Fallen Empire 2: Honor's Flight by Lindsay Buroker Page A

trying to catch faces, to try and get enough to identify them.”
    Alisa rubbed the back of her neck, but nodded. She wanted to see for herself, to try and understand. Maybe it had simply been people dressed up as Starseers. They could have counted on Sylvia being too daunted by their presumed identity to chase after them. After all, she was alone. But now that Alisa was back, it would be a different story. She would chase them. But if this had happened three months ago, where could she start? Tears threatened for the second time that afternoon, but they were tears of tension and frustration this time, not of sorrow.
    “Here it is,” Sylvia said, and a video of the hallway near the front door began to play above the table. “I’ve shown the police. They put out a missing person report, and I added a reward to it for her safe return.”
    “Thank you,” Alisa made herself mutter, though gratitude wasn’t the emotion at the surface of her mind. She wanted to blame Sylvia for allowing this to happen. How could she have let strangers in to steal her little girl?
    Alisa managed to keep the accusations from tumbling from her lips. Sylvia had been kind enough to take Jelena in; to throw that in her face would be unacceptable. No matter how much Alisa wanted to lash out at someone. She found herself wishing Leonidas had come in, if only so she could pick a fight with him and let out her anger.
    “Unfortunately, they haven’t had any leads other than the name I gave them along with the video,” Sylvia said as the footage played. At first, the hallway stood empty, with nothing but four apartment doors and the front door visible, with the darkness of night pressing against a tall window next to it. “I heard some of them refer to the one who appeared to be the leader as Durant—I’m not sure if it was a first or last name. Durant. It’s not common, but it’s not uncommon, either. I checked the imperial and Alliance databases. There are tens of thousands of them out there. I’ve called the police every few days, but if the Starseers truly took Jelena, they have the power to disappear well and fully.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Alisa said. “There are hardly any Starseers left in the galaxy, and there’s nothing about Jelena that would make them want her.”
    Sure, her daughter had scored well on intelligence tests, thanks more to her bright father than her mother, Alisa was sure, but she had not been an exceptional genius. It wasn’t as if she had been floating dishes around the kitchen or whatever it was Starseer children did before they formally started studying to control their powers.
    At least, that was what Alisa thought. The strangest look came over Sylvia’s face, and she opened her mouth and closed it twice without saying anything.
    Before Alisa could question her, movement in the video caught her eye, and she shifted her attention to it. The front door had opened and four figures in black robes filed in, one after the other. Large heavy hoods drooped low, creating shadows that hid their features, even in the well-lit hallway. Alisa leaned down, peering in close, hoping to glimpse a face. Even if one only appeared for an instant, it ought to be enough to run it through the police databases and hope for a match. But the men either knew about the cameras or just knew that they had to keep their hoods low to remain hidden. They walked slowly, their faces turned downward, their hands in their sleeves, not revealing so much as a wedding ring that might be used for identification. All four of them wore pendants that reminded Alisa of Alejandro’s, but his was the three-sun symbol of the Sun Trinity. These were the red moon and silver star symbol of The Order, the special Starseer religion about which she knew very little.
    The figures disappeared from the lobby camera’s field of view. Sylvia’s door was at the opposite end of the hall from the front entrance, and it wasn’t visible. Alisa