Beside her, Perry sat rigidly. He was muddied, bloodied, and intent, his stillness contrasted by the rainwater dripping steadily from his hair. He’d been against Soren from the beginning, Aria thought. Should she have listened to him?

She turned her focus back to the windshield. Trees blurred past, the hills where the Komodo was stationed drawing closer at an astonishing rate.

“Five minutes out,” Soren said.

Five minutes until they reached the Komodo. They were heading right into the dragon’s lair—and there were two dragons.

She pictured Hess, who was so quick to disregard human life. Travel safely, Aria, he’d said, before he dumped her out to die. He’d done the same to the thousands of people he left in Reverie. He’d told them he was going to fix everything; then he’d abandoned them in a collapsing Pod.

If Hess was a killer, then Sable was a murderer. The act was personal with him; he’d looked into Liv’s eyes when he’d fired the crossbow at her.

Aria bit her lip, an ache building in her throat for Perry. For Roar and Talon and Brooke. She was stupid to think this way right now, but grief was like the mud that covered them. Messy. Quickly spreading everywhere, once it found a way in.

“I’m going to learn how to fly these too,” Perry said, his voice low and deep. “So I can race you.”

His green eyes held a smile, a trace of good-natured competitiveness. Maybe he really did want to fly Hovers. Or maybe he knew exactly what to say to calm her down.

“You’re going to lose to her,” Roar said from the front seat.

He was teasing, Aria thought, but Perry said nothing back, and every second that passed in silence made Roar’s comment seem less friendly.

To her relief, Soren broke the silence. “I pulled up the last five flight plans and I don’t see any deviation. I’ll extract voice samples from those missions, change them up and graft everything together. That will get us through the protocols and make everything seem routine. They won’t notice a thing.”

They had planned this part earlier, knowing that even alive, the Guardians could jeopardize the mission over a live comm. Soren would splice the recordings of the now-deceased Guardians and reuse them in order to continue their façade. The Realms—their entire life once—had become a weapon, helping them uphold the image of a normal patrol.

Was Soren telling them all of this again, waving his contributions in the air, as a way of apologizing?

Aria cleared her throat. She played along, asking for more information that they already knew. They needed to band together. Now.

“And when we get there?” she asked.

“All covered,” Soren said. “I’ve got it right here.”