs," he whispered. "I'm not going anywhere—I promise," he added, tightening his grip around Apollo's wrist.

"Nahyuta?" The woman asked carefully. "Who is this? Is he your friend?"

Khura'inese. She spoke Khura'inese and she was probably interested in adopting Nahyuta because he was Khura'inese too. The only problem was that she didn't speak it as well as Apollo did and her American accent made the sound of her consonances wrong and broken. They were much harsher than anyone native to Khura'in.

"He's my brother," Nahyuta replied. His voice was tense and had an edge that Apollo had never heard before. "Go wait downstairs," he whispered.

"But—"

"Go downstairs, Apollo. You're going to lose your dessert privileges for the next week if you don't." The look that Ms. Rector gave him was deadly, but Apollo could already feel himself start to cry; it didn't nearly have the necessary effect. He cried so easily, and he hated it, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do if Nahyuta was going to leave him behind and Dhurke would have no idea what happened.

He sat at the downstairs dining table trying not to let the other kids see him. He knew that boys shouldn't cry, but Dhurke wasn't here to tell him that, and no one knew to rat him out. "You'll be fine," he whispered to himself, this time in English. It still felt so strange to him. "You're Apollo Justice and you're fine," he repeated. He would be fine, because he was American anyway, and he would do well here. At least that's what Dhurke told him, and he wasn't wrong about most things. Apollo Justice would be fine . "I'm Apollo Justice and I'm fine," he repeated one more time. It still didn't feel any more comfortable on his tongue, but if he was going to be left in the children's home by himself, he wouldn't be able to get Nahyuta to speak for him anymore.

Apollo continued to repeat to himself for he didn't know how long, but Nahyuta eventually came back down the stairs and pulled him into a hug. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised. "I won't leave you here alone. I promise."

The couple that tried to adopt Nahyuta told him that they had received a vision from the Holy Mother that one of her descendants was at the Sunflower Children's Home in L.A., and they had an obligation to take care of him.

Until then, he hadn't had a clue that there were Khura'inists who live outside of Khura'in. Given, there is a place called Kurain Village on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and so this should not have been such a surprise.

More potential adoptive parents would come to see and talk to him, but none of them could speak Khura'inese. Most often, they like his features and the idea of rescuing an innocent victim of a tyrannical and absolute monarchy. Thinking about it makes Nahyuta grit his teeth and ignore most prospective parents.

As much as Apollo dislikes her, Ms. Rector does a lot for the two of them. One of those ways is by emphasizing that he and Nahyuta are brothers and should avoid being separated, putting more of a damper on prospective adoptive parents who don't want to be responsible for splitting them up. Her parents are immigrants from Mexico, and still have not achieved full fluency of the language. As a result, she is particularly patient with their language barrier, and usually willing to help Nahyuta practice his English and sometimes teach him short phrases in Spanish. She would have been happy to help Apollo too, but he is always too busy causing problems by getting into fistfights with the other kids.

Shortly after his twelfth birthday, Nahyuta asks Cassandra, one of the older girls in the children's home, if she can help him dye his hair black. She is always wearing dark makeup and has to touch up her brown roots every so often. Historically, he has been intimidated by her, but since talking to her, she's surprised Nahyuta by being extremely chatty and being of a generally sociable disposition.

"But your hair is so pretty!" She exclaims, puffing her bottom lip out in a pout. Cassandra reaches to feel his hair between her fingers, but immediately draws away when he flinches from her. "Sorry," she says sheepishly.

"No one else likes it and they call me…a…um…" he tells her the word that he'd heard. He previously believed that it meant a bundle of kindling, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Americans mean it as something else in practice.

Cassandra makes a face at the word. "You should take a page from your brother's book and hit them in the face for that."

Nahyuta blushes deeply. "I could not do that," he said.

She chews her lip. "If you really want to, I can help dye your hair, but it's going to be a pain to keep up."

"I will," he promises, feeling hopeful. He'd been worried that she would deny him because—like all the adults—she thinks his hair was pretty. He should have known that someone like her would be happy to help someone develop their own style.

