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  Reluctantly, I left Navan on the ground and snatched two knives out of my bandolier, hurling them in her direction. They found their mark, cutting through the indentations above her armpits with surprising force, pinning her to the wooden door that had been propped up against the mountain of junk. She tried to stagger forward with the door on her back, but it was too heavy, her knees buckling underneath the weight.

  I ran toward her and pushed the door backward, leaving her writhing around on it like an upturned tortoise. She scowled at me, flashing her needle-like teeth, a flush of deep purple rising to her cheeks as she fought to free herself. Unfortunately for her, the knives were buried deep in the wood behind her; it would take a long time to get her body loose again, if she didn’t want to tear her muscles to shreds.

  “Hey, I thought we were pals!” Kirin complained, glancing down at the two knives sticking out of her shoulders. They didn’t seem to be causing her too much pain, but they looked nasty.

  “All’s fair in a pirate’s world,” I replied, picking up the two objects from where she’d dropped them. “Let’s just call this payback for the booze you made me drink. You promised me that stuff had no alcohol in it.”

  “I didn’t think it did!” she protested, though her wry smile gave her away. “Anyway, what’re you gonna do with a flamethrower? Lower your number—big money, big risk?” A laugh bubbled up from her throat.

  “I’m going to secure the bounty that none of you managed to get!” I fired back, grinning. I didn’t really need a flamethrower, but I figured it might come in handy. It was really only the notebook I was after, but if I made it look more important than anything else, I knew I might draw attention to the value of it.

  Kirin tried to shrug, but the knives held her arms down. “What’d you expect? We’re pirates. We go after the shiniest thing.”

  “Still, I’d have thought one of you might have tried to take Stone.”

  A mischievous look flitted across her face. “What can I say? Old feelings die hard.”

  “Well, best of luck with finding Captain Notley someday,” I said, unable to hold a grudge against the funny half-fae, half-merevin.

  She spat at my feet. “Yeah, yeah. Go get that Stone of mine, Fed-Smasher!” Kirin called after me as I ran back to Navan with my new items tucked under my arms.

  The battlefield had gone silent, with most of the participants having retreated into their holes. I knew Xiphio and Angie were still running after Stone and Lauren, so at least my mission hadn’t entirely failed, giving me a moment to stay with Navan. I knelt beside him and tried to wake him again, cradling his head.

  “Navan, can you hear me? You have to wake up,” I urged, but he was still out cold. I shook his shoulders, knowing we weren’t safe out here in the open. Yes, Stone and Ezra had left, but that didn’t mean we weren’t still a target. I lightly smacked the sides of his face, willing him to open his eyes and stand up. I was getting desperate now.

  A murmur had just escaped from his lips, his lashes flickering, when a ship appeared overhead. I’d have known that ship anywhere. Ezra had come back. The vessel hovered above the clearing, the hatch opening. Ezra flew out of the gap, setting down in front of me.

  “Your hair might be different, but I’d know Navan’s little pet anywhere,” he said. “You give yourself away, fawning over him like that. Disgusting.”

  “Back off!” I snapped, trying to keep a lid on my anger.

  He smirked. “I don’t remember you having such a temper, Riley,” he said, arching an eyebrow. “The mouse turned into a lion. That’s the Earthen analogy, right? Now, I hear that you are the one responsible for my sister’s death. Tell me, mouse, did you do it?” His voice was thick with menace, his near-black eyes narrowed.

  My whole body tensed for action, my fingertips itching to reach for Kaido’s vial of strength serum, which was still tucked away in my pocket. I guessed Ezra was only delaying his attack because he was under orders to capture us all for Orion, rather than kill us on sight. I was pretty sure Orion would want to see me suffer with his own eyes, instead of hearing the news secondhand.

  “You shouldn’t listen to rumors,” I replied, forcing the tremor out of my words.

  “It’s not something you should be ashamed of,” he mused, still smiling. “I’m grateful to you for killing her. Pandora was too much of a distraction to Orion. They were always mooning over each other. He wouldn’t agree to anything without consulting her first, and it was starting to grate on me.”

