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When the time is right.

“If they survived,” Ryneth echoed.

Trash.

He thought of Mara and Tavi, and the other boys. Of countless nights protecting the Ward. Of endless hours of working in the Outer Ring. Of poverty, hunger, fear. Of that damn Helion work contract that had kept coming back on his multi-slate.

And that contract, that shuttle, that stupid chance he had cursed for days… it hadn’t been chance at all. Something inside him had been steering him here long before he understood what he was doing.

Trash.

No, not trash. Mara had loved him. Tavi had loved him. It didn’t stop the tears rolling down his cheek.

“Welcome home,” Cyprian said softly. Ryneth hadn’t heard him come in.

He slumped against the backrest and looked around. He hadn't heard any of the others who now sat around him, watching him as if he was something rare.

As if he was… precious.

“This is not home,” he wanted to snarl, but it came out breathy. His thoughts dragged. The smoke and the drug coiled in his blood. The room blurred at the edges, the faces of the Imperials turning into golden shadows.

“This is your Dariux family,” Milanov said, gesturing to the group sprawled around them like they owned the place. “I believe you met them at the Academy today.”

Ryneth stared back. His skin prickled, and his teeth felt weird.

They hadn’t just drugged him to calm him down. They’d drugged him to make this easier. To make his body answer before his mind could fight it.

Theo. Not Bekn. Not the enemy.

But his gaze snagged on the blond man standing motionless by the wall, chained there by his throat.

“They’ve all come to welcome you home.” Milanov smiled. He clicked his fingers, and sound and movement rushed back into the room.

Around them, people talked. Servants appeared. The fire crackled. But Ryneth’s thoughts were too loud.

Every memory felt cracked. His life on Düren. Mara had told him his biological parents had died. Now he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure any of it mattered. He wasn’t brought here by a work contract, but by the injections they’d forced into him.

“When did your gift first appear?” Zimeon asked.

“My gift?” Ryneth shook his head. He’d never called it that. It had been a curse most of his life. “I was seven. His name was Andor. He was a bully. Every day after school he’d wait for me. Call me names. Tell me I was a loser because I didn’t have a dad. He’d kick me because I was smaller. And I—I let him. Until one day, I’d had enough.”

“What happened?” Daven asked.

Ryneth looked at him. At those ember eyes. That sharp jaw. Light, he was too beautiful. The thought of kissing was overwhelming, and judging by the way his lips curled up, he knew it too.

He huffed and tried to shake the drug from his blood, but the memory dragged him under. “Andor grabbed me by the throat and pinned me against the wall until I was choking. I think he would have killed me, if I hadn’t⁠—”

The moment was carved into him. The sounds Andor had made. His cries. The light… There had been so much of it. It had come out of nowhere, had electrified the boy’s body, and Ryneth had lifted him and thrown him over the Ward.

He shivered. “Do you still buy babies?”

“We had an incident,” Zimeon said carefully. “A serious one. After that night, the program was shut down.”

Ryneth lowered his gaze to his hands. How could they look so normal when they could cause such devastation? “So that’s it? Everyone here has…a gift?”

“Yes, Ryneth, we do,” Milanov answered. “Some can shoot fire, others create ice. Some see visions, others make time stop.”

“So we’re all different?” Ryneth looked up from his hands and around the room. His teeth still ached. He pressed his tongue carefully against them and wished the feeling would stop.