Only Good Enemies

Enemies are like stormswords. Even if you defeat them, they still end up stabbing you in the heart.

—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

PART ONE—UNWANTED CONNECTIONS

CHAPTER ONE

VESPER

Sometimes in life, you have to do unpleasant things to get revenge.

Like sit through a boring corporate meeting in the morning, train until your muscles scream at noon, and let yourself be bribed before midnight.

Unfortunately, my day was just getting started, and my revenge, well, it was quite far off, maybe even on the other side of the galaxy—assuming I could get it at all.

“. . . sales of Lady Vesper’s new brewmaker are up forty-three percent from the previous Kent model . . .”

A thirty-something man waved his hand, making spreadsheets, earnings reports, and other documents flicker and spin over the holoscreen embedded in the long wooden table in the center of the conference room. The holograms’ glow added a silvery sheen to his dark brown eyes and skin, and an errant curl of black hair drooped over his forehead. He absently shoved the stray lock back into place, making the spreadsheets spin again.

Raul Xanxado was the best sales analyst at Quill Corp, but his presentations were as dry and precise as the numbers he tracked, calculated, and projected. He’d been talking for almost ten minutes, and I bit my tongue to stifle a yawn.

I looked past Raul, staring out the permaglass windows at the neighboring chrome skyscrapers, which were studded with green solar panels, as though they were sleeping dragons waiting to be recharged so they could spring into motion. I might be physically looking at skyscrapers, but in my mind’s eye, I was seeing another building entirely—a dark stone structure with towers and turrets that sprawled across one end of a busy street.

Was Kyrion Caldaren on his home planet of Corios? Was he relaxing in his old-fashioned castle on the Boulevard, the wide avenue lined with the ostentatious homes of the rich and powerful Regal lords and ladies? Or had he been sent to some distant planet on a dangerous Arrow mission to track down the Techwave? Did he ever think about me the way I so often thought about him—

Under the conference table, out of sight of the others, the woman sitting next to me jabbed the sharp, pointed toe of her black stiletto into my calf. Once again, I bit my tongue, this time to keep a hiss of pain from escaping my lips.

I glared at the woman, who wore a sleek, tailored pantsuit that was both professional and fashionable. The shimmering gold fabric brought out her ebony skin, while gold shadow and liner accentuated her dark brown eyes. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into an elegant twist, and chandelier earrings shaped like gold stars brushed the tops of her shoulders.

Tivona Winslow, my best friend, skilled corporate negotiator, and second in command at Quill Corp, tilted her head at me in a chiding motion, making her earrings tinkle together like tiny wind chimes. Tivona turned her attention back to Raul. I sighed and did the same.

“. . . given these projections, brewmaker sales should continue to rise . . .”

Raul spouted a few more figures, then finally, mercifully, wrapped up his presentation. He waved his hand, and the spreadsheets flickering over the table disappeared.

Tivona gave him a warm smile. “Thank you for that very thorough report, Raul.”

Raul blinked a few times, clearly surprised that Tivona had been paying attention and not staring into space like everyone else. He shyly smiled back at her.

At the opposite end of the table, a fifty-something woman loudly harrumphed. Unlike everyone else, she hadn’t bothered to hide her disinterest in Raul’s presentation, and she’d been swiping through screens on her tablet the entire meeting, despite Tivona’s dark glowers.

The woman’s blond hair was pulled back into a high bun, and obstinance glinted in her light brown eyes, which were the same color as her coveralls. Even though I had sent out numerous memos telling workers they could wear whatever they wanted, many folks still sported the brown, beige, and gray colors of House Kent, the previous owners of Quill Corp. Loyalists to the old regime were among my many, many headaches.

“Burgeoning sales won’t matter as long as we keep using more expensive materials,” the woman said in a snide voice. “The astronomical increase in production costs is decimating profit margins.”

Under the tabletop, my hands clenched into fists, and I bit my tongue again, this time to keep from sniping back at her.