  I gaped at him. “She was your sister.”

  “We weren’t exactly… close. Romance is for the weak, and you’ve just strengthened our cause by taking Pandora out of the picture,” Ezra said. “At first, he was overwhelmed with grief, but now I think he’s ready to channel that ‘suffering’ into something more proactive. Honestly, I’m thrilled.”

  “You’re a monster,” I whispered.

  “Why, because I tell the truth?” He barked a cold laugh. “What were my sister’s final words? I’m dying to know.”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Ah, so you admit you were there?” he taunted. “I know it was you. The least you can do is tell me what she said.”

  I grimaced, not wanting to relive it. “Pandora tried to beg for her life. She said she knew a secret about Earth, but I didn’t wait to hear her out before I sliced her throat.” Now, however, I was starting to think there might’ve been a morsel of truth in that secret she’d offered. Perhaps she’d known about the president’s involvement in an unknown deal.

  “Ha, pathetic!”

  I leveled my gaze at him. “Why were you meeting with an Earthen leader, all the way out here?”

  He shrugged. “You know what they say about inferior species—they always have to find a way to compensate. To be honest, I’ve never known such hunger for power. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or repulsed.”

  “You’re skirting around the question.”

  “Tough. I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t answer to you,” he replied coolly. “Now, I’ve had enough of this chitchat. You’re coming with me. Don’t be annoying.”

  I positioned the flamethrower at the pages of Yorrek’s notebook.

  “If you try anything, I’ll destroy the notebook,” I declared, taking a step back.

  Ezra scowled. His eyes held nothing but malice, all amusement gone. However, we seemed to be at a stalemate. He couldn’t touch me without me setting off the flamethrower, but he couldn’t leave without me either.

  He lunged for Navan. I pulled the trigger of the flamethrower, aiming it at his head. The fierce blast sent Ezra sprawling backward, his skin singed, patting flames from his hair. Trying to keep hold of the flamethrower and the notebook, I frantically scrabbled for the vial in my pocket. Ezra lashed out at the bottle in my hand, knocking it out of my grasp as I fought to keep hold of the notebook. The vial landed on the hard ground with a clunk, though nothing seemed to be broken.

  I didn’t have time for a closer look as Ezra struck again, forcing me to shove the notebook down the belt of my pants, wedging it securely. I fired the flamethrower at him, trying to drive him away from Navan, but he was too fast. He kept dodging the blasts, gaining ground on me. A moment later, I felt his foot connect with my leg, the force of it buckling my knees. I sank to the dirt. I tried to get up, but he lashed at me again, his fist connecting with my face, my head snapping to the side with a jarring sensation.

  Blasts of fire erupted from the end of the flamethrower, but Ezra’s eyes flitted between me and the barrel, apparently anticipating when I was about to pull the trigger. His fists connected with my body again and again, his punches leaving me bruised and breathless. I was losing, but the flamethrower was too awkward to let me properly use the skills I’d learned in training. I thought about dropping it and relying on hand-to-hand combat, but Ezra was way stronger than me, and his body language was giving nothing away.

  Thinking fast, I yanked the notebook out of my belt an
d hurled it as far as I could, knowing I was taking an enormous risk. It did the job, distracting Ezra, who turned to see where it had gone. Catching the glint of glass on the ground, I snatched the vial of serum up from the dirt, took out the stopper, and drank the whole thing, dropping the vial back down to the ground once it was empty. I realized the danger I was putting myself in, downing a bottle of stimulant, but without it, I was dead. I just had to hope that Kaido had given me something that wouldn’t trigger the effects of the silver root.

  Ezra had run to retrieve the notebook… and I felt nothing. I started to panic, worrying that it wasn’t going to do anything at all. Then, electricity shot through my every cell, my entire body bristling into renewed life. A strange heat—both freezing and fiercely hot at the same time—coursed through my veins. Everything around me became clearer, my ears twitching at the tiniest of sounds. I could have sworn I could hear Ezra’s heartbeat thumping erratically in his chest. My eyes could see in colors I didn’t know existed, my muscles practically thrumming with power. Although my body felt different, my limbs didn’t look much changed, aside from the dark veins threading across my pale skin, pulsing violently.

