THE ENCLAVE GUARD IN the poufy colorful uniform and floppy hat checks my hand. “Logosian,” he says, then pats me down for weapons. “What is your purpose in Fiori?”

“Business.”

“Three-day pass. Keep it with you at all times.”

“Thank you.”

I step through the enormous gate decorated with colorful banners, then wait as the guard interacts with Faruq.

“Baqirian.” The guard looks long and hard at Faruq, whose face remains expressionless. “Where did you come from?”

“Baqir.”

“Why?”

Faruq raises his eyebrows. “That’s where I was born.”

“What brings you to Fiori?”

“Business.”

The guard levels a suspicious gaze at him. “What sort of business?”

“A delivery.”

“What sort of delivery?”

Faruq, still calm, flicks a glance at me.

I’ve had about enough of this.

“Where are you taking it?” presses the guard. “How long do you plan to stay here?”

“Look, he’s with me, okay? Can we get going, please?”

The guard gawks at me with his mouth open, then looks back to Faruq. “This is true?”

Faruq nods. “Yes.”

“You and the Logosian are traveling ... together?”

I roll my eyes. “Yes.”

His mouth hangs open as he spins and yells to another guard in Fiorian. “Superio Succicci. Avemu una minaccia. Veni più di ccà e di succorsu.”

Another guard, a supervisor with gold bars sewn onto the shoulder of his tunic, approaches with a brisk step, chattering away to our guard. “Cosa hè u prublema?”

“St’omu, iddu veni'n viaggiu cu idda,” our guard stammers, pointing first at Faruq and then me.

Now it’s the supervisor’s turn to look dumbfounded. He turns back and forth, dramatically yammering in Fiorian before locking on me. “It is true? This man is ... yours?”

My cheeks are burning. “No, I ... Yes, he’s with me but we’re not ...” Sard. “It’s not like that. He’s my friend.” What am I, twelve?

The guards laugh out loud. Faruq has a small but amused smile on his face.

My embarrassment quickly turns to irritation. “Are you two finished? He’s not a threat, and he’s with me. Any other stupid questions?”

The guards just laugh. “Unu momentu, Madama.” They give Faruq a thorough pat down.

Breathe through it, Mila. I need to know where the Forgotten Jewel is, but I’m not asking these jackbags. Arms folded, I wait, restlessly tapping my foot until they release him into Fiori with a three-day pass like mine.

Faruq gives me a sly grin as he approaches. He’s not upset in the least.

“Is it always like this for you? I’m not sure I could put up with it.”

“You almost didn’t.” Faruq stifles a chuckle.

“I know.” It’s hard not to smile back.

“The guards are doing their job. It can be frustrating, but I understand the reason for it. If one spider bites you, you assume the next one has teeth, correct?”

Faruq’s common sense causes the tension to bleed from my shoulders. “Yeah, you do.”

“Hey.” He bumps my arm. “At least they let us both in. You would not be allowed in my enclave.”

“Nor you in mine.” I give a laugh. This man is full of surprises.

Fiori is like another world. I’ve been here several times, and it never ceases to impress. Yes, it’s still freezing cold, and yes, it’s still in the shadow of the lillipads, but there’s something about it, something intoxicating. All around us buildings crafted of carved stone and mortar stand like fortresses. The music of stringed instruments hovers in the air. Rippling colored silk awnings and tents line the heart of a great marketplace that’s filled with the din of a bustling crowd. A woman begs from a street corner. Dingy miners pass on their way back to work, grumbling about another grueling double shift. Children with worn but colorful clothes run this way and that between the stalls. Vendors call out for us to sample their wares. It reminds me of Logos—only more vibrant. This is what the great cities of the old world must have felt like, before the war.

Faruq walks unnoticed and unchallenged. There are other Musuls here in the market, buying or selling their goods—able to live and raise their families in this place, free from Kapka’s oppression.

“I’m going to ask them about Husniya,” Faruq says.

