19 
Aria stared at the black glass. She couldn’t see him, but she knew Perry was on the other side.
“What’s going on, Hess?” she asked.
Hess folded his hands on the table and ignored her.
Her captor, Loran, dragged her to the table. “Sit.” He pushed her into a chair and ordered Roar to take the seat on her other side. Aria sensed Roar’s focus on her and realized she was breathing quickly. She had to calm down. She needed to concentrate.
Across the table, Soren sat next to his father. He had been given new clothes, and his hair was damp and combed from a shower, but she noticed the slump in his wide shoulders, the weariness in his face. He’d been cleaned up, but he seemed more tired than ever.
When he caught her eye, he gave a little shrug of apology. What did that mean? Had he betrayed her and allied himself with Hess?
Her gaze moved to Hess, and repulsion coiled in her veins. His chiseled features seemed more severe than she remembered, his eyes smaller and hollower. Then again, for the past months she’d only seen him in the Realms through her Smarteye.
During their meetings, he’d favored casual dress. Fine suits. On occasion informal military attire. Now he wore full military regalia—an impressive uniform decorated with ribbons at the collars and cuffs.
Four Guardians came through the door, armed with rifles, pistols, the stun baton they’d used on Perry and Roar.
The sight of so much weaponry sent a bolt of fear through her.
“Is Perry in there?” she said, raising her voice. “Why are we here?”
Then Sable stepped into the room, and her vocal cords clamped shut.
Hess wouldn’t acknowledge her presence, but Sable did. He smiled and said, “Hello, Aria. It’s good to see you again. Yes, Cinder and Peregrine are both in there. You’ll see them soon.”
She wanted to look back to the wall of glass, but Sable’s gaze kept her riveted. Her mind replayed those last seconds on the balcony in Rim: Liv falling backward and landing on the stones, the bolt from Sable’s crossbow embedded in her heart.
“We’re all here, I believe,” Sable said. “Shall we get started?” Kirra slid into the seat beside him, sending Aria a mocking wave.
Roar’s eyes locked on Sable. His hands, tied in front of him, clenched into fists.
“We should start with the Still Blue,” Sable said, “since that’s why we’re all here. It’ll help if you all know the challenges we have in reaching it.”
“Why should I even believe you know where it is?” Aria asked. “Why should any of us?”
Sable smiled, his pale eyes unblinking. She couldn’t tell if he looked pleased or furious at her interruption.
Hess seemed so soft, so tame at his side. In a trim black coat, with a shining Blood Lord chain at his neck, Sable looked electrified and in control.
“Then I’ll start with how I discovered it and let you decide whether you believe me or not. Three years ago, one of my trading ships, the Colossus, fell into the grip of a storm and was swept out to sea. The crew suffered a tragic loss of life. Only two young deckhands survived. Inexperienced sailors, coincidentally both Seers, they were adrift for weeks when they came to something quite unbelievable.
“We’ve all seen the funnels of Aether, but what these men described was very different. A wall of Aether. Or, I should say, a waterfall of Aether. A barrier that flowed from the sky, extending endlessly upward, and across the horizon as far as they could see. An astonishing sight, but no comparison to what lay beyond. On the other side, through small gaps in the Aether flows, these young men glimpsed clear skies. Still skies. No Aether.”
“Where are these men?” she asked.
“No longer available.” Sable opened his hands, the gesture matter-of-fact. “I had to secure the knowledge.”
He was ruthless. Admitting he’d killed these sailors so frankly and with no remorse. Aria looked around the table. No one seemed surprised.
“You believe this story without proof?” she asked Hess.
“It corroborates our theories.”
“What theories?” she demanded. Answers were coming at last. She wanted to know everything.
Sable nodded at Hess, who answered. “It was an early theory that linked the disruption of Earth’s magnetism with the arrival of the Aether. Magnetic north and south shifted, a clash that we’re still in the midst of. But it was theorized that pockets of magnetism would form . . . cohering the way water droplets do. We think the Still Blue is one of these pockets. A magnetic field that’s keeping the Aether at bay. What those two men saw was the boundary—Aether pushing as far up to this field as possible and pooling there to create a wall.”
“Why didn’t we know this before?” Aria demanded.
“Those who needed to know did,” Hess said. “And the knowledge led nowhere. We conducted extensive searches, but nothing was ever found. The idea was abandoned.”
It was so much to take in. Aria’s entire body felt numb. “And the plan to get through the barrier?”
Hess glanced to the glass wall. “We’ve had little success controlling the Aether through technological means. Other approaches, biological ones, may still work. The CGB—the research group your mother was part of—had the primary focus of sculpting genetics to make life in the Pods sustainable. But they also ran a few experimental programs. Some of these, like the immunoboost, looked at bringing us back outside the Pods. Another focused on evolutional acceleration.”
Aria’s mother had been a geneticist. She already knew where this was heading. Hess continued, explaining for the benefit of the others.
“By creating people with a high degree of genetic plasticity—DNA that’s extremely malleable—they hoped to create humans who could rapidly adapt to whatever environment they encountered: chameleons who could change on a cellular level, molding to an alien atmosphere, to whatever conditions they met.”
As Hess spoke, Sable gave a signal to one of his men at the door. Horn soldiers came in from the corridor, standing along the wall. Hess’s Guardians entered as well. Both groups seemed uneasy to be there.
“The CGB had already seen Outsiders who exhibited this type of rapid evolution by assuming enhanced sensory capabilities.” Hess glanced at Roar. “But what the program accomplished went further than anyone anticipated. Not only did the test subjects adapt to the Aether; the Aether adapted to them.”
He paused, just a beat of silence. In that beat, Aria began to count Guardians. Horn soldiers. Weapons.
“It wasn’t long before the project was deemed a failure,” Hess continued. “There were instabilities that weren’t accounted for. As with anything, in solving one problem there’s always a possibility of creating secondary, consequential problems. While the scientists had figured out how to create a human with dynamic genetics, they couldn’t figure out how to turn those dynamics off. The test subjects expired within years of creation. They were nonviable. They . . . self-destructed.”
Hess looked to the glass wall again and said, “All except one.”