RHI’S FALL from the president’s office into the sea was a shocking drop through the air followed by a freezing impact when she plunged into the bay. Thrashing in the water, she kicked out, desperate for air. Hepzibah’s arms tightened around her waist as they surged up to the choppy surface. Rhi gasped, coughing up bitter water as Hepzibah tugged her toward the shuttle bobbing in the waves.
“I cannot believe you did that!” Rhi shouted as soon as Hepzibah helped her out of the water and unceremoniously dumped her onto the shuttle floor outside the cockpit.
“I wouldn’t have let you drown,” Hepzibah scoffed, disengaging the sonic anchor and powering up the shuttle’s thrusters. Within a minute, they were soaring out of the water and into the sky. But instead of flying away from the island, Hepzibah circled up and around it, so they were hovering right above the dome.
“What are you doing?” Rhi rose to her feet and climbed into the cockpit to take the co-pilot’s chair.
Hepzibah flipped open the top of the bag of ember bombs that Mantis had apparently not hidden well enough from her. “Sending a message.” She pressed a button on her control panel, and the window to Rhi’s right slid open, cold air whipping inside.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Hepzibah asked. “We don’t have to hit the guards. Just the house. And his beloved garden.”
Rhi’s gloved hand closed over the handle of the bag of ember bombs. She could feel the heat, even from here. She stared into their blue depths and thought of the twins, of the screaming and the smell… and of how the Damarians had cheered.
She didn’t even throw the bag—they weren’t worth her strength—she just loosened her fingers, the bag dropping from her hand and the bombs scattering downward until they shattered on the surface, where the gel ignited and raced along the mansion’s roof with such force that the Keepers and guards below had no hope of controlling it. The fire consumed the dome within minutes, the ember gel eating through it as flames whipped through Ansel’s belongings, his library, all his precious artifacts.
Well, not all. The book was still tucked in Rhi’s jacket, still safe.
Still something to use against him.
As they flew off, the guards suitably too distracted by the fires to mount a search for them, laughter filled the air, and it took Rhi a moment before she realized it was hers.
* * *
THEY WERE almost back to the warehouse by the docks when Hepzibah’s pocket started beeping. She frowned, fished a comm out of it and read something on the screen. “It’s a message from Carol,” she said. “The rendezvous point’s changed.”
Rhi’s heart skipped a beat. “Is everyone okay? Did they rescue Umbra and Jella?”
“She doesn’t say.” Hepzibah typed a set of coordinates into her computer, and a map appeared onscreen. Rhi recognized the rocky spires that made up the Field of Fire.
“How did they get so far out of the city?” Rhi asked, confused.
“We’ll ask them when we arrive.” Hepzibah made a hard turn over the bay, heading north instead of south, and the city receded beneath them as they left it behind. The night felt oppressive, closing in on them as the city faded in their wake. Hepzibah flew without lights, trusting her radar to guide her through the labyrinths of stone.
By the time they approached the new rendezvous point, Rhi was on the edge of her seat, gripping the armrests tightly, her mind racing. She hadn’t seen Jella in years, and she hadn’t spoken to Umbra in months. She didn’t know what to say… how to act. She was terrified she might burst into tears. She was even more terrified something might have happened, and that they wouldn’t be there.
Hepzibah sent her radar scanning the area, squinting at the screen and searching for signs of life. “Ah, there!” She pointed to the formation dead ahead. “There’s an opening in the rock.”
She flipped on the lights and flew the ship through a narrow crevice that opened up into a deep cavern bolstered by metal brackets that looked like ancient mining equipment. Hepzibah set down the shuttle at the bottom of the cavern, and Rhi leapt to her feet, paying Hepzibah no heed when she yelled after her to wait. She slammed through the shuttle door without even waiting for the stairs to unfold and leaped down to the ground with a painful jolt, Hepzibah following her at a slower pace.
The cavern was enormous, the red-stone walls shining crystalline far above their heads. The air was so cold this deep beneath the planet’s surface it made Rhi shiver in her still-damp clothes. She squinted in the dim light, looking at the shadowy figures emerging into the cavern from a tunnel to greet them. She saw Carol first, and then Amadeus, whose arm was smeared with a bright green chalky substance that healed burns.
“Rhi!”
One of the sweetest sounds she’d ever heard, Jella’s voice— had she forgotten it until now?—echoed through the cavern. Her friends parted, and Rhi raced across the cavern floor, splashing through puddles and dodging stalagmites as Jella rushed toward her. Meeting in the middle, each reached out for an enveloping embrace.
