“Trevor, I just want to say again that I’m so—”

“No more apologies,” he says. “I know how much you hate that word, so I won’t make you say it again.”

“Thanks,” I say, thoroughly humbled. He’s being so nice to me. Why didn’t I see this side of him before?

“I’m just glad you’re all okay,” Mom interjects. “Trevor, I already owe you so much, but now…” I’m surprised when I see tears shimmering in her eyes. My mother the general. Still the same compassionate woman I remember. She blinks them away. “Let’s just say there will always be room for you at our table.”

“I might just take you up on that,” Trevor says. He maintains his smirk, as if everything is no big deal, but I can tell from the lightness in his eyes that he’s touched. He claps his hands together. “Okay, the generals have agreed to meet. They seem very interested in ‘the new developments’ that I told them we want to share.”

“Good. Let’s go,” Mom says, rising, no trace of the weakness that had clouded her eyes only moments earlier.

“Me too?” Tawni asks.

“Of course. You’re all a part of this now and you all have valuable information.”

For some reason I hesitate. “What if the generals are all working for the Sun Realm, too?”

My mom looks at me seriously. “I’ve considered that possibility. But don’t let one person’s lies affect your ability to trust anyone. While one or more of the generals may be against us, I don’t believe they all are. We just have to trust that there are still good people in this world, Adele.”

I don’t know if I can do that, not after what Brody tried to do—what he did do—but I don’t say anything, just nod. I ignored my mom’s judgment once.

I won’t do it again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tristan

I’m still feeling a rush of energy through my chest when Ben walks in. It’s been over an hour since I saw Adele, but the effect is lingering. It’s like there’s a bubble inside me, leaving me airy and light. I expect I feel kind of like Ben felt when he saw his wife again.

The only thing that was weird was when she told me about this Brody guy. He seems like a real creep to me, trying to kiss Adele when they should be preparing for a war. Although I can’t really blame him—I might’ve done the same thing if I was in his position.

I realize Ben is standing over me and I look up, surprised. I expected he was coming in to spend some quality time with Elsey, who’s across the room reading a book with Roc, while I sit and daydream about Adele, bask in the few minutes of uninterrupted conversation I had with her.

“Something’s happened,” Ben says. He’s wearing a frown, which concerns me because I haven’t seen it much from him.

Adele’s hurt—I just know it. Evidently my inner concerns make it to my face because he says quickly, “No one’s hurt, thank god.” I take a sharp breath out that I’ve been holding in.

“Then what?”

“A sergeant in the star dweller army was working for the sun dwellers. He tried to kill Adele and Tawni.”

I suck in a short breath. “What? How? Why?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have all the details. I’ve only just received an encrypted message from Anna. Evidently my wife’s second-in-command rescued the girls from their attacker. Shot the guy—killed him.”

A thought flashes into my head. “Brody?” I ask.

Ben’s head jerks slightly. “How did you know that?”

So Brody is Adele’s mom’s right-hand man. “Uh, Adele mentioned his name.”

“What? In what context?”

I stare at Ben, wondering why he’s so interested in the guy who saved Adele’s life. I’m certainly not going to say he tried to kiss Adele. “I dunno. Just that she met him during training.”

Ben shrugs, as if he was never really that interested anyway. So Brody saved Adele and Tawni, but—

“Who was the attacker?” I ask.

Ben stares at me strangely. “The guy you just said. Brody.”

I put a hand on my head, run it through my hair. So Brody saved them from Brody? Are there two Brodys? “Wait…what? I thought you just confirmed it was Brody who saved them?” I’m getting more confused by the minute, as if Ben and I are running around in circles chasing each other, fake tails stuck to our butts.

“No, no. Brody was the attacker. Anna’s second-in-command rescued them.”

My mind is whirling. “But I thought Brody was her second-in-command.”

“No, that’s Trevor.”

Trevor? Who the hell’s Trevor? Some other guy I don’t know about apparently. Some guy who didn’t try to kiss Adele apparently. Soooo…

The guy who tried to kiss Adele tried to kill Adele? My jaw drops when I finally understand. Funny how changing two little letters in kiss transforms it into the deadly opposite: kill. Just thinking that word and Adele in the same sentence sends shivers down my spine. If he was working for my father, clearly he was trying to get close to her for information. I’m glad she didn’t fall for that crap.

“Adele said Brody was friendly to her,” I say.

“What do you mean friendly?”

“I don’t know—a nice guy, I guess. Trying to get close to her. Perhaps trying to get information as it turns out.”

“Well, he’s dead now.” Ben’s eyes are as sharp as daggers. He’s happy this Brody dude is dead. Not that I’m not.

“Remind me to thank Trevor when I meet him. So are they on their way here now?”

“No, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. There will be a slight delay because of what happened. They want to tell the generals they had a mole in their midst, try to get them see what’s happening, that the Sun Realm is playing games with us, hopefully convince them to travel to the Moon Realm with them.”

“So what do we do?”

Ben shrugs. “We wait.” Ugh. Already I’m tired of waiting. “There will be another peace summit, which my wife and at least one other general from the star dweller army will attend, so that’s being planned, but other than that, there’s nothing really for us to do right now.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Get some food. Get some rest. Hopefully by tomorrow they’ll be closer to getting here.”

“Okay,” I repeat, because I’m all out of things to say.

* * *

I swear one of my least favorite things in the world is waiting. It’s not my father’s bad politics, or the sun dweller soldiers, or even the dust-filled moon dweller air that’s killing me. No, it’s none of those things. It’s the waiting that’s killing me. Slowly, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. Sucking the life out of me, making me grind my teeth and pick at my fingers, and bang my head against the wall.

I’d almost welcome Ram to stop by and beat me up again—at least it would kill some time, get my blood pumping again, break up the monotony of the gray stone walls and slap of cards against the table where Roc and Elsey are playing some game.

“I gotta get out of here,” I mumble, to whoever might be listening. No one.

Or Roc. “Okay, master. Let’s go for a stroll down that one tunnel—you know the one, right?—that leads to that other tunnel—the gray one with the brownish rocks. And then we can walk down that other gray tunnel that splits into two other gray tunnels. It’ll be way more fun than sitting here playing cards with two of the coolest cats around.”

I smirk. “One—don’t call me ‘master.’ And two—Elsey’s cool, but I’m struggling to figure out who the other cool person is, unless you’re referring to me?”

“Ha ha, very funny. It’s me, you dolt. Dolt—oh, I kind of like that. It definitely suits you more than ‘master.’” He uses two fingers on each hand for the quotes around master.

Elsey giggles. “Are you sure you aren’t brothers? You fight like Adele and I did when we were little.”