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all.”
    “Don’t worry if she suddenly falls asleep. That amount of neural activity is equivalent to a week spent wide awake on stims. She’ll crash in a few minutes and sleep it all off.” Callista nodded to them as she left, and Zander gestured for Visaya and Pevanne to follow.
    Once the door closed behind them, he sighed. “I should never have let you out of my sight. It won’t happen again.”
    Tyree laughed weakly. “What if I need to pee?”
    The comment startled a burst of harsh laughter from him. “Well, perhaps only then.”
    Mild irritation flowed over her sense of helplessness. “I’m supposed to be protecting you. Not needing protection. I’m a Su, damn it!”
    “Whoever tried to kill you thought you were Mirsee.”
    One of Zander’s security came into the room. “Sir?”
    “What is it?”
    “We think we’ve found the culprit.”
    “And?” For the first time, Tyree heard a snap in his voice and felt the fear flowing from him.
    Was he afraid the attack had been successful? Does he actually care about me?
    “It would appear to have been a suicide mission. The man’s dead. One of the crew from the recent transport.”
    Tyree shivered. So her assassin had been on her ship the whole time? If only he’d known his intended target had been smuggled aboard the same craft. If only she’d known...
    “So close, and yet so far,” she murmured.
    Zander tightened his grip as if in reassurance. “Make sure that transport doesn’t leave. Put all her crew in containment until they’ve been verified. And I want everything triple checked in future!”
    “Yes, sir.” The man snapped out a salute and retreated.
    “I’m sorry,” Zander said.
    “For what?” Lethargy seeped through her body, and she found herself leaning gratefully into his warmth. It was almost like stepping back into Refuge and the welcoming glow of auras after a mission away. A blanketing embrace. Her eyelids drifted down, too heavy to stay open.
    “That you’ve been thrown into this. I wish there had been another way. I wish...Mirsee?”
    Had he confused her with his lost love? Or was he wishing to have her back? The questions swirled away in her mind as she sank into sleep.
    ***
    The room was white, a simple square cell with a single plinth extending from one wall. A young man lay there on his back, his bare skin pale gold compared to the stark, clinical white of the walls. She drifted closer, keeping her incorporeal form. They’d sent her in naked for her first. She’d yet to earn the silken robe woven from artificially grown Su hair that would shift with her as she Misted.
    He turned heavy-lidded eyes toward her, the blue irises almost swallowed up by pupils distended by narcotics. He showed no fear at her half-formed appearance.
    Tyree hesitated. Was she really ready for this? No question physically—she was majority age, after all, and Inc-Su matured earlier than humans biologically. But mentally, she questioned it. One of her kin-group had teased her, told her how much the first time hurt, how she would bleed and why, until she had run sobbing to their group Mother, all control shattered. As a result, the whole kin-group had watched as the thirteen strong council of Inc-Su publicly Dissipated a renegade Incu for his crime, a stark warning to the youngsters of what punishment awaited future misbehavior. Even now, the writhing, screaming form tormented her dreams. Weeks of intensive therapy had followed to dampen her fear, both of Dissipation and sex, but it had never been a complete cure.
    She reached for his aura, the living energy field she would consume. Mostly placid blues and hazy silver from the drugs. A touch of yellow—the edge of anxiety, probably from being in a strange place. The colors swirled together, a symptom of his confusion. And then, blinding in its ferocity, the pure white of innocence.
    She gasped and stopped. This man—this boy ,only just past majority age—had committed no crime. His soul was