“Their personnel records have all been wiped from the servers. It’s as if Gaia and Lyon didn’t want anyone to know where they are. But Zahra pulled up all the Observatory’s expense reports since the rebellion. We found some unnamed purchases in the books. The amounts matched the ones on these deeds.” She holds out the tablet.

I set down the staff and snatch the device from her hand, scrolling through land title records and deeds of trust. Lyon and Gaia purchased three properties less than a month after Michael’s death—one in Southern California overlooking the coast; one in Fairbanks, Alaska; and a villa in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

“Give Zahra a promotion,” I say under my breath as I study a map of the layout of the villa.

“There’s more. Kai’s personnel records have been wiped from the servers. But we tracked down her former Handler. She’s a teacher in the Summer wing. We got her to cough up an old repurposed hard drive from their dorm. We were able to recover some deleted files.” Lixue reaches across the desk and taps open another folder on the tablet. I scroll through exchanges between Kai and her sister, skimming dozens of scanned handwritten letters between them. Plans and bargains, memories and arguments . . . promises made, going back nearly fifty years.

These mistakes she’s atoning for—the redemption she’s seeking—go back much farther than Cuernavaca. They go back to the very beginning.

Kai’s been scheming all along, fighting to be with her sister since the year they first got here.

Kai’s never been loyal to Michael. Or Lyon. The only person who ever mattered to Kai was Ruby.

“The sister . . . Where is she?” I ask.

“We don’t know. We can’t find any Summers named Ruby who have any documented connection to Kai.”

“Keep looking.” Lyon probably wiped all those records from the servers, too. He had no intention of making this easy for me. “I want a report the minute you find her.”

Kai Sampson walked out of here with nothing. Nothing but a pack of lies and the clothes on her back, exactly like I told her she would if she put her trust in Lyon. She has no money, no passport, no food, no weapons. She’ll have to stop somewhere. It’s bound to slow her down. All I need to do is stay one step ahead of her.

“Any sign of Sampson?” I ask.

“Bardwell got a hit on a street cam in Peckham,” Lixue offers quickly. “She got off a bus there an hour ago.”

I hand the tablet back to my Commander. “How fast can you assemble a search-and-capture team?”

“Right away, sir. Should I dispatch them to Peckham?”