Nef was tired.

Not physically, but mentally. A month ago, the plan to stop Relioth had seemed pretty realistic. It had actually been Mel's idea and Nef had agreed with him—find Mereria, help her get control of the Umbra again, attack Relioth, and kill him. When they'd discussed this, Nef really hadn't imagined they'd get stuck right on the first objective.

Sure, he'd learned how to use a few types of guns, started working on an app to translate Eternal writing, and got into great shape—for him, anyway—but Nira wasn't there, so Nef had no one to brag about it to.

Oh, yeah, Nira hadn't contacted them at all during the month she'd been gone, but Nef avoided thinking about that as much as possible because then his brain started coming up with ideas he hated. Like, the fact that Nira could be dead, and he had no way of making sure that she wasn't.

"I'm sure she's okay," said Mel, drawing Nef out of his thoughts. Nef gave him the best irritated expression he could muster in reply. Mel had been saying stuff like this basically since Nira had gone back home. The Eternal claimed that he wasn't reading Nef's mind, but Nef was calling bullshit. There was no way for Mel to try to comfort Nef every time he thought about Nira by coincidence.

"And I'm sure you should mind your own business," Nef snapped at Mel, who averted his gaze, looking hurt, but Nef was too frustrated to feel bad about causing that.

"Oh, c'mon, Nef, don't be a dick," said Rayni, walking over to them from where she'd been searching the Umbra hideout, also known as dead end number thirty-two. They were only here because they'd found a clue or two in different hideouts anyway, and right now they had nothing to go off on. "Mel's just trying to be nice."

"Let me guess, we've found nothing again," Nef said, desperate to change the topic.

"Well, maybe not," said Rayni, and held up a backpack. "I found this stashed in the back. I think someone lives here. Or, is hiding out, at least."

This hideout was much larger than any Nef had seen before, but it certainly didn't look like someone was staying here. Maybe that was the point, but who could possibly live here who would have to hide? Didn't only the Umbra know about these places? They didn't need to stay anywhere for long stretches of time because they didn't get tired, or hungry, or anything, really.

"Maybe someone just left this here," Nef said, and Rayni shook her head.

"There's no dust on it," Rayni pointed out. "Also, inside it is a packet of cheese that hasn't gone bad yet."

Nef frowned at the cheese as Rayni pulled it out of the backpack to show him, throwing it back in a second later.

"So you think we should wait here until whoever that belongs to comes back?"

Rayni let the backpack fall to the ground and pushed it away with her foot while shrugging and smirking.

"Well, it's not like we've got anything else to go on..." Nef muttered, wondering how Kara and Alor were doing.

To get through more of these hideouts more quickly, they always searched them split into two groups, usually with one group including Mel and the other Rayni because of their powers. The only reason Nef was here with both of them was that Alor refused to let him out of his sight otherwise, and everyone was tired of listening to that.

In fact, a day hadn't gone by without Alor mentioning something along the lines of Nef not being ready, and needing protection. It really reminded Nef of why he'd never spent this much time with his brother.

"Do you think the person who the backpack belongs to will be friendly?" Mel spoke up. "I mean, if they come here."

"Would you be friendly if you found three intruders in your home?" Nef asked, not expecting an answer, but of course he got one. He really should be used to this after hanging around Mel for over a month.

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"If they didn't attack me, sure I would," Mel replied, grinning. "I'd probably make them tea."

The sad thing was, he wasn't kidding.

"Are you sure you're not secretly Imberan?" Rayni asked him, folding her arms and raising an eyebrow.

Mel seemed to think it over for a second, and then slowly shook his head. "I don't think so." His expression changed from happy to sad almost immediately after saying this. Rayni ran a hand over her face.

Right, any mention of anything to do with Kaleth made Mel sad. Nef hadn't known the guy that well, so he didn't really know how to feel about him working for Relioth now. Relioth had done something to Kaleth's head, that much was clear—the man had tried to kill the Eternal just before he'd been captured, after all.

Relioth had made sure to show them Kaleth was helping him by having him represent Relioth during a press conference, and there was no real point to it, so it had obviously been just an excuse to gloat.