Millicent Tobani was the head foreperson of the Quill Corp production plants—and the proverbial thorn in my side, questioning my every decision. I didn’t know if Millicent kept lashing out because she was worried about losing her job, because she was still devoted to House Kent, or because she just enjoyed annoying me. Knowing my bad luck, it was probably all three. But Millicent excelled at her job, and the production plants ran safely and smoothly under her watch. It would take me months to find a suitable replacement, which was why I hadn’t fired her for insubordination—yet.

Millicent took my silence as encouragement and kept right on chastising me. “Rowena Kent was always happy to use the cheapest materials the production plants could procure.”

Raul had been about to sit down, and he shot bolt upright again, his gaze snapping back and forth between Millicent and me. All around the table, the other department heads did the same thing, wondering how this latest tug-of-war would play out.

Three months ago, everyone in this room, myself included, had worked for Kent Corp, which had belonged to Rowena Kent and her daughter, Sabine. The Kents had been among the most powerful Regal families in the Imperium, and they had ruled Kent Corp with an iron fist.

They had also been traitors.

Rowena and Sabine had secretly equipped their new space cruisers with faulty navigation sensors that were designed to make the ships crash on command. Like the Velorum cruiser, which had gone down on its maiden flight, killing everyone on board, as well as many others on the ground in the spaceport below.

Thousands of innocent people had died.

At the time, I had been a lowly lab rat, someone who worked in the research and development lab at Kent Corp, and I had been among those assigned to investigate the Velorum crash. Rowena and Sabine Kent, along with Conrad Fawley, my supervisor and ex-boyfriend, had blamed the tragedy on pilot error, but I’d discovered the real culprit was the navigation sensor.

When I’d brought my findings to Conrad and the Kents, I’d learned the horrifying truth: the faulty sensor wasn’t a design flaw, an overlooked safety hazard, but rather a deliberate, calculated part of the design. The Kents were secretly in league with the Techwave, a powerful terrorist group that wanted to destroy Imperium military cruisers and kill all the soldiers on board, along with the elite fighters known as Arrows.

When I’d suggested that the Kents could quietly fix their mistake, Rowena had ordered her corporate mercenaries to knock me out in this very conference room. I had woken up conscripted on an Imperium ship and had been forced to take part in a battle against the Techwavers, who had seized a Regal-owned metal refinery on a Magma planet.

My seer magic surged up. In an instant, the conference room vanished, and I was standing in a field of shiny black rocks and staring out over the bodies of the other conscripts that littered the ground like dead, tattered leaves. Smoke and ash swirled through the air, and the oppressive heat sucked the moisture out of my body, as though I was slowly being roasted alive inside an oven—

“Well, Vesper?” Millicent demanded in a loud, obnoxious voice. Unlike everyone else at Quill Corp, she refused to address me by my Regal title. “Are you finally going to come to your senses and revert to the cheaper materials like I suggested in my report?”

I blinked. The rocky field and broken bodies vanished, and I snapped back to the here and now, although the sulfuric stench of smoke lingered in my nose. My hands clenched into even tighter fists, and I struggled to keep my breathing slow and steady. Thanks to my seer magic, I never forgot anything I saw, heard, or experienced, no matter how much I might want to.

Tivona cleared her throat. Everyone was staring at me, including Tivona, whose forehead was crinkled with worry. Raul remained standing, awkwardly hovering over the table, while Millicent smirked at me again.

I forced myself to relax my hands. Then I sat up straighter and lifted my chin, striking a haughty pose befitting a Regal lady. “No. We will keep using the more expensive materials and continue to produce the new, improved designs—my designs.”

Millicent opened her mouth to keep protesting. Annoyance bubbled up in my chest, and I leaned forward and speared her with a hard look.

“The Kents are dead, and this is Quill Corp now. The days of churning out shoddy brewmakers and other junky appliances to turn a quick profit are gone. My company will produce high-quality brewmakers, blasters, and space cruisers using the finest materials and most advanced designs available.”

I leaned back and gestured toward the door. “Anyone who doesn’t like that is free to find employment elsewhere.”