Rhi sagged in Jella’s arms, relief surging through her in synch with her pounding heartbeat.
“It’s been so long! You did it, you really did it!” Jella murmured, clutching Rhi as if she wasn’t sure she was real. “Rhi, how is Mazz? Tarin? Do you—”
“They’re fine. We’ll free them next,” Rhi assured her, though she could not be sure, pulling back, staring into her beloved face. “I missed you so much,” she choked out.
“I knew you’d come!” Jella said, tears trickling down her cheeks as she pressed her forehead against Rhi’s. Jella, who had always been so strong… so defiant. Rhi pulled back, looking over Jella’s shoulder expectantly, searching the group of people approaching for her distinctive hair. But then, her stomach sinking, she realized.
Her eyes flew to Jella, who looked down. “Rhi—” she began.
“She’s not here,” Rhi said flatly, because she had to say it out loud.
She is mine. It echoed in her head, the utter confidence in Ansel’s tone. She tried to shake it out, but she couldn’t.
“Do not worry,” Hepzibah began, but Rhi shook her head, refusing to believe what she could see in their faces.
“Rhi, I’m so sorry,” Carol came forward, soot still smeared across her forehead. Gone was the evening gown, replaced by the red-and-blue suit that was like a beacon of hope, the Hala Star shining there on her chest.
“She sacrificed her freedom for Fern’s,” Jella said softly, gesturing behind her, where the little girl was standing next to Mantis.
“She put the EMP patch on her instead of using it herself,” Carol explained, her expression so gentle it made Rhi’s stomach seize up.
Rhi looked at the little girl… Fern. She was talking excitedly to Mantis, gesturing with her hands; when she moved them, lightning sprouted from her fingertips, a tiny flicker of power that made her start in surprise. Catching sight of the distinctive blue EMP patch on the little girl’s arm sent a bittersweet agony surging through Rhi.
But she wasn’t surprised—she couldn’t be. She knew who Umbra was. Umbra had always disagreed when Rhi insisted they had to be selfish, to look out for each other, not for everyone, because they could never rescue everyone. Rhi was practical, but Umbra was hopeful. And so their different points of view had played out: Rhi was here, and Fern was safe, but Umbra…
Umbra was still in Ansel’s grasp. Still under his control. Still his.
She wanted to sag against Jella, to give up the struggle, to finally let these burdens fall on someone else who truly understood them. She wanted to melt into a puddle of nothing, to tear a hole through time and space and leap inside, letting the vacuum overtake her until her body finally stopped fighting.
But she couldn’t. She had to be strong, and she had to be smart… now more than ever.
“We’ll find her,” Carol promised Rhi, her blue eyes blazing.
“Carol!” Scott called, and Carol looked over.
“One second,” she said, walking over to him.
Jella looked over her shoulder at the team, then back to Rhi, tugging her closer to the shuttle. “Rhi, we have a problem,” Jella said, her voice lowering, her hands tightening around her elbows.
“What?” Rhi asked.
“Look who brought us here.” Jella dipped her head to the side.
Rhi’s gaze followed Jella’s. When she’d scanned the people earlier, she’d been so focused on looking for Umbra’s distinctive hair she hadn’t noticed much else. When her eyes fell on the “problem” standing right next to Carol and Scott, Rhi’s heart frosted over, and her legs shook as she bolted forward toward the woman.
“Hey!” Her shout echoed through the cavern, bouncing off the high walls. There was something artificial and smooth about this cave, like it’d been hewn by hands, not by nature.
Carol shifted when Rhi clipped right past her and grabbed the other woman’s hand.
Sona shook her off, her face a calm mask, even now. Oh, that face—Rhi remembered a younger version of it so well, and it infuriated her, sparking an anger she hadn’t been allowed to show for years.
“Here we go,” Sona muttered. “Hello, Rhi.”
“You,” Rhi growled.
“Me.”
Rhi lunged, hissing between her teeth, her fingers aching to close around Sona’s neck.
“Whoa!” Scott said, reaching for her and missing as she dodged him.
“Stop that!” Someone yanked her back just as her fingernails grazed Sona’s skin, and she fought against them for a second— until she realized the hands restraining her were green. Mantis.
The fight left her immediately—not because Mantis was manipulating her emotions, but because she didn’t want to hurt the damaged empath. She could barely imagine carrying Jella’s pain, let alone all of Damaria’s.
“What the hell is going on?” Carol demanded, stalking up to the girls. Rhi’s stomach plummeted at her harsh tone, but then she realized that Carol was staring at Sona. In fact, all of them— her team—had grouped around her, tense and poised at the ready. They had her back. They had her trust. They had her.
