I slept late the following morning, my body aching, my eyelids heavy. I felt like I’d gone twelve rounds with a heavyweight, and now I was feeling the effects. My left leg was the worst, a dull throb there pulsing constantly.

“How are you feeling?” Navan asked for the millionth time. I appreciated his concern, but I was in an irritable mood thanks to the pain, and it was starting to get annoying.

“Better,” I lied, wanting him to stop asking.

“Do you feel up to an outing?” he asked, packing a few things into the bag he’d brought from the cabin. I was picking at the remains of a packet of biscuits and gravy, the thick, clumpy mixture making me feel even more nauseated.

I nodded, eager to be out of the stuffy room, which held so many nightmares. I couldn’t stop picturing the shifters on our bed, lounging back with their fleshy pouches pooling on the covers, and the cold sensation of the female’s hands on my neck. Flashbacks of Orion’s punishment exploded in my mind, forcing me to relive the pain and the shock of it. More than that, I was haunted by the dead-eyed corpse of Kalvin, the pike skewering him like a kebab. I needed fresh air and a change of scenery.

“The cabin?” I asked. Surely, the intel would have uploaded by now. If it had, it meant we’d have something concrete to send back to Orion, to get him off our backs. Hopefully, it would mean I could go home, and get this awful thing out of my neck, once and for all.

“As long as you’re up for it,” he replied, his tone laced with concern.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, infusing my voice with more confidence than I felt. “I’m feeling better.”

“As long as you’re sure…”

I grimaced. “I’m sure. Now, can we go, sometime before Vysanthe thaws out?”

He chuckled. “Coldblood humor—I like it,” he commended, slinging the bag onto his shoulder and heading for the door.

The flight to the cabin seemed to whizz by faster than it had the last time, with us reaching the woodland within half an hour of leaving the confines of Regium. I smiled as the dark trees approached, remembering the night Navan and I had spent asleep under the stars, cozied up in the warmth of the igloo. I thought of the skeletal fish, twisting and turning beneath the water of the pond, and the beautiful fireflies glowing in the darkness.

The good feeling didn’t last, however. When we set the Snapper down in the glade where the cabin sat, I was surprised to see another ship already sitting there in the open space. Panic shot through my veins, and I started hyperventilating. I was already on edge from the effects of the chip—I didn’t think I could cope with another surprise.

“Who is it?” I whispered, feeling foolish as I realized the owner of the ship couldn’t hear me from the passenger seat of the Snapper.

Navan frowned. “Lazar,” he answered, his eyes narrowing on the vessel.

“How do you know? Is he supposed to be here?”

Navan shrugged. “I left a message with him saying we’d be coming here today. I guess he thought he’d wait for us.”

“Don’t mind another man in your man cave?” I said, allowing myself a moment of levity as relief washed over me.

“Who said I didn’t mind?” Navan replied, a smile tugging at his lips. “He was supposed to wait outside.”

Lazar opened the door to greet us as we made our way across the glade toward the entrance to the cabin. His shoes were off, and he was wearing what looked like furry slippers. Navan eyed them, a glimmer of irritation passing across his face. It looked like Lazar had made himself a little too at home.

“Well, you took your time!” Lazar said, as Navan and I stepped into the warmth of the cabin.

Navan moved toward the black box he’d left on the coffee table, ignoring his uncle’s comment. As he reached it, however, a long string of expletives erupted from his throat. I hurried over to where he stood, just as he snatched up the box and shook it, hard.

“Useless piece of crap!” he yelled, shaking it once more for good measure.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to get a look at the progress screen. Two words flashed up, in neon-blue letters: Data Corrupted.

“Did you do this?” Navan snapped, whirling around to look at Lazar.

He shook his head vigorously. “Of course not! It didn’t say that five minutes ago, I swear—it was hovering at ninety-nine percent.”

“Then that little suck-up must have given me a faulty disc,” Navan growled.

“I doubt he did it on purpose,” I said, feeling sorry for the little fanboy who had been so excited by Navan’s presence at the Observatory.

“Is there nothing we can use from it?” Lazar asked, wearing an expression of disappointment.

Navan exhaled, running a hand down his face. “I don’t have the tech here, and I don’t want to risk transmitting from anywhere that’s not remote.”

“How about we take it to the palace, extract what we can from the disc, and have a good look around while we’re waiting for it to upload again?” Lazar said. “Even if there is intel on there, it won’t include the palace—we should check for weaknesses there, do some multitasking. Then, we could come back here and get everything we have sent off at once.”

