We have to find her. We have to save her. Without her, we cannot help Talin.

Talin looks up at me and sees the fury in my expression. She gives me a sad smile. Her emotions are a wave of grief, of pained love.

She tilts her eyes down. I’m so sorry for what they did to you.

Even in the depth of her loss, she’s thinking of what had happened to me when I’d first endured my Skyhunter transformation. She’s thinking of my family. Thinking of others.

I notice something new through our bond, beyond the sadness and hope and fear, even beyond whatever affection may still exist between us, if that can be called love. She is holding back again, pulling aggressively away. I remember the tension from when we had first bonded, whenever she did not want me to know the thoughts in her mind. Now she is keeping some other secret, and I cannot begin to guess what it is.

What if they have hurt her in ways you never endured?

I desperately want her to tell me more, but she stays quiet, as if gauging how much she can even say.

I don’t know why I thought it would’ve been how it once was, being able to talk again with Talin. Our early days bonded to each other ended the instant the Premier invaded her mind. Now we’re separated by a different kind of distance. In despair, I sense the barrier go up between us.

Talin is no longer Talin, but an extension of the Premier. She will kill you without hesitation if Constantine commanded it. And you would do the same if she threatened Jeran.

What if my blood ends up on her hands? What if hers ends up on mine?

We are, once again, enemies, each of us standing on the opposite side of when we first met.

I know Talin can feel the loss in me at these thoughts. I stare at her as she stands mere inches from me, as if we are in the same room together. I want to lean toward her, feel the warmth of her breath against my skin, the silk of her hair through my fingers. If I touched her hand right now, could I really feel it? The reality conjured by the strength of our bonded minds is so clear, it’s hard to tell what’s a dream and what might be real.

We dare to linger in this dream for another beat. Neither of us says anything. I concentrate on the rise and fall of her breaths, knowing she could disappear any moment. She studies my face, searching for something.

I try to reach out to her.

Then our dream shudders. We are waking. The world around us blurs again.

Talin. I reach for her one more time, knowing I shouldn’t, yet unable to stop myself.

And somewhere in the suspension of reality, in this haze of a moment, she fades away, and I awaken back on top of the train car, jolting and bouncing along in the night.