As we descended the staircase to Orion’s office, Navan walked in stony silence, refusing to say a word, even when his uncle spoke to him. His way of dealing with the situation seemed to involve pretending that his uncle didn’t exist. Which was fine by me.

He had let go of my hand after we left our little room, evidently not wanting to draw more attention to us than necessary. Still, I wished he hadn’t. There was comfort in the feel of his cool skin against mine, and right now, I needed something to hold onto, to ground myself in the moment. I still couldn’t believe I’d managed to get us into this situation—how could everything have crumbled so fast?

I kept my gaze on Lazar’s lean frame, trying to garner a hint of family resemblance somewhere in the older man’s face. Perhaps there was something in the glint of his eyes, though Lazar’s were hazel, where Navan’s were the color of a winter storm. Scrutinizing him closely, I couldn’t help but wonder what Navan’s father might look like—did he look more like Navan, or was he closer to this man, with aging features and only a hint of a likeness? How could the two brothers have ended up on such opposite sides of the spectrum? One, the queen’s trusted advisor. The other, a rebel against the crown.

Keeping close to Navan’s side, resisting the urge to take his hand in mine again, I walked with him the rest of the way toward the grimly familiar entrance of Orion’s office. Up until the very last moment, Lazar made attempts at enticing Navan into conversation, but Navan was having none of it. I didn’t blame him. His uncle’s moral compass was screwed up, and I could see the frustration Navan felt at Lazar ending up so far down the rebel rabbit hole. I had never believed in the idea of “necessary evils”, and I wasn’t about to start believing in them now. No, if a handful of people suffered for a cause, then that was a handful of people too many.

Besides, the “necessary evil” that Lazar was trying to pass off as acceptable was so far beyond the line of righteousness that I doubted he could even see the line anymore. Judging by the harrowing sight of the red smoke billowing from the strange metal silo, more than a handful of innocents had already suffered for this supposed cause. Lazar was either kidding himself, or he’d been conditioned by the rebels to believe that what he was doing was for all the right reasons. I didn’t know which was worse.

I’d seen it before. It was history, repeating itself, over and over again. I was just surprised that an apparently superior race was not immune to the same mistakes that felt so deeply human to my mind.

Even so, the sight of Lazar’s earnest eyes, practically pleading with Navan to turn and look at him, or to at least answer him, made me feel a slight twinge of pity. Not that I had any leg to stand on when it came to ignoring certain family members. I could understand the impulse to push them away, yet the soft plea in Lazar’s voice tugged at some sympathetic string in my heart. There wasn’t time to bridge the rift between them, to figure out the minutiae of what had led Lazar into this world, but I hoped there might be a moment later in which Navan might sit down with his uncle and hash out their differences. I didn’t know why; I just did.

Lazar gently rapped on the door of Orion’s office, a dull thud echoing into the room beyond.

“Come in,” called the baritone voice I now recognized so clearly. I could already picture the broad-shouldered, imposing figure of Orion awaiting us behind his desk, his dark eyes hungry for the information I had promised.

“It will be easier if you agree to his terms, Navan. And please, do not lie to him,” Lazar whispered, just as we were about to set foot in the room.

Navan shot him a dirty look. “I will do whatever I feel comfortable with, Uncle,” he spat, “but I will never be a turncoat. I will not agree to something I do not believe in.”

“You are still so young, Navan.” Lazar sighed remorsefully. “There is so much you do not understand.”

Angry fire burned in the depths of Navan’s slate eyes. A muscle twitched in his jaw, his shoulders squaring as if to strike. Stepping quickly beside Navan, pressing my palms gently to the firm rise of his chest, I looked up into his eyes and demanded that he look back. I would not be ignored, not now, not when there was so much we still needed to do. This was so much bigger than any family dispute. My blood was still whizzing its way toward Vysanthe, but we couldn’t even begin to think about chasing it down until we bartered our way out of this invisible compound.

Instantly, his features softened, the flames dying down in his glowering gaze. Feeling the rapid beat of his pulse begin to slow beneath my palms, I watched as he lifted his gaze away from mine and back to Lazar for the briefest of moments.

“No, Uncle, it is you who does not understand,” he said in a low voice. “There is never an excuse for this.”

With that, he placed his hand on the small of my back and ushered me into the office to greet the waiting stare of Orion. As I had imagined he would be, he was standing behind the desk, his stature just as imposing as it had been the last time we’d met.

I turned back to glance at Lazar. He was loitering at the threshold of the door, his hazel eyes peering toward Orion with an almost eager look in them.

“You may go, Lazar. Thank you for fetching your nephew for me,” Orion said calmly, folding his arms across his vast barrel chest.

