A familiar, oddly accented voice spoke up suddenly. “I believe I can help with that.”
The mysterious turquoise-eyed man was lurking in the doorway again, regarding us all with a placid, knowing smile.
Phox perked up beside me, his brow snapping into a dangerous scowl as he stared the man down. Phox’s jaw locked as though he were gritting his teeth and his hand shot out, landing rather purposefully on my knee.
Um. What the hell was that about?
“O-Oh! My sincerest apologies, sir, I did not see you there,” the alien woman sputtered as she shied back and ducked her head, her fin-like ears slicking back as though she were spooked by him.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Not to worry. I’m sure I can clear this confusion up quickly. Just let me have a brief word with my team.”
I blinked. Wait—his team? Did that mean?
“I’m Routilondric,” he explained, his gaze drifting back to me as one corner of his mouth tweaked into a small, quick grin.
WHAT?
All my thoughts scrambled, whisked into a frenzy immediately. This was Routilondric? But … But what about that ugly, slimy toad thing I’d seen in the video? No, this couldn’t be the same person. Not possible.
“Yes! Of course! I’ll just be waiting right outside when you’re finished.” The seahorse-lady tripped all over herself with her long, spindly limbs to offer him a bow before speeding from the room and closing the door behind her.
“You,” Phox thundered as soon as the door shut. “I freaking knew it! What a shocker, another Alzumarian asshole living off the death and torture of everyone else! See, this is what I mean. They always have a motive, Brinna. Always.” He fumed, flashing me a glare.
My heart jumped. That was the first time he’d looked me in the eye since he’d woken up.
“But … But on that video …” I recalled aloud, my thoughts still hopelessly tangled. “That creature was … ”
“One of my many facades,” he explained, not seeming affected at all by Phox’s seething rage. “Someone in my particular line of work can’t be too careful.”
“Decoys?” I narrowed my eyes. “So how do we know you’re the real Rout and not just another one of those pretenders?”
There was something undeniably calculating in Rout’s expression as he regarded me with another one of those wistful, slightly patronizing smiles. “Because you two have put me in a very difficult position, as it were. One that requires someone of … more substantial social standing than any of my usual substitutes to resolve.”
“Basically, we dug a hole for your Alzumarian ass deep enough that you had to step out of hiding to get out of it. That about right?” Phox sank back somewhat, that hand still planted rather possessively on my knee—almost like he was worried Rout might try to take me away.
“That is a much more colorful way of phrasing it, yes,” Rout agreed, his expression cooling. “And now it seems the three of us are at a crossroads.”
A confused mixture of anger, panic, and sheer terror welled in me as I tried to decide what to do or say. As much as I wanted to tell him to go screw himself, I knew there must have been a serious reason he’d come out of hiding just to talk to us. Based on what Enola and Phox had told me about Alzumarians, I already had a pretty good guess as to what that reason might be.
“You can’t touch any of our winnings unless you offer up proof of where we came from.” I sat up a little straighter and crossed my arms. “And if they find out you bought us illegally and raced us as trashers, they’ll toss you in prison and throw away the key.”
Next to me, Phox finally took his hand off my leg and snapped his fingers before he pointed at me. “She learns fast.”
“Indeed, she does.” Rout didn’t sound nearly as proud or pleased by that. “And while you are correct, on most counts, the fact is that your lack of proper citizenship presents an issue for all of us—not just me. If you are discovered to have been illegally harvested, you will undoubtedly be deemed too compromised to be rehabilitated and returned to your homeworlds. The most merciful and likely alternative then becomes euthanasia.”
My jaw dropped. They … They were going to kill us? Just for being here illegally?
“Oh, but you’ve come here to save the day, right?” Phox still didn’t seem daunted by any of this. “And all it’s going to cost us is—wait, let me guess—all of our winnings?”
“Not at all,” Rout countered as he ambled closer until he stood right in front of us, his expensive shiny boots clicking over the floor. “What you two accomplished during the race extends beyond what you can fathom right now. You beat Sienne at what many argue to be her game. You publicly embarrassed Javaarian Faulbender. You went from being trashers to radiants in a single race. And, perhaps most importantly, you shattered an Archilex blade without even touching it.”
Phox tensed, casting me a wide-eyed glance out of the corner of his eye. I guessed he hadn’t heard about that part yet. With him sitting there, brooding for the last two days and only giving me quick, one-or-two-word answers, we hadn’t exactly talked through what had happened and, honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it until now. There’d been a lot of other, more important things to worry about. Like making sure he didn’t die or get dragged away from me.
“No, that’s not right,” my big alien co-pilot protested, but his voice held a tremor of uncertainty. “She shot it with the plasma pistol.”
Heat crept into the corners of my face and I ducked my head, looking away.
“No, she didn’t,” Rout corrected. “She never fired a single shot. It was perhaps the most shocking turn of events the galaxy has ever witnessed. And it has all the leading experts scrambling, dying for a chance to