A tense, heavy silence dropped over the conference room. No one spoke or moved, not even Raul, who was still on his feet. I kept staring at Millicent. Anger stained her pale cheeks, but her arrogant smirk melted into a sour, petulant expression, as though I had taken away her favorite toy. She harrumphed again, but she slowly wilted down into her seat. As the head foreperson, Millicent earned a hefty salary, and she wouldn’t find a better, more lucrative job on Temperate 42. She might not like the way I did business, but she was stuck with me, the same way I was stuck with her.

“Raul, thank you for that very detailed report. I want to see the updated sales numbers and projections again next week.”

His head bobbed in quick, nervous agreement, and he finally sank down into his chair.

“That’s the last item on the meeting agenda,” Tivona chirped in a bright voice. “Everyone, please enjoy some refreshments before you return to work.”

She gestured toward a table along the wall that was filled with fresh fruits, cheeses, and pastries—real, organic food that had cost me a small fortune. Everyone eyed the impressive spread with hungry interest, even Millicent.

I got to my feet, and everyone else stood up as well, except for Millicent. I marched over to the refreshment table, piled one plate high with food, and placed a single blueberry scone on a second plate. Then I went over and set the second plate in front of Millicent, who still hadn’t moved.

“You should try a blueberry scone,” I replied in a syrupy-sweet voice. “They’re so much better than what the campus food carts sell. Like the one I saw you eating on your way into work this morning.”

Millicent crossed her arms over her chest, but her stomach let out a telltale rumble, and she snuck a longing glance at the tempting pastry.

Still clutching my own plate of food, I left the conference room, trying to ignore the tension gathering at the base of my neck. The day had barely begun, and I was already fighting one battle after another.

#

I headed down the corridor and stepped into a permaglass elevator. Tivona joined me, also holding a plate of food.

“That went well,” she drawled.

I ignored her sarcastic tone and sank my teeth into a blackberry tart. Sweet, juicy fruit. Creamy vanilla-bean custard. Buttery, flaky crust. All of it topped with a sugary glaze that melted in my mouth. Mmm-mmm-mmm. The new Quill Corp executive chef was worth every credit it had taken to convince her to leave Corios and come work for me.

The elevator dropped, and my mood along with it, despite the delicious pastry.

“Have you figured out why Millicent dislikes me so much?” I asked. “Have I done something to personally offend her, or does she just enjoy being difficult?”

Tivona nibbled on a raspberry tart. “No one likes radical change, especially someone like Millicent, who has been in a position of power for several years. Everyone at Quill Corp is worried about what you’ll do next. You can’t really blame them, given everything that’s happened over the past few months.”

I grimaced and gobbled down the rest of the tart, but the sweet treat couldn’t drown out the bitter taste in my mouth. A few months ago, I had been the most famous—or infamous—person in the Archipelago Galaxy. A lowly little lab rat who had managed to expose a Techwave plot, take down a traitorous Regal family, and seize control of their corporation. Sometimes I couldn’t believe all those things had happened to me—and that I had survived them all.

Naive, foolish, stupid me had thought the attention would fade after a few weeks and that the gossipcasts would move on to something else, someone else. But no fresh scandals had arisen, and the gossipcasts kept replaying my interviews, along with video clips from a ball that had been held in my honor at Crownpoint, the Imperium palace, where I had been officially elevated to Regal status. Lady Vesper Quill, media darling. My stomach soured, and the light, airy tart was suddenly as heavy as a brick in my belly.

The elevator slowed, then stopped. The door slid open, revealing a subterranean corridor, and I dumped the rest of my uneaten food into a recycler. Tivona followed me, still nibbling on her own treats.

I stepped onto a mat that sanitized my boots with UV light, then swiped my ID card through a nearby reader. A couple of permaglass doors hissed open, and I strode through to the other side.

The Quill Corp research and development lab was located three stories underground, and white tile stretched out in all directions, covering the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling high above. Folks wearing long white lab coats huddled over clear polyplastic workstations, tinkering with vacuum cleaners, self-stirring spoons, and other household appliances large and small. I used to be one of them, and in many ways, I still was.