"You'll have to cut it all off and grow it back if you want your natural color back," she continues.

"I will not want it back," he says firmly.

"If you're sure…" she gives him a funny look.

After his emphatic nod, she crosses her arms. "Okay, okay. After school tomorrow, I'll get some dye for you, okay?"

"I can pay you back."

She waves her hand dismissively. "It probably won't take a whole bottle for you. Just don't tell Mrs. Dira about it and we're even."

After Cassandra dyes his hair, Apollo frankly informs him that it doesn't look good, and he prefers his usual color. Nahyuta doesn't agree, much preferring having a more natural color, but he'd succeeded in drawing less attention to himself. He promises Apollo that he will go back to normal when they go back to Khura'in, and it's good enough for both of them.

Clay Terran was a boy that Apollo had always seen at school but would race away as soon as he could after class. Recently, Apollo made the decision to chase after him and learned that his mother had recently died of some kind of illness, so he'd been spending evenings crying by the koi pond so his dad wouldn't know. And for some other reasons that he didn't want to share.

Clay was a union of the best parts of his and Nahyuta's personalities, so it felt natural for Apollo to cheer him up and tell him that he would be fine if he didn't have a mom. After all, all he and Nahyuta had was a dad, and they had been very happy with only Dhurke. It was harder now since they had to come to America for a time and were separated, but it wouldn't last forever.

The things that they liked to talk about the most was how Clay liked space and wanted to walk on the moon, and how Apollo wanted to be a lawyer who solved murders and defended the week, so they could help each other while they grew up while they underwent their Chords of Steel training. Clay, because he needed to feel better about himself, and Apollo because he needed to speak English more clearly. (It helped him feel better about himself too though.)

One of the best parts about it was that Clay's house was only a twenty-minute walk to Sunflower so they could see each other almost whenever they wanted to. He didn't mind Apollo's accent, or talking more slowly than he normally would, so he became the perfect person to practice English with. It felt like a personal blessing from the Holy Mother, really. Apollo appreciated her reminder that she was still looking out for him, even though he hadn't been to one of her temples since coming to America.

Sometimes, Nahyuta would walk back with Clay and Apollo, and it felt good to have a group of friends to hang out with. The three of them together made Apollo feel like he was in a movie about teenagers in high school that would sing and dance on tables—one of the many kinds of movies that Clay liked to watch with Apollo and his other friends. The movies really made the American accent sound like the coolest thing ever, especially the movies about cowboys. Pretty soon, he knew that he'd be able to perfect it if he watched enough movies, then maybe he could be an actor someday. After becoming a lawyer, of course. He already had vocal training, if his Chords of Steel exercises counted. And he'd been shot at before, but in real life. He was convinced that he would make a great cowboy.

Movies were the best part of being in America, and he hoped that Dhurke wouldn't make them have to give it up. Maybe whenever the dust would settle, it would be safe enough for them to go into town and get a TV and DVD player.

"Do you think that you and Yuta are going back to Khura'in soon?" Clay asked during one of their sleepovers. His accent was too thick to say Nahyuta's name the way it was supposed to sound, and instead of making his new friend grimace every time he said his name, "Yuta" stuck.

"Probably," he answered with his whole chest.

"When?"

"I'm not sure," Apollo admitted, "but soon. Dhurke said whenever things at home get better."

Clay looked disappointed, looking down with a deep frown on his face. "I'll miss you a lot when you leave."

Apollo straightened from his floor palate and pressed his lips together, furrowing his brows. "You'll have to visit," he said. "And we'll visit too. And then you can finally meet my dad!"

"It won't be the same," Clay muttered.

Apollo climbed up the ladder to Clay's bunked bed. "Hey!" He shouted, pointing at him. "You'll be fine! And I'll write!" He promised. "And I'm not gonna go anywhere tonight so let's do something!" He leaned his head back to look down at his backpack. He'd brought his playing cards but not much else today. "We could play cards."