“Sure.”

He shuffles off into the crowd.

I approach a bread vendor and muster my best, broken Fiorian. “Ve sete scurdat de Jewel?”

The woman wordlessly shakes her head and motions me out of her way. Not sure if I said that right or if she simply doesn’t know. Moving farther into the marketplace, I stop a short, thin man peddling krig. “Ve sete scurdat de Jewel?”

His face lights up. “Iè. You desideri di u Jewel? Hè induve tutti i minatori andà. Attenti à sè per ghjè—ˮ

I understand yes and Jewel.

He smiles, broad yellowed teeth jutting in all directions, and points toward the mines. Gil said the Forgotten Jewel was a sloop dive. Of course it would be close to the mines.

I mumble a thank you in Fiorian and push on through the crowd.

The little vendor jumps up and down, waving his arms and shouting, “Stai attentu. Un hè micca un postu sicuru unni doppu scura.”

A warning?

Faruq approaches from a throng of Musul vendors.

“Nothing?”

He shakes his head. “I have to find her. She’s resourceful, but we’ve never been apart this long before. Besides, she’s ... special.”

“How so?”

“She speaks to herself. Says she can hear a voice. She can be fragile.”

A voice? Demitri—he had a voice in his head, too. I pat Faruq on the shoulder. “Get your head up. We’ll find her.”

As we make our way out of the heavy crowds of the market and toward the mines, the landscape changes. Simpler dwellings, crafted from stone or brick, line the roads, now just a slurry of mud and ice. The bulk of these people don’t live differently than Logosians. Fiori is just as poor as the rest of us—they just hide it a little better with silks and music.

The sun moves low in the sky, occasionally peering through the clouds to give our gray world a hint of orange. The stone dwellings turn to shacks, and the roads fade into muddy fields. The entrance to one of the largest mines in Etyom is ahead. The tunnels below are supposed to run deep and even connect with mines in other enclaves—if you know the way.

Faruq bumps my arm. The Forgotten Jewel stands in a lonely corner of the mucky field. Its ramshackle exterior is filthy. Rough, mud-covered men move in and out in a constant stream, trailed by an awful grinding music that spills out every time the door swings open. We’re going to stand out.

We slog our way through the field toward the old saloon and are about to climb the two or three steps to the door when a shadowy figure steps into our path.

“Ecco bella I pò interessu vo a signura?”

Faruq and I glance at each other and shrug.

“Oh, eh ... something can I have to interest you? Yes?” The scruffy man opens his jacket to reveal several stim cocktails in syringes. “Make very nice for love.” He winks.

“Sard off, or I’ll force-feed you that garbage and watch you embarrass yourself further.”

Grumbling, the man curses me and slinks back to the shadows.

At the entrance to the Forgotten Jewel, a large, dark-skinned Kahangan doorman stands ready for us, arms folded across his chest. There’s no doubt he’s on Swole or some other muscle-enhancing stim.

“You two look lost.” He laughs.

“I’m here to see Lemmy.”

The doorman sobers. “There’s no Lemmy here. Best be on your way, kids.”

I’m in no mood for this. “I’m glad you think you’re cute. I’m here to meet with Lemmy. You’re going to pretend there’s no Lemmy because that’s what you’ve been told to do, and you’re scared you’re too stupid to do anything but play it straight. Sound about right so far? Let’s skip the games and get on with it. I’m expected, and I don’t want to have to hurt your feelings, big boy.”

The doorman steps closer, his fists already balled. A chuckle from within the doorway stops the Kahangan. From behind the stout bouncer comes a little man with wire-framed spectacles and a devilish grin on his face. “I think she just called you stupid, Mos.”

The Kahangan is furious. “I’ll pull her arms off.”

“Not just yet,” he says with a smirk.

“Yuri?”

“The one and only. You’re late ... again.”

“You’re alive.”

