Hotbloods 5: Traitors

“I like that one. I will remember it for later!” With that, he got up and headed out the front door, no doubt eager to investigate his ship. With us taking up his cargo hold, I figured he still had a lot of unpacking to do. I thought about mentioning the escaped seedlings, but I didn’t want to distress him.

The thought of visiting with Gianne was an unsettling one, especially since she hadn’t followed us here, nor had there been any news from her. I didn’t like the idea of walking into the lion’s den voluntarily, but I’d made a promise to visit her as soon as Navan was back, and I figured that honesty might buy us some time to explain what had happened at the Idrax mansion—if she wasn’t too busy with destroyed comms towers and general wartime chaos to even care. After all, she had Jareth, and he was the one with the secrets locked up in his head.

“We’ll check in as soon as the towers are up and working again,” I promised, tossing the black box device to Ronad. “Navan has his device, so wait for his transmission to come through.”

Ronad stood quickly and hurried toward me, pulling me into a friendly bearhug. “Good luck, Riley. I mean it. You’re a stronger person than I could ever be.”

“Balls of steel, right?” I joked, wanting to lighten the mood.

He grinned, pulling away. “Balls of serrantium!”

“Balls of what?”

“The strongest alloy in the universe,” Ronad replied with a grin. “You might want this, by the way,” he added, throwing something in my direction. I snatched it from the air and realized it was the pay device we’d nabbed from under Lorela’s bed. How Ronad had managed to steal it back, I didn’t know, but I was glad of it.

“You sure you trust us not to just take off with this kind of money?” I teased.

He lifted his hands, amused. “Hey, enjoy your tropical island.”

I still had a smile on my face as we left the cottage and headed for the sky-cab stop, just up the road. Although it wasn’t ideal, we needed to use public transport, since Navan had arrived in one of Queen Brisha’s military ships. It was cloaked for now, with less chance of someone coming to investigate it out here in the middle of nowhere, but in the hubbub of the city it was an entirely different story. It would take only one pedestrian walking into the cloaked side of it to blow our cover.

Navan had bound his broken wing to his side, so he wouldn’t have to have it out the whole time, but I could still make out the faintest lump of it beneath his shirt. Meanwhile, I’d stolen a thick coat from the back of Sarrask’s door, to keep out the bitter wind, and I pulled it up to my chin as we reached the obelisk with the glowing button. I pressed it, and we patiently waited for a cab to descend. A moment later, I became aware of Navan staring at me, a smirk on his face.

“What?”

“You seem to be getting the hang of Vysanthean life.” He chuckled. “Who taught you to do this?”

I grinned. “Ronad. I’ve been on a Shunter, too.”

“You haven’t!”

“I have!”

He laughed heartily. “You poor thing! Nobody rides the Shunter unless they really have to.”

“Well, we really had to.” I giggled, nestling into his side as he put his arm around my shoulders. Just because we were heading off to see his fiancée didn’t mean we couldn’t be ourselves.

“How much is on that thing, anyway?” He gestured toward the pay device. I handed it to him and laughed as a low whistle left his lips. “You sure you don’t want that tropical island?”

“One day,” I said hopefully. “When all of this blows over and we have time to ourselves, you and I are going to stretch out on a beach somewhere and do nothing but bask in the sun, listen to the waves, and read trashy romance novels.”

“Deal.” He tilted my chin upward, and his mouth caught mine, the two of us getting lost in each other. Had it not been for the impatient beep of the sky-cab that had just descended, we might have stayed like that, wrapped up in our bubble.

We hopped into the back, and Navan told the cabbie where we wanted to go. After swiping the pay device across the scanner, garnering the cabbie’s satisfied nod, the vehicle took off with a judder of machinery and charted a course for Seraphina’s workplace. Since it was the middle of the Vysanthean week, it seemed like a safe bet that was where she’d be.

Half an hour later, the cab set down in a designated space beside the school where Seraphina worked. It was a striking glass building, spiraling in the shape of a mollusk, but there was no playground for the children, only what looked like an assault course built in the yard. A class was out there, running in pairs, clambering up ropes, ducking through tunnels, and hauling themselves over high walls. They couldn’t have been older than six or seven, and it was clear that the activity wasn’t supposed to be fun.

I kept a polite distance away from Navan, remembering the Southern take on interspecies relationships, as we entered the school. It was airy and welcoming, with the sound of chattering children drifting up the hallway. At the reception desk, we asked to see Seraphina and were led down a long glass corridor. Seraphina’s classroom was the last one on the right. I could see her wandering back and forth at the front of the room, talking animatedly to her students. She froze as the receptionist knocked.

“There are two visitors to see you,” the receptionist said, before disappearing back up the corridor.

Seraphina smiled, covering her shock quickly. “How wonderful! What do we say to newcomers, children?”

“Welcome to our classroom! We hope you enjoy your time with us!” they chorused, bringing a goofy grin to my face. All of this was so familiar, and yet so strange. I almost felt like I was back in kindergarten. The children were all adorable, with their chubby cheeks and cute gray faces. I didn’t think these could be older than four or five, but it was hard to tell.

“Lita, would you care to take over until the end of the lesson, while I speak with these visitors?” Seraphina asked, directing the question at a young woman with a white streak in her jet-black hair, who was standing at the back of the classroom.

Seraphina didn’t wait for an answer as she walked up to us and guided us into the hallway. I could see the glimmer of hope in her eyes as she fixed her gaze on Navan. It almost made me jealous, to see the hunger with which she looked at him, but I knew it came from a place of desperation, not affection.

“What are you doing here?” she asked anxiously.

I was just about to answer when a loud siren blared. Terrified it was some kind of airstrike alert or fire alarm, I ducked down and covered my head, only for Seraphina to help me back up. She smiled as a flood of tiny children poured out of the classrooms all around us, heading out to the assault course. Two teachers walked out into the yard and pressed buttons on the side of the high wall, the tunnels, and the rope ladders. Each one folded away into the ground, leaving a flat surface for the children to play on.

“Let’s play colonizers and natives!” a small boy cried to his friend, as he raced down the corridor toward the now-flat yard.

“Fine, but you’re the native this time!” a girl called after him, sprinting to catch up.

I grimaced. It was just a game to them, but it was so much more to an onlooker. The Vysantheans really did start their indoctrination early. Shaking off the bad feeling it gave me, I turned back to Seraphina, who was still holding my arm. She was trembling, her clammy palms cold against my skin.

“Why are you here?” she repeated.

I forced a smile onto my face. “I spoke with Navan, as you asked, and he’s agreed to marry you. He doesn’t want you suffering at the hands of Aurelius, and neither do I.”

Navan flashed me a curious look, making me realize I’d forgotten to mention that it was Seraphina herself who’d asked me to make a petition to him, on her behalf. I supposed it didn’t matter now.