Teorin jerked the door open as Jeron strode down the hallway. He called out like a drowning man with two feet on the floor. Finally, help. He wouldn’t have to carry this alone anymore.

  Jeron spun, his eyes widening when they landed on Teorin. It really was Jeron. Maybe they could fix all of this. “I’m so glad—” Teorin began, but Jeron crushed him in an embrace before he could finish.

  After a moment, Jeron pulled back, his face serious. “It’s good to see you in one piece,” he said, his voice gruff. “Where in the cascades have you been? I’ve spent the entire day terrified that I’d have to call your mother and tell her I had no idea what happened to you.”

  “After what happened in Jarangua, I wanted to wait until nightfall,” Teorin said, running a hand through his hair. “I needed any advantage I could get.”

  And it had still gone all wrong. The relief cracked. “Where were you?!” Teorin said, his voice breaking slightly. If Jeron had been there earlier…

  “I had an agent in the building across the street watching for you. He was supposed to alert me when you arrived, but I lost contact with him a little while ago. I found him stunned, called a doctor, and then came to investigate myself.”

  Someone must have taken the agent out before he and Kara arrived.

  “Dr. Tanel?” Jeron asked.

  It was strange hearing Jeron call Kara that, though Teorin himself had only recently stopped. “I don’t know. I think Marcus might have taken her. I can’t be sure, but… have you seen him?”

  Jeron gave a curt nod. “Yes. When we separated. He was with Sasha.”

  Teorin winced. Pretty solid confirmation. Why had he hoped he was wrong? He shoved the thought aside. “I think they split up. Marcus went after Kara. Sasha came for the pages.”

  Jeron stiffened. “Did she get them?”

  “She thinks so, but Lev swapped them. Left her with decoys.”

  Jeron held up a hand. “Lev? As in Lev Tanel?”

  Teorin let out a long breath. “Yeah. He’s the only reason that Sasha doesn’t have the pages now. He hid the real pages, left her unimportant ones… and got some pretty severe burns in the process.”

  Jeron raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t have him pegged as the strategic type.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Teorin muttered.

  Jeron glanced toward the classroom. “He still here?”

  Teorin nodded and turned back, flipping the light on. “Lev?” he called.

  A groan came from the side of the room, followed by what sounded like a muttered curse. Teorin led Jeron over. “We need to get him to a doctor. He fainted earlier, and the burns are bad.”

  Lev lay on the floor, eyes shut, but he cracked them open when they approached. His color was still off, his gaze unfocused. “Found a friend?” he mumbled.

  “This is Jeron,” Teorin said. “We’re getting you help.”

  Lev just nodded faintly and draped his good arm over his face. He clearly didn’t want to talk.

  Jeron crouched to check the burns. “You’re right. He needs immediate medical attention.” He stood, tapping a finger against his leg. “Best to wait here. I already sent for a team for the agent in the other building. I’ll let them know we need them here too.”

  Jeron walked to the door, pulling up something on his comm band and speaking quietly into it.

  “Lev?” Teorin prodded him.

  Lev hummed.

  “We’ve got a doctor coming. I’ll turn the lights back off, but yell if you need anything.”

  Lev grunted and muttered something. Maybe a curse. Maybe a “thanks.” Teorin wasn’t sure. He stood there for a while, but there wasn’t anything he could actually do for Lev at the moment.

  He hesitated, then jogged out to find Jeron, who was already heading back toward him.

  “The doctor’s on her way. Just finishing up across the street,” Jeron said.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Aren’t there still a bunch of people outside?”

  Jeron sighed. “Unfortunately, it looks like we’re on both the Ribeiro and da Silva clans’ radar, but don’t worry.”

  Teorin blinked and gave Jeron a questioning look.

  “I called in some of my people and campus security after I lost contact with Bryan. We’ve got it covered. They shouldn’t be bothering us.”

  “’Shouldn’t be’ isn’t exactly comforting.”

  Jeron gave a dry smile. “If someone gets in, I’ll freeze them where they stand.”

  Teorin shivered. He’d seen Jeron do that once. It was unsettling, like time itself had hiccuped. He shoved the image out of his mind. There was something else they needed to discuss. “Kara managed to translate some of the journal. It mentions a rare plant that grew by an underground lab.”

  “A lab?” Jeron’s voice sharpened.

  “Yeah, and there is a picture of the plant.” Teorin pulled a folded sheet from his breast pocket and handed it over.

  Jeron took the page with quiet reverence, then stared at it for several seconds. “I need to get this to the botany team—and the translators,” he murmured. He moved to a table, smoothed out the page, and began scanning it, speaking quickly into his comm band.

  Teorin leaned back against the wall. Jeron was here. Maybe things really would be okay.

  “Did Dr. Tanel find anything else?” Jeron asked, glancing over.