  Strangest of all, I could feel the weird sensation of elongated fangs in my mouth and a dull ache in my shoulder blades, where wings ought to have been. Baring my new teeth and narrowing my eyes, I charged at Ezra. The speed was immense, and a cloud of dust kicked up behind me as I sprinted toward the coldblood, tackling him to the ground and wresting the book from his hands. I tossed it toward Navan, who was still unconscious, and the book skidded to a halt at his side.

  I could process a million thoughts at once, my eyes looking at one thing while my newly sharpened claws raked at Ezra’s flesh. He tried to escape, but I was quicker than him, and stronger, too. I swiped at his head, and four welts sliced through his skin. Before he could even think to retaliate, I’d punched him hard in the gut, prompting him to double over in pain.

  For the first time, Ezra looked genuinely terrified.

  Desperately, he stretched out his wings and tried to make a break for his hovering ship, but I could jump higher than he expected, and my hands came down on his shoulders, hauling him back down to the ground.

  “I’ll tear them off!” I yelled, gripping the root of one of his wings in my hand.

  “Let go of me, you bitch!” he yelped, twisting around.

  “Why should I?” I growled, my voice sounding alien. “You don’t show anyone the same mercy.”

  Wrestling beneath my grip, Ezra gave a low, strange whistle. I glanced up at his ship, before remembering that his underlings had chased after the serrantium weapons. A knife cut my cheek, the blood trickling down my face as Ezra wielded a previously concealed blade. The serum had healed the bruising that Ezra had inflicted earlier, but it wasn’t doing anything for the cut. The effects were already fading. I had known it couldn’t last, but I’d thought it’d hold out longer than this.

  My strength and focus continued as Ezra broke away from me and flew toward the ship once more. I couldn’t jump as high as I could a few minutes ago, but I still had my knives. Plucking the last four from the bandolier, I hurled them at Ezra, my skills heightened by the serum. They shot through the air in a blur, two slicing straight through the leathery membrane of his wings. The other two hit him in the root of his wings, and he collapsed to the ground.

  This was the moment to take Ezra out of the equation for good. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, just as I hadn’t wanted to kill Pandora, but I knew it was a necessary evil. Ezra was Orion’s right-hand man.

  I was about to lunge forward to pin him to the ground, when a rush of unwanted images pulsed through my brain. I grimaced, an intense pain thundering against the walls of my skull as I saw the ferocious king on his icy throne, wearing his crown of jagged icicles. I caught a glimpse of a gaunt Seraphina, huddled in the corner of a room, weeping silently. The images moved to Lauren and Angie, lying motionless on a battlefield, their eyes blank and unseeing.

  I struggled to force them all away, knowing not everything I saw could be true, but the searing pain in my skull had rendered me blind. I reached out my hands to feel out the air in front of me, but my body no longer felt like it belonged to me. I remembered the sensation from the last time, when Kaido had experimented on me with his botanical concoctions. I should’ve known there’d be side effects.

  The images hurtled back to the fiery king, his impossibly black eyes watching me. I tried to scream as he moved toward me, his face flickering for a moment, shifting to that of Ezra. His entire body seemed to be made of smoke and fire, shot through with frozen veins of ice, and from within his chest he pulled two flaming blades. I screamed again, but no sound came out.

  I was frozen to the spot as the shadowy creature with Ezra’s face stepped closer, resting the scorching edge of a blade against my neck. I didn’t know whether it was reality blending with the nightmarish visions, whether I was really in imminent danger. All I could do was stare as his shoulders heaved, moving to slice my head clean off. That was the last thing I remembered as the fog cleared from my eyes.

  Ezra had fled, no doubt figuring it’d be easier to make a run for it, instead of waiting to see what other superhuman powers I had in store. I was alone in the clearing outside the Salty Siren, my eyesight speckled with black spots.

  “Help!” I called out, feeling a rush of weakness surge through my body, the last of the serum leaving me vulnerable.

