“The Children will kill her before she ever gets it, Griffin.”

“I know! You don’t think I know that?”

The pause on the other end was interminable. “There’s more you aren’t telling me.”

He barked a short, hard laugh. “A lot more. And if I could tell you, I’m pretty sure you’d agree with me.”

“I probably would. You sure you can’t say anything?”

“No. I really can’t.”

He could almost hear her nodding. “Okay, then. You called for a reason. What do you need from me?” This was the Gwen he knew and treasured—the Gwen who’d never backed down from a challenge and whose mind knew all too well how to parse the personal from the political, the heart from the head.

“I just need you to listen. I’m trying to work shit out in my head.”

“I’m here.”

Yes, she was. And he could trust her.

He scratched at his face and neck. “So I go after her. Stop her. Drag her back to the Senatus and get my seat. Save the fucking world from breaking apart or whatever it is the Children fear. Yay. I’ll get everything I want by surrendering the one person I desire. Keko is alive but all her hate for me is validated. I’m nothing but a liar and a traitor, and in her eyes I’ll never be able to climb out of that pit.”

“Did she really say she hated you?”

“Yes. After she told me she loved me.”

Gwen whistled. “Wow, all right.”

“So I have to let her get killed to prove my honesty? To prove how I feel? That’s such bullshit.”

“You’ll lose your chance at a Senatus seat if you do that.”

“Fuck the Senatus. I want what’s best for Ofarians, and if I have to find another way, I’ll do it.”

At length Gwen said, “You know what I think?”

“No. Please tell me. I’m flailing over here.”

“I think you should talk to someone else.”

“David?” Griffin could use a good slap in the face. David was much less diplomatic than Gwen.

“No, not David.”

And she gave him a name he hadn’t expected.

He hung up with Gwen and reached over the counter to dial a new number. As it rang, he pushed aside the flapping portion of the door screen to see if the gas station owners were returning. The coast was still clear.

As someone picked up, the explosion of chaos on the other end of the line—music and the TV and young voices—had Griffin pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off emotion.

“Hello?” A deep, skeptical voice.

“Pop, it’s me.”

“Griffin.” He heard the familiar creak of the old couch as his father got off it.

“That’s Griffin?” called his mother in the background. “Is he okay?”

“Where the hell are you?” Pop demanded. “Everyone’s—”

“I’m sorry.” The apology was as much for interrupting his father as it was for his unexplained disappearance. “I’m fine, I promise. Is Henry around?”

“Henry?” Griffin heard his dad’s curiosity, but didn’t want to add anything more. “Yeah, he’s in his room. I’ll get him. You sure you’re okay?”

Griffin wasn’t remotely sure, but he said he was anyway.

The door to Henry’s room opened and a stream of really bad dance music tumbled out. “Turn that off,” their father shouted over it. “Your brother’s on the phone.”

The music cut. “Which one?” Henry asked.

“Pop?” Griffin said before the phone was handed over.

“Yes?”

“You didn’t hear from me today. No one in the family did. Okay?”

“I can’t at least tell people you’re all right?”

“No.” Griffin hated to do this. “And that’s an order. Please.”

Pop sighed. “Absolutely.” Then, “Come home safe.”

There was shuffling as the phone traded hands.

“Hey, buddy,” Griffin said.

“Griff!”

“How are you?”

“Good, I guess. Got a B on my math test yesterday. Thought you’d like to hear that.” There was very little excitement in Henry’s voice.

“I do. Wow, buddy, that’s great.”

Griffin’s chest filled up so suddenly and sharply he had to brace himself against the counter to keep his balance.

“So, ah,” Griffin said, “I was thinking that when I get back, I’d like to spend a little time with you at the gym. Help you out, like you asked.”

Henry gasped. “For real?”

The boy’s eagerness and excitement splintered Griffin’s emotions and shifted some muddy areas of thinking back into alignment. Sometimes Gwen was a genius.

Henry wanted nothing more than to follow in his parents’ and brothers’ and sisters’ footsteps, to become a soldier worthy of wearing the Ofarian black. To protect the race. To make his leader, and oldest brother, proud.

So who the hell was Griffin to deny him that? What gave Griffin the right to try to steer a boy into a life track he didn’t want to enter in the first place? How did that make Griffin any better than the old Board? It was Henry’s choice to make. It was Henry’s heart and passion on the line, and it was Griffin’s job to support him in whatever that was.

Griffin could, however, do exactly as he just professed to Gwen. He could still try to pave the way for other Ofarian kids who wanted to branch out. He could still focus on expanding their options, and that, in turn, would end up helping Henry.

There, in a dingy Hawaiian gas station, with Keko sprinting toward the first boat she saw, Griffin grinned at his baby brother through the phone.

“For real,” he said. “I’ll even help you with the formal training application if you want. But you gotta know I’m not going to pull any strings or anything. You want to do this, you do it with your own skills. You got that, soldier?”

“Aw, yeah!” The books and academic trophies on Henry’s shelves rattled as the kid jumped up and down.

“You and me, bud,” he added. “When I get back. I promise.”

Griffin twisted his head to the side and had to focus hard on an old Camel cigarettes poster, because who knew what was going to happen to him or his leadership or his people when he left Hawaii.

Then he hung up the phone, punched out of the gas station, and started jogging down the road. Away from Hilo. Because he realized while talking to Gwen that if Keko was intending to throw him off the chase, she wouldn’t have headed into the big town, toward the obvious source of boats. That’s exactly what she’d assume Griffin would think. No, she would go for the hidden spot, the remote area with fewer craft . . . so that’s exactly where Griffin went, too.

Because he couldn’t help the future and current generations of Ofarians by standing on the sidelines, by just throwing away all that he’d worked toward for five long years.

He couldn’t help Keko obtain a cure for her people if he didn’t find her first.

And he sure as hell couldn’t fight for the woman he loved if she went and got herself killed.

 • • •

Keko would not cry. She would not fucking cry.

Enough water plagued her every step—it sat in her line of sight no matter where she looked, and it poisoned her heart with a slow drip. No tears. Anything but water. She turned up her inner heat, trying to burn away her emotions, but not nearly succeeding.

She concentrated on running, her legs pumping over the uneven ground as she clung to the edge of the Big Island, heading away from Hilo. The little enclave of homes and local shops and the B and B she’d burned fell behind. The land sloped hard upward, dense clumps of trees pointing inland, in the direction she did not want to go. The houses spread out and she slowed her steps, moving more carefully over private land, keeping to the cliff side draped in trees and greenery. Every now and then a large tour bus gave a high whine as it braked, and then gunned its way up and down the distant road.

The run refused to delete Griffin from her mind. He would come after her again. But he would be too late.

When he found her, she would be holding the whole of the Earth’s fire in her hands, and it would be hers to command. The Queen had touched the Source once and there had been no devastation like Aya had claimed. The same would be for Keko; her prayer had been answered and she could feel it.