At first light, three shadows left the carcass of Wyvern, skulked through the city and headed up the steps of a very expensive apartment building.

The first thing Jace did was make coffee. He could hardly keep his eyes open, much less talk, but that was fine; Keil and Blake were too tired to listen, anyway. Keil, covered in engine oil and sand, lifted his goggles to reveal two round patches of clean skin and settled into the sofa. Blake, scarves still around his chin, sat on the other. Jace did not admonish them. He hardly cared.

“So,” he said, more a breath than a word. “What now?”

It was sleepily silent. Keil cleaned his glasses and popped them on his face.

“Blake?” he whispered.

Jace glanced over, shrugged.

“About time the stupid bastard got some sleep,” he said.

Blake had his head on his chest and did not stir. Keil frowned, rested back in the sofa.

“What a highly peculiar man,” he said.

“Peculiar?” said Jace, with a short laugh. “He’s mad. Crazy as a Yur frog.”

“No. No, not crazy. More...”

Keil struggled. He could not put his finger on exactly what was strange about Blake. There was the eyes, of course, and the way he had popped right out of the sky and saved Keil’s life, but... it was a way that he carried himself, perhaps. Or...

“Whatever he is,” said Jace, “that’s a stolen ship, and he wants to get out of here in a hurry. Oh, and Bero has his thugs swarming all over him. Best to get rid. Let him go. Coffee?”

Keil did not respond. Blake was more interesting than Jace could give him credit for. It was a mystery how anyone could pass that up. Blake twitched; his frown deepened, slackened; his hands twitched.

“Hey, Genius. Do you want coffee?”

Keil jumped, stared over at Jace.

“Oh, yes, please. Sorry, I...”

He took the offered cup, and for a moment the pair of them watched Blake dream an uneasy dream. Jace’s expression became serious, sorrowful.

“Maybe I’ll put him to bed,” he said softly.

“Maybe you should,” Keil agreed.

Jace put his cup on the coffee table and slid his arms around Blake, lifting him easily. Once he was deposited on the guest bed, Jace closed the door and tried to put it out of his mind.

Lights.

Hazy, multicoloured lights. Shimmering, kaleidoscopic, punctuated by colourful, spherical shapes that drifted in and out, and figures in long sweeping robes – but none of it substantial or clear. All like a mirage.

But there was a feeling, a feeling ungraspable, foreign and ancient and maybe, just maybe, within reach -

Blake jumped awake. His hand, independent of thought, grabbed at nothing in the air, like it was trying to grab the lights or the feeling or something else.

He blinked, gasped, and pulled his hand down sharply. For a while, he stared at the ceiling, stricken.

Stupid dream.

He tugged at the scarves, which had fallen around him in twisted patterns.

Stupid scarves.

Ashamed and grimacing, he slapped his temples to shake the feeling of safety that the dream gave him. Then he swallowed, sat and pushed himself off the bed.

In the main room, Jace was nowhere to be seen but Keil actually seemed refreshed, albeit in filthy clothes. When he saw Blake he gave a wide and welcoming smile. It almost instantly fell.

“Is everything all right, Blake?” he said.

Blake blinked, rubbed his face and nodded. He never normally got asked that much how he felt or if he was okay, so he tried to fix his appearance to try and avoid being asked again.

“Fine. How long have I slept for?”

“Oh, not that long. Your coffee is cold.” At Blake’s confused stare, Keil jumped into an explanation. “Jace made some coffee, but you were asleep before he finished. He put you to bed. You still look tired...” Blake, bored, moved to the kitchen; Keil wrung his hands. “... if you don’t mind me saying so.”

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Keil faded into the background. Blake could not stop thinking about the dream and he was trying to force his mind onto something, anything else. He reached into the fridge, found the juice and turned to see if there was a glass.

“Oh, Jace has gone out,” said Keil. He seemed afraid of the silence descending again. “I don’t know where to. I think he might be shopping. For food.”

Blake poured his juice. He was not remotely concerned about whether or not it went into the glass. He saw the walls of the container, how it held the fluid, how it kept out -

“Um, Blake?”

“Do you know how to make a forcefield?” he said.

Keil rubbed the back of his neck, shrugged.

“I... er... well it’s highly difficult techno...” He saw the look on Blake’s face. “Um... yes.”

“How quickly can you make a forcefield?”

“I can do a simple one in an afternoon.” But his confidence rapidly waned. “What... what exactly do you need a forcefield for?”

“How large could this simple forcefield be? How strong?”

The interrogation was not working on Keil. He began to fidget with his buttons, eyes darting – but Blake was still staring at the juice with his odd eyes. Colours shifted in the grey, odd flurries of blue and green.

“Strong enough to hold gunfire,” said Keil quietly. “Or ramming. For, I would say, sixteen hours?”

“Large enough to cover Wyvern?”

There. That was what was making Keil nervous. He blinked. He could feel himself sweating.

“I... I beg your pardon?” he said, in a sort of squeak. He hated the way his voice sounded when he was nervous.

