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  Navan exhaled, running a hand down his face.

  “Is it true?” I asked quietly. “That they’ll discover the technology sooner or later?”

  “Of course, it’s possible. Though, given my rank as a chief explorer, even if the technology developed to reach this far into the universe, I would have authority to direct teams to other quadrants, and keep them away from Earth. But that would be by no means failsafe. It would only take one rogue, one disobedient team—or a team from Queen Brisha’s side—to become curious and land here…” He looked away, his jaw tightening. “Ultimately, there is little one man—or a few men—can do to thwart an entire race, especially one as savage as mine. All I know is that I have to do my part in preventing it—in delaying that day as long as possible. It’s all any of us can do.”

  I gulped. “Right.” That was worrying, to say the least. To think that we could go to all this trouble to get Navan’s ship repaired, only to have the coldbloods invent their own ship and discover Earth a few months or years later. Still, Navan was right. What else could we do but try? Maybe, after we had retrieved the blood sample, we could brainstorm ways to at least prepare Earth for the possibility. Maybe we would have to tell humans about coldbloods after all, in order to allow Earth’s leaders to prepare for their arrival. I could take Navan and Bashrik to meet them as proof.

  But, one step at a time. The most pressing matter was the blood sample—my blood sample—that was currently on its merry way to Vysanthe.

  Gazing at Navan, I wondered again what was driving him to help us. What was stopping him from doing a Jethro, and selling us out for an easier life. He had mentioned guilt before, but what guilt could be so strong as to drive him to such sacrifices for the sake of a species that had no connection to him? A species that, up until recently, he didn’t even know existed.

  “Navan,” I ventured, knowing that talking to him wasn’t going to help him fall asleep, but I couldn’t help myself now. “Do you mind telling me why you’re doing this for us? You’re putting yourself out in a major way. It would be much easier for you to, you know…” I trailed off, seeing that he had caught my drift.

  He sat up against the pillows, his head rising to be more level with mine, and grimaced. “Do you remember during our first ‘question and answer’ session, I told you about an alchemist who came up with the Immortality Theory? The man who caused this whole frenzy of coldbloods seeking out the blood of far-flung lands?”

  I nodded.

  His face darkened. “That alchemist was my father.”

  I stared at him, my lips parting. “Oh.”

  “You remember I told you that originally I was an alchemist, too? Before I switched professions and became an explorer?”

  “Yes,” I said uncertainly.

  “Well, my father was my alchemy teacher, and the first several years of my apprenticeship were spent helping him develop the theory. He was the one driving the project, but I did most of the grunt work.” He sat up and turned around as if in shame, planting his feet on the floor as he turned his back on me. “I was the only one of his ten sons who decided to take up his profession, mostly for reasons of ego. My father is renowned throughout all of Vysanthe as an expert in his field, and my brothers didn’t want to feel overshadowed by him. I didn’t care about that, though, because I really had a genuine interest in the subject. So I took it up… only to regret it. I didn’t know at the time what the theory would lead to, or even the purpose of many of the lab tasks he was having me perform—but regardless, nothing can or will ever change that I am essentially the theory’s co-creator, and responsible for… all of this. I’m responsible for a lot of things that I wish I could take back.”

  His last sentence was spoken with a gravity that resonated through my very being. I felt his emotions so deeply in that moment, his remorse and his frustration, it was as if I were experiencing them myself. I couldn’t imagine the level of pain the guilt must be causing him—especially when it wasn’t even his fault.

  Okay. This explains a lot. I wasn’t sure how to respond to his revelation. I didn’t sense that he wanted any kind of sympathy or reassurance from me—just that it was something he was getting off his chest, since I had asked. So I remained quiet, waiting for him to continue.

  “As soon as I realized what I had helped my father accomplish, I gave up alchemy and decided to become an explorer. I wanted a ship better than anyone else because… although I didn’t know for how long I’d be able to keep it hidden, given all the damage I was complicit in causing, I wanted to be the first to discover the blood, if it really was out there.”

  “Why do you think your father kept the theory a secret from you, when you were working on it?” I asked.

  “Not because he thought I’d be against it, if that’s what you’re wondering—he expected me to be onboard with it. He kept it a secret simply because he didn’t want a single leaky hole. He wanted to be the first and only alchemist to present the groundbreaking theory to our Queen Gianne, as it would enhance his already high status, and didn’t want to risk me slipping anything to anyone, even by accident. That’s how my father is. However, in an incident that I believe was not related to Jethro, but rather some other spy of Queen Brisha who managed to infiltrate her sister’s palace, some of my father’s papers were stolen—and the theory was leaked to the other side. Once both queens knew about the theory, it became a race to see who could discover the right blood first, and so from there, the whole thing snowballed.”

  Finally, he turned to look at me again, and his eyes were so intense that I flinched, barely able to hold his gaze. “Countless lives have been lost because of me, as my people go around plundering planets, seeking out the magic blood. And I will be responsible for many more before my life is done. So maybe now you can understand better why I’m doing what I’m doing. Any creature who wasn’t a complete monster would do the same. It’s not noble or brave… It’s just a way to live with myself.”

