In the end, Emilia had time to spare. Mostly, it was because Conrad’s willbrand—which he had apparently obtained during the war and rarely used since—was in wonderful condition. Aside from updating his resonance code, which most people did every year or so, and he hadn’t done in almost a decade—and forcing another form into it, there wasn’t much for her to do to it.

  Hence, she had extra time, Simeon still working on the last of his assigned CierSuits while Conrad and Hyr continued learning to sign within the Virtuosi System.

  So, what to do.

  Technically, since she could now spark, she could go off and do something else—try and figure out where the fuck V was, perhaps. Had she even the slightest clue where he was—even a query by Conrad into some blackaether message boards had only led to a general clue that sometimes he took commissions for creating Censor hacks and usually met up with people in Rosalia, but didn’t seem to actually live there—she might have tried.

  She was worried, and other than send another few messages off to him—and honestly, if he hadn’t removed his block on her contacting him, he wasn’t even going to be getting them—there wasn’t much else she could do about that.

  Alternatively, she could go out and visit various people who lived in the Penns and nope. Definitely not doing that.

  Having just reprogrammed her Censor, it no longer gave her such blaring announcements that her Balance levels were growing unstable. Instead, she was working on a more subtle way to notify herself that she needed to chill, as well as a way to determine how reasonable her emotions were. With Hyr around, neither of those were as important as they had been when she’d created the hack—not that the syn needed to be her emotional babysitter or anything!

  Honestly, she probably needed to have a conversation with the northerner about all that. Mostly, she appreciated what they were doing—loved the feeling of Hyr’s energy within her, keeping her mind from spiralling out of her control in both the not fun ADHD way and the my knots are doing weird things to my emotions way. It wasn’t the syn’s job to manage her, was the thing, and she didn’t know enough about the synat to even guess at why they were doing it. Was it normal for their caste? An obligation? Something just for her?

  Emilia had no idea, and they needed to talk about it and other things, most notably, whether Nur’tha had any myths or stories similar to one Conrad had told her.

  Oh, she also needed to figure out if the Dionese one actually existed. Unfortunately, while she could break into the Royal Library, that would probably be frowned upon, and she’d never make it onto Ship’o Stars—there was no way a trip to Dion wouldn’t be… prolonged. So, that would have to wait.

  As for the few people she needed to visit before they left? Those wouldn’t be fast visits either—plus, she’d already set out time for them in a few hours.

  Back to not knowing what to do, it seemed.

  How had she gone from having too much to do to having nothing to do?

  Worst of all? Now that she was back in contact with Olivier, all her brain was telling her to do was bother him. The man was in the middle of a serious legal case at the moment! And aside from telling her that he’d woken to a flurry of messages asking why he had given her more money when she definitely should have been getting enough from military paydrops, she hadn’t heard from him. Unsurprisingly, the asshole who Sil had apparently decided he had a thing for hadn’t even bothered to ask Olivier why he hadn’t told anyone they’d run into each other.

  That was a whole other thing that Emilia was patently refusing to think about, mostly because if she thought about it too much, she was going to end up hoping that man and Sil didn’t work out and that felt… cruel. Sil had never shown more than an interest in hooking up with someone, and while she was definitely questioning his taste in men—not that she’d seen that man in more than the occasional press conference since the war ended, so technically he could have become a better person and gotten some therapy in that time—she did want him to be happy.

  If that man turned out to be the key to her friend’s heart…

  Yeah, she couldn’t think about this, and without much thought, she automatically opened her messages and sent Olivier a smut filled message, followed by a picture of her stomach, the underside of one breast barely visible but clearly framed by his borrowed clothes. Even during the near-decade between her court case and the war, when things between them had been weird, she had built a habit of sending him inappropriate messages while he was in court… or teaching… or at family dinners.

  Whatever. If the man wanted her back in his life, he didn’t get to pick and choose which parts he got.

  She was just about to close down the messages and find something else to do—staring at her unanswered messages was so depressing she hadn’t even had the heart to follow through on her plan to give the excess raid rewards to the people who had responded yet—when another message came through.

  [Zyrex: Hyr make it okay?]

  [Em: yeah]

  [Em: theyre learning sign language in virtuosi at the moment]

  [Em: did you need them?]

  Unless the parameters of the rigs were messed up, both Hyr and Conrad should have been able to get messages within it.

  “Nah,” Zyrex responded, the echo of a laugh shifting through the messages—probably more than the young hy intended. “I just wanted to make sure they got there okay. They were just dropped off and left to find you, then never even let us know they were okay.”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Ah~ what a naughty little syn.

  The two of them exchanged messages for a bit, Zyrex explaining what Hyr had already mentioned to her: that he couldn’t come on vacation, although she had extended him an invitation as well. Apparently, it was Hyr’s decision, and while they weren’t a syn of Zyrex’s tribe, they still weren’t someone Zyrex would ignore.

  “They wouldn’t tell me what they saw, but I got the feeling if I was there, something bad would have happened,” Zyrex messaged when Emilia asked exactly what Hyr had seen. “That’s pretty vague, though. It could have been something here—like I’m not around to stop or see something—or my presence on the ship would have made things problematic? Or I would die? Who knows. There’s a reason why the synat are so private.”

