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  “Bashrik,” he said. Tentatively, I closed the distance between us, enough that I could hear Bashrik’s distorted voice carrying through the still atmosphere.

  “Hey, man. What the hell’s going on? Why haven’t you been picking up?”

  Navan’s back heaved as he sighed. “I’d tell you not to worry, but I know how pointless that would be. We’re alive, and we managed to make contact with the Fed. I was just separated from my bag for a few hours, and couldn’t pick up your calls. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time—”

  “Whoa. Wait. Tell me everything that’s happened since we last talked.”

  Navan reluctantly filled Bashrik in on what had happened with the shapeshifter and Ianthan trailing us, and by the time he was done, Bashrik seemed to be in a stupor of stunned silence. “I-I don’t believe it,” he stammered.

  “I know. It’s… I’m still processing it myself. But I don’t have time to talk more now.”

  “What are you doing now? Where are you?”

  “We’re in Siberia, and I have to complete a little task in order to gain the trust of the Fed and ensure their agreement to assist me.”

  “Wait, what do you mean ‘a little task’?” Bashrik pressed.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Navan replied. “I’ll tell you once it’s finished. How’s your injury healing?”

  “No, Navan,” Bashrik persisted, “tell me what the task is.”

  Navan paused. “There’s been an infestation of shapeshifters in the area, and all I have to do is pinpoint their main location and report back an estimation of how large it is.”

  I frowned at how Navan was downplaying the task, when only a few hours ago he had been telling the lycan how difficult and dangerous it would be. Bashrik wasn’t buying it either. In fact, he exploded. “Navan, no. Forget that! You’re taking this whole Earth-saving obsession way too far. You were almost killed multiple times on your way to the Fed! Ianthan was killed. That should be a sign that you need to stop and turn around, if nothing else.”

  “Bashrik—”

  “No, listen to me, brother. I was nervous when you set out on this trip that you’d end up doing something like this. You just admitted a shapeshifter was trying to kill you. Now you’re suggesting actively seeking out a whole infestation of them? You’ve finally taken this to the level of suicide!” His voice cracked. “I’ve already lost one sibling—I’m not going to lose another.”

  My heart skipped a beat at his words, and I wondered what he was talking about. There was a long pause, and when Navan replied, it sounded as though he’d lined his voice with steel, closing himself off from Bashrik’s emotions. “You weren’t the only one to lose a sibling,” he replied coolly. “I have no intention of putting you through that again, either. I’ve got equipment that will help me, including a fast aircraft that I suspect is also knife and bulletproof.”

  “But Navan—”

  “No,” Navan finally snapped, and I realized that his hands were shaking slightly. “I can’t deal with you being stubborn, too.” And with that, he pressed a button on the side of the device, shutting it off completely, before tossing it back into his bag.

  His face was contorted with agitation, and he was breathing heavily as he turned and set his eyes back on me. “I can’t deal with all of this,” he said. “So I’m going to count to three to give you an opportunity to walk back to the ship by yourself. One.”

  “Navan, no—”

  “Two.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Three.”

  As soon as he uttered the last word, he launched forward and grabbed me by the waist. His hard chest crushed against mine as he hauled me back to the ship. Anger boiled up in me to a level I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  As he reached the cockpit and began to wrestle me into the seat, my right hand reached out, as if on its own accord, and slapped him hard across the face. So hard my palm left a mark where it had landed.

  His hold on me immediately loosened, and he stepped back and stared at me. Judging from the flicker of surprise in his eyes, he clearly hadn’t been expecting that, which bought me a few seconds to catch my breath.

  “What about free will?” I asked. “Aren’t you all about that? I’m adopting this as my responsibility too, and you’re not going to stop me. I’ve already come this far. I’ve already put myself in a lot of danger. I can agree to sit in the aircraft for some of the time if that’s what it takes for you to accept this, but I am not leaving you here alone. What if you got into trouble and needed someone to call for help? Just let me help you!”

  There was a long pause. “I’m not used to relying on others for help,” he replied. “And I’m certainly not used to getting slapped in the face.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m not used to getting manhandled and forced to do something against my will.”

  We glared at each other for several moments. “You’re right,” he finally said, his voice low. “You do have free will, and if you’re going to insist on staying, I can’t force you to do anything. I just . . . I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, okay? I’ve got enough guilt hanging over my head, and I honestly don’t think I could handle it if you got hurt under my watch. Don’t you get that?”

  “Of course I do,” I replied. “And I don’t want anything bad to happen to either of us. But there’s no way you’re sending me back now, so you might as well hand me some of those files so we can get started.” I held out my hand expectantly, trying to keep my gaze firm and resolute.

  Navan hesitated, but then went and got the file. He opened it and took out half the papers, which he passed to me, our fingertips brushing.

  He sighed again, and gazed down at me. “I guess we really are in this together.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We quickly decided that we’d be better off sitting someplace warm down in the nearby town to examine the documents, so I slipped the file into my coat, along with the plastic bag of rubles. Navan picked me up and we flew toward the town. Luckily, there was enough daylight for Navan’s skin to absorb and change to a more normal-looking color, though his temperature was much colder than I would’ve liked.