  He went silent, and his words hung in the air. I didn’t know what to say.

  He turned over and reached for another vial and downed it, before resettling his head against the pillows, and turning his back on me again.

  Navan didn’t speak again after that, and neither did I. After twenty minutes, I sensed that he had finally let sleep claim him, but I couldn’t sleep, not after that. So instead I watched him, trying to unpack everything he had said, everything new I had just learned about this troubled and haunted man.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but after Navan had been out of it for over an hour and a half, his calm, steady breathing must have seduced me into my own slumber. I woke up to the sensation of something hard and warm beneath my cheek, and as consciousness slowly trickled back to me, I realized with a start that I was partially lying on Navan. My head was on his chest, and I had one arm slung over his waist, my legs trying to intertwine themselves with his.

  I jerked backward, and then realized why I had woken up in the first place. Navan was saying my name.

  The blood rushed to my cheeks, and I crawled back so fast I almost fell off the bed. “Oh my God!” I exclaimed, mortified.

  He was frowning slightly, his blue-gray eyes glimmering with mild amusement at my reaction. “Gee. I didn’t realize I was that horrifying.”

  I blushed. “No! It’s not—I mean . . . I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” A smile played at the corners of his lips. “I suppose you must’ve gravitated toward my warmth in your sleep.”

  “Yeah,” I said breathlessly, and as our last conversation came back to me, I was glad that I had managed to bring out a smile in him, even if it was at my expense.

  I gazed around the room, still feeling rather disorientated, as I realized how low the sun had dipped in the sky. “What time is it?” I asked, rubbing my forehead.

  He pointed toward the clock on the mantelpiece. “7 PM, which is why I woke you. I overslept too—woke up only a minute or two
before you.”

  “Oh man.” I swept my feet off the bed and stood up, running my hands through my clean hair. “We should get going then.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll, uh, use the bathroom real quick.”

  I stumbled into the bathroom and closed the door, leaning my head against it and giving myself a few moments to calm my pounding heart. I washed my face with cold water and lathered another generous layer of cream onto my face and hands, before brushing my teeth, using one of the complimentary toothbrushes.

  After I emerged, Navan took his turn, and he locked himself in the bathroom. As I heard the shower being turned on, I tried to imagine what the bathrooms were like in Vysanthe—whether they were similar, or something entirely different. For that matter, I wondered what civilization in Vysanthe looked like in general. The whole concept of other highly developed civilizations out there in the universe was still sinking in.

  I made sure we had all our things together, and then ate another couple of bananas. We were about to make the last leg of the journey to New York, and I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I ate again. When we arrived, I supposed we would find another hotel to check into or maybe go straight to an internet café so we could start planning our stunt. God. It still hadn’t quite sunk in what I had gotten myself into. If all went according to plan, I was going to be coming face to face with yet another supernatural species—lycans.

  Navan reemerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, wearing a fresh set of clothes, his black hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes damp.

  “Ready?” he asked, sweeping his eyes about the room.

  “Yes. If you are.”

  I put on my coat and Navan grabbed the bag. Together, we checked out of the hotel, and headed back to the same forest we had landed in, figuring that was a good place to take off inconspicuously.

  When it came time for me to wrap myself around Navan again, I blushed in a way I hadn’t done before, recalling the bed incident, even though it was silly since I had been squeezed up close to him for possibly over ten hours across all our travels. Still, the context of a bedroom had made things feel… different.

  He glanced at his compass, consulting his map again, and then we took off. I braced myself for the harsh wind as we broke through the treetops, and Navan zoomed forward at what felt like three times the speed of his former pace. Clearly, the rest had done him good. And though it made for a much more uncomfortable ride, as my stomach was constantly clenching and my eyes watered as I tried to breathe, it was a needed change—we had lost time to make up for.

  It took even less time than I had anticipated for the bright lights of NYC to come into view—a little over an hour. Navan’s skin was already resuming its gray hue as he slowed down. We approached the high-rise buildings, and I felt a slight ache in my chest on seeing home. It made me wonder where Jean and Roger were, what they were doing in this moment. At least they were blissfully oblivious to what I was doing. If they knew, they’d have a heart attack.

  Like I almost did, as a heavy object hurtled past my right ear. A second later, a window in a nearby building shattered. Whatever that was, it had come within inches of my head.

  “What was that?!” I gasped.

  Another whoosh came from my left, shattering a second window. An alarm went off, followed by loud voices coming from the building, and I could have sworn someone said the word “knife.” Navan dropped into a freefall, zooming down the length of the building, even as strange objects—knives?—continued to fly past us.

  “What the hell?” I screamed.

  Navan leveled out, surging ahead through the darkness, weaving a path through the maze of buildings, and traveling so fast we would have been a blur to any surveillance cameras.

