“That you could shoot light from your hand? That is a weird dream.”

I don’t correct her. Instead, I push my covers back and get up, grimacing when I realize I must have pulled them over me in the night, heedless of the dirty boots I’m still wearing. Desperate to get in as much Speaking while I can, I point at my bed and say, “Clean.”

Light flares and in an instant, my sheets are pristine.

“You’re acting really strange today.”

“That’s because I had a really strange night.”

When she looks at me in question, I slump down onto my bed again and give her an overview of what happened in Smith’s room—what I saw with just him, and then what I saw when Kael joined us. I don’t tell her about my encounter with Ward in his holding cell beforehand, since I’m not yet ready to face all that he shared, but I make sure she knows everything about my missing memories—and my brother.

“That’s insane,” she whispers. “Not just about Riley— which must totally be blowing your mind—but also about you saving Smith. I can’t believe you knew each other years ago, but neither of you remember …” She trails off, stunned into silence.

“I know,” I say. “It’s definitely insane.”

There’s really nothing we can say after that, until my rumbling stomach prompts me to ask, “What time is it?”

“Just after lunch.”

I start. “After lunch? Why didn’t you wake me?”

She gives a one-shouldered shrug, careful not to jostle Dinger. “You clearly needed to sleep after what you went through—you were out like the dead. And it’s not like we have anywhere to be, not with Landon”—she chokes slightly on his name—“here and everyone else already looking for the other Speaker group. We’d just be in the way right now.”

She’s right. But she’s also wrong. Because there’s still one factor we need to be focusing on. “What about Vanik?”

“What about him?”

I open my mouth and then close it again, realizing that I’m the only one who knows how much more of a threat he is now, thanks to my private conversation with Ward last night.

The conversation I haven’t told her about.

I feel a niggling of guilt, but I’m not actively lying to her— just withholding certain information until I’ve had time to figure out how to share it. Regardless, she was there in Vanik’s lab yesterday, so she heard the warning, if not the confirmation. That should be enough.

“He still needs to be our priority,” I say. “We need to keep in mind what Ward said about Vanik having succeeded in his plans—thanks to me. It sounds like he’s already come up with a serum to start making his Speaker army.”