He’s been sneaking out to meet me. He has a good excuse. I mean, they have to eat, right? Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve of a relationship between us. They’d say he’s too old, too different. That he couldn’t possibly be interested in me, not truly. But they don’t know him like I do. All he wants is to have a normal life.

—Love, Grace

“The Cosmists have him?” I repeated.

Pax nodded.

“But how—?” My vision telescoped as Eire’s ability took over. The past.

The image was ghostly and insubstantial like the figures in my dream, but his identity was unmistakable. Tor stumbled over the rough ground of the forest, still covered in my blood. Unyielding branches scratched his face, blinding him, the skin on his knees and palms scraped away by the treacherous roots that brought him down over and over again. And still he pressed forward, sleeping where he collapsed, his mind freed by dehydration and grief.

Then, on the third night, his delirium inexplicably broke, and he turned back the way he’d come, his steps irregular with renewed urgency.

In his weakened state, he didn’t sense her. Kalbir. She crept up behind him, striking him on the back of the head and nearly knocking him out. Tor fought back, but with his blunted reflexes, she’d easily gained the upper hand. Before he could recover, she injected him in the neck, and for him, everything went dark.

“Ailith?” Cindra leaned over and peered into my face.

“Pax is right. Ethan has Tor. That traitorous bitch ambushed him.” They didn’t need to ask who I meant. Kalbir had not only betrayed and exposed us but murdered my father before joining Ethan’s ranks. “We’ve got to rescue him.”

Pebbles and mollusk husks crunched underfoot as a group of four non-augmented humans approached us. Among them was a family—Ryan, Lily, and Grace had lived in Goldnesse, the town where I’d grown up, and the town where we’d been exposed. Where my father had died. The town whose people Ethan had taken over. When he convinced the community to gather their pitchforks and turn on us, Lily and Ryan had risked everything to warn us. Since there was a good chance Ethan would’ve killed them if they’d returned after what he saw as their betrayal, they’d come with us, braving an uncertain future with their sixteen-year-old daughter Grace.

She hung back as they joined us. Lily had told Cindra and me in confidence that Grace was pining for her old life, although who or what specifically she wasn’t sure. Lily still worried about those they’d left behind—she’d been one of the few nurses in the community—but both she and Ryan seemed to be adjusting well to life on the island, their faces ruddy with the sea air and their hands roughened by new work.

Stella, the fourth, had been one of Ethan’s followers. Although she was a Cosmist and believed in the superiority of artificial intelligence in general and artilects in particular, she didn’t believe cyborgs were an abomination like the rest of them. She too had risked Ethan’s wrath to aid us, and although we knew her actions would’ve been different if Fane hadn’t sided with us, we were grateful nonetheless.

“I think Tor’s alive. Ethan has him.” The shock on their faces mirrored the churning in my gut.

“What are you going to do?” Stella asked. She looked as nauseated as I felt. Even though our fight with Ethan was far from over, the relative peace of the past few weeks had given us a false sense of security.

“Nothing yet,” Oliver said.

“But—”

“But nothing. Look, Ailith, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that what you saw could be real and Tor might be alive, but we need to make sure what you’re seeing is real before we go throwing ourselves in front of a Cosmist juggernaut. And if it is true, and the Cosmists do have Tor, we’re going to have to come up with a damn good plan to get him back. If they’ve taken over the compound, it’s not like we can just walk through the front door.”

“We may not have time, Oliver. Why did he suddenly surface now, if they’ve had him all this time? They must have something planned, either for him or us. Look, I agree we need to be as sure as we can be.” I know he’s alive. “But we may have to come up with a plan on the way.”

Oliver scrubbed his hands over his face. “I know. I know you’re right. Plus, if they do have him, they may be able to use him against us. Sorry.” He grimaced in apology.

“He would never—” I began. But— Oliver is right. The Tor we know would never willingly hurt us, but we don’t know what Ethan might do to him.

