CHAPTER SIX

VESPER

I didn't like being healed by a medtable. It was awkward and uncomfortable and a giant hassle to just lie there, trying to be still, while dozens of tiny robotic needles stabbed into my body and stitched everything back together. Plus, this particular table was equipped with a smug feminine voice that seemed to enjoy trapping me in a plastic bubble like a mammoth butterfly and then cheerfully listing my many injuries.

"Severe burns detected, along with a deep puncture wound and significant nerve damage. More skinbonds needed . . ."

But the one good thing about the medtable was its truly excellent and extremely effective drugs. It injected me with skinbonds, antibiotics, and other medicines, including some anesthesia that sent me straight to dreamland—or at least, my version of it.

One moment, I was lying on the medtable, staring up at Kyrion's worried face, and trying not to let him sense just how much my injured arm was hurting. The next, I was standing in a long corridor in an old-fashioned castle—Castle Caldaren, Kyrion's home on Corios.

Relief rushed through me, along with another round of cool, soothing chemicals. I had been dreaming about Kyrion's castle ever since I was a child, long before I had ever met him or set foot in the real-world Castle Caldaren. Despite all my visits, I always found something new to admire, from the crystal chandeliers sparkling overhead, to the elegant tables and chairs made of real wood, to the dark blue rugs underfoot that featured silver arrows and stars stitched in beautiful paisley patterns.

A grandfather clock bellowed out the hour like a stodgy butler. I ran my fingers along the wooden case, and the bellowing faded away, replaced by a steady, easy tick-tick-ticking that pleased my engineer's heart. A few months ago, the clock hadn't worked, but I had used my seer magic to repair it, the way I did so many broken things.

Too bad I could never seem to fix myself, especially when it came to my magic.

My mood soured, and I dropped my fingers from the clock and trudged onward.

Despite the beautiful furnishings, the castle seemed frozen in time, as though it was holding its breath and waiting for Kyrion to return home. Right now, our plan was to stay on Sygnustern until we figured out how to defeat Callus Holloway, but I had no idea how long that might take.

Holloway controlled the full weight, strength, and resources of the Imperium, including the support, however reluctant, of the Regals, along with the Imperium soldiers and his own personal Bronze Hand guards. Plus, he was an extremely powerful siphon who could absorb energy from a variety of sources, including blasters and other weapons.

Kyrion and I needed our own weapon to defeat Holloway—like the Techwave cannon, which could cut through a psion's magic and body in brutal, horrific fashion. I was hoping that if I fixed the cannon, it might be powerful enough to nullify Holloway's siphon ability and let Kyrion and me finally kill him.

I entered the library, my favorite room in the castle, and trailed my fingers over the spines of the real paper books that lined the shelves. Despite all the years I had been dreaming about the castle, I had never been able to read the books' titles until Kyrion and I had accepted our truebond. My gaze skimmed over the gold, silver, and copper foil words stamped on the spines. Kyrion had eclectic tastes, although the books leaned toward the action-packed and fantastical—fairy tales, stories about clever animals, even one about a talking sword.

Smiling, I moved over to a silver-framed portrait hanging above the fireplace. On the canvas, a man with black hair and eyes and tan skin beamed at a woman with blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. Chauncey and Desdemona Caldaren, Kyrion's parents. A young Kyrion was also featured in the family portrait, glaring sourly at the artist while his parents rested their hands on his shoulders.

I stared up at the painting, waiting for what I knew was coming next. After a few seconds, an eerie, invisible force swirled through the air, like a ghost ruffling my hair. In the portrait, Desdemona's head swiveled to the front, and she peered down at me.

Just like with the book titles, I had never been able to see the faces in the painting until I had met Kyrion. But now, every time I came in here, Desdemona turned her head and stared at me. When it first happened, I had screamed and jumped like a kitten scared of its own shadow, but now the Regal lady's movements were yet another puzzle I needed to solve.