"Oh, I wanted to show you something!" Clay bounced to the foot of his bed and reached across the gap to the top shelf in his closet where he liked to keep his books. Getting what he wanted, he switched on his lamp and bounced back to where Apollo was hanging off the edge.

"Dad got this for me from the Cosmos Space Center," he explained, tracing over the cover. It had what Apollo recognized as the solar system, and otherwise looked brand new. "He has a friend from college who works there and so he's getting us a private tour this weekend!"

"Wow." Apollo stared down at the book, flipping through its pages. "That's really cool."

"Do you want to come?" Clay offered. "My mom was going to, but she…she got a lot worse than we were expecting."

He blinked at the offer, before immediately agreeing. How could he turn down the offer that was supposed to be for his mom? And it seemed fun anyway. Clay was so excited about space travel, so it would be nice to have more that he could talk about with him.

Whenever Mr. Terran was out working late (or, Clay admitted to Apollo after swearing secrecy, got too drunk to pick him up), Clay would get picked up by Solomon Starbuck to stay at the Space Station until his dad was done at work. The best part about that deal was that when no one else was there, Mr. Starbuck would let Apollo come too.

It quickly became Apollo's favorite way to spend the evening. Clay was always too scared to explore different rooms without him, so it was like going on an adventure. Not the same as exploring a mountainside, but close enough. And he liked Mr. Starbuck too. He was one of the only grown-ups that was willing to talk to him, and let Apollo talk to him however he wanted to. He learned a lot of American phrases from him, and he liked to laugh about how Apollo translated them into Khura'inese then back to English.

It was nice that he didn't speak so negatively about Dhurke like his therapist did, but it seemed that he didn't hold him in very high regard either. Apollo didn't like hearing about it, but sometimes they had a point. Seeing how much effort Mr. Terran put into making sure that Clay was taken care of made Apollo wish that his dad had done that too.

He didn't like being an orphan in Los Angeles with no one to look after him—especially since he'd gone to America without not being able to speak English. Plus, the expectation put on Nahyuta to do practically everything for both of them didn't seem fair. He was his older brother, sure, but not by very much.

The fact that he hadn't so much as sent a single letter in over a year was strange too. Apollo knew that Mr. Terran would never do that to Clay.

Hell, Mr. Terran wouldn't do that to Apollo if it were up to him.

He wondered what Nahyuta thought about being abandoned, and he finally mustered up the courage to ask when they were walking back from school and Clay had been picked up by his aunt.

From the look on his face, it already gave away that Apollo hadn't been the only person thinking about it. Even though it meant he wouldn't be scolded, it was still disappointing; it meant that even Dhurke's first son was losing faith.

"I understand why he didn't want to keep you in Khura'in," Nahyuta mumbled, carefully stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk. "You don't remember how badly you were hurt when we left but you almost died."

"I guess that's true," Apollo admitted, struggling to keep pace with him. Nahyuta was starting to hit his growth spurt and was leaving him behind. Height-wise and stride-wise. "But why hasn't he come back for us? Or sent us any letters?"

"I'm not sure," he answered, still not slowing down and staring down at the concrete.

"Do you think he's coming back for us soon?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think he's coming back for us at all?" He pressed more.

"Eventually." It didn't sound very convincing. It barely even sounded like he was paying attention to the conversation.

Apollo grabbed his arm, stopping them both. "What do you think we'll do if he never comes back? What are we supposed to do?"

Nahyuta was giving him a look, surprised that the idea of it was upsetting Apollo so much. Why would he think that it wouldn't? "We'll be okay," he assured quickly. "What's that you're always saying anyway?" He switched to English, "That you're Apollo Justice and you're fine? We'll figure it out," he promised. "It just might take Dad longer than we were expecting, so we have to do our best."

Apollo didn't believe him, but God, he wanted to so badly. "You're right," he said anyway, blinking away his tears and willing them back into his eyeballs. "You should join me and Clay for our Chords of Steel training," he said, sniffling but glad he had successfully held back a torrent of tears. "It'll help you feel good about yourself too."

Nahyuta gave him a small smile, looking relieved. "I'll consider it," he replied. "Maybe if you get all A marks on your next report card," he added.

