“I’m afraid so.”

“But why? Why unleash something like that here? These people were already as good as dead,” Dante points out.

“The Eastern Sector was rebelling. This ensures no one here can fight back,” Loricel says.

“How was anyone in the Eastern Sector going to fight back?” I ask.

Loricel gives me a grim smile from across the table. “Cormac is a thorough man.”

That’s an understatement.

“And yet you escaped him,” I point out.

“Patton can’t stand to waste resources,” Dante says.

“You knew she was alive then?” I ask, gesturing to Loricel.

“I guessed. Alive is relative to a Tailor, anyway. Cormac’s like Kincaid in that way. When he thinks people might be valuable to him, he keeps them around.” Dante shrugs as if to say this isn’t a big deal.

“But how did you rescue her?” I ask.

“That’s an exciting story that makes me look really good. Unfortunately, I’ll have to tell you another time,” he says.

“I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on!”

“I see you’re going through the ungrateful-brat phase,” Dante says. “We saved you. Show some gratitude.”

“I had plans,” I tell him. “I was going to alter Cormac, maybe take on his appearance. But now I have no chance of ever getting close enough to him again. I’ll never save the rest of the Remnants or slow the drilling on the surface. I’m sick and tired of people trying to rescue me, of everyone thinking and acting like I can do nothing right. I had enough of that from Cormac.”

“Valery did it,” Dante says, finally ready to answer my question. “We had enough information to guess where Cormac was keeping Loricel. With a little alteration and a lot of luck, we got in.”

“And why couldn’t you just tell me that?” I ask him.

“She didn’t want you to know.”

“Why?” I can’t think of a single reason for her to keep this from me. Valery had a long way to go before she would be able to earn back my trust. Her participation in rescuing Loricel could only help in that regard.

“We barely made it out of the storage facility…” His voice fades away and slowly I begin to understand.

“Things got out of hand. I made a mistake.” Dante’s fingers tremble as he runs them over his cropped hair. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” I ask him in a hollow voice, afraid I already know the answer.

“The storage facility—and everything inside it.”

My body goes cold and numb with shock. There’s no chance to save the Remnants now.

Except my mother, Meria, whose thread is tucked safely away in my baggage. Baggage that didn’t escape with me.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a soft voice. I know he is sorry, because to him it means Meria is lost forever. I saw how he looked at her when he freed her from Kincaid’s estate. Some things change with time, but others never do. Love like that leaves an imprint. It might fade with time, but it’s always there, waiting for you to catch it in the right light.

“Right now they have something to show us,” he reminds me. I become aware of the uncomfortable glances of the others in the room. I can’t bring myself to tell Dante I have Meria’s soul strand, not when he destroyed our chance at saving the others.

Jax looks for confirmation that he should begin, but my father can only manage a tight nod. A beam of light catches my attention as it bursts across the far wall, illuminating a screen with the image of Arras, and I’m grateful to think about something besides dead friends and a lost mother. The image is a basic map I once saw in academy. A rectangle with four points for the northern, southern, eastern, and western sides: the coventries. It’s strange to see it now, knowing there’s more to Arras than a map. This world isn’t flat. Arras isn’t limited by four corners. Now I see it as it is. Arras wraps and engulfs the Earth like a beautiful but deadly parasite.

Jax stands up, holding a digifile and looking a bit nervous. “This is how Arras is presented to the general population.”

“I’m not sure I got that far in school,” Erik says.

“Ignore everything he says,” I tell Jax, motioning for him to continue.

“Okay.” He swipes across the face of his digifile and the image begins to morph. “What the map doesn’t show is the dimensions of Arras.”

The map shifts into a half sphere and then a model of the Earth appears below it. Even though I’ve been to the other planet, I’m still in awe. It’s large and blue and round. Arras hovers over about a fourth of it.

“Arras exists over Earth,” Jax continues.

“We know that,” Dante says, but Falon shushes him.

“As I was saying,” Jax says, shooting Dante an annoyed look, “the two worlds exist relative to each other. However, Arras only exists because of Earth.”

“Okay, now you’ve lost me—” Dante admits.

“Dear boy, you’ve seen the mines. Use your imagination,” Albert interrupts him. The scientist is busy jotting notes. I can’t figure out why. I know he understands things we can’t quite grasp. But then he holds up the sheet in front of him, revealing a series of complex equations.

“I think I speak for everyone—except Jax—when I say what?” Erik says.