“In that way, I’m a bit like a cockroach—just one not so easily stamped on. But you, Mila, you have broken our deal twice and now arrive here with a Musul in tow. What are we to think?”

“Fine. I broke the deal. But you saw what happened at the meet. The Creed destroyed my home—I’ve been running for my life.”

“I’m sorry for your home. But you seem to have a lot of excuses, I’m afraid. You broke the agreement. You could have accessed or sold the information a hundred times by now. It was a mistake doing business with you. You were supposed to be a professional.”

“Hold on a second, Yuri. Now you’re just insulting me. Between the Creed vaporizing everyone, Kapka’s thugs detonating themselves everywhere, and now your people, I can’t take a step without someone trying to kill me. This isn’t what I’m used to.”

“Not my problem.”

My skin prickles hot. “Yeah, I can see that. And what about you, Yuri? You had me pick up a package to deliver here because it was too dangerous for you to do yourself—and yet here you are. Why not just deliver it yourself? This doesn’t add up.”

“So many questions, Mila. But questions do not always have easy answers,” Yuri says, clearly relishing his secrets.

“Okay. Thanks for the non-answer.”

“Where is it, Mila?” He cocks his head.

“In my sling bag.”

“Did you access it, Mila?” Yuri locks me down with a steely gaze.

Lying here could be bad for me, but telling the truth—that I allowed a Gracile, of all people, to access it—will get me skinned alive and hung on the outer wall. “Of course not. What happens now?”

Yuri sighs and puts his hands on his hips. “You brought the data. Better late than never—but you really shouldn’t have involved him.” He flicks his head at Faruq.

“What are you trying to say, Yuri?”

“I’m saying you will not like what happens next.”

Before I can think of anything witty, someone yanks a bag over my head. The doorman’s gut punch knocks the wind out of me, my legs buckle, and I slump to the ground. I’m pulled back up and slung over the doorman’s broad shoulders. My legs lash out, striking nothing. In the distance, I hear Faruq’s muffled groans as men drag him away. Why do I always have to learn the hard way?

* * *

AFTER A SHORT WALK and a long descent down an echoing stairwell, I’m unceremoniously plonked down in a freezing metal chair. The Kahangan moves behind me and secures my arms to the chair with his bare hands, meaty fingers clamping down above my wrists. I’m not going anywhere for now. The bag is snatched from my head. I flick my hair from my face. That’s too many bags over my head in the last forty-eight hours.

The air hangs thick and musty, dripping with moisture like the inside of a cave. No, not a cave—a mine. A single candle hangs in a lantern above, casting a funnel of light over my head. The rest of the room and the figures in it lie in shadow, only the tips of a few muddy boots or the outline of a person’s face peering out of the dark.

“What’s the holdup? I came all this way to try to find someone reasonable, and this is how I’m treated? You’re going to bring me down in this mine and do what? Let me talk to Lemmy already.”

“There is no Lemmy,” a man says from the shadows.

“Then why did I waste my time coming here to talk to—”

“Foolish girl. I need to speak to Lemmy is just a phrase used to tell us why you’re here.”

“Oh ... right.” Good job, dummy.

“The data stick is fried,” the voice says.

“No. You’re just too stupid to activate it. The stick is fine.”

“The stick. Is. Fried.” From the shadows the data package, now outside its lead capsule, lands in front of me. It’s attached to my PED, the plugged-in holo-screen fizzing in a wash of static. “There’s no accessing this information anymore. What did you do to it?”

A tingle of fear slides across my skin. This really could get me killed. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t access the package?”

“Look, it was functional, okay?”

“Did you activate an EMP around it?”

“Yes, when we fled the Creed, but the packet was encased in lead, and it was working afterward when—”

“How do you know it was working if you didn’t access it?”

“We—”

“Who’s we?”

My mouth is sticky and dry. “I had to know what was so important—why the Creed wanted me dead for it. Let me talk to Yuri.”

