This was a far different situation.

She wasn’t a child—and the empaths were brilliant lights in the world. They hadn’t been permitted to exist openly during her childhood, and even if they had been, her father would’ve never taken her to see one. Too high a risk of exposure, he’d have said, too high a chance she’d become known as defective.

Yet in the time since the Empathic Collective came into being, Payal had heard of no leaks of personal psychological information. None. The empaths of the Collective took their vow of privacy dead seriously.

Canto had also offered to introduce her to an empath who would hold all her secrets, but if Payal did this, she’d choose her own E. Not because she believed Canto would point her toward anyone less than stellar, but because this had to be on her. She had to make the choice—as she’d made the choice as a child, to cage the screaming girl.

Canto had trusted her.

A sudden, panicked reminder of the act that had shattered her psychic distance, turned her manic.

No one ever just trusted anyone.

That wasn’t how the world worked.

People maneuvered and negotiated and formed alliances for specified endeavors. As she, Canto, Arran, Suriana, Ager, and Bjorn had done on the anchor issue. As 3K and 7J had done in that long-ago past. It had been about survival; they’d clung to each other because they’d had no one else.

But this, what had just happened …

Was it possible that despite everything, he was setting up a cunning double cross? Had he researched her brain, figured out that this tactic would confuse and put her off-balance? The Mercants were known for their ability to get their hands on information, and Canto was a key player in that network.

There was logic to her train of thought for a woman who’d grown up in a family where trust was considered a fatal weakness. It was easy to believe that Canto Mercant was playing a dangerous and finely balanced game.

Eat.

His care was a rough echo in her head. No one but Kari cared about Payal. Yet Canto had watched over her while she’d been at her most vulnerable; he’d taken no advantage. Not once.

She’d shown him her madness, and he hadn’t been disgusted as her father had been disgusted with her as a child. He hadn’t gotten an avaricious gleam in his eye as Lalit had done when he realized he could push and manipulate his younger sister by activating particular emotional triggers.

Canto had looked at her as he always did, with an amalgam of what she wanted to see as fascination and tenderness—mixed with a little aggravated frustration. The latter element made her memories seem more real, more quintessentially him. She could almost hear the gruff rumble of his voice.

He’d also asked her to look within, see if she needed to stay inside the prison she’d built for herself. He hadn’t told her she was wrong, that her brain wasn’t strong enough to make such decisions. He’d just asked her to look again at a problem she’d solved in childhood, to check if she could structure a more elegant solution.

Her head hurt, nothing fitting quite right.

After one last look at this tranquil paradise, she teleported to her apartment … and to chaos. A scream echoed through the telepathic channel she used with the other As she’d met, and it was an agonized plea for help.

Ager.

Chapter 25

Grandmother, I found her.

Her? Oh. I see. Is she doing well?

She’s Payal Rao.

Well, Canto. You do like to keep my life interesting.

—Conversation between Canto Mercant and Ena Mercant

PAYAL RESPONDED INSTINCTIVELY, her body collapsing like a doll’s onto her bed as she threw her full energy into the Substrate. The oldest A of them all was being battered by massive waves of glowing blue cracked with fissures of bleeding black—as if the fabric of the PsyNet was tearing itself apart.

Look for the answer, Payal! Canto’s piercingly clear voice. Suriana and I will help Ager!

Payal didn’t take offense at the order. She saw it as a logical division of labor, given her detail-oriented mind and ability to see the grid in the Substrate. She found the part of the grid that correlated to Ager’s zone.

It was contorted into a stomach-churning “ball” in one section—but there were no smooth edges. Only hard, jagged “bones” that split the fabric of the Substrate and sheared off sections that bled viscous black. When she looked at the mirror section on the PsyNet, she saw an assemblage of minds that blazed so hot they were burning out one by one. Bright fires extinguished after a short flash.

Scarabs who’d gathered in one location?

Another mind appeared in the distance. Martial, with strange—almost invisible—shimmers of black fluctuating through it. Empath? If so, a very unique one. More likely, it was an Arrow with unusual shields.

Then a mind of obsidian darkness: Kaleb Krychek.

But they were too late. The dazzling minds burned out of existence one by one, all within a matter of split seconds. Seeing that Krychek and the unfamiliar mind were already working on the resulting hole in the fabric of the Net, she dived back down and told Canto what she’d discovered as she began to straighten the grid.

The shards cut her psychic hands, but that couldn’t be helped. She worked on.

Canto vanished from her vicinity halfway through. Ager?

I’m well, young Rao. But Canto gave me too much of himself. He may have flamed out. He kicked Suriana out of the merge when she was teetering on the edge, but stayed too long himself.

Panic fluttered in Payal’s throat, but she made herself finish the grid repair—she would not let Canto down. That done, she checked that Ager was well enough to hold their zone before touching base with Arran and Bjorn.

The two had been dealing with a smaller riptide, had come through unscathed.

Opening her eyes on the physical plane, she scrabbled for her phone and found the direct line for Silver Mercant. She had that number because EmNet had needed her cooperation to spread out in this region.

The phone was answered by a mellifluous male voice. “Director Mercant’s office.”

“This is Payal Rao. I need to talk to the director at once. It’s an emergency.”

The assistant was well trained, because he made no attempt to divert Payal or block her access to Silver. “She is currently in a meeting, but I’ll break in. Please hold.”

Silver came on the line five seconds later. “Payal,” she said in her crisp, clear tone. “What’s the problem and what resources—”