“Well,” General Olmstead says, the image of his face huge on the war room screen, “I must admit, I did not order your good cousin to kidnap the princess.”

“You’ve violated the terms of the ceasefire,” my father says, sitting straight as a rod on his throne.

“As I said,” Olmstead replies, and the screen switches from his face to a dark dungeon.

The light is faint, but I can make out the dull gleam of the bars, and Siegfried is behind them, sitting on his bed and looking angry.

The screen cuts back to Olmstead. “As you can see, I’m taking his punishment seriously.”

My father’s knuckles whiten as he squeezes the arms of his throne. “Hand him over to us immediately, and we will take his punishment even more seriously. And Princess Jane, of course, must be returned safely.”

“Show her to me,” I shout out.

Father scowls at me. I’m not meant to speak, but fuck the rules.

Olmstead grins at me. “I’d not have done this on my own, but now that we have something you want more than Siegfried, I think we’ll need to renegotiate the terms.”

“The deal stands,” my father says. “Which is more generous than I should be with you after you violated the ceasefire. Even if Siegfried acted alone, by keeping Princess Jane as your hostage, you’ve all but endorsed his actions.”

Olmstead shrugs. “I’m a pragmatist, and I’ll use what leverage is available to me. For my country.”

I feel a sting when he refers to Sydia as a country. It’s part of our kingdom, but having Jane taken from me is much more than a sting. It’s a gaping, bleeding hole in my heart, and I need her back more than I need my kingdom to be whole.

“Return Princess Jane,” my father says.

“And what do I get for that?” Olmstead asks. “I think you should allow the will of my people to be realized now, and not one year from now.”

“I’ll look into it,” my father says, and he slams a button, cutting off the call.

“Father,” I say, rushing to his side.

“I don’t need to hear it, Rikard,” he says.

But I grab him by the arm, not letting go.

“Unhand me,” he growls.

“Father,” I say. “We’ll lose Sydia either way. Now or a year from now, it makes no difference.”

“No difference?” he snaps. “If we allow it to happen now, it will tell any other part of our kingdom that a hasty armed conflict will immediately grant them sovereignty! Waiting a year allows the process to be democratic, to show that militias and military strongmen can’t overpower the will of the people.”

“And yet,” I say, “you were going to raise the taxes to undermine the peoples’ willl.”

He grabs my wrist, squeezing me with every last ounce of his old-man strength. “Do not question my decisions, Rikard. I am still king, and until I’m dead and buried, you are just a prince. I will listen to your advice, but I don’t need you questioning decisions that are already made.”

* * *

“It will work out,” Magnus says.

We’re standing outside in the snow while Father makes his decision. The palace is behind us, and the castle is lit up once again on the hill in front of us.

“We’ll make it work,” I say.

“Rikard…”

I look at him seriously. “We need to get a team together. We ran a trace on Olmstead, so we know exactly where he is.”

“We don’t know for sure that Jane is there,” Magnus says.

“He’ll keep her close, especially when he has people like Siegfried disobeying him and acting alone. He doesn’t want someone to take her and use her to gain advantage over him.”

“That makes sense,” Siegfried says. “But what if we put her in even more danger by trying to rescue her?”

“If Father declares war,” I say, “then what chance does she have? If we sneak in like I’m planning to do, she at least has a shot.”

“You wanted war not even a week ago,” Magnus says.

I shake my head. “I was being naive, or proud―or both. Sydia is a lost cause, and we’re stronger as a kingdom without them. Better to split now and start working toward peaceful coexistence.”

“Would you say that if Jane wasn’t being held?” Magnus asks.

I look at him with a reproachful glare, and he backs off. I don’t know the answer to his question, but it doesn't really matter. I don’t want war. I want Jane.

“Do you think Karl and Nils would help me again?” I ask.

“The twins,” Magnus says. “I think they’re still scrubbing toilets from the last time they helped you.”

“Sounds like they’ll jump at the chance to get out then,” I say, grinning.

