Muscles tensed through Hain's body. He planted his hands and catapulted himself off the table, the movement smooth as a curling wave, his body charged with renewed strength. Tactics flashed through his mind while he hung in the air, and in those frozen moments he realized that escape would not be possible for both he and Lilith. One would die if the other was to escape. A trade. One life for one life. Redemption for leaving that Boy in the woods to be flayed by the Vrai.

He would make sure that Lilith escaped.

The plan was good. Brave. But as Smith had arrived a mere two minutes into the bone healing process, the plan was even less effective than Hain's decision to foil the Vrai ambush outside Memory by kicking a very heavy door. Hain's feet met the floor, followed by the heavy thunk of his body as the rest of him followed it down.

Hain cried out in pain.

"What in Heaven and Hell was that supposed to be?" Lilith said as she dropped to his side.

"I'm trying to protect you!" Hain shouted through gritted teeth. He swatted at the hand she set on him. "Don't! Run!"

"Don't run?" Her face screwed up. "I wasn't going to run."

"Don't stay. Run." He shoved her away. "He'll kill us both!"

"I think you're delirious with the pain," Lilith said before calling out to Sanger. She looked back down at Hain. "Just hold still, alright?"

But Hain was going nowhere. In his rolling anguish, he'd met Smith's eyes, the pale orbs as smooth and featureless as freshly fallen snow.

Hain mustered the strength to drag himself up–to make one final stand against this intruder–but stopped short when Smith set the rifle down, resting the muzzle against the wall, and crouched opposite Lilith.

"Calm yourself." Smith's voice was a bass drum. "I'm not here to kill anyone."

Lilith looked to Hain with confusion carved into her face.

"Was that what you thought he was here for?" Lilith's surprise reverberated from the walls. "You're such an idiot, Hain."

"Help me get him back on the table," Smith said, he slid his hands under Hain's back.

Hain might have fought, but the lack of violence from Smith coupled with the pain in his foot was enough to stun him into silence as four hands hoisted him off the ground. The pain made the breath slide from his lungs in short gasps, and he groaned when they set him on the table with a dense thunk.

The temperature in the room dropped when Sanger returned, but her attitude warmed when Lilith explained what had happened.

"Obviously Smith came here to kill you," Sanger said, her unwillingness to speak to Hain apparently gone. "Because everyone knows that the best way to get your victim to let their guard down is to knock on the door first."

Lilith laughed. Hain stared knives at her.

"I'd heard you thought I had something to do with the attempt on your life," Smith said, sounding incredulous.

"So even though you knew that I thought you were behind the attack, you decided to come here with a gun anyway?"

"The guards found this weapon in a ventilation shaft abutting the meeting chamber. The barrel matches the rounds that nearly killed you." Smith's mouth tightened. "I'd hoped that it might serve as some measure of proof that I had nothing to do with the attack."

Beside him, Hain saw Lilith's face go white.

"You're sure that's the rifle?"

"We are," Smith told her.

Lilith's mouth bowed downward in a frown, her icy blue eyes hooded beneath a furrowed brow. She said nothing.

"You may come with me to Security to verify the testing results if you'd like."

"No, that's alright," she said, and Hain could hear concern bound up in her voice. "I'll access the records through Memory if I have any questions. We're headed back there soon."

"Of course you are." Smith's expression went stony. "How could I forget Hume's plan to dissuade the human of his blinding prejudice against us with history?"

"My prejudice?" Hain said. "You were the one screaming about me being a lowly human during that meeting."

"You are lowly. The fact that you're unable to recognize it even when amongst a clearly superior race as the Foew speaks to the depths to which you and your species have fallen."

"Thank you, Smith," Lilith said in an airy way that still managed to convey a crackle of electricity. "I commend you for your efforts to set right Hain's primitive thinking, but I think that's enough talking for one day."

Smith's irritation rose to the ceiling. Hain wasn't sure if it was because of what Lilith had said, or because she, a human, had said it.

"Don't tell me that you agree with Hume," Smith said, the disbelief in his voice palpable. "Even you must see the truth in what I'm saying. His actions have brought the death and destruction of the Vrai on our haven."

Hain could barely believe what he was hearing. "You think she's going to agree that humans are scum just because you said so? She is human."

"I've got this," she said, without looking to Hain. "Hain and I still have a lot to discuss for Hume's 'glorious effort', Smith. So I think it's best if you leave."

Blood rose to Smith's porcelain cheeks.

"The Vrai would never have come were it not for Hume harboring this human." Smith's already deep voice sank into a near growl. "Someone will pay for the deaths he's caused." His eyes flicked between Hain and Lilith. "Maybe many someones."

With that, Smith spun away and strode from the room, snatching up the rifle as he passed. Hain glared after him.

"Well," Sanger said when Smith's footsteps had faded. "At least now you know that he doesn't want to kill you."

"Because there's nothing like an ominous warning of retribution to convince me of someone's good intentions," Hain said without any effort to hide his sarcasm.

"You heard what he said about the rifle. He wouldn't have mentioned it if he couldn't prove it," Lilith said. "And besides, that isn't something any Foew could have gotten their hands on."

