The question stopped me cold because I didn’t have a suitable answer. Why had I helped her? Part of me wanted to believe it was because I hoped she’d search through everything, find nothing incriminating, and finally give up this dangerous quest for revenge. But that wasn’t the whole truth, and we both knew it.
The real reason was that I couldn’t bear the thought of her doing this alone, of facing whatever consequences might come without someone to watch her back. Even if that someone was rapidly becoming as reckless as she was.
Sasha looked up from the papers, her face silhouetted in the moonlight. She was dangerously, distractingly beautiful, and I had to force myself not to think about how much I wanted to reach out and touch her face.
“How did you get us inside when I couldn’t?” she asked, returning her attention to the documents.
“Top clearance authorization,” I said simply. “Comes with being Inferno Force.”
I didn’t add that no cadet or instructor would dare enter the Academy Master’s domain without permission.
She scowled at this information, as if my security access was personally offensive to her, and kept searching through the admiral’s files. After several minutes of methodical examination, she found a tablet tucked beneath a stack of schematics.
She pressed the activation panel, but nothing happened. “Crap. It’s asking for a password.”
“Be glad it isn’t biometrically locked, although the admiral probably doesn’t worry about his office being invaded,” I said dryly. “Most Drexians don’t have criminal impulses.”
Sasha drummed her fingers on the tablet. “Password, password. What would he use as a password? What’s his birthday?”
I slid her a withering look. “I do not know the admiral’s date of birth.”
Sasha ignored my commentary, her attention completely focused on the tablet. “His wife’s name is Noora, right? Maybe it’s her name.”
That seemed overly sentimental to me, but mated Drexians behaved oddly. Another reason I’d never aspired to be one.
She tapped the screen and then cursed again. “Nope.” She scrunched her lips to one side. “Maybe it’s her name as numbers, with each letter than a corresponding number in the alphabet.”
When that didn’t work, she stamped her foot.
I leaned over. “We do not have the same alphabet as humans. Try it in our native tongue.” When she stared at me blankly, I did the honors of typing in the numbers that corresponded with the name Noora. The tablet instantly unlocked itself.
Sasha gave me an admiring grin. “Not bad, Inferno Force.”
My cheeks unwillingly warmed from her praise, and I looked away. When I dared look back, the blue glow from the screen cast shifting patterns across her face as she flicked one finger across the surface.
I moved around the desk to stand beside her, close enough to see the screen over her shoulder, close enough to catch that flowery scent that clung to her hair. My body was hyperaware of her proximity, of the way she moved, of the soft sound of her breathing as she concentrated.
Then I saw something that made my blood turn to ice.
“Stop,” I said sharply.
She sighed but paused her scrolling, looking up at me with barely concealed impatience. “What?”
I squinted at the communication displayed on the screen, reading the sender and recipient information that had caught my eye. Admiral Zoran and someone identified only as “Shadow Command,” discussing operational parameters for an agent designated as “T.”
The message thread was brief but damning:
S Command: T’s infiltration of the Kronock facility successful. Intelligence gathered exceeds expectations. T’s cover as academy adjunct remains intact?
Zoran: Affirmative. His performance during the rescue operation was exemplary. No one suspects his true role.
S Command: Excellent. The S investment in long-term cover identities continues to prove its value.
I stopped breathing for a moment, my mind struggling to process what I was reading. T had to be my brother, didn’t it?
My spine tingled as I eyed the phrase S Command. Was that for Strategy? No, why would the School of Strategy need cover identities? Also, it would have been Assassin Command, the school’s more often used moniker.
I remembered whispers I’d heard throughout my years in Inferno Force. Whispers of a secret branch of the Drexians called the Shadows. Was it possible that my brother was a Shadow and not the academy washout he pretended to be? That would explain so much.
