“They were trying to make it in the mage sport leagues before the war,” Astrea said, racking her mind for what else she had to share. “Oh, and I knocked Adi on his ass a few times during training.”

  Eliana snorted again. “Now that I would pay a thousand lire to see.”

  “Is there anything else I need to know tonight?” Astrea asked.

  “Nothing we can’t figure out tomorrow,” Cressida said. “I think I’ve done you proud. I’m really learning my way around that card catalog in the library.”

  “Hey, I’m learning it, too!” Eliana protested.

  “I’m very proud.” Eliana had rarely visited the Great Library back home, and Raela—Astrea’s old boss—had never let Cressida touch the catalog since she wasn’t a librarian.

  As Eliana and Cressida started filling her in on palace happenings for the last month, Astrea closed her eyes and leaned back into the fluffy pillows. Cressida lay down on her right, Eliana on the left. And it was there, cocooned between her friends and their happy chatter, that Astrea finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 11

  As she cracked her eyes open, Astrea couldn’t remember when Jin had joined her in bed. She couldn’t remember Eliana or Cressida leaving. But there she was, not in the muddy, travel-worn clothes but one of Jin’s clean shirts, his arms wrapped around her from behind. There was even a small, warm light coming from the far corner of the room.

  Her nightlight. He’d set up another nightlight for her.

  “Hi,” Jin whispered as she stirred.

  “Did you sleep?”

  “Yeah, only woke up a few minutes ago. We need to get ready to go soon.”

  “Sure.” Astrea snuggled down into the pillows. And she would crawl out of bed in a couple more minutes, but for now, she pressed back into Jin’s heat and sighed, content.

  “Did you sleep?” he asked, his breath tickling her cheek.

  “Yeah.” Astrea may have slept, but it hadn’t been a good night’s rest. Dreams of fire and airship crashes and battle plagued her, though they were quickly fading to nothing but fragmented images in her mind.

  Jin hummed his response, then pressed a kiss to Astrea’s neck. Sparks flickered down her body. She turned in Jin’s arms, and once they were face to face, he kissed the end of her nose. The short hairs of his beard prickled her lips as she pecked his chin. He caught her mouth with his as she pulled away, tart lust exploding over her tongue. But it died, replaced by sweet approval and heavy regret.

  “I’m afraid there’s no time for that,” Jin whispered as he pulled away.

  “Who said I’m trying to start that?”

  “So much more responsible than me.” He pulled her tighter against his body, then kissed her cheek. “Alright. Let’s not be late.”

  Getting out of bed was the true challenge. Astrea’s entire body protested as she scooted to the edge of the mattress and stood. It continued its protest even as she showered and even when Jin used his fireweaving to warm her tight shoulders. It only stopped its protest when she was finally dressed—body armor and all—and drinking coffee in the meeting room one of the many palace guards had escorted them to. Outside the looming windows, the sun had barely started to rise.

  Tugging at the waistband of her pants, Astrea tried to focus on her mediocre coffee instead. She’d worn trousers more in the last couple of months than she had in the last decade, and she still didn’t love them. But one of her flowy dresses certainly wasn’t practical for the morning’s mission.

  Except for Astrea and Jin, the room was empty. He sat next to her, his body so tight he was like a spring ready to explode.

  “Jin?” Astrea asked.

  “Yeah?” He sipped his coffee.

  “You seem tense.”

  “Just a bit worried.” His fingers tapped the table. “About taking you back there.”

  “But I need to go to help—”

  “I know,” Jin said gently. “I know you do. I’m not asking you to stay behind. But I can’t turn off the part of my mind that worries.”

  “I understand.”

  And she did. Astrea understood that better than anything.

  She hoped she would be useful on this outing. So much of the time in that house was a blur. But she’d been in that house more than anyone. Knew the Paragon better than anyone. If there was a chance she could remember something, anything, then wasn’t it worth going?

  Cressida arrived first, dressed in her armor just like Astrea. It was still a foreign sight. She held the door open, and instead of Adi or Eliana walking in, a stranger followed. She had to be nearly a foot shorter than Cressida. Her terra cotta skin gleamed in the meeting room’s chandelier light, and something in her cornflower blue eyes seemed almost mischievous.