“Could you make it large enough to cover Wyvern?” Blake repeated.

“I... well... yes... I would need my tools -”

Blake abandoned his juice. He grabbed Keil by the arm and dragged him out of the door.

Jace wasn’t happy. He had arrived with arms filled with groceries to an empty apartment and a full glass of juice. He had not slept and had barely showered and changed, which make him grouchy at the best of times – and this was not the best of times.

He knew where Keil and Blake would be. There was too much stupid stuff going on for them not to be at Keil’s workshop.

Sure enough, there they were. Keil was welding something while Blake, leg dangling from the work table, sat and watched him.

“Thanks for like, y’know, leaving me a note,” Jace said.

Nobody replied. Keil clicked his fingers at some tools at Blake’s side and Blake carefully chose a three-pronged contraption. When he threw it to Keil, the mechanic missed the catch by several inches and the whatever-it-was slid across the floor.

Jace rolled his eyes. “Triple suns.”

Pair of incompetents.

“If you want to help,” said Keil, “I would appreciate the offer.”

“Can’t Moon-head handle some simple tasks?”

Blake glared.

“Oh, Blake has no skill for mechanics, he told me so himself,” said Keil.

“And you trust anything he says?” said Jace.

Keil stopped. Blake’s glare intensified.

But Jace was done with helping. He was done keeping his mouth shut and infiltrating Desert Foxes. He was irritated and sick of being treated like an idiot.

“I mean, let’s look at the facts,” he said, walking slowly into the workshop. “This guy crashes his ship – his stolen ship, by the way, I do not believe it belongs to the bastard – and all of a sudden, as if by magic, every single Desert Fox in a twelve-mile radius is on his back.”

Keil pursed his lips. All of a sudden, he seemed scared. Blake did nothing but glare. Jace, though, was swept up in the wave of his own anger and did not realise that anything untoward was taking place. He was going to let it out, regardless of whether or not it hurt anyone.

“Now, I don’t know about you, Keil,” said Jace, pointedly turning to him, “but I find that a little suspicious. Don’t you?”

Keil stammered. Blake was dangerously still.

But captive audiences were Jace’s favourite. He slid into his usual form of storytelling – gesticulation, over-the-top facial expressions. He was on a roll. Nobody could stop him.

“Not only that, but he hasn’t got any money. At all. So it can’t be Green Bero’s after. He doesn’t have any skills, except beating up random thugs with his giant Scopic Gauntlet – a weapon mostly used by professional underground boxers or those who run such illegal rings.”

In the darkness of the garage, Blake seemed to radiate burning light, from around his eyes. Keil was not sure he was imagining it.

“Jace, now please-” he begged.

“I’m not done, Genius,” Jace snapped.

He strode up to Blake, inches from his face, and continued.

“He doesn’t eat. Doesn’t sleep. When he does sleep, he twitches with all sorts of nightmares. He won’t tell us where he’s going or why he wants to leave so fast. He knows nothing of the galaxy in which he lives and, to be honest, I have never seen eyes like -”

Jace almost heard a tangible snap. What happened next, however, was very real.

A silver aura erupted from Blake’s tiny body and two long, ghostly arms burst from his sides, grabbed Jace by the shoulders and pushed him backwards. Horrified, Jace could do nothing but submit; Keil leapt to his feet in shock. The arms slammed Jace right into the wall and then, inexplicably, vanished.

The aura was gone. Instead, Blake used his real, flesh arm to grab Jace’s collar and hold him firm. There was the awful smell of a storm, close and invasive, in Jace’s nose, and Blake, while he was calm now, was breathing like he had run a marathon.

“If we’re doing deductions,” Blake said, his voice raspy and low, “let’s hear mine of you, shall we?”

There was a residual burning effect around Blake’s grey eyes and a thin, silvery, formless film on his shoulders. Jace, for the first time in his life, was speechless.

“Let’s see. Well, you obviously don’t do much medicine if you have to kidnap prospective patients, but you’re loaded with Green. You certainly aren’t from around here but will give no details of where you did come from – I suspect it involves a woman, judging by the photograph in your flat. You have no friends here, no allies, and yet you seem to think that here, nobody will touch you. Not even Bero. And,” Blake finished, gritting his teeth, “for someone with very little brains, you can never seem to shut your mouth.”

Jace blinked. Nobody moved.

“Please, gentlemen,” said Keil, hopping on the balls of his feet, “let’s not fight. Jace, apologise...”

But all Jace could do was whisper, “What the hell did you just do?”

The tension dropped. Blake let go of Jace like he was dropping a hot rock and, without another word, stormed off into the shadows of the workshop. Jace rubbed the red mark on his neck, readjusted his collar and dusted off his shoulders, and turned to Keil, who was watching with his eyes wide.

“Did you see that?” Jace demanded. “Did that really happen?”

“I...”

“What was that?”

“I... um...” Keil sighed, pained, and said, “I should get to work.”