Apollo snorted in amusement. "No way you're getting my report card, even if I do!" He said. "That sets a bad precedent for the future."

Dhurke wasn't coming back. He'd shipped them both off to America and had no intention of ever taking them back to Khura'in.

It was a hard pill to swallow, but it was a lot more difficult while all the kids at Sunflower were ushered away to evacuate because of a wildfire. The sky was black, and a layer of smoke caked the air. It made Apollo feel like he could taste it with every breath.

There were too many people and there wasn't a place for all of them to go. Hotels were full and everyone and their mother was L.A.. Apollo didn't know where the Terrans were, or if they had evacuated yet, and he didn't know where Nahyuta was. They ended up in separate cars and he thought he heard the older kids whispering about how there weren't enough places for the kids in Sunflower to stay so they might need to camp out in the sedan five kids had packed into. And that Sunflower might get burned to the ground by the time they got back. He didn't even know if Nahyuta had evacuated yet, or if he was still stuck at the Home.

If Dhurke was here, he would have made everything better. He would have come in like a vengeful water spirit and put the fires out himself. He would have whisked Apollo and Nahyuta away to their mountain shanty and kept them safe for the rest of their lives where they didn't need anyone else. Except Datz, and the other Dragons on occasion.

The family that invited Apollo's group into their home were nice. They had three bathrooms and let all the kids take a shower for as long as they wanted so Apollo did his damndest to get the smell of smoke out of his hair and the grime off his skin.

The whole drive there, Apollo was waiting for Dhurke to appear from the smoke and take him somewhere safe. Take him somewhere that was so far away from California, he wouldn't ever have to think about fires again and promise that he would keep him by his side until his mitamah left for the Twilight Realm, but it didn't happen. Apollo needed his dad to save him and make everything better, but it never happened.

Dhurke wasn't coming back.

No matter how much he planned, or fought for his revolution or what ever , he couldn't control the weather or any other kind of natural disaster, and he couldn't control where Apollo stayed until the Home was safe again. He couldn't plan for any of that and he knew it, but he didn't care and sent him away anyway.

Dhurke left Apollo in America and he didn't care what happened to him.

He left me, he left me, he left me—

Dhurke wasn't coming back for him. Him, or Nahyuta. If Nahyuta was still alive.

He probably was. He had to be.

"Boys don't cry," be damned; Apollo cried the whole night. He didn't care who heard him either. Whatever Dhurke said didn't matter anymore because he wasn't his dad in the first place and he'd left him in America and he wasn't going to come back. How could he possibly say he cared about him after leaving him in some foreign country? Did he not want to be a dad anymore?

God.

What was he supposed to do now?

I want to go home.

The next morning, one of the girls who Apollo drove with from Sunflower, tapped him on the shoulder. "I miss my dad too," she said, looking down at the floor awkwardly and holding her arm in her hand. "I'm sorry he's not around anymore."

Apollo could feel his face burn. "Thanks," he said stiffly. "What happened to your dad?" He asked.

"It was a car accident," she answered. "What about your dad?"

"He left."

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I was still waiting for him to come and pick me up before we evacuated, just like last time there were wildfires."

"Yeah. I was waiting for mine too."

She scrubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. "We should get to breakfast. I think it's almost ready."

When Apollo followed her downstairs, he was pulled aside by Ms. Holly. "Just so you know," she said, "I know that you have a brother at Sunflower, don't you?"

"Is he okay?" He asked immediately, feeling his pulse quicken.

"I think so." Her tone was measured and careful, trying to temper his expectations. "I'm trying to get in touch with Ms. Rector, because she knows where all of the kids are, but she's very busy," she emphasized, smiling thinly. "I'll let you know when I get in touch with her, but can you write your brother's name down for me? So I can try to find him?" She handed him a pen and notepad.

Apollo nodded, beginning to tear up again as he wrote down Nahyuta's name for her, crossing out the Khura'inese characters he started with out of muscle memory. He was blanking on how to spell it in English, but he hoped it was phonetically close enough.

