Return Once More

The telltale, invisible thrums, like the heartbeat of a small animal in your palm or a million lead balls dropped onto a silent gong at the same moment, shook my blood. I stumbled the final steps, blind with the shield in place, and crashed into Caesarion’s body as it crumpled. We landed on the ground in a heap as my arms found my True Companion’s and held on tight.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Kaia. Kaia, you have to get up. We have to go.”

The words sounded far away, as though Oz spoke underwater, and for a moment I thought he’d liquefied my organs, too. Then raw sobs replaced his voice, proving I was alive. And the one making a racket. My fingers tore at the strings of my cloak, freeing my face to see Caesarion.

He lay with his eyes closed, looking at peace but for the fluid leaking from his ears and nose, his hand slack in mine. I clutched his tunic, begging my mind to take hold of the rest of me.

“I’ll be seeing you,” I whispered.

My emotions settled sooner than expected. My anger toward Oz for taking this responsibility from me, for robbing Caesarion of final moments filled with love and replacing them with confusion and fear, ripped through me with shocking ferocity. I stood and threw myself at Oz, pummeling his chest with my fists. My hair stuck to the sweat and tears on my face, but as big a mess as I must have looked, it was my insides that would never return to normal.

He’d stolen my job. Ignored Caesarion’s last request. Made me feel as though everything I’d been through with my True had ended in failure, and in that moment, I hated Oz almost as much as I hated myself. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? This was my job. I was doing it!” I shrieked, too mired in loss to think about being overheard.

“Not fast enough. Kaia, I—” He held me at arm’s length and took my beating, his eyes darkened by sorrow.

The pounding of sandals, of guttural cries filled with rage and hatred, interrupted him. Caesarion’s guards spotted their Pharaoh lying on the ground, obviously killed by these two strangers they had never trusted, and the murder in their eyes said Oz and I were about to pay their price. This time I moved first, yanking my hood back into place and jerking the strings to cover my face. Oz followed suit without having to be asked, responding to my motions as though we’d been working in tandem, sonic waving memories to death as a team our entire lives.

I flicked off the safety and aimed the waver, hoping no one else had been summoned by the guards’ shouts and wandered into range. The waver pulsed in my fingers for five seconds, and when it buzzed again once, letting me know the area was clear of danger, I undid my hood and surveyed my damage.

The three guards had collapsed in mid-run, their mouths open, eyes turned to goo and melting from their sockets. Oz grabbed my hand, but I jerked it away.

“Be pissed at me if you want, but we’ve got to go. Now.”

My anger had crowded everything else for the past several minutes, but now the panic encroaching on the edges of his voice registered and my heart dropped into my knees.

“What happened?”

“It’s Analeigh. The Elders caught her in the Archives. They’ve got her sanctioned already and they’ve recommended exposure, Kaia. Death. They’re looking for you now, and if they find you here they’ll activate your remote auto-destruct.”

None of it made sense; the information was too much all at once. I didn’t care about me, and the one thing that stuck in my mind, repeated on a loop, was that Analeigh was in trouble.

Because of me. She was going to die because of me.

“No. Oz, why? She’s never been in trouble before, and that’s not a capital offense!”

His own eyes shone with tears. “I don’t know. I swear, I don’t. They’re panicked about something … whatever she found out or stumbled across.”

“They want to shut her up.”

“Yes. And they’ve … they’ve got Sarah, too. Something about private files and schematics.”

“Shit. Shit.” My knees wobbled and threatened to dump me back onto the ground. I reached out and grabbed his arm, using him to steady my legs as my mind struggled with the transition between losing Caesarion and saving my friends.

Caesarion’s manservant peered into the clearing, his face ashen at the scene. He seemed to want to flee but his feet refused to move, instead he stared at the two of us, so obviously out of place in our cloaks, electronic devices in our hands. I realized we’d both been speaking aloud in English the past several minutes, too.

“Don’t run,” I called to him in Greek. “We’re not going to hurt you as long as you never speak of this day. Take Pharaoh’s body to Alexandria and ensure Octavian learns of his death.”

He nodded and kept bobbing his head as though it was on a spring. It would have to do.

“Let’s go.”

Oz nodded and set his cuff, beckoning me closer so that the blue field could encompass us both, and we returned to Sanchi.

*

Sanchi, Amalgam of Genesis–50 NE (New Era)

Our time in the decontamination chamber seemed to last an eternity. My heart and body and brain were a mess of emotions, part trying to mourn Caesarion for the second time, part furious with Oz for his interference, and all of me terrified we would be too late to save my best friend.

Analeigh needed us. So, I shoved my emotions into a compartment and locked it tight, intent on dealing with it later. If I wasn’t dead.

I dumped my dress, tunic, and sash into the decontamination pod and stepped into the shower at the behest of the electronic voice that discovered too many particles on my skin and hair. The air lock was still closed when we were clean and dressed in clean uniforms.

“Tell me.”

“I did. The Elders dragged Analeigh to a public sanction, and you know she can’t lie very well.”

“What did she say? When they asked her why she was in those Archives?”

“Nothing. She said nothing, just sat there and stared at them.”

I wanted to cry, but nothing came out. My tear ducts felt hollow. Maybe the anger crashing through me made it impossible, or the fear tightening my muscles had dried them up. “And then?”

“I left to come get you.”

The air lock clicked open and I shot out the door. Oz pounded at my heels as we climbed from the travel decks of the Academy up to the dorm levels, then raced toward the judgment rooms. I would turn myself in, tell them everything and that I’d made Analeigh do it.

The sight of Teach and Jean outside the chamber stopped me in my tracks so fast Oz slammed into my back, sending both of us toppling toward the pirates. Which, given that they both held sonic wavers at the ready, jammed my heart into my mouth.

Oz and I managed to right ourselves, and I shoved him away.

“What are you two doing?” I demanded, my eyes searching the corridor. “Is Jonah here?”

Shouts erupted from inside the chamber, a voice that sounded like Oz’s father’s rising above the din in a scream. “Don’t let them leave!”

Jonah banged out the doors, metal ringing against metal as they flew open. He had Analeigh dangling under an arm, her face white and streaked with tears, hair a tangled mess as she struggled in his tight grip.

They both gasped my name at the same time, Analeigh in a wet, broken whisper and Jonah in incredulous anger.

“Let her go, Jonah.” I reached out and locked my hands around Analeigh’s wrists, tugging so hard my cuff dislodged from its spot at my elbow, over my wrist, and jangled right onto hers. She pulled toward me, trying to get loose, but Jonah held on tight.

“You don’t get it, Kaia. If you’d just listened to me, this shit show wouldn’t have gone down.” He glanced behind him at the Enforcers and Elders hurrying from the rear of the room, weapons held up, and then Jonah started quickly away. Jean and Teach followed, and I saw Sparrow at the end of the hall, his features pinched and impatient.