  The restaurant we arrived at was something of a tavern, sparsely furnished with wood tables and chairs. Our waitress looked like she’d been working there for the past century, and if she was at all surprised to see two faces she didn’t recognize, she wasn’t letting on. I was famished though, and ordered a plate of dumplings, which was one of four main dishes on the menu.

  “This place sure is hopping,” Navan said as he glanced around the near-empty space. Aside from us, there was one other occupied table, and it was an old woman, who had a teacup and saucer in front of her and nothing else.

  I divvied the papers up and we started to go through them. It was mostly reports detailing the missing villagers, along with some maps with black X’s indicating the exact location where people had disappeared from. The reports were chillingly similar, though the shifters did not seem to discriminate when it came to their victims. Young and old, male and female—so long as it was a human, that seemed to be the only criteria.

  Navan threw his papers down. “Riley,” he said. I stopped reading and looked at him. He had an agitated expression on his face.

  “We’re going to figure this out,” I replied. “I know it seems like a lot, but we’ll figure it out.”

  “That’s not it.” He shook his head. “Well, it’s part of it, sure, but . . . about what happened back there. I shouldn’t have dragged you onto the aircraft like that.”

  He still had a mark on his face from where my palm had made contact. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know you did it because you didn’t want anything bad to happen to me. And I appreciate that.” I hesitated. “For the first half of my life, I didn’t really have anyone looking out for me. So . . . it means a lot that you’re concerned about my well-being. Even if maybe you didn’t go about showing it in the best way. Slapping you wasn’t really my finest moment, either
. I’m sorry for doing that.”

  “I’d never be able to forgive myself if something bad happened to you,” he said. “I’ve got so much guilt about everything that sometimes it doesn’t seem like I can withstand any more. How dramatic can I sound, I know. But it’s true.”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty,” I said. “What good is that going to do? You had no idea what your father was up to. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  He glanced around as though he was expecting someone to be eavesdropping. “I’m not trying to relive the past or anything—once was enough—but I should be honest with you about why I’m here on Earth to begin with.”

  “Didn’t you already tell us that?”

  “Well . . . yes. Sort of. But there’s more to the story. Like you with your parents, there’s been a part of me that thought not talking about it might somehow lessen the pain. I think we both know it doesn’t always work that way.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. And if you have more that you want to tell me, I’d be happy to hear it.” I thought back to when I’d inadvertently spilled my guts to Navan and how he’d helped me better understand myself. Maybe I could help him in the same way.

  He took a deep breath. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked about this. I had a little sister named Naya. She was my pal. When she turned sixteen, she started dating Ronad, even though our parents—and a couple of my brothers—were completely against it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well . . . for a few different reasons. Some of my brothers were because they felt like Ronad was our brother. Our parents had taken him in and they didn’t think it was appropriate for him to be dating Naya. Which was stupid but at least understandable. My parents didn’t want Naya involved with him because he was basically an orphan, and they didn’t think he was good enough for her. They both care very much about the opinions of others, and they felt that their daughter dating someone like Ronad wouldn’t reflect well upon the family.”

  “How long did he live with you guys?”

  “I think he was maybe ten? His parents were never around. They pretty much left him on his own, so he’d always come around. Until one day my parents just said he could stay.”

  “Sounds familiar,” I said.

  Navan nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t even think of that. But Naya and Ronad had been friends long before he moved in—they’d been playing together since they were little. To me, if anything, it seemed kind of obvious that she and Ronad would eventually wind up together.”

  “So what happened?”

  “What happened was my parents forbade her to see him, and told Ronad he had to move out. They of course continued to see each other in secret. Though it’s all but impossible to keep anything a secret from my father. So what brilliant idea did he come up with? He concocted this elixir similar to Elysium, except much stronger—and with the added kicker of black root, which is basically Vysanthe’s version of deadly nightshade.”

  I widened my eyes. “He was trying to kill him?”

  “No. He didn’t want to kill him, but he wanted to make him sick enough that he’d have to be bedridden for a while, and since the elixir had similar properties to Elysium, he wouldn’t remember Naya anyway. And while he was away recovering, my parents assumed Naya would move on—I’m sure they planned to parade a bunch of more eligible suitors in front of her. Anyway, Ronad’s birthday was coming up, so my father sent him an early birthday present—a vial of ramphastide blood.”

  “I have no idea what that is.”

  “It’s a bird. It’s like a toucan, except on Vysanthe, they’re six feet tall, with beaks that are more than half their length. The blood from the beak of a ramphastide is a rare delicacy and very difficult to come by. So maybe Ronad should have known, when it arrived, that there was something suspicious, because my father was not a generous man like that. But Ronad is kind and trusting and the thought never occurred to him. And unbeknownst to my parents, Naya had snuck out again to be with Ronad, and he let her have the vial. He didn’t think he’d ever have his hands on a vial of ramphastide blood again, and he wanted her to have it.”

