My knees tremble. I sink to the ground, sitting down and leaning my back against one of the stone pillars. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I rest my head on them. I need a plan. The only one I can come up with right now involves hanging on long enough for Trey to get well enough to come find me, but I hate that plan. It’s weak.
I lift my head from my knees. Looking around, I’m unsure if I’m alone. The technology here is ridiculous. I decide I don’t care. I may not be able to physically leave here, but I can still leave, at least for a little while. I rub my hands together, leaning back against the pillar, but then I think better of it. Instead, I stretch out on the floor of the gazebo so I don’t accidentally hit my head when I leave my body. My skin prickles with fear. The last time I did this I almost died, and there are oceans between me and where I want to be, but I have to go anyway.
“Trey,” I whisper. “I wish I was with you still.” I chase my dreams of him, trying to concentrate on where I want to go and when.
As I exhale, I see smoky curls of my frigid breath float away from between my parted lips. Nothing can really prepare me for the separation of my being from my skin. It’s always brutal.
As I ascend away from my body at an incredible rate, I endure the torture. I’d writhe in the burning heat of it if I had a body to writhe in. The searing pain fades quickly to only slight discomfort, though, as I move in a flash-forward. Taking a rail spur in time, it leads me to where I’d gone last night—the long room at the top of the recently renovated Gothic-style governor’s mansion in Amster.
Moving by the line of empty hoverbeds, I see the backs of Raspin and four other uniformed Amster soldiers. They’re cautiously moving toward a bare-chested Trey. He’s attired in thin cotton trousers that are cinched at his waist by a drawstring. He seems disoriented, as if he’s trying to piece together where he is and what’s happening to him. He holds his hand to the side of his face, touching a large, black bruise with his fingertips. He winces, and then looks at his hand. He studies the small, time-release, drug-dispensing cylinder fastened to it.
Between the Amster soldiers and Trey, Astrid is holding out both of her hands, pleading with Trey, “You need to get back into bed. You’ve been very sick.” She touches his chest where his tribal tattoo swirls and weaves a path over his skin to his chiseled abdomen. She tries to redirect him back to the vacant hovercot behind him. He shakes off her hand, inadvertently disconnecting a couple of wires that had been attached to him.
“Where is she? I want to see her!” Trey demands with a half-panicked, half-bewildered look in his violet eyes. In the distance, doors slam, feet are running. More grim-faced soldiers crowd around in the hallway outside, watching, waiting.
Sunlight shines into the room from the high dormer-style windows above, putting Astrid and Trey in a golden spotlight. Their hair is a similar color: raven’s wings in this light, blue-black with the hint of night. Raspin prowls closer to Astrid. He touches her arm, intending to guide her away from Trey, but she won’t let him. She shakes him off. Her focus is on my Rafe soldier. “Do you know who I am?” she asks.
Trey grasps his forehead as if he has a massive headache. “No—but you’re part Rafian.”
“And I’m part Alameedan. You probably noticed my blue eyes already,” Astrid replies gently.
“Should I know you?”
“Yes . . . and no,” Astrid stammers, “that is to say, we’ve met—briefly—you were barely conscious, though.”
“Are you the medic?” Trey asks, straightening and dropping his hand from his forehead.
“I’ve been assisting with your care, Trey,” Astrid replies, using his name.
Trey touches her upper arm, and says in a rush, “There’s a girl. Her name is Kricket. She—”
“You should get back in bed so I can tell you—”
“—she was with me at my house in Rafe territory—we were attacked—” He tries to get closer to Astrid, but the wires attached to his chest get in his way, snapping him back. He grabs them all with his other hand and tears them off his chest without flinching. A myriad of beeping and alarms ring out on the hovercot. Astrid goes to the hovercot and turns off the offending noise by pressing buttons on its console. Trey faces her, ignoring the men behind him. “She’s short”—he holds up his hand, measuring my height on his chest—“blonde, looks like a priestess, but she’s not one of them, she’s one of us. Do you know where she is? Was she brought here too?”
Astrid straightens to face Trey again, but she has deflated a bit from her statuesque posture. She tucks her long, black hair behind her ear. “My name is Astrid. Do you know who I am?”