"Do you have anyone you want to call?" She asked. "Mr. Shields can help you after breakfast if you need it."

"Okay. Thank you."

Dhurke left him and Nahyuta alone for strangers to do his job for him. To save a country that hated him.

Now Apollo hated him too. He hated him so much. He never wanted to see him again.

Maybe if he told himself that enough, he'd believe it.

Nahyuta had made it to a shelter, it turned out, and Ms. Rector wasn't able to get him on the phone, but he was safe to stay there until further notice. And that whenever they could, they would let him know that Apollo was safe too.

It was disappointing that he wouldn't be able to talk to him, but he would take what he could get. Two days later, they all slowly matriculated back to Sunflower. It had taken some damage, but not anything close to how bad it could have been. They got lucky, and the smoke was supposed to disperse soon. Ms. Rector told everyone to keep their fans on to keep it ventilated, so with any luck no one would suffocate to death.

Nahyuta had nearly knocked Apollo to the ground when they were back at Sunflower, then pulled back to poke and prod him like he was his mother, demanding to know if he was hurt, where he stayed, who he stayed with, and so on. Even though he'd been annoyed by it, he was glad to see him too and for the first time in a while, Apollo opted to sleep in Nahyuta's bed with him. He'd missed him, but he was the only family he had anymore, and he needed some kind of comfort; at least Nahyuta was someone he knew couldn't leave him if he wanted to. For as severe and annoyed Ms. Rector was, she cared, and so did Mr. and Mrs. Shields, and even Mrs. Dira, but Nahyuta wasn't going to go anywhere. No matter what happened, Apollo was going to be stuck with his brother. They even shared a last name.

"Love you, Yuty," he mumbled as he drifted off to sleep. His back pressed up against Nahyuta like this, on the floor because their corner of Sunflower had been too smoky to stay in, it was almost like they were back in Khura'in again. Just, instead of smelling the fresh, mountain air, it was the dusty and polluted sky of Los Angeles where Apollo couldn't see the stars and Nahyuta would develop asthma. He hoped that Clay could go to the mountains one day to see them for real. If not in Khura'in, then maybe somewhere far, far away. Like Canada.

"Don't call me that." Even half-asleep, he had enough in him to sound annoyed.

"Nahyuta." He said it with Clay's accent this time.

"Pepper pollo," he shot back. After a moment, he added, "I love you too. Go to sleep."

"G'night, Nahyuta."

"Good night."

Since starting eighth grade, Clay was spending more and more time at the Space Station, which was saying a lot since he already spent so much time there. Apollo would always follow him, but he liked it too. The people there were friendly, and they liked to help Apollo with his science homework. And only his science homework, but it was his most interesting subject anyway.

And a lot of them were international; it was nice to meet so many people from different places that weren't just Americans. He'd even met one person who was learning Khura'inese and Apollo had been eager to help him practice. The competition between the various space centers was exciting too. He felt like he was getting extra information from being on the inside all the time, even if Mr. Starbuck didn't care for it.

One day after school, Apollo stayed particularly late; Mr. Starbuck was doing some sort of interview about his time during the HAT-1 incident and Apollo and Clay were allowed to listen in if they were quiet. Mr. Terran gave Clay permission to stay late, promising that he would pick them up, but Apollo had realized on the drive back to Sunflower, he'd never gotten permission.

Ms. Rector wasn't waiting for him, but Nahyuta was. He was sitting on the bench outside the children's home with pigeons softly cooing around him while he tossed bird seed. It looked like he was aiming to hit them instead of trying to feed them.

Apollo was struck with guilt at the image, losing all the relief he'd felt before leave him. While he said good night to Clay and his dad, Nahyuta didn't look in his direction or even react to anything until Apollo walked over to him and cleared his throat. "I forgot to tell everybody I was going to be late," he started apologetically.

Nahyuta emptied the bag of bird seed in the grass, shaking it to get the crumbs out. "I told Ms. Rector that you were going to be late," he said flatly.

"Oh."

"So you're not in trouble with her. She just said that you need to tell her yourself next time."