  All around me, I thought I could hear shouting voices getting nearer, but whether it was just a last fragment of my horrifying hallucinations, I didn’t know. I didn’t get to find out, either, as I fell to the dirt, faced with silent oblivion. The serum had proven too powerful, and the world went dark around me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I stirred at the sound of Lauren’s voice, uncertain how long I’d been out. My head was pounding, my body aching, and I was feeling worse than I had after the night at the casino. I could feel a soft mattress underneath me and a silken blanket across my skin, but my eyes were still too sensitive to the light to fully open.

  “You can’t keep him locked up like an animal in a cage!” Lauren’s unmistakable voice drifted into the room, though I wasn’t sure where I was.

  “My apologies, Miss Lauren, but until we’re able to trust him with your level of enthusiasm, we must keep him incarcerated,” Xiphio replied. “I understand that it’s causing you distress, and I’d be delighted to do whatever I can to alleviate your concerns.”

  “I’ve already told you what you can do—you can let him out of that broom cupboard!” Lauren insisted.

  “Lauren, he froze us all and snatched you away. He’s staying locked up,” Angie chimed in defiantly. “I don’t know what he’s done to you, to brainwash you like this, but we’ll find a way to reverse it. I’m sure we can find some medicine on this cruiser to take away any drugs he’s put in your system.”

  I heard Lauren sigh. “He hasn’t drugged me. I’m absolutely fine.”

  “How can you be fine if you want to set that thug free? He must have put you into a trance or something, because he is a criminal, and he took you away from us. Are you forgetting that? Has he erased that memory from your mind? Did he force you to drink Elysium?” Angie pressed. “I mean, you wouldn’t even look at us on the battlefield! It was like we didn’t exist! You expect me to believe Stone had nothing to do with that?”

  “I’ve already explained that to you,” Lauren muttered. “I was keeping up appearances. I didn’t want you guys getting into any more trouble than you were already in. Stone would never have actually hurt you. He was playing up to his role, too. You think he could allow himself to look weak in front of someone like Ezra?”

  “But what was he doing selling weapons to someone like Ezra?” Angie countered. “And what about the notebook? He was going to hand it over to Ezra—complete with all of its immortality elixir-making goodness!”

  “Everyone has to make a living. I’m not
saying I agree with what he does, but he isn’t a bad guy. I tried to persuade him not to sell those weapons to Ezra, but… Well, he did compromise by tampering with a few. It’s why he wouldn’t let Ezra test out the merchandise first,” Lauren replied. “And as for the notebook getting into Ezra’s hands—that was my fault. I was supposed to switch it out at the last moment, but then the pirate horde swarmed us and I didn’t get the chance.”

  Angie made a disapproving noise. “See, it’s when you say things like that—he has to have altered your brain in some way. You’re one of the smartest people I know. You’d never trust a guy like that! You’d never accept a compromise!” she argued. “Besides, we haven’t exactly put him in a prison. That room is bigger than most apartments back home.”

  “Indeed, that fellow is the worst kind of villain!” Xiphio added. “He must have slipped you some sort of serum when you weren’t looking. I would imagine that is just the kind of thing that Stone would do to a lovely lady such as yourself, to try to placate you.”

  “Stone hasn’t done anything to me, I swear!” Lauren replied, her tone exasperated. “Yes, he’s a criminal, and he’s done some bad things, as I’ve already said, but he also saved Navan, at my request. He didn’t have to do that, but he did. He hates unnecessary violence, especially when it leads to death. You forget, he’s from a planet where his entire species was wiped out. He escaped the genocide of Candensa because he was on a trade voyage. Imagine arriving home to find everyone murdered. He had to live through that.”

  “A little coincidental, no?” Xiphio remarked, getting himself a tut from Lauren.

  “No, it’s not coincidental. He didn’t brainwash me, and you need to let him out!”

  I wondered why, with such a history, a guy like that would sell weapons to someone like Ezra, knowing the coldblood rebel was only going to use them against other planets. There had to be a reason, beyond pure business; I just couldn’t figure it out.