"Where do I know you from?" I asked. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Desdemona Caldaren was one of the most famous people in the Archipelago Galaxy, and countless gossipcasts had covered her fairy-tale romance, wedding, and marriage to Chauncey Caldaren. But over the last few weeks, I'd had the growing, nagging sense I actually knew Desdemona, that I had seen or met or even spoken to her once upon a time, although I couldn't remember when or where or why. Something that greatly confused me, since I was a seer who supposedly never forgot anything I saw, heard, or experienced.

A secretive smile slowly curved Desdemona's lips. I waited for the better part of a minute, but the Regal lady didn't do anything else, so I moved away from the portrait.

At my approach, a door appeared along the wall and swung open, revealing a tight, narrow staircase. I went down the spiral steps, skimming my fingers over the sigils carved into the dark stone banister.

The sigils were something else I had never been able to make out until I had accepted my bond with Kyrion. Some were butterflies with flapping wings that stirred the air, while others were stormswords that shimmered, sparked, and crackled with cold, heat, and even small bursts of lightning. But many of the sigils were still indecipherable, as were the whispers they emitted, as though I was walking through a group of invisible people murmuring secrets I couldn't quite hear.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the large round room that was the foundation of my mindscape, the place deep inside my mind, heart, and body where my seer magic resided. According to the books I'd read on psionic theory, each mindscape was unique to its seer and reflected something about their personality, powers, and experiences. I had been coming here since I was seven years old, but even now, thirty years later, I was still trying to figure out what my mindscape said about me.

Thick black vines snaked along the floor and climbed up the wall, while pale blue flowers scented the air with a sharp but sweet aroma that reminded me of the spearmint candy sticks I had loved as a child. According to Kyrion, the flowers were blue-moon peonies, which also bloomed in his mother's garden at Castle Caldaren. The flowers were another odd, unexpected connection between Desdemona and me, although I didn't know what, if anything, they meant.

The vines and peonies draped over arched doors set into the wall. The doors were different shapes and sizes, some tall and wide, others short and narrow. Some of the doors were closed and locked, and I had no idea what lay behind them, but several were open, and images flickered on the other side, like videos playing on a holoscreen.

All the memories of everything I had seen, done, and experienced in my life—good, bad, and undeniably ugly.

In the smallest door, which was just large enough for a child to walk through, a woman with pale skin, long dark brown hair, and dark blue eyes glared at another woman who could have been her twin. My mother, Nerezza, and her cousin, Liesl, facing off the day the Imperium academy instructors had told my mother that my seer magic was too weak to waste time training me to properly use it.

The memory played out just as it had in real life, and Nerezza's sharp voice boomed out of the door.

I should be back on Corios. I should be part of the Regals, not rotting away on a useless planet trapped in a useless life with an utterly useless child.

Even though this had taken place thirty years ago, I still flinched. No matter how much time passed, my magic never let me forget my mother's deep disdain and casual cruelty, and this memory was always lurking in here, ready to wound me again.

Sometimes I really hated being a seer.

In the doorway, Nerezza stormed away. Liesl looked up at the stairs where I was hiding, opened her mouth, and stretched out a hand as if to comfort me, but the seven-year-old version of me clutched a book and ran away crying.

The memory rewound and started playing again. I rubbed my chest, trying to massage the dull ache out of my heart. Reliving that moment was bad enough, but the worst parts were the witnesses to my misery. I wasn't alone in my mindscape. Not really.

Not while the eyes followed my every movement.

Dozens and dozens of wide, open, unblinking eyes stared at me from the doors, the walls, and even the low ceiling. Many of the jeweled eyes seemed to be a dull, flat black, but a closer look revealed their true, deep blue color. The eyes were all made of sapphsidian, and sparkling black flecks swirled through their blue depths, like comets constantly spinning around and around deep inside the winking facets.

I plucked my stormsword off my belt, carefully gripped the lunarium blade, and held the weapon up to one of the eyes. The three sapphsidian jewels embedded in the silver hilt were a perfect match to the eyes in my mindscape, although I didn't know how they all might be connected. I excelled at figuring things out, but these days, I had far more questions than answers, especially when it came to my seer magic.

How was I supposed to help Kyrion when I couldn't even master my own magic? Much less how my power worked with his and how they worked together as part of the truebond.

