Dossier.

Dossier. Siege—

He stumbled out of one scene and into another, and then another, and another. In a firefight on Iliad. Then pressing his forehead against that golden-eyed girl’s. Playing Wicked Luck with blurred faces.

A palace burning.

—Dossier. Siege. Robb—

He was on a ship with the crest of a nine-tentacled octopus, outnumbered by Messiers, with a man who looked so familiar—so terribly familiar, with dark hair and a thick beard and sky-blue eyes—shoving a girl into his arms, pushing them into an escape pod. His side was painted with blood.

“You will take her, won’t you? You’ll take her and take care of her—please,” he gasped. “Di, save her.”

Who was—?

A boy on a hospital gurney, his hands blackened. That flaxen-haired girl again, bending down to him, whispering secrets. Promising that he would live if only he—if he—

A hand grabbed him by the shoulder, and he spun around to another memory.

—Dossier. Siege. Robb. Jax—

A silver-haired Solani punching him in the shoulder. A boy with blue eyes falling from a skysailer. That same boy in a palace hallway, startled to look at him, saying a name he didn’t know.

But did.

He did know that name. It was . . .

—Dossier. Siege. Robb. Jax. Tsarina—

The door to an escape pod opening. A woman with blazing orange fiber-optic hair, so wild it reached toward the sun, peering inside. He had seen her before, when she never smiled. She should have looked fearful, but her snarl quickly turned to concern for the girl in his arms.

She belonged to a ship of black and chrome. To a crew of kind, misfit faces.

He reached out for them. To the dark-skinned Cercian, to the older man with a braided gray beard and a mechanical leg, somehow knowing that they were—

—Dossier. Siege, Robb. Jax. Tsarina. Nevaeh—

Gone, and he stumbled forward into a garden stairwell. A doorway full of honeysuckle vines. “Di,” the golden-eyed girl whispered. Then a kiss—

Goddess, a kiss. Deep and passionate, the orange light from the garden fading into a dark bedroom. The Iron Palace. The smell of moonlilies lingering on her skin.

—Dossier. Siege, Robb. Jax. Tsarina. Nevaeh. Cerces. D-D-D—

He winced as the redness twisted in his head, pulling like fishhooks in his brain, threading through it like a monster with claws and teeth. Shredding, ripping.

IF YOU ARE NOT MINE, it roared, louder and louder. IF YOU ARE NOT MINE, YOU ARE NOT AT ALL.

IF YOU ARE NOT MINE, YOU ARE NOT AT ALL.

IF YOU ARE NOT MINE.

IF YOU ARE NOT.

IF YOU ARE—

YOU ARE—

“—My best friend,” said a sweet voice. Hands cupped his face. He opened his eyes to her. The girl with bronze skin and golden eyes and a scar of constellations. They stood in a palace hallway, she in her coronation gown, the HIVE in his head.

And he remembered that if he’d had a heart, it would have broken.