I motioned to the inn, rewinding the recording to the spot where the creature raised its arms, and paused it at the precise moment the ball of orange lightning broke free of its fingertips. The tattered robe, the bony hands that could have belonged to a corpse, the yellow claws, and finally the lightning. There was no doubt. It was just like Michael. I looked at Sean and saw the confirmation in his eyes. He remembered the fight as well as I did.

We were looking at another corrupted ad-hal.

“He was targeted because of us,” I said.

“It’s too early to tell,” Sean said. “Wilmos has his fingers in a lot of pies.”

I pointed at the screen. “A corrupted ad-hal, Sean?”

He didn’t say anything.

“If Wilmos even suspected a corrupted ad-hal was around, he would’ve come to us immediately. He fought Michael with us. He knows what they’re capable of. And it didn’t kill him. It took him.”

Wilmos was bait. We both knew it.

“If Wilmos is bait, and this is a trap,” Sean said, “then we’re meant to follow. The trap only works if we walk into it.” He looked at Karron still looming above us. “How are we supposed to follow it there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it expects us to die trying.”

“Why?” Sean frowned. “Seems too elaborate. Why is it even targeting us in the first place? Does it want revenge for Michael?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s chancy. If it were me, I would just wait and ambush us at the shop. We fought one of these assholes, and it almost kicked our asses. Two or three could finish us. Why not take Wilmos out of the equation, wait for us to show up, and then...” He hit his left palm with his right fist.

“I don’t know.” I got up. I was tired of not knowing. “A communication screen, please.”

The inn helpfully sprouted one for me on the wall.

“Who are you calling?”

“Someone who knows more about Karron than I do.”

“Another innkeeper?” Sean frowned.

“No.” Innkeepers didn’t care about Karron. There was absolutely no chance that one of its residents would ever make a stop at an inn. No, I needed someone with an in-depth understanding of the galaxy. I knew just the person.

Now we just had to figure out what it would cost us.

* * *

The galaxy was full of nations. Some were republics, some were empires, others were democracies, anocracies, autocracies and other forms of government not found in human dictionaries. At any given time, many of them were in conflict with each other. Interstellar battles were expensive and required a prohibitive amount of resources, and most nations recognized the need for peaceful adjudication, which was where the Arbitrators came in. They tried to resolve disputes between cosmic powers before they flared into devastating wars.