As soon as I entered the sterile space, a sense of calm swept over me, as though I had trudged out of a hot, scorching desert into a cool, soothing oasis. In the lab, I wasn’t burdened with being a Regal lady in name only, or people in my own corporation questioning my every decision, or all the other enemies who were plotting my downfall. No, here I was just Vesper, a lab rat working on her latest project and hoping to use her brilliance to make people’s lives a little better and easier.

Feeling lighter, I moved forward, with Tivona still walking alongside me.

Several folks looked up at my footsteps. Some people’s eyes widened in surprise, and they ducked their heads and focused on their projects again. Others studied me with shrewd, calculating gazes, silently scrutinizing everything from my wrinkled lab coat to my dark blue shirt and matching cargo pants to my worn black work boots. A few even shook their heads in disbelief at the fact that I still toiled in the lab with everyone else.

I stepped into a large shadow, and my gaze flicked upward. Enormous models of Kent Corp spaceships used to hang on thick cables that were embedded in the ceiling, but I’d had the maintenance workers remove all the ships, except for the model of the Velorum that now hung over the center of the lab like a dark gray storm cloud. I didn’t want anyone to forget what the Kents had done, and it was also my way of honoring my cousin Liesl, who had been on board the doomed ship and died along with all the other passengers.

I stopped and stared at the spot below the observation deck windows where Rowena and Sabine Kent had installed their faulty navigation sensor. This model was an exact replica of the original Velorum cruiser, complete with the safety hazard. My seer magic kicked in, and a silver light flared around the sensor, just as it had when I had first studied the ship’s schematics, trying to figure out why it had crashed. The Kents’ plan had been extremely sly, subtle, and clever, and if not for my magic, then I too would have overlooked the faulty sensor, along with everyone else.

The longer I stared at the sensor, the brighter the silver light became, and the more my stomach twisted with worry. I had already exposed the Kents’ scheme, so why was my power flaring up? Why now, when looking at the ship again? What was my magic trying to tell me?

“Vesper?” Tivona asked in a low voice. “Are you okay? Are you . . . seeing something?”

Thanks to the gossipcasts, everyone knew that I was a seer, although my magic was reported as being extremely weak. Tivona was one of the few people who knew how strong I really was. She also knew about the odd flashes of light I saw as part of my psionic abilities—and how difficult it could be for me to figure out what they meant.

I blinked, and the silver flare faded away. I shook my head. “Nothing important.”

I stepped out of the Velorum’s shadow and headed over to the far side of the room, where the ceiling dropped down, and the white tile floor and walls gave way to a gray concrete bunker that housed the weapons lab. I stopped and peered into the space, where folks were tinkering with blasters, hand cannons, and other weapons, both offensive and defensive.

Everything was perfectly normal, but one by one, the workers disappeared until all I saw was an empty lab—and the woman I had killed in there.

A few months ago, Julieta Delano, an Imperium Arrow, had kidnapped me from Corios and brought me to the main Kent Corp building as part of Rowena Kent’s plot to frame me for the Velorum crash. Eventually, I had ended up here in the R&D lab, where I had hidden a copy of the original Velorum files in a tiny model of the ship.

I’d swiped the plastic model from my workstation and had been trying to escape when Julieta had forced me into the weapons lab. I’d gotten hold of a stormsword and used it to fight back against the Arrow, who had her own stormsword. Julieta had almost killed me—she would have killed me—if I hadn’t used my seer magic to remember the weapons training and lessons that Kyrion Caldaren had drilled into me while I’d been staying at his castle.

“. . . rumored to be dispatching Kyrion Caldaren to track down the Techwave . . .”

The low murmur of Kyrion’s name snapped me out of my dark memories. I spun around, and my gaze landed on a worker who was staring at his terminal instead of fiddling with his latest project. Bodie often watched gossipcasts when he thought no one was paying attention. On the screen, a man wearing a dark helmet was holding a glowing sword and striding down a metal hallway on some spaceship.

It was old footage of Kyrion, something I had seen dozens of times before, but my heart still squeezed with longing. I hadn’t contacted him since I had left Corios after the last Regal ball, but he was in my thoughts far more often than he should have been, even with our truebond lurking in the back of my mind like a shark about to break through the surface of the water and take another bloody bite out of me.

