The simple declarative act, the saying of it, brought tears to her eyes. She blinked, turned her head away to stare through the window as Dek flew them over the angled lines of hogsbacks and climbed to gain enough altitude to fly through Best Pass.

So, the only hope was that Dr. Raya Turnienko might be able to save him.

In Port Authority.

A place Kylee had sworn never to go. Among a people she hated with all of her heart and soul. The people who’d have killed Rocket. One of whom had killed him in the end.

She wanted them all dead.

Locked in hollow numbness, Kylee barely registered the jutting walls of rock, or the jagged-edged canyon they flew through. This was Best Pass. She should have been awed by the soaring walls of stone with their twisted strata and exposed veins of metals. Instead, she watched dully as the airplane pitched and bucked in the high winds that curled and eddied in the narrow cleft. The turbulence scared the quetzal part of her into catatonia.

Then they were through, jetting over into the forested and jumbled geology that gave way to the Blood Mountains. Not that Kylee had seen them until now, but Donovan’s geography had been beaten into her head from a young age.

“It’s the quetzal TriNA, isn’t it?” Madison asked softly. “That’s what’s keeping him alive, right?”

Kylee nodded. “But he’s losing. That thing is rotting inside his leg.”

“Does he have a chance if Raya Turnienko can take it out?”

Kylee shrugged. “I don’t know. She fixed my broken hip and leg. Made it so that I could walk again.” But it had come at such a terrible price. What was it going to cost them this time?

Dek’s plane sailed out over the rumpled-looking crater bottom, the forest here scrubbier, dotted with trees and mixed with brush. As they encountered patchy clouds, the land was stippled with shadow, the topography threaded by small streams.

“Two Spot?” Dek called into his com. “We’re headed in. We need the cart at the landing field. Be down in about fifteen minutes.”

Whatever the reply was in Dek’s earbud, he said, “Roger that. See you dirtside.”

An instant later, Kylee’s stomach jumped when the plane began its descent. The quetzal part of her cringed. The only thing quetzals hated more than flying was water.

Kylee clamped her jaw, heart beginning to thump harder as Dek dropped lower, and she got a good look at Port Authority.