I sighed, slid my sword back onto my belt, and moved on. Near the back of the room, I stopped in front of a door that featured a large stylized Z made of alternating pieces of sapphsidian and blue opals that sparkled with inner rings of fiery color. Even in my mindscape, I couldn't escape the cursed sigil for House Zimmer—or my brother.

A few weeks ago, I had been in my workshop on the Dream World watching Zane give a press conference about the summer solstice attack, when I'd fallen asleep and entered my mindscape. This door had appeared and flung itself open, showing a cozy, cluttered tower. I'd been so curious that I'd done something I'd never tried before: I'd walked through the door and ended up in Zane's library in Castle Zimmer on Corios.

Even stranger was the fact that Zane had actually been able to see me, as though I was really there and standing right in front of him, and we'd had a tense conversation about Beatrice, his grandmother, hiding my existence from Zane and his father, Wendell.

Astral projection, Zane had dubbed this new ability. He'd speculated that either my magic was growing or Kyrion's power was pushing mine to new heights. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way, it was yet another frustrating question with no obvious answer.

Ever since, I'd been replaying our threat-filled talk in my mind, parsing Zane's words and analyzing every quirk of his lips and arch of his eyebrows. Despite my anger and disgust, I still wanted to know what Zane truly thought about me, beneath all his Regal bluster and Arrow bravado, and I couldn't stop a sliver of my heart from longing— hoping —that he might view me as his real sister someday, and not just a grave mistake by his father.

My fingers twitched, and my hand crept toward the knob. I considered opening Zane's door and trying to spy on him, but dread washed over me, and my arm dropped to my side. I had no desire to see Zane talking about how I would never be a part of his family.

Zane wasn't even my brother, not really, not in any way that truly mattered , but I was still afraid he was going to hurt me just as badly as Nerezza had.

I was such a paranoid, broken fool.

I shook off my troubled thoughts and moved over to a door on the opposite side of the room. This door also featured a familiar symbol: an arrow streaking upward through a cluster of stars.

I traced my fingers over the House Caldaren sigil. The sapphsidian arrow was shaped like a spade from an old-fashioned tarot or playing card, and it was as cold as ice, but the sensation wasn't an unpleasant one. I liked Kyrion having a door in my mindscape, liked this connection to him, even if I still didn't understand much about our abilities.

Kyrion said that everything about the bond felt easier now. That he could sense my thoughts, feelings, and magic much more readily and deeply than before and that my seer ability even showed him things from time to time.

In some ways, I felt that same connection. Kyrion's thoughts and feelings were much easier to sense now. Most of the time, we had no problems communicating telepathically, but I still couldn't use his other psion powers, especially his telekinesis, with any regularity. I also couldn't form a psionic blade, a weapon made of pure mental energy, on a consistent basis like Kyrion could. And neither one of us had been able to replicate the incredible lightning storm of psionic power we'd unleashed when we'd first accepted the truebond and decimated the Crownpoint throne room.

Oh, yes, a few things had gotten easier, but all the big, important things—the abilities that would actually help and protect us—had gotten much more difficult, and I had no idea why.

Frustration spiked through my body, and I stalked away from Kyrion's door and moved over to the final door in the very back of the room. The Door, as I always thought of it. My door, the one that led into the true, hidden heart of my seer magic.

Beautiful carvings of crescent moons and stars swirled across the stone, but the centerpiece was a large upside-down sapphsidian eye that sparkled just a bit more brightly than all the other jewels. I waved my hand, and the sapphsidian eye turned right side up. A lock clicked, and the door opened. Unlike the other doors with their endless loops of memories, wisps of blackness spilled out of this opening, curling up like fingers beckoning me closer, and I strode forward.

Over the last few months, I had thoroughly embraced my own inner darkness, along with all the cold, cruel, calculating things I'd done to survive. Like exposing Rowena Kent's scheme to crash Imperium ships on command for the Techwave. Fighting and killing Julieta Delano, the traitorous Arrow who'd been working with Rowena. Tricking and then killing some soldiers so I could escape from the Techwave facility where Harkin Ocnus was torturing me. Then, later on, shoving my stormsword into Harkin's chest. Battling the Imperium soldiers and Bronze Hand guards who'd tried to keep me away from Kyrion during the midnight ball.