“Yuri is busy. I’m in charge of this group. You deal with me now.”

“Okay?” The doorman’s hands squeeze tighter around me.

“Who else knows what was in the data package?”

“Nobod—ˮ

“Who else.” The room echoes with the words.

The truth will get me killed. There’s no good way to spin the fact that I got a Gracile to access secret information. If Demitri is against us, then the Leader’s plans have likely been accelerated. If he is somehow with us and still alive, then I have to find him. He’s now the only one who knows exactly what was in the packet. Gotta stall for time.

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” the voice whispers menacingly.

A short man with thin eyes steps into the light, brandishing a kukri blade.

The voice continues. “If we don’t like the answer, then my friend here is going to cut you into chunks and throw your parts down a shaft, like we did with that Musul you stupidly brought with you. He cried like a woman when we cut his throat—ˮ

With a practiced twist of my shoulders, I slip the doorman’s grip. Spinning to his outside, my boot catches him across the chin. He stumbles, falling into the shadows. The others come for me.

“You ... murderers.” I punch one across the jaw, following the strike with a low kick that buckles his legs. Then I take the fight to the next one, and the next, working my way through them. “You killed my friend. For what?” Thick arms encircle my neck and lock down. I cough, sputtering and slapping at the muscly chokehold. “He came here to help and you ... you ... gahhhh.” The pressure releases, but the arm around my neck continues to hold firm.

“Very good,” the voice says into my ear.

That voice. I know it.

“You have done well to get this far, young krogulec. This is why we need you. Let her up.”

The arms relent, and from the dark, a familiar face appears.

“Bil?”

He extends his hand.

I swipe it away. “Are you trying to kill me? You scared me to death.” I rise on shaking legs and crash into him, squeezing with all I have. “Bilgi. I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead. You were in Logos when ... I’m so confused.”

“I heard of what the Creed did in Logos. It’s shameful. They were after you.”

“I know. Why do you think I came here?”

“I’m sorry to have scared you like this, girl. You’ve been through a lot.” He squeezes me quickly, then pulls from my embrace and grabs my shoulders. “We’re alive and undiminished; that’s what matters now.”

“Faruq?”

“Your friend is okay. We didn’t harm him.”

I shake my head, pulling away. “But I don’t understand. You’re with the resistance?

“I am.”

“Why all this deception?”

The large Kahangan doorman shuffles up, rubbing his jaw. Bilgi glances at him then back to me.

“We had to know you were serious. We had to know the data wasn’t in the wrong hands. This mission is that important, Mila.”

“Oh, the data has been in the wrong hands all right—mine. Yuri had it, and he’s here now. Why involve me? The last forty-eight hours have been a trip through hell.”

“I’m afraid it’s not over yet. Yuri’s cover was burned. The Creed were tracking him when they hit the drop point. He never would have made it here. We had to hand the information off to someone who could get it to this location, despite being tracked by Creed. I hated to involve you, but I knew there was no one better.”

“Well, it’s obvious the Creed want this information, and they want us dead for having it. But how do you know how serious this is if you haven’t seen the information yet?”

“I trust my source inside the Gracile network. All he could tell us was the data outlined some sort of existential threat, one we had to see to believe. But now it’s destroyed. That’s why we need you. You’ve seen it.”

“Well—ˮ

“How bad is it, Mila? Tell us.”

“I don’t fully understand it—something about creating a black hole with a doomsday device. The Graciles want to live forever, and they’re willing to kill everyone else to try. To make it worse, the Leader has employed Kapka and his goons to keep you from finding out. That’s why I came.”

Bilgi’s expression is a mask of stone. “Join us. The Gracile oppressor and his plan must be stopped.”

“You know what this means, right? This will mean war with the Creed and a large segment of fanatical Musuls. Are you sure that’s what you want?”

My mentor lowers his head and levels a hard gaze at me. “So sure of it we will sacrifice every life we have to stop them.”