Apollo swallowed and tried not to sound too relieved. "Thanks."

"Whatever."

"I'm sorry I worried you."

"You were making me think that I was stupid for thinking you were at the Space Center, it's so late now."

"You weren't stupid. Sorry," he repeated, gritting his teeth and twisting his bracelet around his wrist. "I forgot that I still needed to talk to everyone after Clay got permission. And since Mr. Terran was going to drive us both back, I—"

"I'm going to bed." He got off the bench, still not looking at him and slamming the door behind him.

Great.

The first true argument between Nahyuta and Apollo (the first of many, as luck would not have it) is when Apollo stayed out and forget to let him know again , but instead of helping him out again, Nahyuta had gone out of his way to tell Ms. Rector. As punishment, he won't be allowed to go out after school for the next week.

"Why would you tell her that?!" Apollo's face is red. "You know that I'd volunteered to help with the Cosmos fair!"

"She asked and I told her," he says coldly. "She would have been happy to let you stay out late if you had said something."

"I forgot!" He shouts. "Why is it such a big deal anyway? I came back, didn't I?!"

His volume puts Nahyuta on edge and he usually grits his teeth and bares it, but all things considered, he doesn't find himself in a particularly charitable mood today. "Stop shouting, you're hurting my ears."

"I can shout all I want! I'm so mad at you! I don't understand why you went out of your way to get me in trouble! I'm sorry I don't have a perfect memory like you do."

"She asked where you were and I answered her," he lies. "Can you blame her? It wasn't until almost midnight that you got back."

"Liar!" Apollo points a finger in his face. "Don't bullshit me!"

Nahyuta wonders if he will ever become a good enough liar that Apollo won't be able to immediately call him on it. So far, he has gotten damn good at it, except for Apollo.

"What was I supposed to do then?" He shoots back, hitting his hand away from his face. "Do you not care about how worried I was?!"

"Why were you worried? I told you that I was going to go to the Space Center because I was helping at an event!"

"You didn't say that you'd be so late."

"So? You aren't my mom, Nahyuta! I don't have to tell you anything!" He begins to pace around the room. His face is still red and if Nahyuta weren't so angry with him, he would back off.

Good, the spiteful side of him screams. He deserves to be upset. He doesn't even feel guilty about allowing himself to think about it. Maybe now Apollo will finally take this as an opportunity to do better.

Nahyuta scoffs and rolls his eyes at him, beginning to walk away. Their father would have never allowed them to act like that before, but if Apollo is going to be screaming and cursing at him, he should be allowed to be a little disrespectful.

"I hate you, Nahyuta!" Apollo shouts at him in English. "You ruin everything!"

"Is that what you've been learning from being around Clay so often?" Nahyuta spins on his heel to face him. "From him, and his alcoholic father?"

A satisfying expression takes over Apollo's face—shock mixed with absolute horror that Nahyuta knows about his best friend's dad. "How do you know that?"

"I can smell it whenever he's around. It's all over his breath and his clothes," he says smugly. "Putrid, vile man."

In response, Apollo snatches whatever was closest to him—a paperweight Nahyuta vaguely recognizes as one often on Ms. Rector's desk—and chucks it in the direction of Nahyuta's head. " Take it back! He's not an alcoholic and he's not putrid! He's better than Dhurke!"

Jerking out of the way, he watches it crack against the wall, leaving a crack in the drywall. Apollo should count himself lucky—it must have hit a stud instead of going all the way through.

"What is wrong with you?!" Nahyuta shouts at him. "Why would you do that? That would have hurt!"

Apollo's eyes are wide with disbelief at what he'd done, as though he hadn't been entirely aware of the fact he'd tried to throw a paperweight directly into Nahyuta's face.

"What the hell are you two doing in here?!" Mrs. Dira storms down the staircase, looking like she had just woken up and is extremely unhappy . She doesn't like either Nahyuta or Apollo as much nearly as much as Ms. Rector does, and tolerates much less.

"We—" Nahyuta starts, but she is already staring at the damaged drywall and the broken paperweight on the floor.

