CHAPTER FOUR

ZANE

Asterin might have stormed away, but her words kept echoing in my mind. Vesper is your sister, Zane. You decide how you feel about her.

But that was the problem—I didn’t know how I felt about Vesper. Everything was a jumble in my mind. My grandmother’s stubborn silence. My father’s angry shock. My own simmering disgust. Vesper’s unknown feelings. Each person and emotion yanked me in a different direction, but in the end, they all just circled around each other, like a viper eating its own tail again and again.

But like it or not, Vesper was my sister, and I was going to have to do something about that inescapable fact. I was going to have to choose a side and commit to a course of action—good, bad, or ugly.

The music ramped up again. Several Regals whirled by, and more than a few titters sounded, since I was still standing in the middle of the dance floor like a lovestruck fool. Fergus eyed me with concern, still swaying with his partner. I plastered my usual smile on my face, then gave a deep, low bow to my friend and all the other watchers, accompanied by a showy hand flourish.

The titters grew a little louder as I left the dance floor, but the mockery didn’t bother me. Even though I had spent my whole life around these people, none of them truly knew me. Asterin had learned more about me in the few minutes we’d been dancing than the Regal lords and ladies had in all the time I’d spent with them over the years. Just like Vesper had learned more about me during our blitzer ride back to Corios than any of the Arrows had in all the time I’d served with them—

Beatrice planted herself in my path, causing me to pull up short. “Where are you going?”

I jerked my head at the refreshment tables. “To get a drink. Something a lot stronger than lemonade.”

She let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head, making the blue opals nestled in her silver hair sway back and forth. “You need to find Asterin. Rigel told me that he hasn’t seen any gift from you this evening.”

I tapped my finger over my heart where the lunarium jewelry box was still hidden in my coat pocket. “What did you want me to do? Whip this out in the middle of the dance floor, get down on one knee, and declare my intentions?”

A thoughtful look filled my grandmother’s face. “Well, it wouldn’t have been terrible, as far as proposals go. I’ve seen far worse at Regal balls. Singing. Poetry. Puppet shows.” She shuddered at that last one.

It took me a moment to unclench my jaw. “As I’ve told you many times, Asterin despises me, and I have the same mutual disdain for her.”

“Bah!” Beatrice flicked her fingers. “Disdain is of little importance in the grand scheme of things. Do you know what is important?”

Before I could answer, she finished her own thought. “All the mineral rights on all the Frozon moons that Asterin controls. Minerals that your father needs for his inventions, that House Zimmer workers and production plants need to keep pace with the other Regals.”

A dull headache spurted to life inside my skull. Beatrice had been drilling my duty as the heir to House Zimmer into my head for as long as I could remember, but right now, everything inside me was rebelling at her words.

“So you’re going to trade my life, freedom, happiness, and future children for minerals. Charming,” I drawled. “And here I thought that family always came first. Although in this case, you are clearly putting the House Zimmer coffers first. A bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

My grandmother flicked her fingers again, dismissing my accusations. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made, even by family, for the greater good of the House.”

“Sacrifices? Is that what you’re calling them these days?”

Her eyebrows drew together in puzzlement, but after a few seconds, her gaze slowly sharpened. She knew we weren’t talking about my giving the necklace to Asterin. Not anymore.

Beatrice opened her mouth, but I sliced my hand through the air, cutting her off. “Fine. I’ll find Asterin and deliver your precious solstice gift. After all, I’m just another one of your pawns, and it’s time for me to get into position and play my part yet again. Right?”

Before she could answer, I spun around on my heel and stalked away.

A few folks called out to me, but one look at my clenched jaw and angry scowl had them seeking more pleasant company. Even Fergus and the other House Zimmer servants steered clear of me.

My gaze snapped back and forth, but I didn’t spot Asterin anywhere on the lawn. Perhaps she had gone into the castle in search of some peace and quiet. I could certainly use some of that right now, so I slipped through the first archway I came to and moved through a shadowy courtyard, heading toward one of the castle’s entrances.

Ding! I growled with annoyance, but I stopped, pulled out my tablet, and read the latest message from Holloway. Have you discovered where they are hiding?

This time, I sent a reply. Nothing yet. I’ll keep questioning people.

I want progress, not more of your empty excuses.

