Jayleia closed her eyes and propped her elbows on her knees, hands hanging, letting her hair fall, bells tinkling, to shield her from Damen’s gaze. She had to resist the urge to grit her teeth. “Jayleia. What’s wrong?” “It’s all questions and no answers,” she grumbled. “I have two code phrases that sound exactly like something my father would hand me to decrypt. Tahem saying, ‘Don’t let the past dictate what I could become’ and my mother telling me to ‘Go someplace that knows how to deal with these monsters.’ Neither makes sense. I feel like I’m in the middle of an enormous puzzle with a pattern that keeps morphing and shifting under my feet. I can’t help my father. I don’t know what made me think I could. “We have a crystal jammed into the matter injector on your engine, and granted, it saved our asses, but we don’t even know what it is!” “Jayleia,” Damen said, wrapping his hands around her wrists. “Look at me.” She met his hooded gaze. “How do you resolve roadblocks when you’re working research aboard the Sen Ekir?”
