Chapter 18: LEVERAGE

Sio got to his feet despite the protest in his legs and came closer. The ache behind his eyes from training was still there, but the Central Nexus seal on Arch’s communicator pushed it somewhere distant. The transmission contained a recorded file, a set of coordinates farther along the southern coast and one instruction addressed directly to him.

Arch checked the attachment before touching the recording. His fingers moved quickly through the connection information, shutting everything down except the file itself while Sio stood close enough to read over his shoulder. The delay was only a few seconds, but Sio’s patience had already disappeared.

"Can they trace us through it?" he asked, shifting his weight forward as though he might open the recording himself if Arch took much longer.

"Not accurately. They already know my door reached southern Thalassia, so opening a recorded file gives them very little they don’t have." Arch finished isolating the communicator and looked toward Sio once. "Stay here."

He opened it.

Mira appeared beneath cold white examination lights, and whatever remained of Sio’s exhaustion vanished from his face.

Only a few hours earlier she had been standing in their kitchen with flour on one cheek, telling him not to wander through Thalassia simply because he finally had an entire new continent within reach. Now part of her hair had come loose from the tie she wore that morning, the green outer layer remained around her shoulders, and the pouch normally hanging near her waist was gone. Her hands were outside the frame, but Sio knew almost immediately that they were restrained. He could see it in the careful way she held her arms and how every small movement stopped before reaching her shoulders.

"Mum..." The word left him quietly before he remembered she could not hear it.

He searched her face for injuries. There was no blood, no visible bruising, nothing obvious enough to tell him what happened between their morning call and this room. Somehow that failed to make the sight easier. Mira looked angry, frightened and determined not to let either emotion give whoever held her more than necessary.

A man entered the recording and stopped beside her chair.

Arch’s expression tightened.

Sio caught the reaction immediately. It was not the recognition he expected from seeing someone familiar. Arch looked more like a name had been pulled halfway out of an old memory and refused to come any farther.

The man placed one hand along the back of Mira’s chair. His clothing carried nothing Sio could immediately identify as rank, and his voice had none of the heavy authority people often used when they wanted obedience to sound inevitable.

"I’m Vise. Tomorrow morning, you go to the coordinates attached to this recording. A transport will be waiting. You board it alone and cooperate. When you arrive, your mother goes home."

Mira leaned toward the recording as far as the restraints allowed. "Sio, listen to Arch before you do anything. Don’t come running because they put me in a chair and expect you to panic. I’m all right right now, so use that. Think before you move, please."

The last word carried more strain than the rest. Sio knew that tone. Mira used it whenever fear had reached the point where anger could no longer completely hide it.

Vise placed his hand on her shoulder.

Mira’s whole body stiffened.

The touch was unnecessary. She had nowhere to go, her hands were already restrained, and Vise had not needed to move her to continue speaking. He left his hand there anyway.

"Don’t touch me." Mira tried to shift away, but the chair allowed only a few inches.

Vise looked down at where his fingers rested rather than at her face. Nothing changed in his expression, and he did not tighten his grip enough to pretend the gesture served some practical purpose. He simply left his hand there another moment because she had told him to remove it.

Sio’s breathing became shallow beside Arch.

Vise finally withdrew his hand. "Sit still."

Mira stared at him with open disgust.

He had already turned back toward the recording. "Arch stays in Thalassia. Don’t send one of your keys with Sio either. I remember how your doors work. He’ll be searched before the transport moves."

Arch became very still.

Sio looked toward him, but Vise continued before either man could process why someone Arch could barely recognize apparently remembered his ability in detail.

"Silas used to think helping you hide those little tricks made the two of you clever."

Mira turned toward him so sharply that the restraint around her wrists caught. Pain flashed across her face before anger buried it. "You don’t get to use my husband’s name."

Vise looked down at her.

Something changed then.

It lasted barely a second, but the indifference disappeared. Whatever sat beneath it was colder and much older than this room.

Mira held his gaze.

Vise gave her nothing back. He let the silence sit there until it became clear he had chosen not to answer, then looked into the recording again.

"Come alone, Sio. I won’t repeat the offer."

The image disappeared.

For several seconds Sio remained beside Arch staring at the dark screen, as though his mother might return if he gave the recording enough time. His hands had started trembling. He clasped them together hard enough to stop the movement, but that only pushed the tension farther up his arms until both shoulders locked.

Arch did not tell him to calm down. He had seen enough frightened people to know how useless the instruction became once someone was already fighting their own body. He stayed close without touching him and waited while Sio drew one breath, lost the next halfway in, then tried again.

Sio suddenly reached for the communicator.

"Give me the coordinates."

Arch did not resist when he took it, though his attention sharpened. Sio opened the attachment immediately, staring at the marked point along the southern coast as though he could force the distance shorter by understanding it quickly enough.

"How far?"

"Several hours by ordinary transit."

Sio was already looking toward the shelter. "Then we leave now."

Arch watched him take two steps before speaking. "Sio."

