“I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you right now, Blondie,” Ro told Sophie, leaning down and giving Sophie a big ogre smack on the cheek. “It almost makes up for the fact that you didn’t think of this the moment we got here. Almost.”

Keefe shushed Ro, tightening his grip on Sophie’s hand. “I think… there’s something on the hundred-and-thirty-seventh floor.”

“The hundred-and-thirty-seventh floor?” Ro repeated. “Um, your girlie here just saved your life. I’m betting by about floor twenty-five, I would’ve flung you out the window.”

Keefe ignored her, clinging to Sophie as they stumbled over to the vortinator.

Sophie braced for an epic wave of nausea from blasting up so many floors at once. But either she was getting used to the spinning or Keefe was sharing some of his steadiness. Whatever the reason, she made it to the hundred-and-thirty-seventh floor with a clear head and a steady stomach.

Keefe stumbled toward the nearest room, which seemed to be one of Candleshade’s many guest rooms—one that must’ve been spared during the previous searches because it was still clean and organized and nothing was smashed.

“Which way is the compartment?” Sophie asked, studying the nearest wall, searching for some sort of seam in the crystal.

“That way,” Keefe said, pointing to the left. “There’s something over there.”

“You’re sure?” Sophie asked, frowning when he nodded.

He was pointing to a window, and the compartment had very clearly been in a wall! But maybe—

“STOP!” Sandor shouted, jumping in front of Sophie and drawing his sword as he sniffed the air.

“What the—” Keefe started to ask, but Ro drew two daggers and shouted, “SHOW YOURSELF OR I WILL USE THESE!”

“I don’t understand,” Sophie mumbled. “Who are you—”

“YOU HAVE THREE SECONDS!” Sandor bellowed over her. “ONE…”

“TWO…” Ro joined in, aiming one of her daggers toward the glass. “I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SEE YOU—BUT TRUST ME, I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO THROW THIS.”

“THR—”

“ALL RIGHT!” a new voice shouted—and Sophie recognized it even before a pale, cowering figure blinked into sight next to the window.

Together, she and Keefe both whispered, “Alvar?”

FORTY

ALVAR WAS HARD TO LOOK at.

Not because he kept flickering in and out of sight—though he did, as if he were still hoping to vanish his way out of his current predicament.

And it wasn’t because of the deep scars marring his formerly handsome face—though they were definitely cringeworthy. And there were more peeking out under his loose, rumpled clothes.

But no—what made it difficult for Sophie to meet Alvar’s gaze was his expression: his wide, terrified eyes, paired with shadowed, hollow cheekbones and a trembling chin.

He looked exactly like the frightened, remorseful guy he’d been the whole time he’d had amnesia.

“You can drop the act,” Sophie told Alvar as he pulled his bony knees tighter against his chest. “I’m not falling for it again.”

“There’s no act,” Alvar said quietly, earning snorts from everyone. “I mean it. I made my choices, and I stand by them—I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But don’t treat me like I’m still with the Neverseen. I’m not.”

“I’m assuming that was their decision?” Keefe asked. “Let me guess—they weren’t impressed with all of the time you spent setting up the world’s dumbest scheme to open a gate?”

Alvar’s jaw locked, and for a second his old arrogance had him sitting up taller.

But a coughing fit forced him to curl back in on himself.

“No,” he rasped when the hacking had mostly eased. “Actually, they blamed me for how close I came to not opening the gate. And for how long I hesitated. And for what happened to Umber and Ruy.”

“Ruy?” Sophie repeated. “So… Linh was right? Tam ruined his ability?”

“I don’t know about ruined,” Alvar corrected, his body flickering harder as he tried to stretch his legs. “But he was on bed rest when I saw him. And Gethen seemed worried.”

“How long ago was that?” Sandor demanded, slashing his sword to make Alvar tuck his feet in again.

Alvar turned toward the window and ran a shaky hand through his dark, greasy hair. And when the light caught his face, Sophie realized how sunken his eyes were and how sweaty his pale skin had gotten.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “It’s hard to keep track of time here. I only leave the tower when I have to find food, so the days all blur together. But… it’s been a while. I chased them down as soon as I made it out of Everglen—and Vespera turned me away the second she saw me. Like I said, the Neverseen are blaming me for what happened, since I was the one who pushed them to expose my family’s legacy.”

“Oh good—there’s that word again,” Ro grumbled with a huge eye roll.

Sophie ignored her, forcing herself to meet Alvar’s weary stare when he turned back to face her. “Was that really all there was to it?” she asked. “Luzia’s hive and the experiments going on there—that’s what you meant when you talked about the Vacker legacy?”

Alvar shrugged and then winced from the motion, which triggered another raspy cough. “That’s as far as I got with my investigation. But do you really think that’s the only thing my family’s hiding? With all of their power, and all of their noble positions, and all of that history?”

“Why do you care?” Keefe wondered. “It’s not like what they did has anything to do with your life. And you got to reap the benefits of being a Vacker.”

“No, I got to grow up drowning in unrealistic expectations only to have all of that vanish when my parents had another son—as if that was some confirmation that I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever measure up,” Alvar snapped back.

“Woooooooooooooooow, so this was all just about your brother being cooler and prettier than you?” Ro asked. “The whole ‘They don’t appreciate me, so I’ll take them all down!’ story?” She whistled. “Now that’s pathetic.”

“It was more than that,” Alvar spat before lapsing into another round of coughing, and Sophie couldn’t decide if he was actually sick or if he was faking it so they’d underestimate him.

“I don’t care about the rest of the Vackers,” Keefe told him, “or what creepy things you think they did or didn’t do—you had parents who loved you! I’m pretty sure they still love you, even after all of the horrible things you’ve done. And you threw that away to join a group that can’t even make up their mind about who’s in charge, or what they want, or why they’re trying to destroy the world—a group that left you behind when they fled Everglen, and left Umber for dead, and—”

“You want to talk about being left for dead?” Alvar lunged forward, but Sandor and Ro shifted their blades to block him. “I was left floating in a pod of orange goo while my brother and sister stood by watching! The same brother who’d threatened to carve me up with a knife earlier that night! The brother who stopped pressing buttons to try to save me as the pod filled up—did he tell you that? He let the tank fill, waiting for me to drown. He didn’t know I was holding my breath and keeping my body temperature in check—and if he had, I guarantee he would’ve found a way to finish me. But he gets to carry on as the golden child, and I get this.” He gestured to himself—how sickly and scrawny and awful he looked. “He gets to hide behind the Black Swan and their moonlark and pretend that makes us any different—”