He was right. I knew what he meant, but Ahiga’s dose of reality was feeling a little too harsh right now. I wanted to stay in my blissful, happy, I-passed-the-test mood, but it’d soured too much. All that was left was nervous energy. I hopped down off the bed and paced over to the wall, resting my head back as I leaned against it.

“I think he’s going to be as okay with you doing the mining runs as he was with that mindless lava job.”

I tilted my head enough to stare at Ahiga sitting on the stool.

“If killing you in some sort of horrific accident is what he wants, then you’ve just switched the venue to one you can tolerate a little more.”

“Fantastic.” But that didn’t answer my question. “If anyone can put a stop to this, it’s Jason. One word and I’m back out there, icing down the stupid lava when it’s a job for bots. So what do I do if that happens?”

“Nothing. You can’t do anything about Jason.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“I haven’t heard word back from any of your father’s people, but I don’t expect to until tomorrow or the next day. Once I do, everything will happen fast. Not much longer to wait when you think about it. So stay calm. Focus on getting Carl to approve you for mining. He does that, it buys you two days at least. It might time out perfectly so you don’t need to ever step foot on Apollyon or mine a single crystal.”

There was a knock on the door, and Audrey slipped back in. “That was fast,” I said. “What happened?”

“He’s fine. Busy, though, getting more lucole ready for the labs.”

I shot a look at Ahiga. “Did you know about this?”

“Matthew warned me. They’ve apparently made a breakthrough, but I don’t know more than that.”

“Apparently they’re shipping the weapon out in five days,” Audrey said.

Ahiga leaned forward. “How do you know that?”

“Matthew came by while I was with Tyler just now. He’s taking stuff up to the labs, and then they’re doing their thing to it before shipping it out. He was pretty clear what that meant when he told Tyler.”

That was too soon. Especially if it was weapons. “We’re running out of time…” I let out a stream of curses as I paced. “What do we do?”

Audrey stepped in front of me, stopping my frantic movements. “Can I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Don’t worry about any of the shit with the lucole exodus or the weapon.”

“How can I ignore that when people could die? When—”