  Teorin stiffened, Kara’s accusations echoing in his mind. “She found a picture of a human. Looked like a Pulser or a Luminar. She said the journal claimed the species that terraformed the planet experimented on them.” He watched Jeron closely. “Has any of our team seen that?”

  Jeron’s face stayed blank. “She got all that from the first section?”

  Teorin nodded. “And more. We need to get her back.”

  Jeron hesitated. He hadn’t answered the question. Teorin felt his jaw tighten. “You’ll help us get her back, right?”

  Jeron didn’t meet his eyes. “If the da Silvas got some of those pages—”

  “Lev said they were ones Kara marked unimportant.”

  “Even so,” Jeron said, voice tight. “We have to move on the lab. That’s the priority. If they can’t read the pages, they’ll pressure Dr. Tanel. She knows everything you just told me. We need to get ahead of them.”

  “Exactly. All the more reason to find her now,” Teorin shot back. “You’ll need a translator on the expedition, won’t you?”

  “Teorin, we don’t even know where she is,” Jeron said, gentler now. “If we did… maybe. But Dr. Tanel isn’t our only option. This operation can’t stall. Time is critical.”

  “If Sasha’s working for the da Silvas—”

  Jeron cut him off. “We’ll investigate, but Sasha’s a mercenary. We suspect da Silva ties, but without proof, we can’t make accusations. The politics are... delicate.”

  Politics. Teorin hated that word. Kara had been kidnapped. That should be enough.

  Teorin ground his teeth. Jeron was playing the long game—too many excuses, too many cautious explanations. But this time, he was wrong. Maybe the politics were messy. That didn’t justify abandoning Kara. Not when they had dragged her into this.

  Jeron wouldn’t see it that way. Not with the fallout already looming.

  “Did you know about the picture of the human?” Teorin asked, anger slipping into his voice.

  Jeron tapped the table, then turned to face him fully. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Tell Kara?”

  Jeron exhaled. “It was hard enough getting clearance to tell you what I did.”

  Teorin glared.

  Jeron’s gaze hardened. “It’s complicated. There are internal disagreements about how much information should be shared. You didn’t need to know.”

  Teorin stared at him. He should have expected this. Novem always kept things compartmentalized. Need-to-know, but it still made his stomach twist. Because if Jeron had lied about this, what else had he lied about?

  “That’s a major discovery,” Teorin said, throwing up his hands. “And it’s not related to getting off-planet. So what’s the issue?”

  Jeron raised an eyebrow at Teorin’s tone but didn’t engage. “If we released that information,” he said carefully, “We’d have to reveal our source. We’re not ready for that.”

  Teorin blinked. He hadn’t really considered that, but still…

  “Why not tell Kara?” Teorin asked, folding his arms.

  “Our focus was elsewhere. That section didn’t seem tied to statherium or space, nothing related to escape, and even if I had wanted to tell her, we ran out of time.”

  Jeron’s explanation had been cut off, but none of this changed the fact that Kara was missing. “And now she’s gone. We have to go after her.”

  Jeron pursed his lips. “If we find where they took her, I’ll do whatever we reasonably can to bring her back. Alright?”

  Teorin stayed quiet. The mission always came first for Jeron. Teorin had once admired that—still did, in some ways. But what Jeron considered reasonable might not line up with his own definition. Not this time.

  Not after what Lev had just done to save those pages.

  Still… Jeron wasn’t wrong. Until they found her, there wasn’t much they could do. “You’ve got people looking, though?” Teorin asked.

  Jeron nodded. “Everyone’s on alert. Just not the general public. The local police situation is too messy, but Novem’s looking. Once we reach our Crisuma base, I’ll see what other strings I can pull.”

  Jeron’s comm band flashed. He glanced at the message. “The doctor just finished with Bryan. She’s on her way over. Can you bring her to Lev? It’s Heidi. You know her, right?”

  Teorin nodded. She’d treated him before. “I’ll get her.”

  Jeron nodded and turned back to his comm band. Teorin made his way toward the elevator. If they didn’t find Kara soon… Jeron would want him on that expedition. Teorin already knew it. And if they really found something, if that plant lead was real, it could change everything.

  Deep down, Teorin wanted to go. Badly. He almost wanted Jeron to force him to because then… then he’d have an excuse.

  Idiot. That was so wrong. He felt guilty just for thinking it. Wouldn’t that be breaking his promise to help Lev? He focused on the glowing floor numbers as he descended, trying to push the expedition out of his mind.

  But could he really? Kara had fought so hard for those pages, for the truth. If they found something, it could change everything. Wasn’t that worth the risk?

  She was a translator. They wouldn’t hurt her. Right?

  But what if that wasn’t true? What if he was misjudging the situation, just like he had with Lev, thinking he knew what was best and then finding out how wrong he was? What if walking away meant losing her forever?

  Teorin’s jaw clenched. Was there even a good answer here? Maybe there wasn’t, but there was one thing he did know. He couldn’t do anything about the other problems without more information, but Lev? Lev he could help, so he would.