Muse Silver-Green, Same Night

Tolbert fled the room.

Zander came back dressed in a black and gold uniform. He checked the numbers and called one back.

"It's me, Shanna L. Salamander, Rob's sister. We... talked before, but you blocked my old number. Your son visited... my show."

"I asked you not to call me about my son unless you get him back." He checked his phone. "Sorry, I didn't mean to block you," he said.

"Mr. Phall, I'm sorry for your custody battle, but I need you. Rob is selling out the poorest workers for exploitation. Not everything my brother is doing is legal."

"Everyone looks the other way when your brother does business, including my agency. What do you want from me?"

"He didn't inherit. Mom left our sister, Dina, the company, and he forged her will. He's a greedy thief."

"Do you think Rob killed your mom?"

"Rob cheated through classes. He lacks the ability and is too cheap to hire anyone. He is a carbon copy of our... mom. She'd be proud. Please, don't tell anyone I insulted my mother."

"I won't," Zander said over the phone.

"If my sister Vash was still around, she'd have been disappointed."

"Have you ever met your sister? Vash was a boarding school brat," Zander said.

"Mom, I mean Dina, invited her to our tea parties, and I'd email her and chat with her online twice a day. I still miss her. Sir, you might think I'm a brainless doll, but I'll find proof that he is exploiting workers, and Dina is Deb-Dagger. I want whoever took Vash from me behind bars."

"Deb is a siren, not a human," Zander said over the phone.

"No, the hologram isn't self-aware. Deb doesn't want to lose control. He or she manipulates victims into joining Deb's Light with dark psychology. There has to be a real person behind the tech."

"Are you mocking me for being fooled by Tolbert Allen?"

She sighed over the phone. "We were both idiots, but we were young. You need to pretend to take Rob's deal."

"He is still upset that I allowed Tolbert to break my relationship with Holbrook apart."

"My brother adores you, and I kept the fact you joined the cult from him. He wants to exploit Holbrook's singing abilities after his theater troupe quit. Rob is always exploiting someone. Dina didn't start as evil. She raised me, but my brother drove her to it."

"Why don't you trust her anymore?" Zander asked.

"She killed my mother and Vash, expecting she would inherit. Three months ago, I received some anonymous emails about my sister. They started coming after Mason Crawley contacted me for a DNA sample. I was a product of an affair."

"Are you sure?"

Shanna's voice dropped an octave. "My parents... weren't exactly faithful to each other, and I was born years after my father died. There was no frozen embryo."

"I thought Dina was covering up an affair."

"Mason's third genetic test confirmed that Dina and Rob... are my half-siblings. I'm waiting for another test. Mason and I have been in contact for years, mostly through postcards and email. I performed in his first play, so yes, we know each other. He rescued me from the cult, and he's been my protector."

"I won't tell anyone."

"My brother Rob takes after Mom, but he doesn't even hide his affairs. He doesn't have time to run a business."

Zander's hand shook as he held the phone, trying to fight off the transformation. "If he runs the electric company any longer, it'll be like the coal mine wars on Earth."

"Mr. Phall, my sister isn't wrong, but she's twisted. The queen's mother, Kay Salamander Poe's, new business is selling solar generators and food printers, undercutting both Rob's wind power and Deb's fire rock mines. My brother tried to use a legal loophole to destroy both Deb and Dina's factories because he's obsessed with maintaining his monopoly."

Commander Nickel opened the door. She smiled, grasping a pink box full of mini-tarts and cookie sandwiches dusted with glittery sugar. "You seem upset? Eat a buttery pastry. You'll never know which ones are vegan." She sat down on the floor.

"Why are you here? I was monstrous to you." Zander rested his head on her shoulder.

She picked through the pastry box. "Gloria called me and told me to look out for you. We ruined each other's lives."

Zander ate a strawberry tart. He blurted about the inheritance and his conversation with Dina. "I always suspected he couldn't have inherited." Zander's face turned into a bunny, and his nose and ears twitched.

Commander Nickel patted the small spot in between his shoulder blades. "Deb-Dagger is a fraud scheme. Dina fakes Shanna's voice." She mimicked Shanna's childlike voice almost perfectly. "My cultists plan to invite you to a lovely tea party."

"If we could only sneak off." His nose twitched.

"Tolbert is lurking about," she said. "He'll attack Holbrook and you again."

"She thinks I hate her. I'd like to be friends again." Zander shifted.

Commander Nickel squeezed his paw. "You know how I feel about you, but if you're still in love with your closest friend, tell her."

"Holbrook doesn't love me anymore. She claimed only garbage men were involved in love triangles and dumped me with a fiery speech. Suddenly, I told her everything about the cult and Tolbert's involvement. I treated her like garbage, and she saved my life." Zander stood up.

"Using her is not the way to win her back. I thought Agent Lace and General Allen only planned Mason for this mission."

"I'd rather be slapped in the face with a rotting fish than date Holbrook." His face became human-like again.

"Has your ability to shift into a dragon returned?"

"Of course not. I lost the abilities that made me special."

"You're here because I adore you, and Holbrook still wants to be your friend. Everyone cares for you. The only one who shouldn't be here is Agent Lace. She's my best friend, but her grudge against the Salamander family complicates everything. She is the most amazing woman, but I think Deb might attack her or try to frame her again."