Sometimes I couldn't believe how drastically my life had changed. I'd gone from being a lowly lab rat toiling away in obscurity, to a Regal lady and the head of a corporation, to an infamous fugitive. I didn't know what the future held, but maybe I could get a glimpse of it here in my own inner darkness.

I plunged deeper and deeper into my mindscape. The blackness was so thick and absolute that I couldn't see anything, not even my hand in front of my face, and the only sound was the soft scrape of my boots on the stone. Slowly, in the distance, the darkness receded, and rays of light bloomed like a flower unfurling its petals one by one.

More time passed. It might have been a few seconds, it might have been a few minutes. But from one moment to the next, I stepped from the absolute blackness into a pool of silver light, as though I had been transported into the middle of a Frozon moon.

The light illuminated a slab of stone that resembled an altar, and the entire thing was shaped like an oversize eye, just like the jewels out in the main part of my mindscape. The top of the altar was made of sapphsidian, but instead of being static, the stone rippled like a deep, dark blue lake. Lunarium eyes were also embedded in the stone, staring up at me like silver stars.

Down below, the altar's curving sapphsidian legs were mounted on sturdy pieces of lunarium shaped like arrows, and lunarium arrows also glimmered in the sapphsidian lake like sparkling treasure just waiting to be brought to the surface. Despite the disparate parts, the pieces of stones flowed seamlessly into each other, as though each bit was intricately connected to the next, and they were all an integral, inextricable part of one another, and the whole.

The eye-shaped altar was a psionic nexus, a visual representation of a psion's power, the place deep inside them where their magic, abilities, and instincts resided. I'd first stumbled across my nexus a few weeks ago, when I'd been trapped at Crownpoint Palace and was recovering from Holloway draining off my magic. Kyrion had also found me here when I was more dead than alive from sucking all the air out of the cargo bay on the Dream World in order to kill Adria Byrne.

According to Kyrion, I had been lying on the altar like a mermaid floating on an ocean wave, although I didn't remember that or him picking me up, returning to the main part of my mindscape, and carrying me through his door and back out into the real world. One moment, I had been drifting along in a peaceful black void. The next, I'd heard Kyrion calling my name, demanding I come back to him. I'd drawn in a breath to tell him I was trying, and I'd woken up on the medtable, with Kyrion cradling me in his arms.

I smoothed my hand over the nexus. The sapphsidian rippled a little more vigorously, causing the lunarium eyes and arrows to bob up and down like shimmering water lilies. The nexus was cool to the touch, although I could have sworn a bit of heat was lurking in the dark depths.

My fingers sank a little deeper into the stone, and I held my breath, wondering if I might finally unlock the nexus's secrets . . . but nothing happened.

No flares of magic, no sparks of power, nothing.

I'd come to my psionic nexus several times, trying to figure out how it worked, but the slab of stone never did anything. It just stood here, in the darkness of my heart, like a glowing beacon I couldn't quite understand or access.

I swallowed an angry snarl and kept trying, but nothing happened, and my frustration built and built with every soft slide of my hand across the stone. Nothing was going right today, especially when it came to my magic.

My frustration boiled up, and my fingers itched with the urge to throw something. I didn't even really think about what I was doing. I just reached down, plucked one of the lunarium eyes out of the sapphsidian surface, and hurled it away as hard as I could.

As soon as the eye left my fingertips, I clasped my hands over my mouth in horror. I grimaced, waiting for the telltale tink of the eye hitting the stone somewhere in the darkness, but everything remained quiet. Weird. Then again, everything was a bit weird in here. What did that say about me and my magic?

A bright flare of silver appeared in the distance, streaking toward me like a shooting star. I ducked, and the lunarium eye whistled past my head before arcing back around like a boomerang. I ducked again—

The lunarium eye stopped in midair and dropped back down into the nexus like a stone plummeting into a lake.

Plop.

Eyes wide, I peered at the altar. Had I just broken my own mindscape? An annoyed huff tumbled from my lips. Well, wouldn't that just be the cherry on this shitshow sundae of a day.

