Remi and Jaesin are showered, shoes on, dressed in new clothes. Considering we had to leave all our things behind, I bet they ordered new ones for drone delivery last night. Remi looks well, all things considered. Like they got a good night of sleep, recovering from yesterday. Ania’s eyes are narrow as she takes in my appearance, a few curls popping out from under her satiny purple headwrap. Everything about her body language says furious, from the folded arms to the raised chin to the one foot stuck out at an angle. All three of them sit at the kitchen island with bowls of fruit in front of them. Three travel backpacks sit to one side, two of them brand-new.
Because they were planning to leave without me.
They just haven’t gotten there yet.
Jaesin opens his mouth to lay into me, but I hold up a hand, forestalling his scolding.
“I know you’re—” I cut off, my throat thick. With every blink I can feel how swollen and red my eyes are, and I’m sure they can see it too. Mortifying. Damn it, get it together. They’re here, I’m not too late, they’re right in front of me. I breathe. “I know you’re mad at me.”
Ania takes a few steps toward me, then stops, wrinkling her nose. “Diz, what happened to you?”
I laugh, weak and hoarse. “I found out what happened.”
“Are you wearing makeup?” Remi interrupts. I scowl.
“That’s what you’re going to zero in on here?” Ania says, incredulous. “Though yeah, while we’re at it, what the hell, Diz?”
“I was trying to disguise myself!” I sputter, scrubbing my shirtsleeves over my face. Probably just smearing around whatever isn’t waterproof even more.
“And that’s what you went with?” Jaesin asks with a sweep of his hand to indicate my general awfulness, but Remi comes around the island to stand beside me, studying my face.
“You said you were looking into the explosion,” they say quietly. “What did you find out?”
“Thank you for asking,” I say, voice dripping with sarcasm. Finally, let’s get to the point. “Look, I . . . I’m sorry for earlier. And I fully admit that I screwed up during the job. I pushed it too hard. I never should have taken it in the first place, considering we know nothing about this maz-15 stuff or what it can do. But what happened . . . it wasn’t actually our fault. We were set up. The line was sabotaged.”
At that, Jaesin and Ania look at each other and turn to fully face me, finally listening. A tiny bit of the tension in my chest eases. Maybe I have a chance to redeem myself.
“Sabotaged how? What did you find?” Jaesin asks.
I pull out a chair from the nearby dining table and all but fall into it, the others towering over me on their breakfast stools at the island. I rest my elbows on my knees and brace my chin on my folded hands.
“We started at the junction station and traced our way back—”
“Who’s we?” Jaesin asks, sharp, and I wince. Should have left that part out.
“I called Davon and told him everything. I was alone and I needed backup, what was I supposed to do?”
Jaesin scowls, obviously not thrilled at his illegal activities being revealed—and to an MMC employee, at that. He keeps silent, though, when Ania lays a hand on his arm. I forge on, recounting the night’s discoveries and showing them the code I found, but when it comes down to it, there’s really only one point to hammer home: “That particular pipe was rigged to blow, and the whole point of this job was to lure us there. Friends, we were set up.”
Part of me relishes the stunned looks on their faces as they absorb my words, the proof that I was right to investigate further, right to storm out in the face of their cowardice.
Ania taps one manicured fingernail against her bottom lip in thought. “So, all that firaz and magnaz, it really was supposed to be like a giant bomb exploding right in our faces.”
I nod. “Fortunately, they didn’t count on us having an amazing spellweaver like Remi to save our sorry asses.”
A touch of a smile ghosts over Remi’s lips, but it quickly wipes away.
“Did you figure out who set us up?” They ask.
The glow of being right fades from my chest. “Maybe. This is where it starts to get weird and complicated. I walked here from the industrial district after everything went down—”
“Diz!” Ania scolds, horrified.
“I know, I know, I didn’t have any other safe way to get back, but listen. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I got to thinking. Who could possibly want us dead, and why?” I have their attention now. They stare, rapt, all traces of lingering anger suppressed for the moment. I push on. “We were lured there with a job to pull maz-15, which we’ve never encountered during any other job, just the one time in this one pipe. Seems like a bit of a coincidence that the first time we see it, we’re immediately given a job to get more, then nearly killed for it. You see where I’m going?”
Remi’s eyes go wide. “Someone doesn’t want us knowing about maz-15.”
“No one knows about maz-15, it seems,” I add. “No one but us, the guy who gave us the job, and . . .”
“MMC,” Ania finishes, her hands flying to cover her mouth.
“Got it,” I say. “They have control of this new maz, and control over information about its existence.”
“And they’re willing to kill for it,” Jaesin adds. “It seems so out of character for them, though. Sure, they price gouge, and their hold on maz is way too tight, but other than that they’ve done a lot of good things.”
Ania says nothing, but she stares at the wall over my shoulder, nodding vaguely. Reviewing the facts and coming to the same conclusion, no doubt. When she finally snaps back to the present, she meets my eyes and nods.
“We need information,” she says. “I highly doubt they’re going to stop coming for us after one failed attempt, so we need to learn more.”
“Agreed,” Jaesin says, finally on board. “Where is MMC getting this new strain? What’s so important about it that they’d be willing to kill to keep it secret? Once we know that, we can figure out if there’s any way out of this, something we can do to get them off our backs other than just . . . disappearing to live in the middle of the ocean or something.”
He winces and braces a hand against his forehead, rubbing in small circles. “Ugh. Sorry, this is making my brain hurt.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m with you. It’s a lot to take in.”
The ensuing silence is broken only by my audibly growling stomach. I haven’t eaten since . . . wait, when did I last eat? Ania passes me her bowl of fruit with a sigh.
“So, what now?” she asks.
Remi taps their bottom lip with one finger, then . . . smiles.
“We pay a visit to Kyrkarta University.”
My heart leaps into my throat. Are they planning to accept the offer there, even though we didn’t get the money from the job? Are they really going to stay and . . . oh. No. Obviously walking into the admissions office to create a nice, easy-to-follow paper trail is a terrible idea for someone hiding from the police.
“The archives,” I say, nodding.
Remi pumps both fists in the air. “Yes, the biggest archive of maz research in the world! I can’t wait to roll around in Professor Silva’s research notes. Maybe literally. That’s how osmosis works, right?”