Or maybe it was my heart that was more affected by Kyrion. Maybe it always had been. Because I doubted any psionic connection, any galactic bond, no matter how strong, could account for all my feelings for the Arrow. Feelings that had not dimmed, despite the time and distance that had separated us these past few months.

“. . . along with Zane Zimmer, another member of the Arrows . . .”

The image of Kyrion vanished, replaced by that of a blond man who was preening at the camera. Even on a terminal screen, Zane Zimmer still managed to be a pompous, arrogant jackass. Ugh.

I walked on and ended up in the very back of the appliances lab, which had been cordoned off into a large private office. I swiped my ID card through another reader and submitted to retinal, fingerprint, and DNA scans. The permaglass doors hissed open, and I stepped inside, with Tivona still following me.

The center of the office featured a long, rectangular workstation cluttered with projects in various stages of development—brewmakers and other food fabricators, self-propelled mops, even books made of real paper that dusted and sanitized themselves without losing their delicious musty-paper scent. A wooden desk stood in the back right corner, next to a couch that folded out to make a serviceable bed for nights when I was working late and didn’t want to bother going home. More nights than not, lately.

Another area in the back housed a bathroom, while a small kitchen off to the left featured drinks and snacks for when I didn’t want to bother leaving the lab to get lunch. More days than not, lately.

I hit a button on the wall. The doors closed behind Tivona, and an opaque sheen frosted the permaglass. We could still see out of my office, but no one in the R&D lab could peer inside at us now.

Tivona set her plate of food down on the one clean corner of my cluttered workstation. “How bad is it today?” she asked, jerking her chin at my hands.

I froze. I hadn’t realized it, but I had been using my right thumb to massage my left palm, which was aching. It almost always ached these days, right along with my heart.

Tivona raised her eyebrows, but I ignored her questioning look, went over to my workstation, and stopped in front of a multidimensional printer. Then I pressed in on what looked like a button-size freckle on the inside of my left wrist. A soft hiss sounded, and I hooked my right index finger under a thin layer of polyplastic, which I peeled off my hand. I tossed the thin flesh-colored glove into the printer, which whirred to life, recycling the used plastic. A few seconds later, a chime sounded, and the printer spit out a new glove.

“Vesper,” Tivona said. “How bad is it today?”

I sighed and held my hand out where she could see it. “Not too bad. No blood, just the cuts.”

Tivona blanched, clearly not sharing my assessment of the gruesome injury.

Several deep cuts adorned my left palm. At first glance, they seemed like random, haphazard marks, but a closer look revealed that they formed a very distinctive shape: an eye.

Kyrion had carved the same marks—the same eye—into his own hand during the last Regal ball. Lord Callus Holloway, the ruler of the Imperium, had ordered Kyrion to cut his hand in hopes of proving that a truebond existed between the two of us. When such a bond was first forming, one person would often exhibit physical signs of the other person’s injuries. So if Kyrion cut his hand and the same marks appeared on my hand, it would have definitively proved the bond between us. Ironically enough, that was how Kyrion had proved the bond’s existence to me, by cutting his hand when we’d been trapped on a blitzer together.

During the truebond test, I had felt the hot, stinging pain of every line Kyrion had carved into his skin as though he was slicing my hand instead of his own. But thanks to my flesh-colored glove, one of my many inventions, my hand had appeared injury-free, and I had fooled Holloway and everyone else into thinking that Kyrion and I weren’t bonded—including Kyrion himself.

At least, I thought I had fooled Kyrion too, but I had no way of knowing for sure. We hadn’t been in contact since I’d left Corios, although Daichi Hirano, Kyrion’s chief of staff, often messaged me, since we were friends.

I had no idea if Kyrion realized the truebond was intact, despite all our attempts to break it. Maybe he didn’t realize we were still connected. Or worse, maybe he did, and he never wanted to see me again. Either way, it was yet another situation in which I had only bad options.