  Emilia could imagine. Knowing your future could entirely change it. If something were going to happen in Nur’tha—something Zyrex needed to be there to deal with—he’d spend the next week looking out for it, and potentially change the future so it wouldn’t occur, or perhaps it would occur at a different time when he couldn’t deal with it. Honestly, being a syn seemed… exhausting, and the fact the Hyr was using their vacation time to help her deal with this situation and keep her calm…

  Yeah, that made her feel kinda shitty, to say the least.

  [Em: so]

  [Em: you can totally message me anytime]

  [Em: but did you just want to check on hyr?]

  [Em: cause im sure they would have answered you]

  There was a long pause, during which Emilia wondered if Hyr really had ignored Zyrex or something and the hy was getting ready to tell her that the syn was even naughtier than she’d assumed, before he responded.

  Hyr was naughty, but not in a serious way.

  “What do you mean, Hyr’s birthday is in four days?” she asked, thinking about how this was liable to be a really shitty birthday for the northerner. They weren’t going to be around their friends. They wouldn’t be able to partake in any Nur’tha birthday rituals—and she knew from birthdays celebrated by the Gru during the war that at least their tribe’s birthdays were wild. Instead, Hyr was going to be stuck with people way older than them while they searched for a purist terrorist group! Why in the world would anyone willingly choose that sort of birthday!?

  More laughter echoed down their line, Zyrex telling her that he figured Hyr wouldn’t have told them.

  [Em: wont they know you told me?]

  [Zyrex: Maybe, but they should have a good birthday.]

  [Zyrex: Hyr’s also good at… not looking at unimportant things.]

  [Zyrex: Or, private things? This is private, I guess. They try not to peek unless the aether tells them it's important?]

  That was… good to know. Not knowing much about the synat, Emilia had no idea how far their powers could reach, but the idea of Hyr knowing every move—every thought—of the people around them was a bit… uncomfortable.

  [Em: and what will make it a good birthday?]

  When Baalphorian teenagers first received their Censors, they were advised not to message people if they didn’t want the recipient to read their emotions.

  “Those first few weeks especially can be difficult,” she remembered her own teacher explaining to the class. “Strong emotions are especially difficult to control. If you are angry, it will be felt. If you love the person, it will be felt. Do not message your crush if you do not wish for them to know you have feelings for them.”

  The class had giggled, and of course, the moment someone had their Censors installed they were just as liable to refuse to message anyone for months as they were to immediately message people, hoping their secret love or hatred would be felt.

  Once someone was skilled enough with their Censor, they could let specific emotions through their messages, although stress, strong emotions and sleep deprivation could still cause unintentional slippage, and when it came to Free Coloniers…

  Yeah, Free Coloniers and their temporary Censors could be a bit of a problem. Originally, they’d assumed that once a Free Colonier’s mind adjusted to their Censor, their slippage would lessen or cease, and to be fair! If the temporary Censor was kept on, that did happen.

  The problem was that most Free Coloniers removed their Censors as often as they could—if they wanted to keep it on all the time, they’d just get a permanent one installed—and while some managed to retain their control between uses—especially after decades using a Censor—not all did. Sometimes, people who used and removed temporary Censors always had emotional slippage.

  Emilia had no idea how often Zyrex wore his temporary Censor, but he had slippage, and as he told her about how the synat and Hyr’s tribe celebrated days of birth, she could viscerally feel the way he was setting her up.

  As far as she could tell, it wasn’t a malicious setting up, more an awareness that he was holding something relevant back from her. A trap, although it had an air of love in it. Zyrex loved his friend, and wanted to make them happy, and for whatever reason, hidden amongst all the little tidbits of information he gave her, there was something she could do that would make Hyr more than happy. Unfortunately, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly which thing it was—and perhaps there were a few things that could make the syn extra happy—and there was no way she’d be able to do half of the things on the list due to logistics and a lack of knowledge.

  “What sort of gift would they like?” Emilia asked instead, quickly clarifying that it should be something she could get her hands on in the next few hours or while on board the ship.

  Zyrex sent back a few options, doing so so quickly that he must have already had them prepared. Not suspicious at all.

  Glancing through the options, Emilia’s eyes settled on one. It seemed both… right and profane, and possibly like it would have more meaning to it than being a simple birthday present. Unfortunately, despite her concerns, her attention kept being called back to it.

  Now, a more sensible person would have asked Zyrex about it, and if he didn’t give a straight answer, they would have messaged Hetexia and every other northerner they knew, regardless of how long it had been, trying to figure out whether anything strange was going on with this particular gift.

  Emilia was not a sensible person, and she couldn’t deny the fact that something about this gift called to her, scratching at her mind and core in a way that was reminiscent of what she’d experienced while looking at the universe for scars or through the {Blood Glass} inside the raid.

  Eyes flicking over to Hyr, where they sat in the Virtuosi Rig, looking much too large for it and yet so delicate. Their light-brown lashes cast shadows over their golden cheeks, still soft with youth. Automatically, her Censor began overlaying options for her gift over the syn, even it not having the sense to try and force her to ask more questions.

  That, or perhaps it knew that no matter what she found out, she was still liable to go through with her plan anyways.

  Quietly, having decided on a design, she rose to get more ore.

  She had one more willbrand to make.