Return Once More (36 page)

“What are you two doing?” I demanded, my eyes searching the corridor. “Is Jonah here?”

Shouts erupted from inside the chamber, a voice that sounded like Oz's father's rising above the din in a scream. “Don't let them leave!”

Jonah banged out the doors, metal ringing against metal as they flew open. He had Analeigh dangling under an arm, her face white and streaked with tears, hair a tangled mess as she struggled in his tight grip.

They both gasped my name at the same time, Analeigh in a wet, broken whisper and Jonah in incredulous anger.

“Let her go, Jonah.” I reached out and locked my hands around Analeigh's wrists, tugging so hard my cuff dislodged from its spot at my elbow, over my wrist, and jangled right onto hers. She pulled toward me, trying to get loose, but Jonah held on tight.

“You don't get it, Kaia. If you'd just listened to me, this shit show wouldn't have gone down.” He glanced behind him at the Enforcers and Elders hurrying from the rear of the room, weapons held up, and then Jonah started quickly away. Jean and Teach followed, and I saw Sparrow at the end of the hall, his features pinched and impatient.

“You need to come with us,” my brother shouted over his shoulder as he hauled Analeigh down the hall.

The whole thing happened so fast—Analeigh's struggle, my brother's appearance, the pirates apparently kidnapping my best friend. Two Enforcers pinned Sarah between them in the room even though she didn't struggle. Her accusing gaze fastened on Oz and me.

Two horrible choices trapped me, too—go with my brother and Analeigh, become an outlaw, break my parents' hearts all over again, or stay here with Sarah and Oz to face the Elders inside that room. If Zeke knew what I suspected about the Projector and the real reason for its development, he would probably order my exposure, too.

“Kaia!” Jonah shouted once more, his eyes filled with equal amounts of fear and impatience.

I started toward him, but couldn't move. It took a moment to realize that Oz's strong arms had snaked around my waist, holding me in a vise so snug there was no way loose, no matter how hard I squirmed.

“Research Zeke's last name. It's the answer.”
Analeigh's defeated voice filtered into my brain.

Oz's arms loosened for a second, as though he'd been shocked by her silent words, which had surely reached him, too, but not for long enough to allow my escape.

“Let me go,” I screamed, beating uselessly at his hands and arms, desperate to get to my brother and my friend, to the only safety left in the System.

Oz didn't respond except to grunt under the assault from my fingernails and the few kicks my heels managed to land on his shins.

He'd been working with the rogue Elders this entire time. It had been a stupid mistake to trust him, one I was about to pay for with my life.

With my family's lives. With Analeigh's future.

The Enforcers and Elders plus a few scared apprentices spilled around us. Two Enforcers stopped, yanking Oz and me apart and holding me hostage. More raced down the hall toward Jonah and his friends. The desperation in my brother's face crashed into guilt and grief.

“
I'm sorry, Special K. I've got to go.” My brother's voice broke, telling me that however angry he was with me for not listening, leaving me behind had not been Jonah's wish. Then my brother and my best friend and the pirates disappeared around the corner, along with my only chance at escape.

*

They left me alone in a small holding pod, perhaps five feet by five feet of thick, clear glass, with nothing inside but a thin bench that ringed the perimeter. Oz guarded me from outside the cell, but even if I'd wanted to talk to him, to ask why he'd held me down instead of letting me escape, the cameras that watched us made it impossible to even think about strategizing.

At least I hadn't been too distracted in the decontamination chamber to destroy the final recording of Caesarion's death, and stow Jonah's chip under my tongue. They would know I'd been out of the Academy without a pass but not that I'd been in Egypt or the extent of my infractions.

Booth approached the outside of the cell, waving Oz away and pressing a button on the wall that allowed his voice to be heard inside the soundproof glass. “The recordings are paused for forty-five seconds. Listen closely. Kaia, how much do you know about the Return Project?”

“Nothing.” It was the truth. I knew something but had never heard the term.

Booth's eyes narrowed. “Then you had nothing to do with Analeigh's research?”

“Why should I trust you?”