Evidently having been hoping he would be allowed to stay, Lazar’s expression sank as Orion spoke. With an awkward nod, he retreated without another word, disappearing into the hallway beyond, his footsteps fading into the distance.

“You’ve had a chance to think about my offer,” Orion began, skipping straight to business. His eyes were trained on Navan. “I met your... friend’s requirements. I have upheld my end of the bargain, and now I ask that you do the same for yours.” There was a warning look in the chief’s dark eyes, and I could tell he was the kind of man who didn’t like to lose.

“To be honest, Orion, it’s all been pretty vague,” Navan said, his mouth set in a grim line. “I hear these words—‘offer’, ‘agreement’, ‘bargain’—being thrown around, but without terms, I can’t possibly agree to anything. Not that you’ve put me in a particularly accommodating mood,” he sniped, gesturing to the bruises that had blossomed across his ashen skin. They were beginning to fade, thanks to the vials he’d taken, but they still dappled his strange flesh.

I reached out and rested my hand on Navan’s forearm, to calm him. Things wouldn’t end well if he lost his temper in front of Orion, not when our lives hung in the balance. I could tell Navan knew the power Orion held over us, but he’d been through so much—there was no telling how much more it would take for him to snap. I was determined for that not to happen, not if I could stop it. Besides, by the look of the thick-set, dark-eyed Vysanthean, I wasn’t confident Navan could even take him on. Navan was big and strong by any standard, but this guy looked like he could do some serious damage with just his little finger.

“I suppose that’s one way of seeing it,” said Orion, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Although, you’re not exactly in a position to argue, are you?” he baited, flashing his dark eyes at Navan. There was a clear taunt in the action, but my hand remained firm on Navan’s forearm.

“Don’t rise to it,” I breathed.

“You should take your friend’s advice.” Orion smirked. I cursed silently, forgetting that a breath no doubt sounded like a booming shout to the Vysantheans’ superior senses.

“What is it you want from me?” Navan asked, not falling for Orion’s taunt. “I might be more open to agreeing if you’d get on with it and tell me what I’m actually here for. I know you all have a bit of a thing for my dear old Pa, and think he’ll give you something in exchange for my safe return, but I don’t think he’d be up for paying the kind of price you guys might want. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left me to figure things out on my own, to be perfectly honest.” A flicker of something rippled across Navan’s eyes, but it wasn’t there long enough for me to scrutinize properly. It looked like a glimmer of hurt.

“It’s not your father I want, though his alchemy skills are far and above those of the meager alchemists I have working day and night here. His help might prove invaluable, but I know men like Jareth Idrax.” Orion sighed. “I think your judgment is likely correct. Jareth would never betray his position to save anyone, unless it was his own skin.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Navan said tightly.

Orion smiled. “Well, we know of your troubles with Ianthan and Jethro, and we are just as eager to ensure that this young woman’s blood does not end up in the wrong hands. If either queen were to find the key to immortality, then this rebellion would be doomed before it even began.” A tight laugh escaped his throat. “As much as you might not like it, in order to retrieve that sample, you are going to have to play on our team for a little while. Who knows, you might end up liking it…” He winked, but Navan was clearly not amused.

“Do you have details, or are you just going to talk my ear off?” Navan asked.

Again, Orion laughed. He seemed to do a lot of laughing for a man in such a high-powered position. I had expected him to fall into a mask of stern seriousness, but there was an undeniable humor about him. He was more amused by himself than anyone else, but it was still surprising.

“If you do this, Navan, we both might get what we want,” Orion said. The smile that tugged at the corners of his lips made the deep scar that ran down the side of his face crinkle, curving it into almost an S-shape. “If you do what I ask—with no errant detours or foolhardy escape plans—there will be enough time for you to track down the pod Ianthan and Jethro sent to Queen Brisha. I don’t want it reaching her any more than you do. It would take the wind right out of my sails if she managed to synthesize that elixir before I got the concoction just right.”

Navan pulled a sour face. “So I’d be doing two favors for you, for the price of one.”

“Look, neither of us wants Vysanthe to find out about Earth, though my reasons are a little less beautiful than yours,” Orion continued, with a wink at me that made the veins in Navan’s temples bulge. “In return for letting you go, to track down this pod and save Earth from imminent discovery, all I want you to do is head back and meet with Queen Gianne. Explain to her what has happened on your latest little vacation to the far reaches of the universe. Tell her of Jethro and Ianthan’s betrayal—tell her you killed them, as punishment for their treason. You know, really butter her up. Tell her that they were planning to join Brisha’s side. Make up a reason for it.”

“Anything else?” Navan retorted. “Doesn’t sound too tricky, you know, just wander into the queen’s court and make up a bunch of lies to save the skins of some people I don’t care about.”