Ripples spread across the surface of the stone, and the lunarium eye bobbed back up to the surface of the sapphsidian. After a few seconds, it settled back down into place, floating alongside the other eyes and arrows.

I exhaled, but my relief boiled away in the simmering stew of my frustration. I could look at a faulty brewmaker, a misfiring blaster, or a malfunctioning spaceship and know how to fix it in minutes, sometimes even seconds. So why couldn't I figure out my own magic? What was wrong with me?

I stared down at the rippling sapphsidian, my reflection weak, watery, and wavering, just like my seer magic. More frustration scorched through my body, and I whirled around and stormed away. The silver light around the nexus abruptly vanished, like a moon that had been eclipsed by a sun, but I kept going, trudging through the darkness.

A minute passed, maybe two or five or even ten. I could never tell how long I had been in here or how much time had passed out in the real world. I was probably still lying on the medtable, but right now, I yearned to wake up, no matter how painful the robotic needles stitching my arm together might be.

Finally, I stepped out of the darkness and back into the round room of my mindscape. I stopped and looked at all the vines, flowers, and eyes, but just like the nexus, none of them did anything—

A door to my left threw itself open and banged against the wall.

Esmina's snide voice drifted out of the opening. You're the weak link, destined to be broken.

"Yeah, tell me about it," I muttered, even though it was just a memory.

As if my words were a command, the memory rewound and started playing again, stuck on that one sound bite like an old-fashioned record skipping on the same spot again and again.

You're the weak link, destined to be broken . . .

A growl erupted from my throat, and I stomped toward the spiral stairs. I had never tried to leave my mindscape before, but everything in here reminded me what a failure I was. Even worse, Esmina's mocking declaration from earlier today mixed with Nerezza's sneering insult from long ago, creating a cackling chorus of derision.

You're the weak link . . . useless child . . . destined to be broken . . . useless child . . .

I ground my teeth and walked faster.

In the distance, a loud chime sounded. The voices cut off, and the images in the doorways flickered and faded away.

"Treatment complete. Injuries healed. Life saved," the smug feminine voice of the medtable rang out.

Startled, I blinked and left my mindscape. My eyes snapped open, and I found myself staring up at the medtable's polyplastic bubble.

The table chirped out a few facts about how much of my skin it had repaired and replaced, as if it was giving itself a verbal pat on the back for a job well done. Then the plastic detached itself from one side of the medtable, arched up, and vanished back into its hiding spot.

I slowly sat up, swung my legs over the side of the table, and examined my right arm. No traces of the ugly blaster burn and deep puncture wound remained, and my skin was pink and smooth, as though I had just sloughed it clean with a fancy spa scrub.

My body might be whole again, but my head and heart were still pounding with anger and frustration, and Esmina's and Nerezza's snide voices echoed in my ears.

Even worse was the knowledge that they were right. Until I figured out what my psionic nexus did or meant or how to fully use my seer magic, I was the weak link, destined to be broken—and in danger of dragging Kyrion down with me.

S till haunted by my turbulent thoughts, I went into the bathroom and took a hot shower to wash away the blood, sweat, and dirt of the fight with the bounty hunters. Then I changed into some clean clothes and went in search of Kyrion.

He was in the library, glaring down at the holoscreen embedded in the table like he wanted to smash it to pieces with his fists.

"What happened? Did the local gossipcasters realize we were on Tropics 44?"

"No, nothing like that." Kyrion sighed and raised his gaze to mine. "Zane contacted me."

Shock swept over me in a cold, numbing wave. "When? How? Why?"

"While you were getting healed. He used a private channel that was part of an old Arrow mission." Kyrion hesitated. "I recorded our conversation. You can watch it—if you want."

More of that cold, numb shock swept over me, even as my heart hammered in a quick, painful rhythm. I jerked my head in agreement. Kyrion hit a few keys, and Zane popped into view.

I watched my brother carefully, cataloging and analyzing his every word, breath, twitch, and gesture, but Kyrion's conversation was similar to the one I'd had with Zane in his tower library a few weeks ago, and I didn't glean any new information from his taunts.

