Lalit would see her newfound power as an insult to him.

Rising, she ate a nutrient bar, then stripped the bloody sheet off her bed and put it in the laundry basket she’d teleport to the cleaning team later. That done, she made sure her makeup was undisturbed. Given all that had occurred, she needed an injection of the meds as soon as possible, so this meeting wasn’t negotiable.

Already, her head throbbed.

For once, her father didn’t make a production of giving her the medication. He was too busy on an audio-only call, and though she saw his need to interrogate her, he allowed her to come and go in a matter of three minutes. She had no trouble swapping out the vial for another one.

Her pain was brutal by the time she got into her apartment and injected herself, but she was able to save ten percent of the vial to give to Canto. Such a small amount wouldn’t make much of a difference to her, and she could blame continuing anchor duties—and duties to the Ruling Coalition—on any necessary increase in her dosage.

She teleported the vial and its precious cargo onto Canto’s desk. Not all teleport-capable telekinetics could do this kind of a fetch or send, but Payal had understood the psychic mechanics of it from childhood. And given the small mass of the vial, it took little of her depleted energy resources.

I have it, baby. The pure clarity of Canto’s voice in her mind, the bond between them awash in primal protectiveness.

Payal hugged that sensation around herself; she could protect herself, had done so all her life, but to know that he thought she was worth protecting? It meant everything. The sensation triggered another thought, and as she returned to her work, she found herself gnawing on a question that had first emerged in her mind during their meeting with Sophia Russo.

The NetMind had done so much to protect the Es. Why hadn’t it protected the anchors? They were as critical to the survival of the Net. Just as without Es there would eventually be no sane Psy, without As there was no PsyNet. The psychic fabric would ripple and fold and collapse.

Which left only one answer: the NetMind had done something.

From all she’d learned since her induction into the Ruling Coalition—thanks to her newfound access to a number of top secret databases—the neosentience had made too many long-game moves to have dropped this one ball so badly. But whatever it had done, they couldn’t see it. So Payal would look and keep looking until she found the answer.

The first thing she did was log into Canto’s private database on Designation A and start reading. He’d collated a lot of information. It scrolled in her mind, piece after piece after piece. Until by the time she lay down to sleep, her brain was on autopilot, moving the pieces from one place to the other, checking details, finding connections.

Connections.

It was the first word she thought of when she woke. “But there are no overlap zones,” she muttered as she readied herself for the day.

The problem occupied her mind as she chose a skirt in black that hugged her hips and came to the knee, and paired it with a sleeveless silk shell with a high neck, in vivid red. Black heels and a wide black belt finished off the outfit.

She kept her makeup nude today, but for the pop of red on her lips. Her hair, she pulled back into a neat bun. Canto? Are you awake?

Yes. I’ve been trying to figure out a solution to the connective tissue problem.

Connective tissue.

Payal halted in the act of doing her makeup, the answer almost within reach, but it slipped away before she could capture it. Frustrated, she nonetheless let it go for the time being. Nikita’s sent out a notice about another Coalition meeting. I’d better log in. Come with me.

KALEB knew the meeting was necessary, given the devastation throughout the Net. There was just too much damage, too many broken pieces, too many tears. He’d still rather be out there trying to fix the damage than in this comm meeting.

“We stand on a cracked eggshell,” Payal said in her blunt and precise way.

“No,” he responded. “There is no way to repair a cracked egg. We will repair this.” Because Sahara had asked him to save the world, and he’d made her a promise. It was a promise the twisted darkness inside him would go to the ends of the earth to keep—the only thing he wouldn’t sacrifice was Sahara.

That was why he’d finally made the call that the Net had to be cut into pieces. There’d been no other way to maintain its damaged psychic fabric. That the plan had proved flawed wasn’t a failure—but that they had no backup was; the occlusion had bought them time, nothing more.

Payal gave him a long glance, then inclined her head a little. “Perhaps I should call us a cracked vessel. In Japan, there is an art called kintsugi—the masters of the art use gold and other fine metals to mend such cracks, so that the resulting artefact is more beautiful because of its scars, not regardless of them.” Starless eyes held his. “We just need to find our gold.”

But there were no answers that day, and Kaleb logged off as frustrated as when he’d logged on.

PAYAL glanced at her organizer after leaving the meeting. A single priority message sat at the top of the queue: Your father requires your presence.

A hot ball of fire in her stomach, dark and dangerous.

Canto’s voice hit her mind the next instant. I got your sample to Ashaya and Amara Aleine.

She knew those names. Everybody with any interest in science knew those names. The twin scientists were said to be geniuses alone—and beyond that when together. How? Payal had a lot of contacts, but she’d never managed to get close to the Aleines.

Silver to Valentin; Valentin to Lucas Hunter, alpha of DarkRiver; Lucas to Ashaya, as she’s a member of his pack now. A touch along their bond. Mercants are all about connections.

Again that word: connections.

Her brain scrabbled for what it was that she couldn’t see, fell short.

She forced her mind back to the point at hand. But why would they take it on? Payal was nobody to them.

Scientific interest—and because I passed on the information that this was for an anchor. The Aleines were high up enough in the Council superstructure that they’re aware of the dearth of anchors. Amara, from all I know of her, likely wasn’t swayed by that, since the twins are no longer in the PsyNet, but Ashaya has a child and must’ve thought of the lives in the Net.

Payal didn’t know much about the Aleines in terms of their personalities, but she’d once heard her father say that Lalit was the Rao family’s Amara Aleine. It had been a while ago, and she hadn’t really understood what he was talking about—only that he’d been displeased with Lalit at the time.