I growled again and shoved the tablet back into my pocket. Everyone wanted something tonight, and nothing I did made anyone happy. Fantastic. Well, I was going to find Asterin, shove the necklace box at her, and be done with it. Then I was getting a bloody drink, Holloway’s messages and threats be damned.

I stomped toward the door, but I had only taken a few steps when two guards rounded the side of the castle. One of them took up a position beside the door, but the other man hung back, then angled his body away and discreetly pulled a tablet out of his pocket, as though he didn’t want the first man to see what he was doing.

His furtive movements struck me as extremely odd, and I slowed down, softened my angry, noisy steps, and took a closer look at him. Dark red hair, dark eyes, ruddy skin, a long, sharp nose, and a pointed chin. I frowned. I didn’t remember seeing his face among the House Rojillo guard rosters that I’d reviewed a few days ago.

As an Arrow, I’d been in a lot of bad situations over the years, and I’d learned to listen to my instincts, psionic and otherwise. Right now, all those instincts were whispering that something was wrong, so instead of barreling forward, I stopped beside a large white wooden trellis covered with honeysuckle vines and slid back into the shadows.

“Come on, Silas,” the first guard called out. “We need to get back in position.”

“Sure thing, Thompson,” the other man chirped in a voice that was dripping with fake sincerity.

My eyes narrowed. I recognized that breezy, disarming tone. I’d used it myself, usually right before I shoved my stormsword into someone’s back. Oh, yeah. This guy was definitely up to something.

Silas slid his tablet into his pocket, then plucked an object off his belt and held it down at his side. At first, I couldn’t see what it was, but then he moved forward, and a shock baton glinted a dull silver in his fingers.

Before I could shout a warning, Silas surged forward and shoved his shock baton into the first guard’s neck. Thompson never had a chance. He grunted and convulsed a few times before collapsing in a heap on the ground.

Silas slid his shock baton back onto his belt, then grabbed the unconscious guard’s ankles and quickly dragged him behind a stone planter bristling with honeysuckle vines. He stepped back around the planter, pulled a small comm device out of his pocket, and nestled it into his right ear.

“Exterior guard neutralized,” he said in a low voice. “Moving to first objective.”

I didn’t hear whatever response was made, but Silas nodded, opened the door, and slipped into the castle.

I yanked my own tablet out of my pocket, but a message on the screen indicated that I didn’t have a signal anymore. I muttered a curse. Silas—and whoever was working with him—must be jamming all other communications, which meant I had no way to warn Beatrice or Wendell or get any help from the House Rojillo guards.

I could return to the ball, find Lord Jorge, and tell him what was happening, but that would take far too long and draw too much attention. The last thing I needed was for the guests to panic. Besides, Castle Rojillo was a massive, sprawling structure, and if I didn’t follow Silas now, then I risked losing him for good. And given my current foul mood and simmering frustration of the past few weeks, I wanted to hit something, and Silas’s face would make an excellent punching bag.

I shoved my tablet back into my pocket, slid out of the shadows, and hurried over to Thompson, the unconscious guard. I made sure he was still breathing, but there was nothing else I could do for him right now, so I went through the same door Silas had used.

I stepped into a long, wide corridor made of glossy pink stone. Tall, skinny tables were spaced down the corridor, each one boasting a crystal vase, a quartz statue, or some other expensive, useless knickknack. Hoverglobes bobbed gently up and down in midair, although the pink flames inside had been turned down low, and they created far more shadows than they banished.

Silas was about fifty feet ahead of me, quickly and quietly moving from one doorway to the next and peering into all the rooms he passed. I followed along behind him, careful to keep my footsteps as soft as his. It wasn’t hard to do, since husky murmurs and passionate cries echoed out of many of the darkened rooms.

Some of the Regals had already indulged in chembonds, which were just what their name implied: chemicals that mentally connected people for a brief period of time. Several different types of chembonds existed, but they were most commonly used for sex, especially at society balls. Clothes rasped, furniture squeaked, and low, throaty moans bounced off the walls as the Regals enthusiastically pleasured themselves and their partners.

Silas stopped and peered into another room. Three loud, enthusiastic voices drifted out of that area, indicating that everyone involved was having a grand time. Silas pulled out his tablet and angled the device in their direction. Perhaps his intentions were more greedy than nefarious. Gossipcasters—and blackmailers—often snuck into places they weren’t supposed to be to get juicy scoops on illicit Regal dalliances.