  “Hey, Cress,” Jin said. “And good morning . . . ?”

  The stranger waved at them with one hand, the other firmly planted on the shiny black cane she was using. “Mariya Halara,” she said. “The Grand Ducal Stargazer.”

  “This is Prince Varojin Auris,” Cressida said, “and Astrea Sovna, my best friend. They’re—”

  “Yes, yes, the two these Paragon are after. I know.” Mariya moved farther into the room and sat in one of the seats opposite Astrea and Jin. “Sovna, eh? Are you related to Sar—”

  “Yes,” Astrea said with more force than she expected. “He’s my uncle. Do you know him?”

  “We trained together at university, but that was what, twenty years ago?” Mariya ran a hand over the tight coils of her hair, then shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in many years. Didn’t socialize all that much back in the day, your uncle. Such a quiet fellow.”

  It was strange, almost unreal, to have this tangible connection back to Saros. Astrea had a hundred questions for Mariya about her uncle, but would this Stargazer even know? She didn’t seem to know Saros well. Maybe they could find time to talk another day, when the rest of the group wasn’t strolling into the room. Astrea settled back in her chair and sipped on her coffee.

  Eliana and Nicos walked in with little fanfare, and Eliana greeted Mariya as if they’d known each other for years. Cressida made introductions for the rest of the team when they arrived with Marko. But Lucian? Well, when he strode into the room and spotted Mariya, his eyebrows furrowed.

  “Mariya?” he asked as he circled to the head of the oval table. “What are you doing here?”

  The Stargazer scoffed. “What kind of question is that?”

  “No one told me you’d be coming on this morning’s mission.”

  “Sometimes plans must change, Commander.”

  “Has Her Highness approved it?”

  “Her Highness told me to figure this out. And I think my coming on your outing will help,” Mariya said. “Cressida was telling me about this meteorite you think is under part of Talmaris. I’d like to go examine it myself, in person.” When Lucian turned to Cressida, Mariya added, “Oh, leave the girl alone. You know it’s better if I join you.”

  “Maybe we can get answers that much faster,” Jin said.

  Lucian rubbed his forehead as if warding off a headache. “Fine.” He cleared his throat, then said, “We’ll be at the house within an hour. We’ll take three trucks. We’re going in, learning about those tunnels, and coming back. Strictly business. No pit stops. No delays.”

  “And here I was, wanting to stop for ice cream on the way,” Cressida whispered next to Astrea. Lucian pinned her with a look.

  “Marko, Adi, and the twins already know this,” Lucian continued with one last pointed look at Cressida, “but someone must be with Astrea and Varojin at all times. Preferably two people, and two people who can fight in case the Paragon show up.”

  The Stargazer rolled her eyes. “Subtle, Lucian.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I can hold my own,” Mariya said, “and you know it.”

  “And yet you’ve been out of practice for years. When was the last time you sparred?”

  “Some of us have more important things to do than have pretend fights all day.”

  Astrea stole a glance at Cressida. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. What was this strange animosity between Lucian and Mariya? And why was warm amusement rolling off the Stargazer? Only the slightest pinch of annoyance joined the mix. Lucian didn’t seem pleased at all.

  Eliana cleared her throat. “Should they even be going if it’s that much of a risk, Commander?”

  “The site is locked down, Your Imperial Highness,” Lucian replied. “We go, we take precautions, and we move quickly. Now, if there are no more questions, let’s move.”

  After a quick goodbye to Eliana and Nicos, the rest of them headed outside. Even in the early morning light, the military’s heavy presence was obvious. Ominous, really. The Novarian palace had been beautiful and serene once, but now, soldiers swarmed the grounds. Machine guns were mounted on top of trucks parked out front. Even many of the guards, who were surely mages, carried weapons. Astrea swallowed thickly.

  Several large military trucks idled on the palace driveway. Zephyrine, Civan, and Lennor climbed into the one at the back of the line. Marko, Lucian, and Mariya headed for the first truck.