Kyrion waved his hand, cutting off the recording. His shoulders were tense, and the sticky cobweb in my mind pulsed with anger, worry, and more than a little dread.

"Don't pay any attention to Zane," I said. "He's all bluster and bravado. We've heard all his threats before, and no doubt we'll hear them all again—and again and again, thanks to the gossipcasts. Sometimes I think he's the only reason they have enough ratings to stay in business. They might as well rename Celestial Stars the Zane Zimmer Adoration Channel ."

Kyrion smiled a little at my dark humor, but the expression quickly vanished. "Zane is right about one thing. We can't run forever. Sooner or later, someone is going to get the drop on us. And when that happens, I'm afraid . . ."

He paused and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was much lower and rougher than before. "I'm afraid I won't be able to protect you and that you'll get hurt again—or worse, end up in Holloway's clutches."

The grim, haunted look in his eyes made my own heart crack in commiseration. I stepped forward and rested my hands on his shoulders. "Neither one of us is going to end up in Holloway's clutches. We're going to protect each other, just like we've been doing. Don't give Zane another thought."

"He's always been able to get under my skin, ever since we were children."

"I thought I was the only one who got under your skin," I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

The anger in Kyrion's eyes flared up into something hotter and more intense. His hands settled on my waist, and he pulled me closer so that my body was flush against his. Then he leaned down, his breath skimming against my ear.

"If you want to get under me, all you have to do is ask," he murmured.

I hummed my agreement and wrapped my arms around his neck. Kyrion lifted his head, his eyes burning like blue suns. He lowered his face toward mine. I hummed again and stood up on my tiptoes to meet him halfway—

A chime sounded. Kyrion and I both froze, our lips inches apart. I tensed, then looked over at the flashing holoscreen. "Do you think Zane is calling again?"

Kyrion let out a regretful sigh and dropped his hands from my waist. "If he is, he won't give up until we answer."

He moved over to the holoscreen and started tapping buttons. After a few seconds, his shoulders relaxed. "Not Zane. Daichi and Tivona."

Kyrion entered several long codes to access the private group channel. The holoscreen flickered a few times, processing the information, then two people popped into view.

The first was a man with short black hair, dark brown eyes, and golden skin who was wearing a House Caldaren uniform, just like Kyrion and me. The second was a woman with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and ebony skin who was clad in a sleek gold business suit.

Daichi Hirano arched an eyebrow at us. "The two of you have certainly been busy."

"Oh, yes," Tivona Winslow chimed in. "The story just got picked up by the Regal gossipcasts. Multiple dead bodies found in a junkyard on Tropics 44. No one knows who killed the bounty hunters or why, but even without the battle footage from Vesper's jacket, Daichi and I knew right away it was the handiwork of Team Truebond."

Despite her light, teasing tone, I grimaced. I'd only taken down Rina, and only with a lucky blow. Kyrion had killed most of the bounty hunters, and if not for him, I would be a prisoner. Not much of a team effort on my part.

"They were trying to get Vesper onto a ship," Kyrion replied.

Daichi's eyebrow arched a little higher. "And you stopped them the way you stop everyone—permanently."

Kyrion shrugged. "Once an Arrow, always an Arrow."

Daichi snorted, but it sounded suspiciously like a laugh, and Kyrion's lips twitched up into an answering grin.

I gestured over at my ruined jacket, which was lying on the table. "What about Esmina and Pollux? Did you find any info on them?"

Daichi nodded and hit a few buttons. Several documents popped up and floated over the holoscreen, along with some photos.

"Meet Esmina Reston and Pollux Lamont. I haven't found out much about their personal lives yet, but the two of them have made quite a name for themselves as corporate mercenaries."

"Corporate mercenaries? Fuck," Kyrion muttered.

My thought exactly.

Almost every large corporation employed its own private army of mercenaries—skilled fighters who provided security and executed missions to increase a corporation's resources, power, wealth, and influence. In some ways, these corporations were even more dangerous than the Imperium, Erzton, and Techwave. Those groups had rules, structures, and leadership that provided some semblance of checks and balances, but a corporation was an entity unto itself and usually controlled by a handful of people who would do anything to achieve their goals.