Tivona opened a cabinet along the wall, rummaged around inside, and then handed me a metal tin. “Put some ointment on the cuts. This is a new kind of skinbond, made by House Gonzalo. Supposed to be the best on the market.”

Skinbonds did just what their name implied—they bonded skin together to heal cuts, scrapes, and other injuries. The House Gonzalo ointment had a strong, menthol scent that made my eyes water and my nose twitch, but I dutifully slathered it on my palm. A tingling sensation spread through my skin.

“Is it working?” Tivona asked in an eager voice.

Before I could respond, the pleasant tingle morphed into a hot burn, and the marks widened and reddened, as if they were angry that I’d tried to get rid of them and were fighting back against the skinbond’s healing properties, just as Kyrion and I had fought back against having a truebond.

I grimaced, grabbed a nearby rag, and wiped off the ointment. The burning sensation faded away, although the eye-shaped marks remained wide, red, and angry. Sometimes the marks were as thin, white, and invisible as plastipaper cuts, as though they were on the verge of healing completely, but they always flared up again. On rare occasions, the marks would even split open and drip blood, as though Kyrion had cut his hand—and by extension, mine too—just a moment ago.

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how, when, or why the cuts fluctuated, although I’d started keeping track of their whimsical severity and dull, aching pain. For science, of course. My theory was that the pain, intensity, and vividness of the marks correlated with whatever moods Kyrion and I were in, along with the physical and mental stresses we might be experiencing, but I had no way of proving my hypothesis. Not without asking Kyrion, which I was not going to do.

I tugged on the fresh skin-colored glove, molding the open ends so that the polyplastic stopped just short of my fingertips. Then I smoothed the whole thing out, front and back, until the glove seamlessly adhered to my skin, once again hiding the eye-shaped cuts. Tivona was the only one who knew that Kyrion and I were still bonded, and I wanted to keep it that way.

A truebond might make two people stronger and able to share thoughts, emotions, skills, and psionic abilities, but it also made them targets. Callus Holloway would love nothing more than to siphon off our magic for his own, just as he had done to Kyrion’s parents for years, while the Techwave would experiment on us to try to unlock the secret of our psionic connection. The Erzton, a powerful group that controlled minerals, wood, and other raw resources, would probably treat us the same way. More bad options that made me shudder.

I handed the tin back to Tivona. “Best on the market, eh?”

She sniffed. “Clearly, House Gonzalo is engaged in false advertising. I should report them to the gossipcasts. Think of the headlines. Ointment oozes fraudulent claims! House Gonzalo stuck in a sticky situation!”

I laughed at her grandiose, gossipcaster voice, and Tivona chucked the tin of ointment onto a pile of similar products I had tried over the past several weeks. The sharp motion rattled another item resting in a clear plastic holder on my workstation: a stormsword.

Unlike the brewmakers and other appliances Quill Corp mass-produced, the stormsword was a single, unique object of dangerous beauty, an artifact crafted long ago by a spelltech, someone who could infuse psionic power into weapons and other objects. Anyone could pick up a stormsword and cut someone with the sharp blade, but supposedly, only a powerful psion—someone with mental abilities like telekinesis, telepathy, and telempathy—could wield a stormsword to its fullest, deadliest potential.

My sword had a silver hilt studded with three eye-shaped sapphsidian jewels, which were such a dark blue they almost looked black. Smaller pieces of sapphsidian adorned the crossguard, which also featured two prongs of silver that curved out in opposite directions, although their end points perfectly aligned, as though they were two halves of a yin-yang symbol. More prongs of silver curved up to touch the opalescent blade, which was made of lunarium, a rare, precious mineral that amplified psionic abilities.

The stormsword had been sitting on a workstation in the weapons lab when Julieta Delano had chased me in there, and I’d grabbed the blade on a desperate impulse. Somehow I had managed to use the weapon, along with my seer magic, to kill Julieta, something that still amazed me.

I traced my index finger over the sigils carved into the sword’s hilt. I hadn’t noticed it while I’d been fighting Julieta, but symbols had appeared in the silver after I had touched the weapon—several arrows that clustered around the sapphsidian eyes, almost as if they were protecting the larger jewels.

