Even though we encountered no obstacles leaving, we’re quiet until we’ve crossed the atmospheric barrier, which takes an alarmingly short amount of time. The three of us stay seated in the front of the ship, in a forced silence, until Gyzer finally turns from the control helm and clasps his soulful eyes on me. “Are you lost?”
“Aquarius confided his plans to me, and now I’m going to let the Guardians know . . . like I always planned to do,” I say, sounding defensive even to myself.
“But you’re no longer on our side.” Though he phrases it like a statement, it sounds like a question.
“It’s not about sides,” I say, shrugging. “It’s about truth.”
“And you believe the Last Prophecy is unavoidable?”
“Can you prove that it’s not?”
“I think you’re brainwashed,” says Ezra, doubling down on her accusation.
I wait to hear what Gyzer thinks, but he doesn’t offer anything more on the subject.
“I just hope they don’t shoot us down when they see we’re escorting a traitor,” Ezra goes on goadingly. “You really pissed Hysan off. I didn’t know Librans could even get that angry—”
“That’s enough,” I say, glaring at her.
“Says the double-crosser,” she snaps.
“Silence.” Gyzer’s mournful voice fills up the small space. He looks from Ezra to me and says, “Infighting is not productive.”
“Gy—”
“Don’t,” he warns Ezra, cutting her off midwhine. “If we can’t unite now, we’ll fail. If you can’t rise above your anger, you’re choosing death for all of us.”
Ezra looks genuinely shamed, and her eyes roll down to the floor as fire torches her cheeks. Gyzer turns back to the controls, and a heavy silence swaddles us until Ezra looks at me and says in a much lighter tone, “So Hysan’s Guardian of Libra and Lord Neith is an android?” She shakes her braids in awe and leans in. “Show me the Ephemeris that Saw that twist coming.”
? ? ?
It’s bright out on Phaet when we near The Bellow, the red sun barely visible at this time of day. “Something looks wrong,” says Gyzer as we descend toward the landing pad—which is full of identical black bullet-ships.
“You,” says Ezra, turning to me with fire in her eyes. “You told him the camp’s location!”
Aquarius lied to me.
He brought a whole fleet of ships here, and they never left.
What if the Marad arrested everyone? What if they forced Hysan to give that broadcast? What if something’s happened to him or Nishi or Mathias or Pandora or—
“You’re landing?” asks Ezra, rounding on Gyzer in shock. “What the hell are we going to tell them?”
“That we’re here on Aquarius’s orders,” I hear myself say. “I’ll tell them he sent me here to try to recruit my friends.”
Neither Ezra nor Gyzer disagrees with my plan, so we land. As soon as we disembark, half a dozen Marad soldiers approach us. When they see me, they pause.
“We’re here on Aquarius’s orders,” I say disdainfully, and I keep walking purposefully toward the entrance into the mountain. Ezra and Gyzer keep back a respectful distance, playing the role of my Tomorrow Party guards.
Inside the mountain, there’s no flurry of activity, no healers or Majors going about their work. The silence and emptiness is gloomy, and my blood chills with every step. When I eventually manage to find my way to the central area with offshoots to the hospital and The Bellow, I follow the scent of fresh air toward the smallest of the tunnels, the one that leads to Phaet’s secret golden forest.
I unlock the door, and we step into a cool, sunny day. Ezra and Gyzer survey the view around us in awe—since they’ve been with the Party this whole time, they haven’t seen this camp yet—but I hurry down the stone ramp, horrified by what I might have done.
Everything looks too still, and I scan the three fortresses ahead, wondering where my friends are.
“Which of the three holds the greatest power?” asks Gyzer, coming up beside me and staring at the same view.
“The first one has a communal reading room—”
“But barely anyone is getting visions these days,” Ezra interrupts.
“The second one has our arsenal of weapons,” I say nervously.
“But Aquarius already has weapons, and his are more destructive,” says Gyzer.
“The third one is intelligence.”
We look at each other, and immediately we head in the direction of the final Fort.
“We have no idea how many of Aquarius’s people are in there,” I say as we run. “We need a strategy to take back control of the camp.”
“We can start a fire,” suggests Ezra.
“A fire?”
“That will probably give us all the time we need,” says Gyzer approvingly.
“Time for what? What are you guys talking about?”
“Just distract people,” Ezra tells me. “When they’re not looking, we’ll do the rest.”
There’s no one guarding the fortress’s front doors, and the planet’s emptiness is becoming disturbing—but then I step into the large entrance hall full of semiprivate cubicles, and a Party member I vaguely recognize freezes.
“Oh—I didn’t realize he’d sent you!” she says, seeming reassured by the sight of Ezra and Gyzer with me. “This way.” She waves for us to follow.
We head down a passage that spills into a large room with a high-arched ceiling and so many windows that sunlight illuminates every corner. A dozen Marad soldiers outline the perimeter, surrounding thirteen people seated around a massive wooden table.
My heart punches my chest, and I’m as shocked to hear it as I am to see the sight before me.
Hysan, Nishi, Mathias, Pandora, Skarlet, and Eurek occupy half the seats. The other half are taken up by six Party members. The woman in the thirteenth chair has her back to me, but I recognize her sultry voice.
“We really need to get going, so for the last time: Agree to join us, or we’ll lock you up along with everyone else on this planet. You have right now to decide.”
“Captain,” interrupts the Party member who escorted us. “We have a very important visitor.”
Imogen turns around slowly, and when she sees me, her glossy red mouth curves into a smile. Then she spots Ezra and Gyzer behind me, and her smirk widens.
“I knew it!”
27
“KNEW WHAT?” I ASK AS dryly as I can, hating that my heart has chosen this moment to resurface when now, more than ever, I need to be cool and calculating. “Aquarius sent me here to try to convince them. He had a feeling you’d fail.”
“Right,” she says, standing on her spindly heels, her red lips still stretched in a too-confident smirk. “And you just happened to come with two of your former generals?”
“You were my former general,” I say, softening my voice to try a gentler approach. “If your devotion to the cause is complete, why distrust ours?”
“Because Aquarius has no idea you’re here,” she says, resting her hands on her waist, near where she holsters her Sumber. “If he did, I would have had warning of your arrival. I have a big imagination, but even I have a hard time believing you’ve changed sides.”
“I’m here to convince them to join us,” I say, trying to keep my disdain for her out of my tone. “Whether or not you trust me makes no difference—we both still want the same thing.”
Her copper-flecked eyes narrow shrewdly, and then her hands drop down at her sides. “Okay . . . go ahead.”