As the ringing in her ears dimmed, the feel of the stone floor under her, the stink of spent explosive, the taste of blood, all these sensations returned to Mei. Blinking dust out of her eyes, she pushed herself up. She’d been lucky. The levels above her had taken the brunt of the explosion, leaving only the blowback to pummel Mei’s cover.

  In Common Tuquese, someone said, “That was reckless.” Familiar hands pulled her rifle away, patted her for injuries. “You dodged death.”

  “I won’t do it again.” Mei blinked at her rescuer, whose concern felt wrong. “Huan?”

  “The others fled.” Huan rose, one hand holding her battered but intact rifle, the other something flat and metallic. “They believe you died. They fear you lived.”

  Mei kept trying to place the metal plate thing. It wasn’t Huan’s. Or hers. “You didn’t?”

  “No.” Huan slipped the metal plate into his pocket then knelt. “So, was it worth it?”

  Finally, recognition snapped into place. The License Key. Huan had taken it.

  “Give it back.” Mei tried to grab him, but Huan stepped back out of reach.

  “Was it worth it?” he asked again. “Almost dying, nearly killing me, was it all worth it?”

  “Yes.” Mei got to her feet. “Dwayne lives.”

  Huan sneered. “There’s no way he-”

  “He did.” Mei spat out blood. “You know he did. You were in the jungle.”

  “That was a fluke! He-” Huan forced himself calm. “It doesn’t matter. This just proves that you should be on our side. Come with me, and I’ll convince Granite to give you-”

  “No.” Mei held out her hand. “Give me the License Key and come with me.”

  “No, no, no, little sister, we’re past that.” Huan’s eyes glinted gold. “You come with me, be a family with me, or its nothing.”

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  “Big brother,” Mei’s hand still reached, “Granite is not on your side. I am.”

  “You’re still not listening.” Huan laughed. “Well, it’s time, I think. It’s time to break,” he took Mei’s rifle by the tip of its muzzle, “this lie we call family.”

  Mei’s mouth went dry. “What are you…”

  “I risked life and limb to get this for you.” Huan raised the rifle.

  “No, don’t.”

  “All so you’d have a piece of our parents.” The rifle rose higher.

  “Please, don’t.”

  “I’m sorry, little sister, but I have to.”

  When the rifle came down and hit the floor, wood cracked, metal bent, trigger mechanisms shattered, and memories of warm evenings in a workshop, of long walks in the woods, of joining her brother on adventures, crumpled.

  “There.” Huan kicked the remains away. “That’ll show you-”

  The punch to the throat should have silenced him, but he still croaked out a “What?” before a hand grabbed his head and slammed it into a knee. Blood pouring down his nose, Huan stumbled back, tried to assume a stance, but four quick blows to the chest and arms opened him up to a full on kick that knocked him into the corridor.

  Snarling, Huan rolled to his feet and grabbed for his sword, but her fury put one hand on the hilt to keep it in place and put the other into his gut. Breathless, Huan leapt over a railing and managed to get down one whole level before her fury intercepted him with a reeling headbutt. Hoping to escape, Huan drew the red-handled knife, but her fury caught his wrist and twisted until the weapon fell into its open palm. However, the move gave Huan time to shove her fury back and go for the black-handled knives still in his belt. He gripped the black, her fury gripped the red, and-

  Above them, a sun hung over a land it did not light but shadowed, and, as her fury and her pain and her despair wrestled Huan for control, plants drifted along the ground, a tentacled thing watched from under a wide-brimmed hat, and a child shouted, “Mei, let go!”

  She did, then they were back on solid stone. Huan had the red-handled knife, but he was too shocked to keep her from tripping him, snatching a black-handled one out of his belt as he fell, and driving its point towards Huan’s, towards her brother’s, towards Mei’s brother’s-

  She stopped the tip of the blade a hairsbreadth from Huan’s throat. He’d stolen from her, shattered her rifle, called their family a lie, but she did not want him dead.

  Underneath her, Huan had pulled back his head, exposing his neck. The beast was submitting, signaling that she’d won, but the sweat, the wide eyes, the hard breathing, that was her brother and he was terrified.

  She did not want him dead so she dropped the knife and rose, watched him scramble back, throw, disappear. For once, she felt no urge to follow, to try to convince him to come back. She tried to hold on to the hope that had gotten her this far, but the feeling of his life in her hands made her vomit it up.

  When she was done, she returned to what was left of her family and wept.