“Rhi?” Amadeus asked, the syllable holding many questions. He’d immediately gone to Jella and Fern, as if he knew Rhi would want them protected. She felt a wave of gratitude toward her teammate.
“This is Sona Lee,” Rhi said, and Amadeus’s eyes widened when he recognized the name. “She’s the former president’s daughter,” she continued, for the rest of the team.
“That’s true,” Sona said.
“She’s a monster,” Rhi snarled.
Sona looked down, fighting to keep her face calm. How many times had Miss Egrit shown them the official presidential portrait with Sona perched at her father’s feet, so much like that sick picture Ansel had of Umbra in his office? Sometimes Rhi thought she knew the planes of Sona’s face better than her own. She’d certainly spent more time looking at her picture than at herself.
For years at the Maiden House, Sona Lee had been held up as an ideal of Damarian girlhood. Rhi used to feel sorry for her when Miss Egrit spoke of her—a girl who had never known freedom. Who was as trapped as they were, though she didn’t know it.
But then, the twins murdered their Keepers, and Miss Egrit took the girls to watch their execution. The president had insisted they attend—and he’d brought his daughter.
“I remember you, too, Rhi,” Sona said.
“Then you know why I’m going to rip your throat out.” Why had she lobbed all the ember bombs at Ansel’s home? If only she’d kept just one, she’d be able to…
“Maybe someone should explain what’s going on before we proceed to the throat-ripping?” Scott piped up.
“I’ll tell you,” Rhi said, her teeth grinding in the effort to keep from punching Sona. Every second the girl avoided her eyes, the fury rose in her until it felt like the only way it could come out was to scream. “I’ve mentioned the twins who murdered their Keepers and were executed for it. Sona’s father ordered it. He made us attend.”
“He made me attend, too,” Sona interjected.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Rhi hissed at Sona. The only thing keeping her from going for her again was the fact that the team—the people at her back, the ones who would be there even without answers—deserved to understand. “You’ve all seen what the ember bombs do with just a cup of the stuff. President Lee lowered the twins into a pool of it. We had to watch. We had to listen as the crowd cheered. As Sona cheered.”
Silence echoed in the tunnel, the only sound the drip drip drip echoing through the silence. Rhi could feel the tension in the team behind her.
Sona’s gaze finally lifted, fixing on her. “I had no choice.”
“You had a choice,” Rhi snapped, thinking of how her voice rose that day, ringing out loudly, because it was the only child’s among a sea of men’s. “You think they didn’t order us to cheer? You think we weren’t punished when we refused to betray our sisters?”
“What do you want me to say?” Sona demanded. “That I was a child? That I was weak and terrified and brainwashed? That I didn’t want my father to beat me again? All that is true, Rhi. What’s also true is that day changed me forever. Watching the twins, watching all of you—” Her lips pressed together as her eyes grew bright. “You all showed me what it looked like to be brave.”
“I’m so glad my friends’ murder was educational for you,” Rhi snapped.
“It was,” Sona said, and Rhi went for her, her nails slashing Sona’s cheek before Scott pulled her back.
Sona touched a hand to her bleeding cheek. “I’m sorry the twins’ murder was my wakeup call,” she said. “But from that moment on, I understood the nightmare I’d been born into, the nightmare you were all suffering. Then I began to plan. And now I’m here.”
“Yes, in this very impressive cave. I’m in awe,” Rhi said, wiping the blood dotting her fingers on her pants.
“Come with me, and you will be impressed,” Sona said.
“We’re not going anywhere with you.” It wasn’t Rhi who said it—it was Jella. She stepped forward, away from Amadeus and past the rest of the team, coming to stand next to her.
“She’s supposed to be dead,” Jella said to Rhi. “The government reported she fell off a cliff on a walk with her father almost two years ago.”
This was news to Rhi. She hadn’t seen that bulletin, but Miss Egrit shared only select ones with them in the Maiden House. Rhi raised an eyebrow expectantly at Sona.
“Well, as you can see, I’m alive,” Sona shrugged. “Are you surprised the government lied?”
“You could be working for them,” Jella insisted.
“And if I was, I’d be reporting to your Keeper, the security secretary, so you’d know about it.”
“He’s not my Keeper anymore,” Jella said. “He’s not anything anymore.”
“You got rid of Marson?” Sona asked, and then she whistled, impressed. “Ansel’s hair is gonna be smoking, he’ll be so mad.”
“I don’t trust you,” Rhi said.
“Well, you’re going to have to,” Sona replied. “Because I know where your brother is.”