Supposedly, the sigils that appeared on a stormsword’s hilt were a reflection of that psion’s power. The eyes were an obvious sign of my seer magic, but I thought the arrows had more to do with my bond with Kyrion, especially since they were shaped like spades from an old-fashioned tarot or playing card—the sigil for House Caldaren.

A few crescent moons and stars also adorned the hilt, along with another sigil on the bottom of the pommel—a large N. An unwanted reminder of Nerezza, my biological mother, who had abandoned me to chase after Regal riches and power. Disgust filled me, and my fingers twitched with the urge to grab a laser cutter and melt the mark out of existence. But I couldn’t do that without damaging the sword, so the N would have to remain on the pommel, just like the hurt from Nerezza’s actions would always linger in my heart.

“It’s a good thing you left your sword in here like I suggested,” Tivona said in a light, teasing tone, oblivious to my sudden sorrow. “Otherwise, the janitors would still be mopping up Millicent’s blood in the conference room.”

I huffed at her bad joke. “You’re not entirely wrong about that.”

Thanks to the biometric locks and other safety measures, my lab office was one of the most secure places in the main Quill Corp building, which was why I’d left the weapon in here instead of wearing it to the meeting. And so I wouldn’t be tempted to use it on Millicent Tobani and everyone else who either doubted me or was secretly plotting against me or both.

I dropped my hand from the stormsword. “Are you sure Millicent isn’t going to be a problem?”

“According to the gossip I’ve heard, Millicent is worried about getting laid off,” Tivona replied. “Hence all her talk about using less expensive materials and keeping costs down. Everyone knows the quickest, easiest way for a corporation to save money is by firing senior staff and replacing them with younger, cheaper employees.”

Given my position as the head of Quill Corp, people no longer spoke freely in front of me, but Tivona had a warm, innate charm that made everyone like her, and she often gathered information that I couldn’t.

“Where did you hear this gossip?”

Tivona gave me a sly smile. “I went out clubbing with some of my negotiator friends this weekend. Millicent was there with some folks from the production plants. I bought a round of chembond cocktails for everyone and convinced Millicent to share all her worries with me.”

I let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Downing a chembond with the enemy? That’s going above and beyond. I should give you a raise.”

There were all kinds of bonds, but chembonds were among the most common, and they were used mostly for sex. Go to a club, find a willing partner, down a chembond with them, and supposedly you would have the most amazing sex of your life.

“Don’t worry. We danced, we drank, we had a good time. It wasn’t too much work, and I didn’t go home with her.” Tivona winked at me. “Although I will still take that raise.”

I laughed at her teasing tone. My friend loved to shake off the rigors of her high-stress negotiator job by going clubbing. Sometimes I went with her, although no amount of dancing could make me forget everything that had happened recently, and I never, ever downed a chembond with anyone. I’d had enough problems with bonds over the past few months that I would never willingly ingest a chembond now, even if it would burn out in a few hours.

Tivona’s teasing smile vanished, replaced by a thoughtful look. She picked up a small blue plastic eye from a tray on my workstation. Two similar jewels adorned my thumbs, along with sparkling silver polish.

“You’re still planning to plant these trackers on the Techwavers?” she asked. “And then follow them back to one of their secret bases?”

“Yes.”

The eyes were another one of my recent inventions. They might look like manicure accessories, but the plastic jewels contained a variety of sophisticated electronics, including high-powered trackers that could access local wireless networks and broadcast location information across the galaxy.

Tivona chewed on her lower lip. “When do you think the Techwave will approach you?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But soon. Maybe even later today.”

She blinked. “Today? Are you sure?”

That was the problem with being a seer. I wasn’t always sure, especially when it came to other people’s schemes, schedules, and agendas. But over the past couple of weeks, I’d had vivid, recurring dreams—nightmares, really—of being surrounded by Black Scarabs, the Techwave troops known for their black armor and being more machine than man. More than once, I’d woken up in a cold sweat, certain my magic was trying to tell me something, and the most obvious interpretation was that the Techwave was targeting me.

