No, I say again, calmer. We can’t.

Talk to me, he insists. Talk to me when you’re awake, not when we’re dreaming. At least we can then have better control. Maybe our link is just aching for our connection. Maybe it’ll stop in our dreams if we just connect when we’re awake.

I shake my head. I’m too afraid to hurt them again.

We can’t win if we don’t help each other, he says, and through our bond, I can feel his heart breaking. Talin, please.

You can’t help me, I answer.

He reaches for me, then stops short. The street of my childhood finally fades around me. At my back, the dark tunnel yawns. The feeling of his lips against mine has become a faint memory. I’m suddenly unsure it ever happened.

I’m sorry, I tell him as I feel the dream pulling to an end. I’m not entirely sure what I’m sorry for. Everything, maybe.

Then he’s gone, and I’m back in my bed, lying on my side with my blankets sprawled around me. I can tell that the Premier is still asleep, lost in his own dream. My emotions must have calmed enough with the peaceful memory of my childhood home to keep from stirring him awake.

Red and Jeran are out there. They are on the move. I hang on to this belief, feverishly hoping it to be true.

I should tell them everything. I should keep reaching out to Red.

We can’t win if we don’t help each other, Red had said to me.

But how can we win if I am the tool Constantine uses to hurt everyone I love? How can I help them, even with Raina’s tonic weakening my link with the Premier? I have already put my friends in the arena and nearly gotten Red recaptured.

Next time, they may die. The only way I can help them is to keep my distance.

The image of Adena facing me in the arena hovers over my heart. How brave I’d been then, thinking I could turn Constantine’s own game against him. And yet, here I am again, sick to my stomach about what that moment might do to my mother. What good am I to Red and Jeran now, anyway? Will I help them best by simply staying away?

Someday, maybe, I will be free too. Then I will show everyone what I’m capable of doing against this Federation.

But I may have to do it alone.

21

RED

If there’s one place in the capital that no one is interested in tonight, it’s the National Museum.

As the celebrations go deep into the night, fireworks whistling and sparking through the evening air, Jeran and I head to the quiet paths around the museum.

There are no soldiers here. Why should there be? No one is thinking about the relics on display in these halls, and every guard is busy with the rowdy crowds swarming elsewhere in the capital. Only a single sentry is posted at the front and one at the back of the museum, watching halfheartedly for petty thieves. One look at their faces tells me that they’re just biding their time, grouchy for having to spend a solstice celebration night stuck at the museum’s steps.