It was a thrill.

Reckless, freeing.

For the first time in months—since a sword had been driven through her stomach, since the new Emperor had ascended the throne, since they had fled and hidden and waited—she felt alive.

Over her hammering heart, four humming Metroids clicked to ready.

All aimed at her.

She glowered up at the blue-eyed guard dogs of the kingdom. Their metal faces were impassive, their gazes unwavering. They were always unwavering. There was no thought behind them.

One said, “You are under arrest—”

“—for evading capture,” the second went on.

“—and obstruction of justice,” the third finished.

The fourth squatted down to her, but she didn’t acknowledge the Messier as she trained her eyes on a spot on the floor. It grabbed her chin and jerked her to look into its simple metal face.

“You won’t kill me,” she told it—the HIVE—the monster who looked from behind those eyes.

The HIVE was looking for something. That was why it burned the shrines—she didn’t know what for, but if she could trick the HIVE into thinking it needed her, she might keep her life a little while longer. And she hadn’t lived with Robb for six months to not pick up on the delicate art of bullshitting.

“You need me,” she lied. “I know what you’re looking for in the shrines, and if I die? You’ll never get it—I can promise you that.”

“Well, that is most fortunate,” the fourth Messier said in a voice that wasn’t Metal, but one she knew well. A voice she had heard in her nightmares, lips pressed against her ear—You should have burned.

Di’s voice, but no longer Di at all.

Its eyes deepened to a bloodred. “Because I was planning to kill you slowly.”

Jax

He would never forgive himself.

“Turn around!” Robb cried, trying to grab the controls, but Jax shoved him back into his seat. The desperation on his face made Jax’s stomach twist. “We’re not leaving her! We have to turn back! We—”

“We can’t,” Jax snapped, and Goddess’s spark he hated saying those words. He hated that his tongue did not curl with the taste of a lie. It was the truth in the worst possible way, and he hated himself more that he was the one who had to turn the skysailer away.

“We have to! Ana is back there! If he gets to her—”

“I know, ma’alor!”

“Then why aren’t we turning back?”

“Because we’ll be caught, too.” He curled his fingers tighter around the controls. This was a choice that wasn’t his to make.

Ana had told him back on the Dossier that if anything went south, save Starbright. She had pulled him behind the skysailer in the cargo bay before they’d gone down to Neon City, while Robb had been tweaking his new mechanical arm.

Jax had hissed, “Ana, you’re more important—”

“Not right now I’m not,” she had said. “Starbright is more important.”

“I can’t promise that—”

“Please, Jax,” she had pleaded, a little quieter. “If Starbright can bring a Metal out of the HIVE . . . we’ll be one step closer to stopping the HIVE. With Starbright, we’ll have a better chance at saving our kingdom.”