But instead of snapping a photo or recording a video, Silas lowered his tablet, ignored the passionate sounds, and veered to the left through an archway. I frowned. If he wasn’t here for gossip or blackmail, then what was he doing? Where was he going?

I hurried forward and peered through the archway. Silas crossed an interior courtyard, then used a key card to open a locked door and stepped through to the other side. I pulled my stormsword off my belt and followed him.

The door had locked behind the rogue guard, so I tapped on one of my opal cuff links three times, then held it up to the card reader. The opal burned a bright blue, and a tiny electromagnetic pulse zinged out of the stone, frying the keypad. One of my father’s more useful inventions.

The door clicked open. I winced at the unwanted noise, but I cautiously stepped into another corridor. Instead of smooth pink stone, this area was made of sterile gray tile. Sturdy metal doors were set into the thick walls, and there was nary a knickknack in sight. This was the industrial heart of the castle, where Jorge Rojillo created his designs, and it was an eerie mirror to a similar area where my father worked in Castle Zimmer.

Silas wasn’t here for gossip or blackmail. He had his eye on a much larger prize—he was a thief here to steal House Rojillo technology.

Corporate espionage among the Regal Houses was quite common. Every Regal family was always searching for new ways to raise themselves up and undercut their rivals, and stealing proprietary designs while Lord Jorge was hosting the summer solstice celebration was a clever way to accomplish both goals. But which House was Silas working for? And what tech was he after? House Rojillo made all sorts of things, from air purifiers to shielding grids for homes and ships to the climate-control wristwatch Jorge had shown me earlier.

Silas had vanished, so I crept down the corridor and glanced through the small permaglass windows set into the doors. Supply closets, tool depositories, cleaning stations. There was no sign of Silas in any of the rooms, and all the doors were locked, so I kept moving forward, my stormsword still clutched in my hand. The lunarium blade shimmered with a pale blue light, painting the gray tile corridor in a ghostly glow.

I glanced up, but no cameras were embedded in the ceilings, which meant no one was watching me or Silas creep around the corridors. Another security suggestion I’d made that Lord Jorge had failed to implement, but the lack of cameras wasn’t unusual. Most Regals relied on guards, alarms, locked doors, and energy shields to keep them safe, and few wanted cameras recording their comings and goings inside their own homes.

I stopped at a junction, my gaze flicking between three different corridors. They all looked the same, but Jorge had sent me the castle schematics to review for the solstice celebration, so I knew that his main research-and-development lab was off to the left. That would be my first stop if I was here to steal valuable tech for a rival House, so I headed in that direction.

A few twists and turns later, I reached another junction, a wide corridor that wrapped around a large interior space. Still no sign or sound of Silas. I glanced left, then right, and my gaze snagged on a nearby keypad. The light there glowed a steady green, and the door beside it was cracked open.

I lowered my stormsword to my side. I didn’t want the sword’s glow to give away my location, so I loosened my grip on the hilt, and the lunarium blade dimmed in response. I cocked my head to the side, listening, but I didn’t hear anything, so I tiptoed over to the door, grabbed the handle, and gently pulled it open. The door glided back without making a sound, and I silently slipped into the space beyond.

It was a large R&D lab. Tile counters studded with sinks hugged one wall, while clear, polyplastic workstations clustered together in the center of the wide, open space. Terminals covered the workstations, along with laser cutters, hammers, and pliers. Stray bolts, screws, and wires were also strewn across the surfaces, glinting like dull, jagged stars. Reusable plastipapers were stacked in folders, and gelpens clustered together in coffee mugs, but overall, the area was neat and tidy. The cool air smelled of a citrusy cleaner, along with a faint, underlying note of melted metal. I wiggled my nose from side to side to hold back a sneeze.

Microscopes, vises, and other tools perched on wheeled chrome carts nestled in between welding stations and larger pieces of machinery that were scattered around the perimeter of the lab. Gray tarps covered much of the machinery, making the equipment look like bulky ghosts that were about to break free of the walls and haunt the area.

But the centerpiece of the lab was the floor-to-ceiling lockers covered with heavy-duty metal grates that lined the back wall. Plastic and glass glimmered behind the grates, although given the dim lighting and distance, I couldn’t make out what projects and prototypes were stored back there. All the lockers were shut tight, and the lights on their keypads burned a bright, steady red.

