Aria wondered if he was thinking what she was: how terribly far they had come from school. From hours in the lounges of Reverie, studying and fractioning in the Realms.

“Once I hack into their system,” Soren said, “I’ll be traceable. I’ll throw every obstacle I can at them, but that’s when the clock starts running.”

He had already told them this. There were three components to the mission. First, a breach of the Komodo’s security system, which he’d handle alone. This would bring the patrol to them, setting up the takeover of the Dragonwing—the second step. Last, disguised as Guardians, they would enter the Komodo itself.

In the worst-case scenario, the security system breach would be discovered while they were inside extracting Cinder, but Soren predicted they would have two hours before that happened. If they followed the plan, they’d have plenty of time.

“We know, Soren,” Aria said. “If we’re going to intercept this patrol, we have to start now.”

He nodded, the color leaving his face. Aria watched his grip on the Smarteye ease. Then he brought the device to his face with visible effort and placed the clear patch over his left eye.

One second passed. Two. Three.

Soren tensed, his fingers digging into the armrests. “I’m in.” He sat up, his shoulders rolling with a small shudder, his knee still bouncing up and down. “Here we go. Where are you? Where am I? Where are you? Where am I?”

Soren’s chant stopped when an image appeared, floating in the air before the front windshield.

It was an avatar of him from the waist up, the image three-dimensional but translucent, the likeness complete down to the thin scar on his chin. Down, even, to an almost exact replica of the clothes he wore—the clothes they all wore: a pale gray Guardian flight suit with blue reflective stripes along the sleeves.

There was no context to the image. No room or cockpit. Soren’s avatar floated in midair like a ghost.

“Oh, come on,” Soren said, running a hand over his head. “My hair looks better than that. The approximation algorithms the military uses are really substandard,” he muttered as he entered a series of commands into the Belswan control panel.

Aria had never seen anyone so focused and manic at the same time. Perry watched in silence, but she wondered what he scented in Soren’s temper.

“Sorry you can’t stay, Soren,” said Soren, “but I’ll see you later, handsome.”

The three-dimensional avatar blurred and flattened like it had been pressed between glass. Another figure expanded and sharpened before them: Hess, lifeless, staring straight ahead.

Hess was fuller in build than Soren, with a chiseled face and sleek, combed-back hair. Only his eyes, dull and sunken, revealed the decades between him and his son.