Hain frowned. "Why not?"

"Promise is isolated, Hain. Non-Foew don't come here, and very few Foew ever leave the haven. If security found that rifles within the haven walls, then it was brought here from outside the haven."

"How can you know that?"

"Because that wasn't a Foew gun," she said, her eyes hard. "It was made by the Vrai."

#

The friends stayed silent as Sanger finished her work on Hain's foot before declaring him fit for getting the hell out of her hospital. Hain might have bristled at the treatment–might have even snapped something back at her–but the palpable tension rolling off of Lilith in the wake of Smith's words left him feeling distracted.

"You hungry?" Lilith asked as he pulled his shoes onto his feet.

Hain felt caught off guard by the question–Smith's words still reverberated inside his head–but her mention of food provoked a feral growl from his gut, and all at once he felt hollow with hunger. Lilith's eyes widened at his snarling stomach.

"I'd say that counts as a yes," she said. "Let's get some food in you before your stomach starts eating itself."

The dining hall was a long, low room they found empty save for the tables and chairs gleaming in ordered rows. Panels of white, opaque glass owned one entire wall, while slits the width and length of Hain's forearm sat at regular intervals in the glass.

"Packed house," Hain said as he stopped inside the door, looking around. "Where's the kitchen?"

"Kitchen?" she said, sounding surprised. "We don't really have kitchens in Promise."

"Of course you don't," he said. "You probably like your food the good old fashioned way. Spit out by a giant wobbling head in the middle of the room or something, right?"

Her chin tucked into her neck. "Who told you about the Food Head?"

She said it with such conviction that Hain threw a nervous look about the room. "That's an actual thing?"

"No, Hain, it's not an actual thing," she snorted, then pointed to the table nearest them. "Just grab a table and I'll get you something."

Hain watched as Lilith approached one of the white wall panels. She tapped a finger against the glass, and to Hain's surprise, words and pictures bloomed on the glass. A series of taps later and a pair of food laden trays slipped from the slit beneath the glass.

"Are we pretending that you didn't just pull food out of a wall?" Hain said as she set one tray before him.

"I could explain, but the Food Heads prefer us not to disclose their Food Heady secrets."

Hain narrowed one eye at her. "I'm still not sure if you're joking, or if there actually are Food Heads."

Lilith rolled her eyes. "Stop talking and just eat."

Questions tumbled through Hain's mind, but the promise of food stopped any chance of clear thinking. He dug in, and had inhaled half the plate before Lilith spoke again.

"I believe you about the Vrai attacking you outside of Memory."

Hain's fork paused halfway a return trip from his plate to his mouth. "You do?"

"I do," she said. "After what Smith said. With the rifle." She shook her head. "Hume swears the Vrai haven't breached the haven, but I'm starting to think he's wrong. There's no other way to explain finding that gun."

"If the Vrai are inside, then why is Hume acting as though everything is fine?"

"Because admitting the Vrai are in the haven means admitting responsibility for the deaths of those guards who died defending you."

"Those Vrai weren't just trying to kill me," Hain said defensively. "They were trying to kill all of us."

"Yes, but the Vrai were chasing after you. They appeared in the haven around the same time you arrived, and then came after you specifically. People blame you, Hain. And they blame Hume for harboring you." Lilith shook her head. "What I still don't understand is why the Vrai want you at all."

Hain thought about the ring, and about how badly Boothe had wanted it, but he said nothing. He needed to know why the Vrai wanted the thing before he was willing to tell Lilith anything.

Hain felt his face go hot. "I didn't ask for Hume's help."

"That doesn't matter," she said. "Now that the Vrai are back, people are scared."

"Back?" Hain said. "You mean the Vrai have been here before?"

Lilith picked up her fork and absently jabbed at the remnants on her plate. She nodded.

"When?" he said. "What happened?"

"There was a war." Lilith drew in a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes downturned. "They let loose a weapon on Promise. A sickness." She swallowed just as her voice cracked. "Most of the Foew in Promise were killed."

Images of Promise's vacant streets flitted behind his eyes as he studied her, felt the anguish oozing from his friend like pus draining from a wound. It wasn't forced. Wasn't fake. What she felt for the Foew was real. The sort of sorrow you felt when it was your people who'd fallen to suffering.

In that moment, whatever lingering doubt he'd had about her origins dissolved.

Worse still, he knew how she felt. Because he knew what it was like to have the Vrai invade your homeland. To yoke your people to pain. To sow sorrow into your fields. To poison your wells with grief.

He wasn't the only one who'd lived with horrors suffered under the Vrai. The Foew had as well. Just like every time that night in the woods with the Boy replayed in his mind, so must Lilith's memories of the people she'd loved. The people murdered by the Vrai.

"Why would he risk it?" Hain said, his voice small. "Hume, I mean."

Her eyes rose to meet his, confusion in them. "Risk what?"

"All of it," Hain said. "Bringing me here. Helping me." Hain shook his head. "What could be so important about me that he'd risk the Vrai's wrath a second time?"

Lilith was silent a moment before she answered.

"I can't tell you that. Not in a way that you'll understand." She rose from the table. "But come with me, and I can show you."