  My stomach twisted. “Oh no.”

  Navan nodded, a grim expression on his face. “My father put in the exact amount of black root to injure Ronad. But Naya was much smaller than Ronad, and so it ended up being a fatal dose. It worked quickly, and she died in his arms.” Navan stared off into the distance. “Because it was a variant of Elysium, it wiped her memory clean, so she had no idea who he was.”

  “Navan.” He blinked, and his focus returned to me, the pain in his eyes undeniable. I didn’t know what to say—sorry seemed completely inadequate. “That’s awful.”

  “What’s awful,” he said slowly, “is that I happened to run into Naya when she was sneaking out. I could have demanded that she march herself right back into the house, but I didn’t.”

  “You had no way of knowing.”

  “She was my little sister, and I was supposed to protect her.” He took a deep breath. “I completely and utterly failed at doing that. I am not going to fail now. All Naya ever wanted was to get away from Vysanthe—she hated how we just used resources like there was a never-ending supply, how we exploited those that were weaker. That’s not who she was, that’s not who Ronad is, that’s not who I am, if you can believe it.”

  “Of course I believe that,” I said. “You’re here, putting your life on the line to try to save Earth when you could easily just go somewhere else and not let it be your problem.”

  “You should eat,” he said, pushing my plate toward me. “They’re probably cold by now. And we should get back to this paperwork.”

  He picked up one of the pages and started looking at it. He clearly wasn’t someone who could take a compliment or any sort of praise at all. I wondered why that was. Perhaps it had something to do with his father.

  I watched him for a second as he read, the way his eyes scanned the lines, the intense expression on his face. Everything about Navan made more sense now, and thinking about Ronad made my heart ache, especially when I remembered how he had called out Naya’s name so desperately, back when I’d hidden away in his room. That must’ve been so awful for him, to have the love of his life die in his arms, unable to remember who he was. I felt a flare of anger toward Navan’s father. Why were some parents so messed up?

  Navan cleared his throat, and for a second I thought he was about to say something, but he didn’t, just continued to read, so I turned my attention to my food. The dumplings might have been sitting there for a little while, but they were still delicious, the dough buttery and flaky. I ate the whole plate, and washed it down with two cups of hot tea. Ahh. That felt better.

  “The shifters certainly have been busy,” Navan said. “According to these reports, the villagers think it’s the work of the tonrar, or the devil.” He shuddered. “Which isn’t too far off the mark when it comes to shapeshifters, vile little things. In everything I’ve read so far, people have reported hearing wolves or seeing some sort of furry, four-legged animal. No one’s actually seen one of them try to take someone.”

  “But what do you think they’re doing to the people?” I asked, thinking about the one that had been riding Ianthan, the way it had looked lying there dead in the alley.

  “I don’t know.” Navan frowned at the paper he was looking at. “I’ve got some guesses, but I don’t think there’s any way to know for sure until we’re actually able to find one and question it.”

  “We’re going to question it?”

  “We’re going to try. Having the ability to shape shift, of course, certainly comes in handy when trying to evade capture.”

  We went back to our piles, and I sipped my third cup of tea. The wind had picked up outside, and it rattled the panes of glass. The ship would at least be shelter from the wind, but I didn’t know how warm it would be, and I wanted to soak up all the heat that I cou
ld now.

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, though I had long ago finished that third cup of tea when the old woman that had been sitting at the other table approached us. She and the waitress looked as if they could have been sisters. She wore a faded head scarf that had slipped back, to reveal her thick, steel-colored hair. Her skin was deeply lined and her eyes appeared milky, though she had made her way over to our table perfectly fine, without assistance.

  “I heard you speak of tonrar,” she said. I glanced at Navan. How had she been able to hear that, all the way across the room? “Bad things have been happening here. People whisper that it’s the work of tonrar, but they are wrong. They make offerings to try to appease him, but people still go missing. Just a fortnight ago, my closest neighbor was out tending his sheep and he did not return for his evening meal. Gone, just like that. People are afraid. No one knows what to do.” She reached down and touched Navan’s hand. He tried to pull it away before she could make contact and feel that his temperature was not that of an average human, but she must’ve been stronger than she looked, because her fingers closed around his hand and didn’t let go. “But you do,” she said. “You know what to do. And you will do it.” And then she let go of his hand, patting it, like he was a little boy and she was his grandmother. She turned and walked away.

  Navan and I stared after her as she made her way to the door and then walked out.

  “She’s a seer,” he said finally.

  I looked at him. “Like a psychic?”

  “Yeah. She knew what I was—notice how she didn’t react when she touched my hand?”

  “I did notice that.”

  “There’s actually a lot more of her kind on Earth than people might realize,” he said. “Humans seem fond of stigmatizing the people who claim to have a sixth sense like that. Shunning them or medicating them or institutionalizing them.”

  “Well . . . I think that’s because a lot of the time they seem crazy. Or they’re saying stuff that people don’t want to hear.”