Page 21 of Only Hard Problems

Baby steps, Zane. Baby steps.

Sweat streamed down my face, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to slowly sit upright. Gray stars blinked in warning in my eyes, but I kept breathing, and the stars slowly faded away.

Fuck. That hadhurt.

I glanced down. Silas’s cannon had scorched an impressive hole in my tailcoat and shirt and severely blistered my skin underneath. But why hadn’t the energy blasted right through my body? I patted my chest, and my fingers brushed up against something that was nestled over my heart: the jewelry box I’d been carrying around all evening.

I pulled the box out of my charred coat. The lunarium shimmered with heat, and tiny flecks of blue, red, green, and other colors blazed in the stone, making it resemble a fire opal. The box had absorbed and deflected just enough of the cannon’s energy to keep it from killing me, the same way the lunarium blade of my stormsword would soak up and swat away blaster bolts in a battle.

I would have laughed at the bloody irony if it wouldn’t have hurt so much.

The jewelry box might have saved my life, but sharp needles of pain stabbed through my chest with every breath, indicating that I had at least a couple of cracked ribs to go along with my burned, blistered skin.

I tucked the box back into my ruined coat, then fumbled for my belt. My shaking fingers slipped off the slick black leather a few times, but I finally managed to pluck a small silver injector out of a slot. I rammed the injector into my right thigh, and a skinbond flooded my body, the healing chemicals zipping through my veins in a cool, soothing wave.

I drew in a breath, and air filled my lungs a little more easily than before. The skinbond also eased the hot, pulsing ache in my skull, although that strange little vibration kept tweaking my mind, like someone was plucking a bowstring in the bottom of my brain again and again. No doubt I had a concussion to go along with my scorched skin and cracked ribs. Wonderful.

Zane? Zane!

Asterin’s voice ripped through my mind. I blinked in surprise. Was she trying to reach me telepathically? Could she even do that? According to Beatrice’s research, Asterin had some sort of power, although my grandmother hadn’t been able to pin down exactly what kind of psion Asterin was or what abilities she might have. Yet another mystery surrounding the Erzton lady.

I listened, but Asterin’s voice didn’t sound again, either in my mind or out loud. The industrial part of the castle had soundproof walls, and the only noise was the steady hiss of the air-conditioning system. Perhaps the concussion had made me hallucinate her voice.

Either way, I needed to find her, so I plucked a second skinbond injector off my belt and rammed it into my thigh. Another wave of healing chemicals flooded my body, easing more of my injuries. My mind cleared, and I was able to wall off the rest of the pain and pack it all down into a little permaglass box, where it would stay until I released it—or died, whichever came first.

I braced one hand on the wall, then slowly staggered up and onto my feet. Asterin’s blaster was lying on the floor, so I scooped it up and hooked it to my belt. The Techwavers had also left behind my stormsword. I reached out with my telekinesis and waggled my fingers, and the sword flew up off the tile and zipped over into my hand.

As soon as my fingers closed around the silver hilt, renewed energy flowed through my body, and the blade glowed a pale blue, as though the innate power stored deep inside the lunarium was refueling and refreshing my own psionic abilities.

I twirled my sword around in my hand, straightened up, and hurried down the corridor. I had to reach Asterin before Silas decided he didn’t need a hostage after all.

Ihadn’tbeenincapacitatedfor more than a few minutes, but that was long enough to give the Techwavers a big head start. I moved from one corridor to the next, trying to figure out where Silas had taken Asterin, but the soundproofed walls cloaked their passage, even the loud, clanking footsteps of the Black Scarabs.

No one else seemed to realize that the castle had been breached, because no alarms blared, and I didn’t pass a single guard, which meant they were all outside on the lawn with the Regals.

I was on my own.

In some ways, I had always been on my own. Sure, I had my father and my grandmother and my numerous cousins, along with the other members of House Zimmer, but the weight of being a Regal, especially an heir, had always fallen on me since I was an only child—

I shook my head. Nope, not an only child. Not anymore. Now I had a sister.

Perhaps I was more concussed than I’d thought because I couldn’t stop thinking about Vesper. What would my little sister have done if she were here? Probably broken into one of the R&D labs, grabbed a bunch of disparate parts and pieces, and engineered them into the perfect weapon to defeat Silas and his Black Scarabs.

A grim smile tugged at my lips. Right now, I would have happily used one of Vesper’s unorthodox creations if it meant killing the Techwavers and saving Asterin.

I reached a junction where the corridor split left and right. Both were empty and quiet, and I couldn’t tell which direction Silas had gone. But I only had two choices, so I headed toward the left. That corridor led deeper into the industrial side of the castle where more of Jorge’s labs were located and thus the most likely place for the Techwaver to steal something.

I took three steps in that direction before I abruptly stopped.

No.

The word popped into my mind, firm and insistent. What was that? Had Asterin . . . just whispered a thought to me? But it didn’t feel like a telepathic thought from someone else, more like a nudge from my own power. Besides, Asterin most likely thought I was dead, just like Silas did, so she would have no reason to try to telepathically send a message to me.

I shook my head again and took another step toward the left.

No.

The word bloomed in my mind again, and a sense of frustrating wrongness swept over me, as though I was trying to shove my foot into a boot that was two sizes too small. I didn’t know what was happening, what my psionic abilities were trying to tell me, but I spun around in the opposite direction and stepped toward the other corridor.

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