Jade needed to take a breather, but she didn’t slow her pace as she ran from one end of the Academy to the other. In the oppressive silence of the service hallways, she could hear her heart beating. Her blood thrummed against her ears, making her feel sick, but she forced her body to keep going.

Dark thoughts entered her mind, and she pushed them away by summoning the imaginary baby with traits and coloring that were different from hers, and so similar to her target’s.

Out of nowhere, she heard someone whispering her name. She shivered at the sheer sensuality of the masculine timber of the man’s voice, and she faltered, pitching forward in the darkness of the corridor. Cursing, she broke the fall with her good hand.

A memory.

Jade recognized what she had experienced as a memory. Nothing but a memory, and yet, so much more. The erasion had crumbled for a moment.

She couldn’t help but laugh at the timing. “Past-Jade, are you finished screwing me over?”

The low rumble of steps came from the other side of the wall. By now, the Academy had unleashed its best trackers to find her.

Waiting for the danger to pass, Jade stood still and willed her heart to slow down. She counted her heartbeats, as she had learned so long ago, until the gap between them increased. As if her body didn’t belong to her any longer, a sense of peace blanketed her. Her mind expanded, and she calculated her best course of action.

Her enemies’ steps echoed softer and softer, south of her position. She took a step, then another, her feet light and her breathing regular as she stealthily moved ahead. Soon, the head tracker was bound to send someone inside the service area, looking for her in the only place he hadn’t thought to yet.

When she was sure the trackers were out of earshot, Jade started running again, counting the steps to the hangar’s door.

One thousand, two hundred, fifty-three—

One thousand, two hundred, four—

Nine hundred, seventy-six—

Three hundred and twenty—

Fifty-nine—

One—

Her hand reached out and encountered the metal handle of the hangar’s door. She carefully lowered the bar, cracking the panel open to peer outside. Booted steps echoed far away. At least two men, judging from their careless stomping. From her vantage point, she saw that one of the hatches on the other side of the large chamber was just closing. Soon after, silence blanketed the place, now deserted.

Jade had expected to find the mechanic crew tinkering on vehicles, but she wasn’t going to question the first good news of the last two months. She was about to push the bar all the way down to enter the hangar when the hissing sound of an opening hatch stopped her.

It was the same door she had seen locking a moment earlier. A man emerged from it and purposefully strode toward Jade’s side of the room. From his attire and deportment, she surmised that he wasn’t an assassin, but a vampire. She couldn’t risk him discovering her and swiftly flattened against the door, leaving the panel ajar for fear that closing it would draw his attention.

Daring a look, Jade angled enough to take a glimpse. The man stopped at a red aircar-taxi parked a few steps from the exit door. The aircar was one of the vehicles used to escort visitors in and out of the Academy, and the man was the designated driver. Assassins didn’t cart people around but used a handful of reliable men and women among shifters and vampires for the job. They didn’t trust those outsiders enough to show them their faces, which explained why nobody else was in the hangar.

The man entered the aircar-taxi and sat in the driver seat. He didn’t reach for the ignition lever and left the door opened. Closing his eyes, he raised his arms over the back of his seat and relaxed.

A smile spread across Jade’s face. Her luck seemed to be improving by the second, but she had to seize the moment. There wouldn’t be another occasion to hitch a ride undetected.

After checking that nobody was around, she slid to the ground and slinked out of her hiding place on all fours. Without making a sound, she entered the aircar. A heartbeat later, her dagger was at the man’s throat.

“Do not scream. Do not move,” she whispered to his ear. “Nod if you understand.”

The man obeyed.

“You escorted a guest and are waiting for him to come back, right?” she asked.

Again, the man nodded.

“How long?” She pressed the dagger against his skin. “You can talk, but don’t raise your voice.”

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“Then we wait.” If she forced him to leave before his scheduled time, the aircar’s alarm would sound, drawing all the trackers to the hangar. “Who’s the visitor?” she asked, applying more pressure until a thin red line appeared.

“The Solarian High Lord,” the man answered promptly.