She marches up to Apollo and snatches his arm in her hand. "Come with me," she seethes through her teeth, as she leads him to the front door, slamming it behind them.

Suddenly, Nahyuta doesn't feel so good about getting Apollo in trouble. He would have been perfectly happy with Apollo being grounded, but he the intention had never been to get in trouble with Mrs. Dira for attempted assault or whatever it was she thought had happened.

Are they going to separate them now? Would Apollo have to go somewhere else for being disruptive? A few of the kids at Sunflower needed to go to specialized homes and it makes Nahyuta sick to his stomach at the idea that would happen to his baby brother.

Not knowing what else to do, Nahyuta sits down on the couch until Apollo is allowed back inside.

At some point, he'd fallen asleep and wakes to Apollo lightly shaking him. "Nahyuta?" He whispers.

"Hm?" He grunts as he stirs awake. "Apollo?"

"Let's go to bed," he says.

"Okay."

Nahyuta follows him up the stairs and creeps behind him, avoiding the slats of wood he knows to creak, to not wake the other kids as they get into their beds.

Before Nahyuta can climb into bed, Apollo grabs his hand. "I'm sorry I threw something at you."

"It's okay. I'm sorry too."

When Mrs. Dira had grabbed him by the arm to sit on the outside bench of the children's home, Apollo thought he was done for. He thought she was going to hit him, then send him off to another state, one of those weird ones in the Midwest like Missouri, which sounded a lot like the English word misery . Instead of shouting at him, she sat down next to him and sighed.

"Why did you throw that at Nahyuta?" She asked. She was one of the few people who had taken the time to learn how to say his name when they first arrived. She'd helped him and Apollo pick spellings for their names when they only knew how to write it out in Khura'inese. It was quite the shock when she turned out to be so strict.

"I'unno," Apollo mumbled, swinging his legs on the bench. He wished that he was able to reach the ground comfortably already. The dirt felt nice under his toenails, even if Nahyuta had started to scrub forever until he felt like he was clean enough.

"I can't understand you unless you speak clearly," Mrs. Dira scolded.

"I don't know," he enunciated, doing his best impression of Clay's accent.

"What did he do that made you so angry?" She asked instead.

"He told Ms. Rector that I was past curfew and it got me in trouble."

"So he was a narc?" She asked, humor in her tone.

Apollo looked up at her quizzically. "What's a narc?" He asked.

"It means that he's a tattletale."

"Tattletale?" He echoed.

She blinked in surprise, then explained, "It's what you call someone when they tell a grown-up you did something to get you in trouble. They're synonyms."

Apollo scowled down at the dirt. He didn't want to think about his English class.

"Do you know what that is?" She asked.

"It means two words are the same."

"That's right," she said. "It means that they have the same definition."

Apollo continued to dig his toes in the dirt. "Are you going to make me go to another home?" He asked.

"We've been talking about it, but not right now," she said.

The admission made Apollo want to start crying. He didn't see the value in begging not to go though. Adults would just do whatever they wanted, regardless of how he felt about it.

"I'm going to see if your therapist can help you with your outbursts though," she continued. "Ms. Rector doesn't want to separate you from Nahyuta and I know neither of you want that either."

"No," Apollo mumbled. She didn't know Khura'inese but she heard enough to know that it meant no.

"I'm glad," she said. "Then you have to really try to have better behavior."

"Okay."

"I'm going to have to write you up for trying to hit someone, but I can leave out how you threw and broke glass if you promise to clean it up."

Apollo nodded, sniffling.

"Is that a yes?"

"Mm-hm."

She ruffled his hair. "Good," she said. "Make sure to clean it up, and make sure that you use California's tax dollars well."

Apollo didn't know what California's tax dollars had to do with their deal, but he nodded in agreement anyway.

Apollo hated his therapy sessions. He liked his therapist—she tried really hard and never started to lecture, or coax him into talking about something that he didn't want to talk about. The problem was that it was hard for Apollo to explain himself in English.

