Good, you’re here—” her father rushed over to crouch in front of her “—milaya, what’s wrong?”Maybe if she shared the burden, she wouldn’t break for a while longer. This was what family was for, right? “Caleb went to Namino to try to find Marlee and rescue her.”Her father stood and took several steps back, toward the center of the small room. “I know.”“You…what?”“I know he’s gone to Namino.”Alex slowly stood, her limbs heavy and her soul burdened. “Dad, what have you done?

We have a very short window in which to accomplish a great deal, one measured in minutes rather than hours.“We succeed, and we will have freed dozens of galaxies and species from tyranny. We succeed, and we will have saved our home, our friends and our loved ones from the looming threat of annihilation. We succeed, and everyone has a future. So let’s get it done.

The Anadens have a somewhat different perspective on death.”“On account of not having to deal with it, sure. Personally, I think their little immortality contrivance has destroyed the value of life for them.”“It brought you back.”“Thus I reserve the right to be hypocritical on this particular topic.

No matter what comes, we will persevere. It’s not over until we win.”Oh, how she wanted to believe him. How she wanted to believe that her father not only had all the answers, but the power to make everything okay. Once upon a time she had believed it; then he hadn’t come home. “Why are you so sure?”“Because I didn’t cross universes to return to life, simply to die again.

The progeny will be lost and adrift. Without the integrals reinforcing their focus and purpose, they will begin to question both.”“Sator, this is not a bad thing. Humans spend years struggling to figure out what they want to do with their lives, then often revisit the question at multiple points in the course of living it. It’s in our nature.”“Commandant, I’m sure I need not remind you that we are not Human.”“No. But perhaps when this is over, you will become a bit more so.

The Idoni Primor’s gaze fell on Eren immediately. Her head tilted in idle curiosity while a fingertip dipped into a crystal bowl beside her. “I know your face, anarch.” She brought her fingertip to her mouth and sucked it dry of gods only feared what hypnol. “You have been a most troublesome little asi of late. Have you come here to repent, to fall to your knees and beg to be allowed to return to the fold? Fair warning—you’ll be on those knees for a while.

I’ll gloss right over the implication in what you said that the Reor are sentient entities—for now. Dare I ask why they gave you a copy of their universal decryption key?”Alex and Caleb shared a look, and she shrugged. “We can only speculate, but it’s possible they want us to win.”Miriam dropped her elbows on the table. “Hmm. Okay. In that case, I welcome the minerals to our side of the fight.

Coordinates streamed into her mind while she yanked on her environment suit, foregoing every safety check she’d ever learned. ‘Alex, we will try to help him together, but it is far too dangerous—’She grabbed the module she used to access the circuitry of the ship, bypassed Valkyrie and fired up the Caeles Prism.‘Alex—’She opened a wormhole in the middle of the cabin, set its exit point at the coordinates Valkyrie had provided, and ran through it.

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. “Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?”Despite Caleb’s attempts at caution—at circumspection and even suspicion—the man’s words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.“I am.