“Where is it?”
She pulled up a map and located the coordinates north of the caves. Something about the location tweaked her memory and she frowned, trying to remember.
“If this is where I think it is,” she said slowly. “Rhaal found an illegal operation not far from there. Offworlders were trying to reproduce sothiti.”
“The healing drug?”
“Yes. Njkall and Rhaal led a team to destroy the lab, and then they buried the site under a rockslide.”
Tess’s attention sharpened.
“And one of these ships went there?”
“Not exactly.” She studied the record. “It changed course in that direction, but that doesn’t mean it landed. And there’s nothing there now except a bunch of rocks.”
“I think it means something.”
“Maybe.”
Tess sighed. “There’s that word again.”
“Because we don’t know.”
“If they’re traffickers, why would they care about some abandoned drug lab?” Tess asked, studying the map.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Maybe the lab wasn’t abandoned.”
“Yasmin said it was destroyed and buried. The clan wanted to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.”
“Just because something is buried, it doesn’t mean it’s not still there.”
She looked at the coordinates again. Tess was right, but something about forcing the two things together bothered her.
“Or it could have nothing to do with what we’re looking for,” she said. “Hothrest has had smugglers and criminals coming through Port Eyeja for years. An illegal site might attract all kinds of people.”
“Still worth checking.”
“By Baralt.” Tess made a face, and she raised an eyebrow. “Or Njkall.”
“Even worse.”
She laughed, but she marked the record. Just in case.
By the time they finally stopped, her back ached from bending over the table and the crystal lights had dimmed towards evening. Cera appeared in the entrance, surveyed the chaos, and folded her arms.
“Are you planning to sleep among those papers?”
“No,” she said.
“Possibly,” Tess said at the same time.
Cera’s gaze moved between them.
“Food first. Criminal conspiracies later.”
“We don’t know it’s a conspiracy,” she said, and Tess gave her an accusing look. “She keeps saying things like that.”