  The objects stopped flying after us, and I was left with the same unnerving feeling from earlier today, only amplified tenfold. There was nobody in the sky tonight, just as there hadn’t been earlier. But it was either that, or Navan and I both were losing our minds. I had seen the shattered window, though, and heard the sound of surprised voices. This could not be just my imagination.

  Navan flew for another ten minutes, weaving a complex trail in between buildings, as if trying to shake off an invisible follower. He finally landed on the roof of a twelve-story building, his eyes wide and alert as he set me down and gazed around the evening’s sky, before pulling me toward a service door. We crouched down next to it. The worry I had noted earlier in his eyes had returned.

  He didn’t say anything about it, which made sense, since what was there to say? We stayed down for a long moment, scanning the empty sky, and then he pulled me up, and we took off again.

  We weren’t flying for long this time, as he headed straight for Central Park, which was only a few streets away. He settled us down in a dark, quiet spot, then pulled in his wings, adjusting the hood of the sweater he was wearing so that it cast long shadows over his face.

  “Okay,” he said, leading us toward the park’s exit, and I couldn’t miss the nervousness in his tone. “I have no idea how to explain that, but we should avoid the sky, for now—and we need to get straight on with the plan. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we get out of danger.”

  “Do you think it could be the actual Fed following us?” I asked. “Do they have the technology to be invisible, and they keep picking up on our trail somehow? Could they have been the ones to fire on us, back in Alaska?”

  Navan exhaled, looking deeply concerned. “They might have invisibility tech, but the Fed weren’t there when we arrived at the bunker. By the looks of it, they were long gone. I don’t know how they’d start tracking us… But whatever the case, we have to continue with the plan. If it’s the Fed behind this, then we’ll find out soon enough—though, were going to have to take some extra precautions now.”

  “Like what?”

  “We need to be more careful. Even if they are flying around in some invisible machine, intermittently picking up on our trail, we probably still have a chance to make peace with the chief. At the moment, they’d simply be trying to eliminate me as a coldblood discovered on Earth’s territory, and they don’t yet know anything about the blood sample on its way to Vysanthe. I’m hoping that information will be a game changer. It’s got to be,” he added, almost more to himself.

  I sucked in a breath. “Yeah, it had better be.” They seemed to be more than willing to sacrifice my life, too, in order to get to Navan. “I wonder if they did get Ianthan after all?” I said in a hushed tone. “Maybe we just didn’t find the body.”

  Navan swallowed. “Maybe… Whatever the case, let’s keep moving.”

  “So should we go straight to an internet café then?” My voice shook a little as I realized just how much danger we were in. “We can, uh, figure out logistics,” I added, trying to keep my tone calm.

  “Better we do that first, then look for somewhere to rest.”

  We left the park and walked through crowded streets, keeping our heads down—Navan especially—looking for an internet café, which we found after a few minutes. It was mostly empty. I went in first with some cash to reserve a computer, and then chose the one closest to the window, and gestured for Navan, who had been waiting outside, to discreetly slip in. He took a seat next to me, his back facing the counter.

  After half an hour searching the web, analyzing maps, and looking through lists of local events, we figured our best bet would be an outdoor music festival that was being hosted tomorrow evening. That seemed like a long time to wait, but Navan and I needed some time to scope the grounds out, as well as prepare ourselves mentally.

  We printed off a detailed map where the event was being held—at a park in Brooklyn that was… kind of close to Jean and Roger’s place. I had to hope they wouldn’t be attending the festival in some odd twist of events—not that they were likely to find me in a sea of faces, anyway.

  We left the café and began a search for someplace to sleep. We ended up in another hotel, in a cheaper area, whi
ch didn’t turn us down without my ID. They had a room with two twin beds available, so I wouldn’t end up cozying up to him by accident again. This time, however, we had to be a little creative about Navan’s entrance. His skin was too noticeable under the bright lights of the hotel lobby, so once I had checked into the room, I came back down to Navan who was waiting outside and informed him which window he needed to fly up to. It looked onto a side alley, which made his flight up a little less noticeable, but still, I was nervous somebody would see him clambering inside. We did the job quickly, and soon, we were both settling into the room, sitting opposite each other on our respective beds.

  Navan pulled his bag onto his lap, and rummaged around, before pulling out his comm device. “I should check in with Bashrik now. I’m sure his anxiety’s off the charts.”

  I moved over to him as he pressed a button and held the device to his ear. The other end picked up after a few seconds, and I was close enough to hear that the voice coming from the receiver was not Bashrik but Angie. I leaned closer and heard her say, “Navan?!”

  “Angie?” he asked, frowning. “How are you? How’s Bashrik and Ronad?”

  “We’re all fine. Lauren and I are with them now. We managed to slip away from the Churnleys. But listen, I gotta speak to Riley. There’ve been some, uh, developments.”

  I held my breath, instantly feeling tense. Navan handed the device to me and I pressed it to my ear. “Angie? What is it?”