A few months ago, Rowena Kent had sent some of her corporate mercenaries to capture me. The mercenaries had forcibly boarded this very blitzer and shot me with a blaster before Kyrion and I had killed them. I rubbed a spot above my left hip, which ached at the memory.

When I'd taken over Kent Corp and rebranded it as Quill Corp, I'd discovered just how many mercenaries Rowena had employed. Given the regime change, most of the mercenaries had left, but I'd kept several on staff, although I didn't trust or use them in any capacity. I'd been so busy dealing with the day-to-day running of the R&D lab and the production plants that I hadn't had a chance to figure out what to do with my own personal goon squad. Although now I supposed they were Tivona's goon squad, since she was running Quill Corp in my absence.

Daichi hit some more buttons, and a couple of dossiers popped up. "Esmina and Pollux aren't your typical mercs who float from one job to another. They have their own corporation—Serpens Corp—which specializes in high-risk operations. Assassinations, kidnappings, prisoner exchanges, even hostile takeovers of other corporations. They have an extremely high success rate and are extremely well compensated for their time, skills, and expertise."

He paused. "These are the kinds of people you hire when money is no object, and you don't care how big or bloody a mess they leave behind."

Kyrion muttered another curse. "Of course they are."

I thought of the way Esmina had strolled away from the battle, easily dodging one blaster bolt after another, even though her back was turned and she couldn't see the deadly streaks of electricity zipping in her direction. "Not much risk if you know how things are going to play out."

"What do you mean?" Tivona asked.

I called up the battle footage and pointed out all the times Esmina had known something was going to happen seconds before it actually occurred.

Tivona frowned. "What kind of psion power would let you do that?"

I stared at a photo of Esmina, studying the gold flecks glinting in her green eyes. "She's a seer."

"How do you know?" Kyrion asked.

I hesitated. I wasn't sure how I knew, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I could feel the truth of them, and I could have sworn a soft chime of confirmation rang through my mind.

"I just . . . have a feeling that's what she is." I shook my head. "Although I've never heard of a seer having enough magic to predict the future so quickly and accurately. She was adjusting to how the battle was playing out in real time seconds before everyone else was."

Daichi nodded. "Esmina being a seer does seem to be the most logical conclusion. Perhaps if I had more information, I would have been able to learn more about her abilities."

I huffed at the chiding note in his voice. "Sorry. The next time I'm stuck between two powerful psions threatening a bunch of bounty hunters, I'll politely interrupt the hostilities and ask everyone to give me their full names, along with their birth planets, star signs, and favorite colors."

Daichi huffed right back at me.

"Any updates on Holloway?" Kyrion asked.

"Holloway is holed up in the palace like usual," Daichi replied. "Although Zane hasn't given a gossipcast interview in almost three days, even though reporters are camped out in Promenade Park, right across the Boulevard from Castle Zimmer."

He tapped on his holoscreen, and new images appeared, showing a lush green park and a wide cobblestone thoroughfare lined with colorful, quirky castles. The most powerful Regal families all had homes along the Boulevard.

Castle Zimmer was made of a pale blue stone streaked with jagged forks of midnight blue. My gaze locked onto the tower that housed Zane's library. My stomach clenched with a familiar nauseating combination of anger and dread. Would I ever get used to hearing about my long-lost family? Or was I destined to suffer every time someone uttered the Zimmer name?

Kyrion snorted. "The lack of attention must be killing Zane. Perhaps that's why he called me earlier."

Daichi's dark gaze sharpened. "You spoke to Zane?"

Kyrion nodded, hit some buttons, and played his conversation with Zane.

When the recording finished, Daichi shook his head. "Zane is definitely up to something. I'll see if I can find out where he is."

I had no desire to talk about Zane anymore, so I looked at Tivona. "How are things at Quill Corp?" I asked, unable to keep a wistful note from creeping into my voice.

Tivona winked at me. "Everything is running smoothly, thanks to your chief operating officer."

I winked back at her. "I have no doubt of that."