“You don't have a choice.” His dark eyes flicked the direction Oz had moved. “You have to lie in the sanction hearing.
Lie.
You know nothing about what Analeigh was doing or the Projector or any possible design to return to Earth Before.”

Booth stared through the glass, eyes locked on mine, while his words tumbled through my brain like a million marbles tossed haphazardly onto the floor.
Any possible design to return to Earth Before.

“Good luck.” Booth turned and left.

The lights on the cameras turned red again, assuring me that I was again being watched. Oz returned, and we stared at each other through the glass. The unreadable expression in his gray eyes dampened my skin with a cold sweat.

Two Enforcers appeared outside my cell and unlocked the door. Oz motioned for me to go first, and when he fell in behind me, he whispered, “Follow my lead.”

At this point, it seemed best not to trust anyone but myself.

It seemed like the entire Academy was jammed into the largest of the judgment chambers. The room felt overly hot, even though no room in the Academy was ever too warm. Sarah's light blue eyes trained on me, the cool accusation in them quickening the dread in my heart. What had her sentence been for creating unauthorized tech?

Oz climbed the bleachers until he sat beside her, the expression on his face as indiscernible as ever. Whatever the Elders thought they knew about what happened today, they were blaming me alone. Or perhaps, because of Oz's father, they were choosing to deal with him in private.

I looked away. The Enforcers took me to the front of the room, where I stood facing a bench of the Academy's Elders. Zeke Midgley, David Truman, Maude and Minnie Gatling, Booth, Silas Bohr, Rachel Turing, and even the sickly and rarely visible Darya Gagarin had put in an appearance. None of their faces were friendly. Even Darya looked pissed, probably at having been dragged out of bed to deal with the likes of me. Could they all be a part of the secret Return Project, whatever that meant? Booth might be the only one who seemed even remotely trustworthy, though both Silas and Darya never worked with apprentices so they were mysteries to me.

Zeke pounded a gavel, and the murmurs scuttling around the room quieted. He looked around, hesitance on his features, leading me to believe he questioned the intelligence of holding this session publicly. They had gone out of their way to ensure no one knew about the Projector, but now they thought Analeigh knew and that I did, too. What was to stop me from accusing them in open court?

The answer came quickly enough.

“I don't need to remind you, Miss Vespasian, that the future of your remaining family rests on your shoulders.” Zeke peered at me over the frames of his glasses, his hard, glittering gaze making his threat completely clear. “Your brother's continued antics provide more than enough reason to exile all of you to Cryon, and if you are found to have committed additional transgressions, the Vespasians will be exposed to the vastness of space. Is that clear?”

Cryon might be worse. There were terrible rumors about how people went crazy, started to eat each other and stuff. A shudder racked my body.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat and nodded. There wasn't anything to accuse them of, not at the moment. Without proof and facts, talking nonsense about a Projector and a Return Project and rogue Elders would do nothing but make me sound like a desperate nutcase and get my parents killed in the process.

“Very well. As you may have surmised, your friend and roommate Analeigh Frank was caught out of bed and in the Archives, researching unauthorized historical events and compiling them in a file. What do you know about this?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“The file was started by you several days ago.”

“I believe we talked about the reason for my research at the last, private hearing.” Heat flooded my cheeks, part anger and part embarrassment at having to bring up my supposed crush on Oz, the boy who betrayed me.

“Your other roommate, Sarah Beckwith, created technology that allowed your brother to travel untracked through the past, and we know she encrypted the personal files in both your and Analeigh's brain stem bio tattoos. You're going to say you knew nothing of this, either?”

“I know about the private files but not about her helping my brother.” I cut my eyes toward Sarah, but she avoided my gaze. “I enjoyed having a place for my private thoughts.”

“That is normal for girls her age, Zeke. As we decided with Miss Beckwith—her using her impressive skills to give her friends what amounts to a diary is hardly worthy of this council's time,” Darya interrupted in a scratchy voice.

“Yes, but that does not explain where she was last night.” Zeke's eyes snapped back to mine after glaring at his colleague.