Thanks to Clay and his friends, and even the other kids at Sunflower, he could keep up in group conversations and contribute most of the time, but when it came to trying to explain more complex thoughts and feelings, he could never think of the right words. He sounded so stupid in English sometimes, and he hated all the different idioms that Americans used that he didn't understand. Mr. Starbuck, it turned out, only knew the Midwestern, old person ones.

Nahyuta had been right; being lazy with learning English was biting him in the ass.

That was probably why he'd started learning how to speak it so well, since he wasn't lazy about it. He wasn't lazy about anything , and it felt like every single adult liked him too.

For all of seventh grade, Apollo studied with him and did every extra credit he could, but after all the work, he didn't get a single final grade higher than what Yuta scored. It wasn't his proudest moment, but after getting his report card, he'd screamed and threw the computer keyboard across the room.

Nahyuta had been angry about that one, and since Apollo couldn't bring himself to explain why he'd been so upset, his brother had gotten on his high milk crate or however the hell the saying went and lectured him like he was supposed to be his mom. He said all kinds of stupid, therapist speak which meant that he knew something about Apollo's sessions—which he'd been promised were confidential—and told him that he would tell Ms. Rector unless he explained himself. In response, he'd squeezed all of Yuta's hair dye on his pillow and thrown that against the wall too.

That got them both in trouble and they avoided each other for the next day and a half.

His therapist talked the whole thing through with him, and it made Apollo realize that he missed Nahyuta. It was strange to think since he saw him basically every day, but he was turning into someone unrecognizable. Dyeing his hair into a new color didn't help either; it was disconcerting when Apollo tried to picture what he used to look like before he started to color his hair, but he couldn't do it. It was like a demon had possessed him and was in his body instead of his mitamah . That thought was ironic too, since Nahyuta had started to recite Khura'inist banishing prayers whenever Apollo was acting out and Nahyuta was in a petty mood; essentially his default these days.

There was almost nothing left of the Nahyuta Apollo had played with in the mountains of Khura'in. It was almost fitting, since Apollo was doing all he could to scrub Khura'in and Dhurke from his identity, so the death of the shy and soft-spoken Nahyuta from childhood was a natural next step. He didn't look like his brother anymore and he didn't act like it either. Gentle Nahyuta Sahdmadhi was dead and an embittered and haughty Nahyuta Justice had taken his place.

It put a pit of melancholy in his stomach and made him feel horribly homesick. His therapist told him that he was allowed to be sad, but it felt like a part of him was dying and would be gone in less than a year.

When Apollo cried himself to sleep, he didn't know what he was upset over. Maybe it was because he'd worked his ass off and still failed to meet his goals, or maybe it was because his last explicit connection to Khura'in was being severed. Maybe it was because Ms. Rector found out about the keyboard and was forcing him to pay it off by staying late after dinner to help clean up for the next month.

"Apollo?"

He felt someone lightly touch his shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

Nahyuta was the last person Apollo wanted to talk to him right now.

"Go away, Yuta."

"Are you hurt?" He pressed.

"No."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

A sigh. "Whatever you say."

"I love you, Nahyuta," he said before he could leave. Nahyuta would definitely know that he was crying now from his voice alone, but he didn't care. He was probably going to be thinking it in the morning either way.

He could tell that his words caught him off guard, even without being able to see him. "I love you too," he replied, without a beat. Apollo knew he wasn't lying and it made him feel better. "I'm sorry for yelling at you today."

Apollo swallowed. Instead of accepting his apology, he said, "I miss it when we were little."

"Me too."

Apollo swallowed. "You promised you're not going anywhere?"

"I'm not," he reaffirmed.

"Even when we fight?"

He made a noise of amusement. "Mhm."

"Don't forget you promised."

"I'm better at keeping promises than Dhurke is."

Apollo sniffled and he made a noise somewhere between laughter and more crying. "Good."

Without another word, Nahyuta nudged him aside and climbed into bed next to him, their backs pressed together, like they used to. "Good night," he whispered in English. He smelled a little bit like the herbs and incense from back home and it felt like a warm blanket over his senses.

"Good night."

Apollo and Nahyuta Justice slept.