“How do you know?!”
Lyk could tell she was close to breaking. “Come to my quarters and let’s talk about this. Like I said, I need to check something, and you can be there with me then.”
Ally cursed the entire trek to his quarters, grumbling about lies and betrayal. Once he’d shut the door behind him, he told her to take a seat on the sofa. “I’m going to call my sister. She’s the one who warned me about the people you described.”
“Wait.” Her eyes widened. “You knew about these people, and you didn’t warn us? They’re after you?” Then she stood up, her face turning bright red. “They’re after the necklace! And they knew you had it! This is all your fault.”
“Sit down, Ally!” His tone was firm. “I never had the damn necklace and you know it. Evie told you as much.”
“How did you know about that? Were you spying on us? You motherfucker!”
Lyk threw up his hands, exasperated. “Fine, you want to do this the hard way?” Summoning up his Vartik powers, he used his persuasion on her, as much as he hated to. “Sit down, Ally. And shut up.”
She dropped like a stone onto the sofa and her mouth shut. Lyk saw her eyes widen as she fought to say something but her mouth refused to cooperate.
Lyk sat down on the sofa across from her and closed his eyes, opening the connection between himself and his sister. “Kara, we need to talk. Now.”
The connection hummed to life between them. “What’s up, bro? And what the hell time is it?”
Lyk realized it was the wee hours of the morning on Vartik. “Sorry to wake you up like this, but I need to call you. Can you get a secure channel up and running?”
“A secure channel? I’m not Nojan. Why can’t we talk here?”
“Because I need someone else to hear what we’re going to say. Go to your console. I’ll guide you.”
He waited as his sister hauled herself out of bed and headed to the console in her quarters. “What do I do?”
As quickly as he could, he instructed her on how to set up a secure communications channel. He knew that if Nojan went digging, his brother would be able to trace the call, but a routine search wouldn’t put up any flags. And if his brother didn’t know about the call, then there was no reason to dig.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“Hit the button.”
The console embedded in the low round table in front of him illuminated. He hit a button, and a holographic image of his sister’s sleepy face appeared above the table, floating between him and Ally.
“Hey, bro,” Kara said with a genuine smile on her face. “It’s great to see you again.”
“You too, sis. I need your help. I have a companion with me, and her sister was taken today by three familiar-sounding beings. Tell me if this rings any bells: one was a tall blond male who can apparently teleport, and he was accompanied by a blonde female and a very large male.”
Kara’s eyes widened. “The Seekers! I told you they’d be after you! Mayra is always right!”
“It turns out they weren’t after me, sis. They grabbed a Territhian named Evie, likely because she had a necklace they were after.”
“A necklace…” Kara’s eyes widened. “The thing that shines!”
Lyk was confused for a moment, then recalled the poem she’d told him a few days ago. “Do you know where these Seekers might go?”
“They’re demons, remember? They probably took her back to Hell.”
Lyk’s gaze shot to Ally in time to see twin tears flowing down her face. It was so pale, the red mark on her cheek stood out in high contrast. His chest ached. His female’s sister had been dragged to Hell by demons, the same demons who’d been attacking his family.
Did I bring this evil on her?
This is my fault.
What have I done?