My silence lasted until Truman lost his patience, slamming his hand down and startling me out of my skin. “Answer the question, Miss Vespasian! You were missing last night while your friend added to your unauthorized research files. Tell us how and why this instant, or the Enforcers at the back of the room will be dispatched to your parents' house without further consideration.”

“I …” I swallowed again, fisting my sweaty hands. Booth had said to lie, but the best one danced outside my reach. Nerves buzzed in my ears and tears burned in my throat. Analeigh was gone, Sarah had been sanctioned.

“I took her to the past so we could be alone.”

Oz's voice forced the deep breath I'd taken out in a
whoosh.
The room exploded with shocked exclamations and excited whispers. Zeke pounded his gavel, shouting over the din, as I looked up to find Oz standing, his own hands clenched.

Sarah's eyes filled with tears of betrayal, and sliced my battered heart in two. After all of the promises I'd made her that nothing was going on, here was her boyfriend, admitting the opposite in front of all of our classmates.

It wasn't true, but there was no way I could explain that to her now.

My voice had abandoned me. Oz climbed down the bleachers and arrived at my side the same time Zeke finally gave up on settling down the room and ordered everyone out. Truman's furious gaze flicked from his son to me and back again. Even though I refused to meet it, the pain from the white-hot accusation burned my skin.

The room fell silent after everyone exited, reluctant expressions on most faces. I tried to catch Sarah's eye, to convince her with my gaze alone that she could trust me, but she refused to look up as she filed past us and out of the room.

We were alone with the Elders. As before, I wanted to protest, to punch Oz and run, to deny it all—but doing that would put my family at risk. If Oz had been acting with the permission of the rogue Elders and it meant I could stay at the Academy and try to figure out what was going on, try to find a way to get Analeigh back, then let them think it.

“Mr. Truman, where did you procure a cuff? Neither of you are full Historians so they haven't been issued to you.” Zeke asked the question carefully, eyes warning Oz to play along.

That told me all I needed to know about whether all of the Elders were involved in this harebrained, potentially deadly scheme to try to restore Earth Before.

“It's mine,” I said. “I found it in Jonah's room at home.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oz shift slightly. His cloak fell farther down around his wrists, hiding the cuff he probably still wore. If the Elders glimpsed his surprise in the slight jerk of his shoulders, they said nothing.

“Where is the cuff now?” Booth asked.

“Jonah took it back. He was just here. Did you see him?” I couldn't help the sass. Knowing that at least some of the Elders were in as tight a spot as me right now gave me a slight edge of power.

Truman glowered. “You would be wise to watch your smartass mouth, Miss Vespasian.”

Minnie Gatling waved in his direction, a frown on her wrinkled mouth. “Language, David. Now, the two of you have been sneaking off to engage in an affair of sorts, since Mr. Truman is betrothed to his True Companion, Sarah Beckwith. Since you discovered a cuff in your brother's room, the past seemed like the safest place to meet without being discovered. This is correct?”

I ground my teeth together and nodded.

“And you know nothing about Analeigh Frank's research trajectory or how your brother, the rebel Jonah Vespasian, knew to arrive in time to rescue her from her sentence today?” Maude prodded.

I definitely didn't know the answer to that, though I wished more than anything that I did. How had Jonah known Analeigh was in trouble? Why had he come to save her but left me behind? “No, ma'am.”

“And Oz?” Darya's feeble voice crackled like old paper.

“I know nothing of Analeigh's research, Elder Gagarin. Or of any pirate activity.” He said the last part with such disdain there could be no doubt how he felt about my brother.

“You should know that Miss Beckwith has been sanctioned heavily and her certification will be delayed one full year.” Maude raised her eyebrows at me, but no one waited for me to answer.

I didn't have anything to say. I already hurt so badly for Sarah I couldn't stand it.

“You have been warned before, Miss Vespasian,” Zeke cut in. “Your multiple sanctions of cleaning duty seem to not have worked as a deterrent.” He sighed and sat back in his chair. “Of course, finding a cuff and not turning it over, then using it to travel without an overseer … that is more serious than carrying on a relationship with someone's True or digging through unauthorized archives.”