Navan scowled. “I really don’t want to go back there.”

“The queen will no doubt be expecting you to drop in on her at some point, thanks to your father’s meddling,” Lazar replied apologetically. “He’s calling you his deputy-chief advisor.”

Navan’s expression dropped in horror. “He’s not!”

“Oh, he is.” Lazar nodded. “Although, it’s probably not a bad idea for you to go and see her today—keep her sweet after last night’s debacle, smooth things over, you know.”

I nodded. As reluctant as I was to go anywhere near that queen again, Lazar’s suggestion made sense. “She’s terrified of losing her crown,” I said. “A little pep talk could be just what she needs to get her back on track. The last thing this place needs is a mad queen, executing people left, right, and center. And, if people doubt her, things will start to fall apart… Civil war would destroy this place.”

“You had me at ‘mad queen’,” Navan muttered, stuffing the black box into his bag. I just hoped we’d be able to get something off it before Orion started to lose patience.

Zipping back across the harsh landscape, with Lazar crammed into the Snapper with us—since he’d decided it would be better if he kept his ship at the cabin, as a getaway vehicle, if necessary—I thought about home. If everything went well, I’d soon be returning, with plenty of time to intercept the blood-pod on the way. Glancing at Navan, I wondered what he’d do when this mission was over, and the blood had been retrieved. Would he come back with me to Earth? It was something I had assumed in the back of my mind but never asked. Given his hatred for Vysanthe, I hoped he would.

The icy palace came into view, and the Snapper descended into what felt like our usual spot. We got out and walked through the vast entrance, the guards letting us past without so much as a grunt or a gruff word.

Everything looked so different now, compared to the previous night. All the decorations had been torn down, the walls and ceilings looking strangely bare, and the grand hall had been cleared of all party evidence. There were no opaleine towers bearing vials upon vials, no crystal glasses with red liquid inside, and no chairs and tables. It was one big expanse, devoid of festive spirit.

Crossing the empty floor quickly, Lazar led us down the same hallway that Queen Gianne had disappeared through after Kalvin had been executed. It was broad and wide, ending in a familiar set of double doors. This was the throne room, where Navan and I had visited the queen. Frowning, I guessed several corridors must lead here.

Navan stepped up to the door and rapped hard on the metal surface. A moment later, a guard came to the door and poked his head out.

“What?” he barked.

“I’m Navan Idrax, here to see the queen,” Navan said. “I think she might be expecting me.”

The guard shook his head. “Not today, she’s not.”

“What do you mean?” Navan frowned.

“Queen Gianne isn’t seeing anyone today,” he replied tersely. “She doesn’t wish to be disturbed, and I’m here to ensure she gets her privacy. Now, I suggest you scoot back the way you came, before I’m forced to throw you out.”

Navan pulled a face, and I knew it mirrored my own. This guard was half the size of Navan—there was no way he’d be doing any throwing out. But, of course, it wouldn’t come to that. The queen had given her orders.

“Do you know when she’ll be receiving visitors again?” Navan pressed. If the queen was isolating herself, it had to be bad. Paranoia was a leech, and I had a feeling it had taken hold of Queen Gianne.

“Yeah, of course, let me just whip out the queen’s diary,” the guard scoffed. “No, I don’t know when she’ll be receiving visitors again, but it’s definitely not today!” With that, he slammed the door shut in our faces.

“Well, he was rude.” I whistled.

“Small man syndrome,” Navan muttered, though the humor didn’t reach his eyes. I could tell he was worried about the queen, too. Jareth had already admitted she was becoming crazier, and this only proved it was getting worse.

As we walked back through the palace hallways, Navan pulled us away from the corridor that led to the exit, and into a side room. It looked out onto a courtyard filled with white blossoms that fell to the ground like snow. Here, monitors and screens beeped and thrummed, and two bulky coldbloods sat in front of desks, looking bored out of their brains.

They turned as we entered. “Navan?” one said, a look of surprise on his face.

“Idrax!” the other, a female, cried. “Thought you were on the far side of the universe!”

Navan smiled. “Had to come back sometime, right? Hafar, Kwen, it’s good to see you guys.” Leaving Lazar and me, he walked over to them and patted them both on the back as they embraced him warmly.

“What brings you here? You in trouble again?” the male coldblood, Hafar, asked, pulling away and flashing a glance of suspicion.

“No, no, nothing like that—for once,” Navan laughed. “My father has made me his, uh… deputy-chief advisor, and he wants me to look through some files. The queen’s worried about rebels, so we’re checking the perimeters for any breaches. I got this disc from one of the guys up at the Observatory, but I think he was a newbie. The thing keeps saying the data is corrupted.”