Oliver held up a hand. “We knew they’d come for us. And if they’ve got Tor, our only advantage is that they don’t know where we are right now, but how long will that last? They probably have scouts out looking for us at this very moment. We need to act first. If we can find out that Tor’s still alive, and that they’re still at the compound, maybe we can preempt their attack.”

“What if they want us to come and get him?” I said slowly. “What if he’s bait? He doesn’t know I’m alive, but they do.” The thought of his grief was more than I could bear.

Oliver closed his eyes and grimaced again. “That would make sense. Fuck. Okay. Even if that’s true, I still think we should take the offensive and go after him. If we do it quickly enough, maybe we’ll be able to surprise them.”

“And how do you propose we do that? It’s too risky, Oliver. I thought we were going to find ways to protect ourselves, here.” Ryan’s voice was strained, and I didn’t blame him. They were caught in the middle of our fight and didn’t have our millions of nanites to repair their injuries and keep them alive.

“Not we. You’re not coming. You’re right, we need to fortify ourselves here. That’s going to be your job.” Oliver gestured to the four of them. “Though, this plan may actually work out great for you—if they do manage to get us, they probably won’t come for you. So, silver lining and all that.”

Ryan didn’t look convinced. “Why can’t we just go somewhere else? Somewhere they can’t find us?”

“I don’t think such a place exists. Not where we can survive, anyway. They find a way, Ryan. Sooner or later, they’ll track us down. Fane is too important to them.”

“It’s true,” Fane admitted. “They need me to build more artilects. They were so concerned with secrecy, they kept very few records. And much of what they did have has been destroyed. However, if they get hold of this—” He tapped his temple. “They’ll have all the information they need.” He gave me a grim smile. “I agree with Oliver—Ryan and the others should stay here and make some plans while the rest of us try to retrieve Tor. If he is alive, we’ll need all the strength we can get.”

“You’re not coming, Fane. It’s you they want.” My tone was harsh, but hurting his feelings was better than the tendrils of panic that began to unfurl at the thought of the Cosmists capturing him.

“You can’t stop me.” His voice was calm, but the set of his jaw told me he was anything but.

“Fane—”

He gazed dreamily off into the distance, humming under his breath as he ignored me.

Fine. Maybe he was better off with us. If something did go wrong, at least we could try to protect him. No offense to Ryan and the others, but they were no match for Ethan.

“The first thing we need to do is find out whether what you saw is true. Do you think you could connect with him again?” Oliver asked.

“I can try, though I might not be able to get through if he’s unconscious again. But I know he’s alive—his thread would be dark otherwise.”

Oliver looked dubious.

“If Tor’s unconscious, do you think you could connect with Kalbir?” Cindra asked tentatively. She knew my feelings all too well.

Oliver dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “If Ethan’s as knowledgeable about us as I think he is, he’ll have found some way to block you from going down her thread. He might not tell Kalbir everything, but she’s bound to have some knowledge of his and Lien’s plans. He wouldn’t want to risk us finding out.”

“It’s still worth an attempt, though, isn’t it?” Cindra asked.

I glanced at Oliver. “Could it hurt? Is there any way they’d be able to track us through her?”

He deliberated for a moment then shook his head. “No. Not that I know of. Be careful, though, in case he’s rigged her with some kind of virus. Get out at the first sign of anything unusual.”

“I will.” I closed my eyes and the network of threads spread out before me. Kalbir’s thread was invisible. Not dark—simply not there. “I think Oliver’s right. I can’t find Kalbir’s thread.”

“So Tor’s our only option then.” Oliver sounded relieved.

“It seems so, unless we want to go in blind. But I have a feeling Ethan wants us to find Tor—he’d have blocked his thread otherwise.” In which case, this should be easy.

In the darkness, Tor’s thread flickered. Its gleam was muted, but even as I watched, it seemed to grow brighter. As though he were growing stronger. Our instincts were right—something was about to happen.