Relioth had also wrapped up the whole thing with the Flare being destroyed, which was just weird. The Eternal had publicly announced that the culprits had been dealt with, but they hadn't. Ignoring the obvious fact that Relioth was the actual culprit, the few people who used to be agents of Luxarx and weren't in prison or dead had been, as far as they knew, left to do their own devices without being hunted by the federal police.

At first, this had made all of them nervous, but after weeks of nothing, they just avoided major cities and didn't otherwise bother hiding. It was strange because, even though Relioth was arrogant, he wasn't this arrogant. Maybe he really didn't think it was worth it to bother chasing them all over Enoria because they couldn't do anything to stop him.

And maybe he was right. Most of the Federation just accepted the Eternals, some even started worshipping them—which Relioth, the celebrity, didn't like for some reason—and had no problem with them running everything because they'd been doing it anyway, so not much had changed.

Except for the war with Irithara. Relioth was taking his sweet time with that, which wasn't only stupid, but also wasteful. Enoria was a rich country, but war was expensive, and Relioth was unnecessarily drawing it out. So far, nobody had been brave enough to criticize him. At least not yet.

So, to sum up—Relioth's actions were making no sense to Nef.

"Oh, and I think I found an othrin weapon," said Mel, holding out a black dagger to Rayni.

"Probably should have started with that, Mel," Nef said, shaking his head. They hadn't come across anything that could be used against an Eternal until now except for the dagger Mel had acquired a month ago by killing one of Relioth's people.

"But you were sad," Mel protested, and Nef pinched the bridge of his nose. Every time Mel said something like this, it always made Nef wonder how it was possible that Mel hadn't been thrown out of the Umbra way before Mereria had disappeared. Mel was good at fighting, definitely, but his mindset was just completely incompatible with an organization that specialized in assassinations.

"Right, so we're thinking an Umbra lives here?" asked Rayni, taking the dagger and studying it. "Do Eternals eat cheese?"

"We can," Mel replied, shrugging. "I never liked it enough to pay so much money for it, though."

With pretty much no source of income, it was understandable that Mel hadn't bought something he hadn't needed to survive, but that didn't mean that calling cheese expensive was accurate. Nef decided not to say this.

"What did you spend money on?" Rayni asked, smiling at Mel.

Over the weeks the two had started acting as if they'd known each other for years. Which Nef supposed was kind of true, but Rayni didn't remember her past, and Mel didn't seem to know that much about his own, either. He seemed to remember more than her, but apparently whatever Relioth had done to him resulted in his memories being a mess.

Mel either couldn't tell what had happened when, or he just straight up had no recollection of certain parts of his life. There was also the fact that Relioth could have just planted fake memories in Mel's head, just like he had done to Rayni, but all of them usually stayed far away from this subject because it wasn't pleasant for anyone.

"Chocolate, mostly," Mel replied, grinning. "I like chocolate."

"Right on!" Rayni said, and the two bumped fists, making Nef roll his eyes.

"Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?" Rayni asked Mel, continuing the conversation.

"Milk chocolate," Mel answered. "There's too much cocoa in dark chocolate."

"Thank you! You need to say this in front of Kara, so she sees I finally have someone on my side."

Nef was about to interrupt the thrilling conversation when the noise of the hideout's entrance opening did it for him.

All three of them whipped around, and Nef immediately pulled out a handgun and aimed it at the opening in the ceiling. He highly doubted he could kill anyone, especially not with a regular gun, but it was better than nothing. In the meantime, Mel readied his dagger, while Rayni raised up the one Mel had found. Though she didn't seem to think there would be much of a fight, judging by loosely she was holding the weapon.

After another second or two, a dark-haired woman jumped down through the entrance, landing elegantly right in front of the three of them. For a split second she looked angry, but that expression quickly changed into one of shock. And so did Nef's. In fact, he almost dropped his gun.

He stood there for what felt like an eternity, trying to process what he was seeing. From the corner of his eye, he could see Rayni giving him questioning looks, but he couldn't form sentences at that moment.

All he could manage was to say a single word.

"Mom?!"