"I can pack while you call Caspian. We don’t need everything. Whatever transport gets closest to this place, we take it and figure the rest out on the way." His words were coming faster now, hands moving with them as his mind tried to turn terror into logistics. "They said there’s a pickup point. Fine. We go there. Maybe someone’s already watching it, maybe there’s another message when we arrive, I don’t care. Sitting here doesn’t help her."

"The transport comes tomorrow morning."

Sio stopped.

Arch let the sentence settle before continuing. "Vise gave you a time as well as a place. Nothing in the message says anyone will be there tonight."

"So we wait there."

"No."

The refusal landed hard enough that Sio turned fully toward him. "Why?"

"Because you are exhausted, your ability has been strained for hours, Central Nexus already knows we’re somewhere in southern Thalassia, and the first thing Vise wants after showing you Mira is for you to stop thinking." Arch kept his voice controlled, but there was nothing detached about it. "You arrive at that coordinate twelve hours early, stand in an exposed transit point with no idea whether anyone is coming, and you give whoever is watching all night to decide what to do with you."

Sio’s jaw tightened. "And staying here gives him all night with Mum."

Arch saw the accusation hurt Sio the moment it came out. The younger man looked away, pressed both hands against his face and dragged them down slowly.

"Sorry. I know you know that."

"I do."

"I just..." Sio turned toward the trees, unable to finish while looking at Arch. His fingers curled against his palms. "She was here this morning. I was talking to her this morning. How the hell am I supposed to sit around until tomorrow because he decided that’s when I’m allowed to show up?"

There was no useful answer to that.

Arch came closer but stopped beside him instead of trying to turn him around. "You aren’t supposed to like it."

Sio laughed once under his breath, and there was nothing humorous in the sound. "Great. Doing brilliantly, then."

"He chose tomorrow for a reason."

That pulled Sio’s attention back.

Arch looked toward the communicator in his hand. "Vise could have ordered you to move immediately. He didn’t. He gave you the rest of today and tonight after showing you exactly enough to make waiting unbearable."

Sio looked down at the dead screen.

The meaning reached him slowly.

Vise had not merely taken Mira.

He had arranged time around it.

Hours for Sio to remember the chair.

Hours to imagine what might happen after the recording.

Hours to wonder whether every minute spent planning was another minute Mira paid for.

Sio’s grip tightened until the edge of the communicator pressed against his palm. "He wants me tired before I even get there."

"Scared, tired, impatient and angry enough to stop asking whether the choices in front of you are actually the only ones available."

Sio stared toward the trees again. His eyes had become wet, though he seemed more irritated by that than ashamed of it. "Well, he got three of those already."

Arch did not ask which three.

For a while neither of them spoke. The wind that had felt good during training now only reminded Sio how far away from home he was. He could still see Mira in the recording every time he blinked for too long, and the worst part was how ordinary the cruelty had looked. Vise had not shouted. He had not needed to hurt her badly enough to leave marks. He had only touched her after being told not to because he knew Sio would spend the next several hours remembering it.

Sio rubbed both palms over his face again and forced himself to look at Arch. "You know him."

Arch’s brow tightened. "The name. Barely."

"That isn’t what it looked like when he mentioned Dad."

"No. It isn’t." Arch searched his memory again, visibly annoyed by the emptiness he found. "Vise Kudzu belongs somewhere in old Nexus work. I remember hearing the name, maybe seeing him, but that’s about all I have. Silas and I crossed paths with hundreds of people over the years. Some became friends. Some became enemies. Most were people we met once and never thought about again."

Sio looked toward the dark communicator. "He thought about you."

"Yes."

"He knows how your keys work."

"Yes."

"And Dad."

Arch’s expression hardened. "Apparently."

Sio was quiet for several seconds before speaking again, his voice lower now. "He touched Mum because he knew I’d see it."

Arch hated how quickly he had reached the answer. "Yes."

"He didn’t need to."

"No."

Sio’s eyes closed. "That was the whole point."

Arch allowed himself one slow breath before answering. "He wanted the recording to keep hurting you after it ended. Every time you wonder what he’s doing to her now, he gets what he wanted without having to be in the room with you."

Sio pressed his fingers against his eyes until faint sparks appeared behind them. The pressure from training was still there, mixed now with the beginning of a headache he barely noticed.

"It worked."

Arch did not tell him otherwise.

Sio lowered his hands and looked again at the coordinates. Every part of him still wanted to start walking, to reach the coast, find transport, do anything that reduced the distance between himself and Mira. Knowing that urge was exactly what Vise wanted did not make it disappear.

It only made waiting feel more deliberate.

Sio swallowed and held the communicator out toward Arch. "Then we don’t waste the time he gave us."

Arch took it.

Sio looked toward the shelter, breathing still uneven but no longer rushing his words. "Call Caspian. Call Fern. Find out where Mum actually is, who took her and what the hell Vise thinks he knows about you and Dad."

He hesitated before the final thought, anger tightening around it again.

"And when morning comes, I’m not standing here while that transport leaves without me."

Arch looked at him for a long moment.

He did not argue.

Not yet.