My gaze flicked from one side of the lab to the other and back again. I still didn’t see anyone, but a faint presence tweaked my psionic senses.

Someone was in here.

I put my back to the wall and silently tiptoed forward, moving deeper into the R&D lab. When I reached the closest counter, I crouched down beside it so that whoever was in here couldn’t see me anymore, then headed toward the back corner of the lab. I stopped beside a metal cart and waited several seconds, but the intruder didn’t move, and the only sound was the whisper of recycled air circulating through the lab. If Silas wouldn’t come and play, I would just have to find him. I grinned. I had always loved hide-and-seek.

I tightened my grip on my stormsword and fed a tiny bit of my psion power into the weapon. The lunarium blade shimmered a pale blue in response. I lowered the sword, then angled the blade toward the right, casting the faint blue glow across the floor like an impromptu flashlight.

Hiding your body in the shadows was easy. Hiding your feet on the floor was much more difficult.

I slowly and carefully shone the lunarium blade across the tiles, but all I saw were the curved wheels and square legs of the carts and workstations, along with a few wayward pieces of plastipaper and several alarmingly large dust bunnies that looked like mutant monsters growing in the shadows.

The right side of the lab was empty. I stopped to listen, but once again, I only heard the faint hiss of the air-conditioning system. Next, I reached out with my psion power. Once again that presence tweaked my mind, like a cool finger tickling the back of my brain, but I didn’t sense any loud thoughts or strong emotions from the other person. No sweaty panic, no heart-pounding worry, no stomach-churning dread.

My respect for Silas rose another notch. By this point, most people would have done something to break the tense silence, even if it was just shifting on their feet, but he seemed to have ice in his veins, the same as me.

I moved my stormsword to the left, still using the lunarium blade as a makeshift flashlight to peer across the floor. The pale blue glow illuminated four legs on a workstation about thirty feet away from me, along with five legs on a nearby stool . . .

Wait. I stopped and shone the light back at the stool. The intruder yanked his foot back, stepping deeper into the shadows, but it was too late.

Triumph flashed through me. Got you!

I didn’t make a sound, but Silas must have known that he’d been spotted because a shadowy figure detached itself from a piece of machinery and bolted toward the lab door. I cursed, shot to my feet, and headed in that direction.

The intruder had a straight, open, easy path toward the exit, but several workstations were standing in my way. Instead of wasting valuable time weaving around the stations, I grabbed hold of the side of the closest one, vaulted myself up onto it, and then used my telekinesis to slide across the slick polyplastic surface and drop down to the opposite side.

I repeated that process over and over, knocking terminals, tools, plastipapers, folders, cups, and gelpens off the stations in my slip-sliding wake and making the objects ping-ping-ping across the tile floor. I grimaced at the noise and kept going.

The figure darted out the open lab door. I slid over one last workstation, landed on my feet, and chased after him.

The shadow was already halfway down the corridor, but I sprinted in that direction, using my telekinesis to make my steps longer than normal, until I was bounding, rather than running. The intruder was quick and light on his feet, but I was rapidly cutting down the distance between us.

The thief ran by a hoverglobe, which illuminated the dark gray cloak covering his body. No wonder he had melted into the shadows in the workshop . . .

I frowned. Wait. Silas had been wearing House Rojillo armor when I’d last seen him. Where had he gotten that cloak from?

But it didn’t really matter. The cloak might have helped him hide before, but all that long, flowing fabric was going to doom him now.

I put on an extra burst of speed, bounded forward, and grabbed the back of the cloak. The shadowy figure let out a startled cry, but I fisted my hand in the sleek fabric and jerked him to the side, using my telekinesis to slam him into the closest wall.

Silas bounced off the gray tile, yanked something out of his pocket, and whirled around. A small blaster glinted a wicked silver in the semidarkness. I snapped up my sword and lunged forward, ready to drive the blade through his heart and pin him to the wall like a mammoth butterfly.

The intruder jerked to the side, making the hood of the cloak fall down and revealing his—no, her—features.

Black hair, silver eyes, furious expression.

The shadow wasn’t Silas, the rogue guard.

It was Asterin Armas.