The female, Kwen, nodded. “The tech up there is ancient, man! They’re always losing important stuff,” she said, grimacing. “You want us to take a look at it for you?”

Navan grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. Although, my father will kill me if he finds out I’ve lost all that data, so if you could keep it on the down low, I’d be eternally grateful.”

Hafar laughed. “Say no more. Leave it with us, and we’ll have something for you in a couple of hours.”

“Thanks, guys, I owe you one,” Navan replied, giving Hafar a playful punch in the shoulder.

“Hey, you owe us many!” Kwen pouted.

“And, one glorious day, I will pay you back,” Navan promised, before turning to leave the room.

As we all returned to the hallway, I looked up at Navan in surprise. “Who were they?” I asked, curious.

“Old friends,” Navan replied with a chuckle. “Let’s just say we were all a bad influence on each other when we were younger. How they landed jobs here, I’ll never know, but I’m certainly glad they did.”

I smiled, picturing Navan as a younger man, in his early teens, running amok in the palace, no doubt causing his father endless hassle. It was always nice to see the relaxed, funny side of Navan—I hadn’t had much chance to see it, here on Vysanthe. Home put him in an almost perpetually somber mood, and while I understood why, I still loved to see a glimpse of his happier self.

“Let’s roam around the gardens for a while. I hear they’re beautiful this time of year, and I’m sure the queen won’t mind,” Lazar suggested with a wink, plucking out a curious, pen-shaped object. Only, it was longer and wider than a normal pen, and didn’t seem to have a discernible nib of any kind. When he pressed a button on the side, the object glowed a dim purple. And as he flourished it in the air, a trace of blue followed the path of the pen, before dissipating.

“What’s that?” I asked Navan. We headed through another network of corridors, following Lazar’s lead.

“It’s an Escribo,” he replied softly. “It creates an image that stores itself inside the pen. Lazar is creating a map with it.”

“Woah. Cool.”

The icy wind snapped at my face as we stepped out into the gardens of the palace, forcing me to draw my coat closer to my chin. My eyes watered, but I tried to look around at the flowers and trees that blossomed in such adversity. Most were twisted, gnarled things that looked half dead, but there was the occasional surprise as we walked between walled gardens, exploring the grounds. A bush filled with spiny red flowers sprang up, its petals unfurling as we passed. Pausing, I bent to take a closer look, only to be yanked backward by Navan’s firm hand.

“Don’t get near those,” he warned. “They shoot out deadly barbs if you get too close.”

“Well, that’s nice.”

I decided to stick to the center of the garden path after that, where I hoped I wouldn't come under any direct attack by flora or fauna.

Navan noticed, and chuckled.

“Welcome to Vysanthe,” Lazar said, shaking his head. With every step we took, he was lifting his Escribo to the air and drawing the shape of whatever he was looking at, whether it was a wall, a window, a fortification, or a fence, flicking the pen discreetly, in case anyone was watching. He traced a few images of the flowers too, undoubtedly to create the impression that he was simply committing the beautiful blooms to eternal memory.

As we turned a corner on the garden path leading up to a large lake, with several bridges spanning the water, a young male coldblood dressed in a dark green uniform came running up to Lazar, clutching something in his hand. By the time he reached us, he was breathless, pressing a hand to his chest as he held out a small square of glass.

“A message… for you… Lazar,” he panted.

Lazar took it, and the messenger lurched away again. He pressed a tiny button on the side of the glass, and the screen blinked to life, though I couldn’t see what the note said. The words were only reflected on the side that Lazar held up to his face. I watched his expression intently, hoping to gauge something from it.

He blinked in surprise, and looked at me. “Riley, did something—” he began, only for Navan to cut him off mid-sentence.

“Aurelius!” Navan hissed suddenly. I looked up to see that he had spotted the queen’s advisor moving out from behind a bit of topiary shaped like a wolf. He was walking away from the palace at breakneck speed.

“He’s heading for the military compound,” Navan said quietly, nodding toward a squat gray building that sat behind the palace grounds, overlooking the lake. I supposed it made sense that the queen would have her army at hand, for whenever she might need them.

“We should go after him,” Lazar said at once, distracted from whatever it was he had just read. “This could be the perfect opportunity to gain precise intel on the queen’s military.”

That definitely made sense. Finding weaknesses in the walls was all well and good, but finding weaknesses in the actual army was a huge step up.

If we could do that, Orion would be sure to let us go.