“How bad?”
“The entire Superiority is mobilizing. I had no idea how many planets they controlled. And we’re isolated here. We’re trying to get the slugs to work, but we have so much to learn, and…” He again met my eyes in the glass. “And we need you. I need you. What can we do to get you out of there?”
I winced. Not because I didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but… Well, he had to know.
“Jorgen, I came to the nowhere by choice,” I said. “When I jumped through the portal, I realized I could come home, but I decided not to. Because…” Scud, how did I put this? “I have something I need to do here, Jorgen.”
He frowned, looking at me in the reflection.
“I can’t come back yet,” I explained. “Not until I’ve learned what this place can teach me. I’m sorry, but if I did return, I’d be just another fighter. I need to be something more.”
“You think they’ll use the delvers again,” he said, perhaps reading my emotions.
“I know they will,” I said. “Winzik won’t give up because of a single setback. And Jorgen, I need to be able to stop him. To do that, I have to understand what I am—and more importantly, what the delvers are. Does that make sense?”
“You think you can find these answers in the nowhere?”
“Yes. Jorgen, I’m on a quest.”
He grinned. “That might be the single most Spensa-like thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“I’m worried for you,” he said. “But if you’re right…if the delvers are still in play…”
I knew, from our research into the past, that this wasn’t the first time someone had sought to weaponize the delvers. Every attempt I knew of had ended in disaster, but people continued to try. Because if you could control the thing that ate planets, who would dare stand against you?
“I trust you,” Jorgen said, meeting my eyes reflected in the glass. “If you think this is important, then keep going. We will resist the Superiority until you return.”
His confidence in me felt wonderful; I could feel it like a warmth radiating from him.
Jorgen unbuckled himself, then turned around, his knees on the seat. He closed his eyes, and I felt his attention on me. He reached out his hand, and I swore I could feel it cupping my cheek. I reached out to him too, and could almost feel his skin.
“We’ll hold out, Spensa,” he promised. “Until you find what you need. Which you will. I’ve learned never to bet against you.” He smiled, his eyes closed. “After all, I might win the bet, but I’d still end up with a knife in my arm.”
“Quick tip,” I whispered. “Go for the thigh instead. Makes it harder for them to chase you down.” I leaned forward, wanting to be closer to him, even if we could barely feel each other. But I began to fade.
Scud, I suddenly felt exhausted. It had been only a few minutes, but I soon faded completely, and ended up drifting in blackness. Try as I might, I couldn’t find Jorgen again.
My mind began to fuzz. I knew I was heading toward true sleep, and started to relax…
A voice.
I pulled myself back to awareness. I knew that voice. “My, my,” it said.
Winzik.
The words pierced the darkness, reaching toward something else. Beings. Entities.
Delvers.
I could sense them now—as an infinite number of white lights. The voice I’d heard was speaking to them. “No need to be so brutal,” it continued. “So aggressive. I come to you with an offer! A trade. You have something I want, and I have something you want. They are not so different, are they?”
That voice…that wasn’t actually Winzik’s voice. It was Brade’s voice—though of course the word “voice” was an approximation. She must have been relaying Winzik’s words, like an interpreter.
I was overhearing them—listening in, spying, as I’d been trained for so long by Gran-Gran. My phantom sense to hear the stars.
You hurt us, the delvers said to Winzik. You are noise. You are not a person. You are pain.
“I am a noise that can end that pain,” Winzik promised through Brade. “I can round up every cytonic in the galaxy. I can make it so none of them ever bother you again. Never…corrupt you again.”
Oh, scud. They wanted that. I could feel it.
Speak, they said.
“I must be in control of my empire,” Winzik said. “Once I am, I will find and stop every cytonic. I can’t be in control, however, if you destroy my people when I summon you.”