That’s the first time I’ve let myself think it in those exact words. I file it away for later, because the sun is starting to set and we have a trap to spring.
Night falls fast on Timbur.
One minute the sky is a soft gold-purple, the two green moons just beginning to rise. The next, the whole jungle is dark, and the only light comes from the windows of the compound and the soft glow of personal crystals tucked into pockets.
Chief positions everyone. I watch him do it from my spot at the kitchen window. Scar slips out with his surveillance tech to work the perimeter, he’ll monitor everything and feed updates through the comms. Heavy and Cannibal take the two main approaches, one covering the front street, one the side path through the jungle. Texon stays near me because there is not a single scenario in this universe where Texon of Twenty-Four is not going to be within fifteen feet of me tonight.
Rook gets the back perimeter.
Roxy and Jana are stationed inside the main house with me. This was a compromise. Roxy wanted to be outside. Jana wanted to be wherever Heavy was.
Chief overruled both of them. “If anyone gets through,” he told them, “you’re the last line. Ines is the target. She does not leave that house.”
Roxy accepted this on the condition that she got a blasting rod. Jana accepted it on the condition that she could stand wherever she wanted inside the house, which is how she ended up at the kitchen island with a full knife roll laid out on the counter like she’s about to prep a banquet. I don’t ask why she brought her professional knives to a home invasion. I assume it’s because Jana does not believe in being without her knives.
Roxy stands at the other window, scanning the yard. She looks like she’s been waiting for this her whole life.
“You okay?” I ask her.
“I’m fantastic.”
“You sure?”
“Ines.” She turns to me. Her eyes are bright. “A male who helped murder the parents of the family I married into is about to walk into our front yard. I have been waiting to meet him in person for two rotations. I amfantastic.”
Okay then.
We wait.
An hour passes. Then another. The compound creaks and settles the way houses do at night. Someone’s cooler hums in the kitchen. The cats have gone quiet. My heart is making a noise loud enough that I’m sure every Xylan in the compound can hear it, which is embarrassing.
“They’ll come,” Texon says quietly. He’s at the window beside me, watching the yard.
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s arrogant and afraid at the same time. That’s the worst combination. It makes beings reckless.”
“You sound like you’ve thought about this a lot.”
“I have spent my entire adult life hating Kryzon of Twelve. I know exactly how he thinks.”
I look up at him. The planes of his face are lit by the soft blue glow of his personal crystal in his pocket. He looks carved.
“Texon.”
“Hmm?”
“If anything happens?—”
“Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“But if?—”
“Ines. Nothing. Is going to happen. To you.”
His voice is flat. Final.
Scar’s whistlecuts through the night.