* * *

“This is the wraith,” Dr. Vogel says.

She’s brought the four of us into a big bay full of prototype vehicles. Many look only half-finished, with open panels and wires hanging out everywhere.

The wraith, however, looks so sleek that it seems it came from the future. It looks like it’s made of mirrors―I can see my distorted reflection along the wing. The thing is on some kind of train tracks, which makes little sense to me. Why does it have wings if it runs on a track along the ground?

“Wraith,” Nils says. “Like a ghost? This thing is stealth?”

“In every sense of the word,” Dr. Vogel says.

“Just because it looks like a mirror doesn’t make it invisible,” I add skeptically.

Vogel reaches into her pocket and pulls out a device that looks like a TV remote. She presses a button, and we watch in astonishment as the plane vanishes before our eyes.

“The mirror-like surface absorbs light on all sides, and it projects that light to the opposite sides,” Dr. Vogel says. “Move around a bit, and you’ll see it’s not quite invisible.”

The four of us walk around it, moving our heads up and down to get different angles of it.

I can see a slight bending and distortion where the plane is―especially along the edges. Still, if I wasn’t looking for it, and if I wasn’t five feet away from it, I doubt I’d notice it was there at all.

“It’s especially difficult to notice in the sky,” she says. “Of course, it’s shaped like any regular stealth aircraft, so it won’t show up on radar.”

“Can it actually fly?” Karl asks, pointing to the track. “Not much good being invisible if you have to follow a track.”

“It can fly,” she says. “But only one way.”

* * *

We load up into the wraith. It can seat five men with no equipment, but the four of us plus all our guns fills it.

Nils is the only one of us with piloting experience, so he sits in the cockpit while the rest of us are in back.

Dr. Vogel’s voice comes onto the intercom. “Mr. Nils, are you ready?”

“I thought I didn’t have to do anything yet?”

“You don’t,” she says. “So resist the urge to mess with the controls.”

As part of its stealthiness, the wraith has no engine or propulsion system. It’s a glider. The track is powered by the strongest electromagnets in the world. The track runs for only a kilometer, but it can accelerate the wraith up to high enough speeds to slingshot it into low-Earth orbit. From there, it can glide down anywhere in the world. It can reach Australia in just a few hours.

Just hopping over the border from Nordia to Sydia is next to nothing, and Dr. Vogel assures us it won’t even have to reach half of its max speed to do so.

“Launching in ten seconds,” she says. “Good luck.”

My father gave us permission to run this operation. Magnus asked him. I wasn’t planning on asking for his permission. He said that he was going to declare war anyway, so we might as well do what we can before everything goes to hell.

Since there is no track at the old castle where they are holding Siegfried and Jane, the wraith will be stuck there once we land. We’re meant to signal the capital once we land, and that’s when Nordia will attack―breaking the ceasefire.

The war erupting just as we rescue Jane should give us the cover we need to sneak back across the border, likely in a stolen vehicle. The main risk will be that someone from our own side shoots us thinking we’re part of the Sydian ranks.

A sound goes off from the cockpit―a loud, chirping beep―and then my stomach stays behind even as my body moves.

I squeeze tightly to my harness, and a weirdly smooth acceleration pins my back to the seat. There’s no hint of bumpiness or jostling, so it feels as if “down” has shifted from my feet to my back, and that gravity is getting stronger and stronger, pinning me harder and harder to the ground.

That’s just how it feels, but I know that in reality we are accelerating rapidly forward along the track. It’s completely dark―not even the cockpit has real windows.

Just when I think I’m going to be crushed entirely, the acceleration cuts out, and it feels as if we are motionless.

“Autopilot is taking over,” NIls shouts back to us. “Weird.”

“Don’t fuck with the controls, bro!” Karl shouts.

Then it feels like the plane is turning.

“That you?” I ask.

“I’m not touching shit!” Nils shouts. “Just the autopilot. Vogel said that all I’ve gotta do is land the thing! HUD says we’ll be there in four minutes. Let’s get our heads in the game.”