“But you do care about one person, don’t you?” Orion replied, gesturing toward me.

My insides twisted up in anger. How dare he put me in the center of all of this? How dare he use me as a pawn in his big plan? I felt a stab of guilt, too—I was fast becoming the chink in Navan’s armor, and I hated the idea of it, that what was growing between us could be exploited by anyone who cared to.

Navan fell silent.

“I thought so,” Orion mused. “Speaking of those people you don’t care about, however, I’m going to need you to feed Queen Gianne some more lies. I know she thinks there are rebels regrouping, somewhere beyond the rule of Vysanthe, and you are going to mislead her for us. She fears an uprising— both of them do. They know their hold on Vysanthe is tenuous at best, and you are going to bolster that fear. Tell her you found a rebel base on your travels, in some dusty corner of the universe, and we were few when you came across us, eking out the rest of our sad existence with our tails between our legs. Tell her you managed to win a small group of us over to your side, and you have brought them before her, with information she will be gagging to hear.”

Navan’s expression shifted, and I could sense he was examining possible loopholes in his mind. “You’ll give me my own ship, then—”

“And I’ll be sending Lazar with you, to oversee matters, and there will be three more of my most trusted coldbloods joining the ranks,” Orion said, with a tight-lipped smile. “Two shapeshifters will also be coming with you, to keep you in check.”

Instantly, Navan shook his head. “None of those pasty little maggots. No way.”

“There will be two shapeshifters coming along, because you will need them when the time comes. You’re not really getting that this isn’t negotiable, are you?” he asked coldly. “You will need the shapeshifters so you can tell Queen Gianne that these are creatures who have joined the rebellion, whom you have convinced to come over to your side.”

“Queen Gianne will kill those shifters the moment she sees them,” Navan bit out. “And I wouldn’t blame her,” he added, bitterness dripping from his words.

At some point, I was going to have to ask to see a book, or something, on the various ins and outs of interplanetary species and why they were so at odds with one another. It wouldn’t hurt to be a bit more clued-in.

“Not if you stop her,” Orion interjected. “Tell her the shifters know important information about other rebels. Plead for their lives in exchange for information about the rebel base, its size, its location.”

Navan’s forehead furrowed in a frown. “She’ll just send a squadron after the base. When she realizes it’s not where these shifters said it was, or where I said it was, I’ll be dead meat.”

“The shifters are coming with you, whether you like it or not. If any issues arise, if you are forced to kill someone of importance, the shifters can take their place. Their presence will make your life a whole lot easier. Do I make myself clear?” Orion said coldly. Navan remained silent as the chief continued. “You will tell Queen Gianne that the rebel planet is lightyears away, in a far-off quadrant of the universe that will take at least a year to reach. You found these individuals at an outpost, closer to Vysanthe, with word that this imagined rebel base is far larger. She will be so focused on finding this place, and nipping the rebellion in the bud, that she won’t see us coming. By the time she realizes her error, we’ll have swarmed upon her like Horerczy butterflies.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Horerczy what?”

“They live in the swamps of our homeland,” Navan muttered. “Vampiric insects that smother their victims and eat them alive, gnawing them down to the bone in seconds—like tiny piranhas with wings.”

I shuddered. Vysanthe really didn’t sound like the friendliest of places.

Orion leaned forward. “While you’re at the queen’s palace, I want you to keep a lookout for any weakness in her queendom—any good spots we might strike from, or find our way into, to make the coup go all the smoother. Do all this, and you can consider yourselves free people. If you desire, we can arrange for rebel transport to return you to Earth, or anywhere else you might want. I hear Caro is nice this time of year.”

“We will owe you nothing for the rest of our lives?” Navan asked.

Orion nodded slowly. “That is correct.”

“I’ll go,” Navan said quietly. “I’ll go without a fight—if you let Riley go back to her family today.”

My heart sank. I looked up at Navan’s face, but he wasn’t returning my gaze. Even though I had known what his answer would be from the start, given what Orion would do otherwise, it didn’t make it any easier. Standing so close to him, I couldn’t help remembering the way those lips had felt upon mine, and how I might never touch them again. Once he left for Vysanthe, he might not return, and I’d never know what happened to him… My body went numb at the thought, though I tried not to let my reaction show on my face.

Orion said nothing, his curious smirk seeming to invite Navan to elaborate.

“She won’t breathe a word of this to anyone,” Navan continued. “Besides, she’ll be no use on a journey like this.”

Orion’s smirk morphed into a malicious grin, and a chill ran down my spine. “Actually, my dear boy, I think she could be of great use indeed.”

The next thing I knew, Orion was a blur, moving like lightning across the room—and something cold pressed against the side of my neck.