  “I’m very glad we aren’t going to be in there with them,” Adi murmured as Jin led him, Astrea, and Cressida to the middle vehicle.

  “What’s Lucian’s deal?” Cressida asked. “Has he been that grumpy the whole time you’ve been gone?”

  “Pretty much.” Astrea fiddled with the end of her braid. The commander was still a mystery to her, always running hot and cold. “But Mariya seemed to think the whole exchange was funny.”

  Jin helped Astrea climb up into their truck, which was definitely not made for comfort. Metal benches lined the two walls. The convoy rumbled down the palace driveway and eventually merged onto the quiet streets of Talmaris. Though there were no windows in the back to look out of, Astrea could see through the windshield. The view was mostly just tall trees, empty sidewalks, and the occasional building.

  Astrea’s fingers wrapped around the edge of her bench, her knuckles turning white with her tightening grip as she pushed past her friends’ fatigue and kept her senses open. At the speed they were traveling, Astrea wasn’t sure she’d even catch any voids, but as Lucian said: take no chances.

  This was it. They were going back to the Paragon’s hideout. She was. Astrea didn’t know what she hoped to find. Ideally, Mariya and Cressida would figure out something about the tunnels. Maybe there’d be more evidence of the void language to add to their growing list. Astrea needed to ask Tomas about finding a linguist to work with when they got back to the palace.

  The truck made its way through downtown Talmaris, then eventually onto emptier streets where the buildings were spread farther and farther apart. Astrea didn’t recognize any of it. She wasn’t sure she would. That night Jin and Adi had rescued her was fuzzy in her memory. She couldn’t remember the drive from the house to the palace at all.

  Eventually, the truck slowed, then stopped, as a large green house came into view through the windshield. Like the palace, soldiers swarmed the area. More military trucks were parked out front. It looked more like a war zone than an upper-class suburban home.

  Jin climbed out of the back of the truck first, then helped both Astrea and Cressida on their jump to the ground. Adi followed, stretching as he stepped into the rising sunshine.

  “It looks so normal,” Cressida said as she stopped next to Astrea.

  “Yeah,” she murmured.

  That was part of the problem. The house looked so normal. Dark green paint. Dark wood trim. Several stories rose into the air, and thick, towering trees surrounded the house. How had the Paragon been operating here, apparently unnoticed? The closest neighbors weren’t terribly far away. Astrea could see the houses through the gardens and greenery.

  “Well,” Lucian said as he joined them, “shall we go inside?”

  Jin’s hand found the small of Astrea’s back, just a light pressure through her armor as he nudged her forward. Sucking in one last deep breath of fresh air, Astrea followed Lucian toward the house. Find the answers. That’s what she was here to do, and she would. She would find answers.

  The interior of the house was only vaguely familiar at first. But those hardwood floors. The narrow hallways. Astrea had tried to run down these very halls. Had been stopped by Nazarov. It all came back to her in a rush.

  “I know we need to go downstairs,” she managed to say past the dryness in her mouth, “but can we go into his office, too?”

  “My teams have already been over it,” Lucian said, “but we can look again if you’d like.”

  “I think it’s this way,” Astrea said, nodding to her right.

  “Mariya, Cress, how about you two go downstairs,” Jin said. “Take Zephyrine, Civan, and Lennor with you.”

  “Marko, stay up here,” Lucian said. “I’ll go downstairs with the others.”

  Astrea started down the hallway toward The One’s office. What was she looking for? She wasn’t exactly sure. They were here for the tunnels, not this. But something carried her feet forward anyway.

  On her left was that painting of the parents and daughter. She glanced at it only briefly, taking in the daughter’s chestnut hair and soft brown eyes, the hard looks on the parents’ faces. “It’s just up here,” Astrea said over her shoulder at the three men following her.

  And there it was. The One’s office door. Astrea half anticipated feeling those cold voids all around her, just like last time. But there were none. There were walls of many soldiers. Jin’s, Adi’s, and Marko’s walls. The emotions of others. Worry. Boredom. Fatigue. But no voids. The house was full of life.

