Page 42 of New World

And for the first time, he saw her.

She was young, but not fragile. Sharp, but not cold. Her face was a study in contrasts—delicate features carved from tempered steel, a softness in her mouth that warred with the cool intensity in her dark eyes.

Ancient eyes. An assassin’s eyes.

Dorane realized then—he had never been in the kind of danger he was in now.

Not from death.

From something far worse.

From losing heart.

Almost as if she could read his mind, her lips twitched with amusement. With a slow, subtle bow of her head, a gesture of acknowledgment, she confirmed his suspicions.

“My name is Mei. I think some of your people believe I’m an Ancient Knight of the Gallant.”

A Half Hour Earlier:

* * *

The creature was gone.

Mei hissed under her breath, tightening her grip on the tracking device she had placed in Dorane’s pocket almost a week before. Her steps were swift and soundless across the latticework of metal beams. She had been watching it—him—for days now, observing the way the creature followed Dorane from the upper levels, a predator trailing its prey.

She should have anticipated this.

The moment Dorane had left his headquarters, the creature had vanished into the rooftops, slipping into the shadows as if the darkness itself had swallowed him.

It had taken Yi a couple of days to find out who the creature was after she described him. Since then, Yi had been a basket case of nerves. He had barely been able to click out the creature’s name.

Zoak.

The Turbinta assassin’s name rolled through her mind as she paused to scan the upper-level beams. Tiv had explained that Turbinta assassins were notoriously hard to track, but this one? He was a ghost in a city of ghosts.

Mei clenched her jaw, scanning the crisscrossing scaffolding above. She was fast—faster than most—but even she had limits. Losing him in the web of Cryon II’s upper beams was frustrating, and frustration led to mistakes.

A flick of her wrist, and the tracker screen pulsed. Dorane’s signal was still moving. Heading downward.

Her heart kicked harder when she recognized the path. She had a suspicion she knew where he was going—and why. Mei’s mouth pressed into a thin line. It would be a serendipitous move on his part to see if he could lure her back to the place where they first met.

She stood frozen for a moment, staring down at the display as uncertainty twisted through her stomach.

She had a choice to make.

She could stay on the hunt for Zoak, attempt to retrace the assassin’s steps through the maze of steel and neon, or she could finally do what she should have done days ago.

Confront Dorane LeGaugh.

Mei exhaled through her nose, her fingers tightening around the device. It was reasonable to think that Zoak wouldn’t be far from Dorane. She could kill an assassin and save an idiot with a death wish with one stone, literally, if Zoak decided to make his move. The fact that the Turbinta hadn’t made his move yet still puzzled her.

Over the last few days, Mei had learned enough about Dorane to make a few educated guesses. Tiv and Yi had spoken of him with a quiet reverence that made Mei wonder if the guy was some supernatural being. Dorane had crawled from the gutters of the galaxy to claim a kingdom built from smoke, shadows, and sheer audacity.

The merchants spoke of him with the same awe. Unfortunately, the man also appeared to have a healthy dose of enemies waiting in the shadows to kill him. Mei had watched him fight, leaving those she felt confident he would have no issues defeating to him. There had been three she had intervened with, not counting Zoak. She would have taken the Turbinta if she could get close enough. At the moment, they were at a stand-off, aware of each other’s presence, but still analyzing.

Zoak’s darkness was familiar, and yet it was all the more jarring for that, because somehow her new life had been lightened by good people.

Josh, Ash, Julia, Sergi, Tiv, and Yi.

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