Page 43 of New World

And perhaps Dorane.

The time on the Gliese had shown her what the sunlight felt like on her face. Where she didn’t have to pretend. Losing them had been like losing a piece of herself. She could still feel their presence, but without their support, she was once again being pulled into the darkness. She didn’t know if she could go back to that now that she knew how it felt to have a real life.

She had to find them. They were alive.

And if anyone knew where they were, it would be Dorane.

Her heart beat a slow, deliberate rhythm. She already knew what her choice would be.

It was time she confronted Dorane. If he was truly the man Yi, Tiv, and the merchants whispered about, then he would help her.

If not, I’ll leave his sorry ass for the assassins, she thought with a peevish shrug.

Descending into the depths of the spaceport, Mei pulled open the ventilation hatch, which gave way with a soft hiss, revealing the dimly lit maintenance shafts that ran like hidden veins through Cryon II. She slipped inside, the metal cool against her fingertips as she navigated the cramped space.

She had mapped out these tunnels days ago—routes meant for engineers, smugglers, and ghosts like herself. The passage narrowed, forcing her to slide onto her stomach as she pulled herself through an opening barely large enough to accommodate her body.

A drop-off loomed ahead.

Mei adjusted her balance, bracing her feet against the sides of the shaft before twisting her body into a controlled descent. The shaft opened into a vertical tunnel, where a series of worn metal rungs were embedded along the walls.

She climbed down fast and silent, the hum of the station’s inner workings vibrating through her bones.

Level 12 was below.

When she reached the last stretch, she released her hold and dropped soundlessly onto the top of a lift, rolling into a crouch as she landed. She braced her hand against the cold metal as the lift descended.

When it slid to a stop, she rose and stepped to the edge. She scanned the shadowed corridors below, listening for movement before slipping into a low hatch door that opened into the back corridors.

She was here.

Now came the part she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

The back entrance of Deek’s was a heavy metal door that was slightly ajar. Through the gap, a dim glow streamed out into the alley, warm against the cold steel walls.

Mei paused in the shadows, invisible to the crowd within, her eyes locked onto the man she had come for.

Dorane LeGaugh had just entered.

He paused, scanning the room, but he couldn’t see her from where she was standing. Mei recognized the tension in his shoulders, the subtle flicker of disappointment when his gaze skimmed over the empty booth where he had last sat.

He thought she hadn’t come.

Seeing his dejection, she felt a sudden, constricting ache in her chest, a physical manifestation of empathy. She should leave, escape the suffocating fear closing in, but a strange paralysis held her in place.

She couldn’t. There was something about him that called to her, much like a moth to a flame. She had seen so many men who thought they were untouchable: her father, his guards, the people who whispered in corridors. They all thought themselves above the inevitable. Even the Turbinta assassin, Zoak, felt he was beyond reach, but none of them were, not really.

Dorane wasn’t like them.

He was sharp edges wrapped in careless ease, a man who played the game not just to survive, but to win.

He should have been like the others. But he wasn’t.

And that was what scared her.

Mei had known fear before. The cold, calculating kind that came from battle, from missions, from facing the inevitable.

But this?

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