Apart from the soreness in her arm, Aria had recovered. They’d leave Perry’s territory behind soon, and she needed to be alert to danger. Every step took her closer to the city of Rim. To what she needed.

Late in the afternoon, she stood at the lip of a valley and looked south to the rolling hills stretching to the horizon. Last fall, she’d camped with Perry somewhere out there. She’d worn book covers for shoes. She’d lost her best friend. And she hadn’t known it yet, but she had lost her mother, too.

Aria reached into her satchel and found the falcon figurine. She’d grabbed it as she left Perry’s house, needing something real to remind her of him.

“I was there when he made that,” Roar said. He sat against a tree, watching her with bloodshot eyes.

“You were?”

Roar nodded. “Talon and Liv were there too. We were starting a collection for Talon, each of us making a different one for him. Liv nicked her finger barely five minutes in.” He smiled faintly, lost in the memory. “She’s a brute with the knife. No finesse at all. She and I quit after a few minutes, but Perry kept at it for Talon.”

Aria ran her thumb over the smooth surface. Every one of them, at one time, had held the falcon resting in her palm. Would they ever be together—all of them?

She spent the next hour adjusting to the sounds of the woods, staring at the figurine in her hand, taking the first watch as Roar drifted asleep. There were wolves out here. Bands of drifters and cannibals. She picked out the patterns in the wind and the rustle of animals, listening until she was sure they were safe. Then she put the falcon away and found her Smarteye.

Three days had passed since she’d contacted Hess on the beach. She glanced at Roar, asleep, and then applied the device. The Eye attached as the biotech activated, and her Smartscreen popped up.

She chose the Hess icon and then felt the familiar tug of fractioning, that moment when her mind adjusted to being here and here. She’d appeared at a café in a Venetian Realm. Gondolas glided along the Grand Canal just steps away, roses floating in the sparkling, clear water. It was a beautiful, sunny day, golden and warm. Somewhere, a string quartet played, the notes thin and brittle.

Hess appeared across the small table. He had modified his clothing this time, wearing an ivory-colored suit with light blue pinstripes and a red tie. He’d given himself a tan, but the effect was odd. He looked strangely older—or, rather, closer to his true age of well over a hundred—and his skin was orange. So unlike Perry’s bronze skin.