“All I know for sure is that the Techwave is going to approach me sooner or later. Rowena, Sabine, and Conrad aren’t around to help them anymore, and according to the information I found in the Kent Corp mainframe, the Techwavers need my expertise to finish the weapons they have in development, especially if they want to figure out some way to kill Callus Holloway.”

In addition to being a cruel, clever, wily ruler, Holloway was also a siphon who could absorb energy from other people, machines, and even the weather, if the rumors were true. An energy bolt from a typical blaster or hand cannon would only add to Holloway’s own psion power, rather than injuring him the way it would a regular person.

When she had kidnapped me, Julieta Delano had said that the Techwave was searching for a way to kill Holloway—and so was I. Because if Holloway ever discovered that Kyrion and I were bonded, the Imperium ruler would stop at nothing to get his hands on us. But right now, the Techwave was the bigger threat. Once I figured out a way to destroy them, then I would worry about Holloway—and the unwanted connection I still shared with Kyrion.

“I could increase security,” Tivona offered. “Have some guards shadow you. Then, when the Techwavers move in, the guards can apprehend them.”

I shook my head. “No. We can’t risk it. The Techwave might have already bribed some Quill Corp guards to work for them. Even if we knew that all the guards were loyal to us, I still wouldn’t want innocent people getting hurt. This is my fight, and I’m going to finish it.”

Tivona kept chewing her lip, worry written all over her face.

“Instead of wasting weeks or months trying to find their current base, I’ll let the Techwavers approach me, pretend to be open to whatever they suggest, and plant as many trackers on them as possible.” I gestured at the eye jewels. “When they leave, the Techwavers will take my trackers along with them. I’ll send the location information to Daichi so he can pass it along to Kyrion. With any luck, the Arrows and Imperium soldiers can raid the base and eliminate the Techwavers once and for all.”

Tivona stabbed her finger at me. “But if things don’t go the way you expect, you’ll use an emergency beacon to alert me and the nearest guards?”

I drew an X over my heart with my finger. “Promise.”

She nodded, and a more speculative look filled her face. “What are you going to do when Kyrion realizes that the Techwave has approached you? He’ll contact you, especially if the truebond is still as strong as you think it is.”

Eagerness, wariness, and other conflicting emotions churned in my chest like comets circling around and around, but I blew out a breath and forced myself to relax. Then I shoved all those pesky feelings into a box and buried it in the bottom of my brain, although I couldn’t quite get rid of the fragile hope that clung to the corner of my heart like a sticky cobweb.

“Kyrion won’t sense anything,” I said, struggling to keep my voice light and even. “He thinks the bond was broken when we drank those chemicals in Touma Hirano’s workshop, and he has no reason to believe we are still connected in any way, shape, or form.”

A hard knot of regret clogged my throat, but I swallowed it down. “Besides, Kyrion never wanted the bond. Even if he realized that we are still connected, he wouldn’t contact me. The best thing for him would be if I went somewhere far, far away where no one could find me, especially not Callus Holloway.”

“Is that really what you want, Vesper?” Tivona asked in a soft voice. “To never see Kyrion again?”

My gaze strayed out through the glass into the lab. Bodie was still watching the gossipcast, and the image of Kyrion striding down that never-ending hallway was back on the screen.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I replied, my raspy voice betraying me. “Only what is. I told Kyrion, Holloway, and the rest of the Regals a good lie during the last ball. That’s the story they believe, so that’s the one I’m going to keep telling them.”

Tivona stared at me. After a few seconds, she pulled her tablet out of her pocket and started scrolling through screens. “Well, if you are still determined to go through with this, let’s review the plan again. I’ve got guards stationed at all the campus exits monitoring the security feeds. They have standing orders to rush to your side the second they see anything suspicious . . .”

Her words washed over me. I nodded along and listened with half an ear, but once again my gaze locked onto the gossipcast still playing on Bodie’s terminal.

I had been wrong before. I might have lied to Kyrion about us not having a truebond, but it hadn’t been a good lie.

No, the only good lies were the ones you believed yourself.