Page 17 of Enthraller

“Not a hair on her head was harmed.” Hyt shrugged, and Ed felt a new spike of anger at him. He forced it down.

Hyt was only following his lead on this story he was weaving.

“You know them?” Ed turned to Wren, tilting his head in the direction of the men on the floor.

She stepped closer, studied them for a while. “That one looks vaguely familiar,” she said, pointing at Jenik. “Neither was on the team with me on Ytla.”

“What possible reason could you have to do this?” Hyt asked Mornes. “You’ll be going to prison, your careers are over.”

Mornes pursed his lips, turning away from them.

“You going to call this in?” Ed asked.

Hyt nodded. “This needs to be official now. And I need to speak to Velda Shanïha as soon as possible.”

At the way Mornes reacted to the mention of Velda Shanïha’s name, Ed guessed that wouldn’t suit them and their fellow plotters at all to have the Head of Defense involved.

“What will you do?” Hyt asked.

“We’ll be in touch,” Ed said. “I’m not sure we’re willing to trust the whole of your team just yet.”

Hyt nodded, looking pained but resigned. “I have more questions about what happened this morning.”

Ed glanced at their prisoners, then back at Hyt, and he nodded in recognition that nothing would be said in front of them.

“Thank you, Captain Hyt. For obvious reasons, I won’t be making my appointment with you tomorrow.” Wren headed for the door.

“Understood. I’m sorry about what happened at the hover port. I will get to the bottom of it.”

Wren inclined her head in acceptance of the apology, and then edged around the unconscious Jenik. “Coming?” she asked Ed.

“Always,” he said. And then followed her out.

7

Always.

The word repeated in Wren’s head, little hammer strikes of guilt. She felt sick at what the nanos had done to Ed, and she wondered if he even realized what he’d just said.

She glanced sidelong at him, but his attention was on their surroundings, watchful and alert.

Ethan Hyt lived on the edge of the city hub, along the west side of the peninsula, and they skirted the busiest sections to get back to her hidden house. There wasn’t much they could do until Hyt asked his questions and got some answers, and they both needed sleep.

“I’ve been thinking of contacting one of my friends who works in artifact consultation for the Verdant String Cooperation Initiative.” Wren hooked an arm through Ed’s as they approached a group coming the other way.

They had both changed after dinner into casual clothes, and they looked like any other couple, walking home from a night out.

“But you haven’t yet?” Ed murmured, nodding to the group as they passed each other.

She wondered if he realized his hand had tightened slightly on her arm until the group had passed.

“No, I’ve been too nervous,” she said. “I couldn’t think of a way to ask her what I needed without raising all kinds of flags. Anything that’s remotely connected to the Ancestors is a hot topic right now, after what was found on Faldine and Fynian. Not to mention the spaceship Tally Riva discovered in Raxia’s Outer Boundary.”

“There does seem to be a sudden influx of findings, doesn’t there?” Ed said.

“I’ve wondered about that. In the case of Faldine, the expansion after the war led to someone finding the ruins. Fynian had a whole legend built around the mysterious signal that was only detectable when the solar flares abated, which on Fynian is hardly ever, and the Raxians finding the ghost ship floating in their Outer Boundary was expansion again, like on Faldine.”

Wren felt a spike of excitement at the idea that the wreck she’d found on Ytla was another such discovery. It was probably being stripped right now by the cult of the Har Met Vent. The spike of rage she felt at how her request to return to study it had been dismissed hammered at her again. And the fact that the thugs in the Har Met Vent were probably planning to sell off invaluable historical artifacts only rubbed salt into the wound.

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