I’m quiet, but my mind is a storm. I can’t stop thinking about the dream I’d had with Talin earlier in the night, that half kiss. I can still feel the heat of her touch, however phantom it might’ve been. I can still feel myself pleading with her not to go, to reach out to me when she wakes. I can still feel the agony of her pulling away again, her fear returning. Her pain had washed over me in waves.

Constantine is certainly pressuring her will at every turn, and I can feel her cracking under the strain of it all. They are breaking her as surely as they’d wanted to break me, to turn her into the perfect Skyhunter—obedient, efficient, cruel.

If you don’t find a way to take this whole damn system down, they just might succeed.

My fists clench. No. No way I’m going to lose Talin too.

My focus turns back on the museum. If we can uncover what exactly the artifacts from Mara are—and why Constantine is so hell-bent on retrieving them—then maybe we can figure out how to use them against him. How to destroy them.

The benefits of Striker training never cease. Jeran moves so quietly within the shadows of the museum that even I lose him now and then as we go. I head to the opposite side of the building. We take note of each other at either end of the museum’s looming steps, above where a sentry stands guard. As we do, I remove some of the wristbands from my arm and untie the ceremonial sash around my sleeve. Then I make my way to the thickets that line the edge of the museum’s raised foundation.

There, I purse my lips and make a whistle that imitates one of the fireworks launching along the thoroughfares.

The sentry turns in my direction. He sighs, then heads down the steps while grumbling to himself. I press against the side of the rising stone stairs, melting into the shadows. He passes by without noticing me at all.

From the other side of the building, Jeran steals into the museum without a sound.

As the sentry goes to investigate, I pull myself up the side of the entrance steps and rush toward the entrance. As I move, I hear the sentry again make his annoyed huff as he finds my abandoned wristbands and sash.

“Bunch of wild children,” I hear him mutter out loud.

Before he can turn back around and return to his post, I disappear inside the darkness of the museum.

Skylights up above us shed squares of blue light against the marble floors, where objects stolen from every corner of the Federation’s conquered lands stand in beautiful, curated rows. Graceful statues, jewels that sparkle in the night, enormous vases and carved plaques. Pillars and pieces of monuments. Tapestries hang on the pale stone walls. It’s so quiet I can hear my heartbeat thumping in my ears.

I’ve never been in here at night before. The daylight cast the entire space in a dreamy fog. In this midnight air, though, the museum feels haunted. There are spirits in here, whispering stories ripped away from their roots.