She took the last page of the letter, handing it to me.

Only two words had been inked on the ivory surface.

Save him.

My eyes were burning. I looked up at Adne, the page shaking in my hands.

“I have to do this, Calla,” she said. “Will you help me?”

The trembling had moved up my arms and into my shoulders, but I nodded.

She blew out a long sigh, her muscles relaxing.

“Thank God.”

“Who else?” I asked, stretching the page toward her. I couldn’t look at it any longer, those lonely words staring up at me, tearing a hole in my own heart.

“No one else.” She frowned. “It’s just you and me.”

“You think we can pull this off?” The odds weren’t in our favor, even if we had help.

“No one else will let us get away with this,” Adne said. “If we mention it to anyone, we’ll have a chaperone 24/7.”

I frowned. “Maybe some of my pack.”

“No,” Adne said. “We only have a little time to spare. We need to move now; we can’t afford to have a recruiting session.”

“What do you mean now?” The hairs on my neck were standing up.

“I mean today,” she said. “Well, tonight, back in Vail.”

“That’s insane!” I couldn’t stop myself from shouting.

“Things will be a mess back there and the Keepers are probably still focused on Denver.” Her deadly calm voice made me gape at her. “We can slip in and out without notice, probably more easily than we could at any other time.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Okay, that was logic. Crazy logic, but still.

“Can’t we at least take Connor?” I asked. I’d feel better with another fighter along, and Connor already knew about Ren, plus he seemed to back Adne up on almost everything.

She shuddered. “No way. He’s the last person I could ask to help us.”

Fear made me lash out. “What the hell is up with you guys anyway?”

She took a couple steps back. “What do you mean?”

“Half the time you’re fighting, but then I think you’re secretly making out or something!”

She blushed, then went pale, finally turning her back on me. “There’s nothing going on with Connor and me.”

I pressed on. “That isn’t the way he acts.”

When she turned around, her eyes were hard. “Calla, you are coming in mid-scene here. You have to understand Connor and me to get what that’s all about.”

“How about reviewing the first act for me?” I asked.

She shrugged, walking to the stereo to flip through her CDs. “I was eleven when my mother died.”

I straightened abruptly, unsure how to respond. I’d been goading her and now we were talkingabout dead mothers.

Adne continued, “Connor came to the Haldis team right after she died.”

I came to stand beside her. “Adne, I’m sorry. You don’t have to explain.”

She ignored me, fiddling with the stereo, skipping several tracks on the album. “He was only sixteen. Not unusually young for a first assignment as a Striker, but he was by far the closest person to my age. He brought me through the worst of it. He never left me alone. Teased me constantly. I went through a terrible awkward phase the same time we lost my mom. All arms and legs and no ability to use them properly. Connor gave me a hard time, but I needed it. Kept me from thinking about my mother. He didn’t give me a moment’s peace.”

She grimaced. “And a moment’s peace would have killed me then.”

I watched emotions run over her face like passing shadows. She closed her eyes, smiling.

“At night he would sneak into my room and tell me ridiculous stories about the Roving Academy until I fell asleep. It kept the shadows at bay. Being alone at night would have been unbearable. He was my best friend, all the way up until I started training here.”

“Did you have to come back to Denver for your assignment?”

“No.” She didn’t look at me. “But I wanted to. The Academy trained me to be a Weaver. I never wanted to be anywhere but Denver. The Haldis team has always been my family. I belong with them.”

She dropped her head, her dark hair veiling her face.

A moment later she laughed, wholly herself once more. “The first thing Connor said when I saw him after he’d been at the outpost for a few months was, ‘I see you got breasts, congratulations. I hope you know how to use them.’ ”

“You’re trying to tell me that’s his way of just being friends?” I asked.

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you take his comments as a serious come-on?”

“I guess not,” I said. She was right, sort of, but somehow the way Connor hit on other girls seemed different than what he said to Adne.

“Exactly. With Connor that sort of talk is just his MO.” She smiled at me, but her words had a nervous edge. “Though Silas did make it worse.”

“How’s that?”

“I lost a bet with him and he made me kiss Connor.” A slow flush climbed up her cheeks. “It definitely gave Connor more ammunition to use against me.” She reflexively squared her shoulders, as though ready for a challenge.

I smiled at her aggressive posture. “Why would Silas make you kiss Connor?”

Her laugh darkened. “Because Silas is a brilliant intellectual but not that creative. He hates Connor and so couldn’t imagine anything worse for himself than having to kiss Connor. So he made me do it.”