  The door creaked as Astrea pushed it open. Inside was exactly as she remembered it from those few lucid conversations she’d had with The One. The desk. The chair they’d forced her to sit in. The mostly empty bookcases.

  What she’d been expecting, Astrea wasn’t sure. The One’s dead body, perhaps. Some Paragon symbol etched into the wooden walls. Destruction, like the way they’d left the professor’s office. Anything besides the silence.

  “What are you looking for?” Marko asked from the doorway.

  “I don’t know,” Astrea admitted as she circled behind the desk. When she’d last been here, Nazarov had stabbed The One. She’d heard his body drop. And yet there wasn’t even a blood stain on the floor. “While I was here, I tried to look around, but they caught me before I got anywhere.”

  “The commander’s teams have already swept the place. Perhaps we should join him downstairs.”

  “Just give us a few minutes, Marko,” Jin said. “We’ll be quick.”

  Marko grunted a response and took up a position just outside the door.

  Staring at The One’s desk, Astrea tried to pull forth some memory besides those of Tovan injecting the blue lotus and Nazarov burning her when she’d tried to fight back. As Astrea’s hands trembled, she clasped them tightly in front of her.

  There’d been something about this desk. The One had constantly leaned to his right. He’d fiddled with something on that side of the desk, too. One of the drawers, maybe? Astrea remembered him going for one of those drawers.

  She reached for the top drawer and yanked on it. It stuck, barely moving from its position. That wasn’t right. She would swear on her own life she saw The One open that drawer. She tugged again.

  “Problem?” Jin asked as he rounded the desk to join her. On the other side of the room, Adi was examining the walls and a small beige credenza.

  “He opened this drawer when I was here,” Astrea said. “I know Marko said they swept the place, but . . .”

  “Let me see if I can get it.” Jin yanked on the drawer, too, but it didn’t move. He sighed, then squatted down in front of it. “Sometimes these old drawers just stick. You’re sure it was this one?”

  “Almost positive.”

  Jin shrugged his knapsack off, then pulled out a series of narrow metal tools. They looked like lock picks, but the drawer wasn’t locked. “Can I have some light?” he asked as he opened the drawer underneath the stuck one.

  Astrea summoned a pinprick of light, aiming it at the empty area under the drawer where Jin was now looking. He hummed, then stuck one of the long pieces of metal into the gap. It scratched against what sounded like paper. With a little maneuvering, Jin yanked out an envelope. Its corner tore as he pulled it free.

  “That’ll do it,” he muttered, holding the thick envelope in one hand and pulling on the drawer with the other. It moved easily on its track again, but when Astrea peered inside, it was empty.

  “All good?” Adi asked as he approached the desk from the other side.

  Astrea dismissed her light. “Fine. I’m sure whatever was in here, Ysabel’s people already got.”

  Next to her, Jin had gone still. He still crouched on the ground, his tools clutched in one hand as he held the envelope in the other. In the top right corner—the one that was torn—was the beginning of a word: Sevi.

  Jin glanced up at her, then Adi. He flicked his gaze toward the door where Marko still stood with his back to them. Then Jin slid his tools and the envelope back into his knapsack and buckled it up.

  Why was Jin trying to hide that from Marko?

  Then it washed over her.

  Sevi. The torn corner. That very well could’ve said Seviya. Jin’s mother’s family.

  But why would The One have a letter with Jin’s mother’s family name on it? They’d surmised Jin’s connection to all of this was his intense fireweaving power, or as the Paragon called him, the Sunreaper. Had they been wrong?

  “Later,” Jin mouthed.

  Later, indeed.

  “Alright, Marko,” Jin called out as he shouldered his pack. “Let’s go downstairs. You were right. Everything here was cleared out.”

  They followed Marko back through the home’s winding halls, Astrea stuck right between Adi and Jin. She had to shove the letter out of her mind, just as she had to shove down her fear as they crept closer to the basement door. The last time she’d seen this door, Jin had been carrying her, bloody and beaten. It was so unassuming now, just a regular oak door like all the others in the house.

 

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