I feel like throwing up. Why couldn’t he have hit me before we ate? Now the potatoes that I scarfed down not ten minutes ago threaten to reemerge from the wrong end. I crawl to my hands and knees and pant, trying to calm my nervous stomach as perspiration pours from my brow. Roc groans and through my sweat-clouded vision I see him roll over.

“You okay, man?” I manage to grunt.

“I feel dizzy,” he says. “I hope it doesn’t leave a mark. Then I won’t be able to get anywhere with the Resistance ladies.”

I laugh and then cough, which makes my stomach roll again. “No jokes,” I choke out.

“That wasn’t a joke,” Roc says, which naturally makes me laugh and choke again.

Using the wall, I pull myself to my feet, somehow managing to keep the potatoes down. Roc is up too, although he’s stumbling crookedly toward me. He probably has a concussion.

I look at him and see the beginnings of a black eye darkening his cheek to the right of his nose. And that’s on top of the injuries he previously sustained at the hands of my brother’s goons.

“There’s no mark,” I lie.

“Really? Because I don’t feel anything so much here”—he points to the left side of his face—“but it hurts like hell right here,” he says. “You sure there’s no mark?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, good,” he says, laughing. “Next time we become mortal enemies with someone, can we make sure it’s not someone six-five, two hundred and fifty pounds?”

“Good call. Are you gonna be okay?”

“I’ll survive—you?”

“I’m good, I think. Let’s find Ben.”

We head in the direction Ram left, seeking a neon sign or flashing lights, or something else that points to “the Isolation Room,” where Ben said he would meet us, where Ram was supposed to escort us. We come to a crossroads and I look left, and then right. Both tunnels appear identical, gray stone at the bottom and black at the top, as if it’s been scorched by fire. “Which way?” I think aloud.

“Right,” Roc says. “If we always go right, we can’t go wrong.”

I smirk. “That makes no sense.”

“Okay. Then go right because it smells worse to the left, which means Ram probably went that way.”

I shrug. It’s as good a reason as any. We turn right and make it two-thirds of the way down the hall before passing an open door. Flickering orange flares spill into the dimly lit tunnel. “Come on in, guys,” Ben says from within, although we can’t see him through the gloom.

Roc looks at me, grinning. “It was a lucky guess,” I say.

“Slice it however you want, but the truth is, my logic worked.”

We enter the room, which immediately brightens as Ben uses the single torch lighting the room to light another torch, and then a third. He’s lying on a stone bench, his leg propped on a flat boulder. His thigh is heavily bandaged.

When we approach, his eyes widen. “What happened to you?” he asks, staring at Roc.

“You see, the thing is—” Roc starts to say.

“He walked into a wall,” I interrupt, glaring at him.

“But…”

“He can be so clumsy sometimes.”

Roc looks at me, blinks. Pouts out his lips in frustration and then concedes. “Right—a wall. How clumsy of me.” I get why he wants to rat on Ramseys, Lord knows I want to, but I also want to prove myself to Ram—that I’m not a rat. I don’t know why I care what he thinks, but I do. Despite his fierce temper, he is technically one of the good guys.

Ben looks at us strangely, his gaze bouncing back and forth between us. He knows we’re lying but doesn’t push it. “Have a seat,” he says with a wave.

We lower ourselves onto a bench perpendicular to Ben.

I wait for him to speak, but he’s silent, staring at one of the crackling torches. I stare at it, too, my mind wandering. What is this all about? What secrets does this man hold? Secrets buried so deep he would keep them from his own daughters? Secrets that my father would keep from me?

“Who the hell are you?” I blurt out.

Ben’s head twitches as he’s pulled from his thoughts. “Just a guy,” he says.

I laugh. “You sound like me.”

He nods. “I think we’re more alike than you might think,” he says.

“Look, my father told me all about the Resistance. How it rose up in 475 PM, before I was born; how you tried to control the freight train system, thus controlling the flow of resources; how he sent his armies pouring out of the Sun Realm; how he killed every last one of the traitors. And yet here you are—and I don’t know what to believe.”

“Not your father,” Ben says.

“Maybe he just thought you were all destroyed.” I’m not trying to defend my father. I’m just trying to understand why he didn’t tell me. Because I’m surprised. My father may be a terrible person, but he never tried to hide his evil ways from me, although sometimes I wished he would.

“No. He knows. He lied to you.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know—pride maybe. Or because in his arrogant mind he truly believes that the Resistance is still weak, of no concern to his dominion.”

“And how do you fit in?”

Ben sighs. “I never wanted to be the leader, which I’m sure you understand, Tristan.” I do. I am also reluctant to be at the forefront of the Resistance. Not because I don’t believe in the cause—because I do—rather, because I’d prefer to just be another soldier, nothing special. Just a guy. I’m sick of being singled out because of who my father is.

“So you’re the leader of the whole Resistance?” Roc asks for me.

Ben chuckles. “Yeah. All two thousand of us.”

“But that’s not even half the size of one of the sun dweller platoons,” I comment.

“We have a lot of heart, though,” Ben says wryly. “But that’s where you come in. We are nothing while there is dissension between the Moon and Star Realms. We need someone to unite them. Someone who knows the truth about the inner workings of the Sun Realm. Someone like you.”

I shake my head. “Why should they listen to me? Ram was right about one thing. No one has any reason to trust me.”

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy, Tristan. Just that it’s necessary. You and my daughter—you both have important missions.”

“Adele,” I murmur. Just speaking her name sends flutters of excitement through my chest.

“Yes. She has to find my wife. Anna will know what to do from her end. If we do our job from this end, we just might be able to pull this off.”

I stare at him blankly. I comprehend his words, but they don’t make sense to me. Adele. Her mission. Important. If she’s fighting against the odds then I can too. I have to.

“Do you know the population of each of the Realms?” Ben asks.

“I have a good guess, but Roc would—”

“One point five million star dwellers, one point five million moon dwellers, two million sun dwellers,” Roc rattles off. “Give or take a hundred thousand.” With higher life expectancies and enough wealth to support more children, the Sun Realm has the highest population of the three Realms.

“Right,” Ben says. “Do the math.”

Easy—three against two. So we’d have the advantage in sheer numbers, but—

“They have heaps more resources,” I point out. “Weapons, equipment, armor. Plus the people up there—I point to the rocky ceiling—are in much better shape: well fed, well-trained, prepared.”

“So we shouldn’t try?” Ben says, throwing up his hands. “This sounds like a different Tristan than just a few days ago.”

“We have to try,” Roc says.

I look at him. His eyes are a deep, steady brown, no hint of his usual comedy in them. Ever since leaving the Sun Realm, he’s been the one pushing me toward my destiny—whatever it is. “I know,” I say.

“I want to show you something,” Ben says. Raising his back slightly, he slides a book from beneath him. Its cover is leathery, marred by scrapes and black marks and time, but in relatively good condition. He hands it to me and I see that a strap curls around from the back and clasps in the front.