After I had seized control of the corporation, my first order of business had been to install Tivona as my chief operating officer. Tivona was a skilled negotiator who was an expert at legal strategy, public relations, and the hundreds of other details that went into running a Regal corporation. She handled the business side of things, while I ran the R&D lab, working alongside the other lab rats to improve old Kent Corp products and create new cutting-edge designs.

Tivona typed on her holoscreen, and several reports popped up and hovered over the table. "Sales of your new brewmaker have tripled since the midnight ball. Your newfound notoriety has been great for business, and I've been diverting half the funds into your anonymous accounts, as requested."

A sharp finger of annoyance poked into my chest. The influx of credits had proven useful while Kyrion and I were on the run, but I wanted people to buy my brewmaker because it was the best beverage and food fabricator on the market, not because my face was plastered all over the gossipcasts.

"Are the Imperium investigators still giving you problems?" I asked.

After Kyrion and I had fled from Corios, Holloway had dispatched a squad of Imperium investigators, along with several Arrows, to Quill Corp headquarters on Temperate 42. Tivona had played her part to perfection, claiming she didn't know about my truebond with Kyrion, and she'd managed to keep Holloway from seizing control of Quill Corp. I would be forever grateful to my friend for that.

Tivona shrugged. "I haven't heard a peep from the Imperium investigators in weeks. They're too busy dealing with the summer solstice attack at Castle Rojillo to bother with Quill Corp right now."

Relief rushed through me. At least my fugitive status wasn't causing her any more headaches. "Have you learned anything new about Jorge Rojillo's temperature-shielding technology?"

Tivona shook her head, making her gold star chandelier earrings tinkle together like tiny wind chimes. "No. I gave the schematics to Bodie and a few of the other trusted R&D workers, but to them, it's just a personal device, an old-fashioned wristwatch to manage the temperature. The climate-control tech is an improvement over previous iterations—smaller, faster, more powerful—but none of the Quill Corp lab rats has any idea why the Techwave wanted it so badly."

I drummed my fingers on the table. "Tell Bodie and the others to keep working on it."

Tivona nodded. "What about the Techwave cannon? Have you figured out the right amount of sapphsidian and lunarium to make it work properly?"

My gaze darted over to the cannon, which was lying on the table beside my ruined jacket and some plastipaper schematics of the temperature-shielding technology. The silver barrel was sleek, shiny, and intact, but the once-clear solar magazine was now black and brittle. Despite my latest tweaks, the magazine had still overheated and fried itself after Kyrion fired the weapon a few times.

"No. I've run several simulations, but I need some actual sapphsidian to test my theories. More lunarium and solar wiring too."

Frustration surged through me. If I'd had access to all the materials and equipment in the Quill Corp R&D lab, I might already have the answer, but I couldn't return to my lab until Callus Holloway was dead and Kyrion and I had eliminated the bounty on us. Losing my work, my happy place, was something else the Imperium ruler had taken from me and yet another reason I wanted to destroy him.

My frustration vanished, replaced by more wistful longing. I didn't just miss the R&D lab—I missed how I felt in the lab. Strong, smart, confident, capable. Like all I had to do was work long and hard enough, and I could puzzle out the answer to any problem.

"Don't worry, Vesper. You'll figure it out," Tivona said. "I have faith in you."

"Me too," Daichi chimed in.

"Me three," Kyrion murmured, placing his hand on mine and squeezing my fingers.

Warm pride surged off him, along with steady, unwavering belief, but for once, the sensations didn't comfort me, and I had to force myself to smile at him.

Kyrion squeezed my fingers again, then he, Daichi, and Tivona started talking about other things. My gaze strayed back to the Techwave cannon, and the charred solar magazine stared at me like a black hole slowly soaking up all my confidence.

Kyrion excelled at being a warrior, and he knew exactly what he was capable of—good, bad, and deadly. Well, figuring things out was my area of expertise, and sometimes it felt like the only way I could contribute to Team Truebond. But right now, I was hitting one dead end after another.

But the worst thing was this snide little voice in the back of my mind that chided me for not figuring things out long ago. And try as I might to ignore it, this nagging feeling and odd stirring of my magic kept whispering that if I didn't start coming up with answers soon, then Kyrion and my friends would pay a terrible price for my failures.