"Deb's attempt didn't work, which is why Lace fights her. Agent Lace always wins against evil. The new king cleared her, and she is our boss. She gave me this second chance, and I'll take it. If it leads to Deb's arrest, I'm in." He nibbled on a date tart. "She is right about her son. He can unravel everything, and we must protect him at all costs."

"I agree." Commander Nickel hugged him. Her mouth inched closer to his, and she kissed him. She began to cry.

Zander broke away. "Babette, the fact you sob every time you kiss me leads me to think you don't want to."

"But I think I still love you."

"No, you don't. Your low self-esteem is talking. Nickel, I was a cult member and only dated the women Tolbert asked me to. I wanted to please Deb and be a good worker. She chose who I dated, and I hated dating either you or Holbrook. Even my ex-wife was selected for me. I wouldn't have gotten married when I was sixteen without Deb's influence. You're all beautiful, but not one I'd choose for myself."

"Oh," Nickel said with a hint of sadness.

"And I care about you enough to turn you down. I let Tolbert in, and he weaseled into your brain, but it's obvious you don't like me."

"Now, everyone hates me, including Kitten, and we used to be close," Nickel said.

"Don't blame that on me. He tells you the only reason he wasn't allowed to date you is that he is your boss, takes early retirement, so he could romance you officially, and he finds out you're seeing the man his adopted daughter is engaged to."

"Stop it, please. I never meant to hurt him."

"Well, you did. If Holbrook's birth father didn't mess with your self-image, would you have ever tried to kiss me back?"

"No, but Tolbert said I lacked permission to ask Kitten out, and I wasn't worthy, but after Tolbert changed his mind about my worth, it was too late. I'll never purge these feelings. I volunteered to be a temp commander of The Flying Clutch to prove he could trust me again, but he doesn't want to even be friends anymore."

"Kissing someone you're not in love with won't fix your life, and it won't make up for the fact you blew it. You were as culpable as I was. I want to crush Deb's cult into the earth because they took my son. My life is a living nightmare."

"I'm sure Jake is safe." Her hands twitched.

"The cultists took him, and he'll be brainwashed and end up like I was. Because of Mason, I discovered whoever killed Quin knows who Deb is." His phone oddly buzzed, and he tried to answer.

"I'm trying to tell you..." Nickel stared at his ear, and she stopped talking.

The phone rang again. She snatched his phone and examined it. "Tolbert must have broken into your room. He left a tracking virus." She checked over the messages and numbers.

I turned to the supervisor. "Why hasn't anyone told Zander that Kay is with his son and not in the orphanage?"

"Kay might not be as trustworthy as we thought. Yes, the boy is with her, but she might be using him as a bargaining chip to guarantee the takeover of Rob's company goes through," my supervisor said.

"She couldn't hurt a child." I stood up from my chair. "Watching Zander like a lab rat is disturbing, especially since you don't have the full information about why the cult is dangerous to us. I suggest chatting with Apollo."

"For the new Apollo to even suggest our former leader is a traitor disgusts me. Zander lost his powers when he joined Deb's Light. We'll spy on him." My supervisor tugged at my arm. "Do you trust Kay or our late Apollo?"

"I trust The Queen Mother a lot more than our former boss. She fired me twice and lied about the curse. Kay improved our security technology and protected our planet from annihilation." I turned to leave but played with the dials embedded in the Muse chair. The switch was removed to prevent me from observing Zander while he slept. I made a makeshift switch with my pen cap.

The live recording broke through. "Someone has been blocking our transmissions," I said.

Zander was asleep in his bed, and Tolbert was talking to someone in the shadows.

"I drugged him, and he's out," a woman who sounded like Shanna Salamander said. She wasn't a hologram, but a disguised woman. "He needs the rest."

"Why don't you kill him now?"

"He is valuable and doesn't suspect me. His naivety keeps him alive. We both need him, and the last thing I need is his murder to come back to me."

"Deb, Zander is more dangerous than an amateur detective." He grabbed her gloved hand.

"And that is your fault. I told you not to file for custody of Jake under my subsidiary. Now everyone's looking into my branded orphanages. We can't even use the brat as a bargaining chip because Kay already has him. How are we going to show that corporations are more equipped than families if you let Zander's ex trade him to Kay?"

"I thought you wanted Kay dead."

"Sweet Tolbert, if she cut her hand off to save Jake, she'll give us the codes to the protective shield belonging to the Planet of the Glass Harp," Deb said. "I told you legally kidnapping Jake was a terrible idea, and Kay rescued him within hours."

"I failed you."

"Zander will be on our side again," Deb said.

"I'll have our friends take Kay's twins."

"Zander already knows I plan to go after the twins," Deb said. "But don't worry, he trusts me."

"We'll use them as a diversion," Tolbert said.

We lost the live feed.

"I think Deb scrambled it," I said.

My supervisor grabbed my wing. "Do you trust the new Apollo? Last week he had me lie and tell everyone that Mason no longer has a Muse. He's keeping all of Paisley's notes."

I glared at my boss. "Do what you're told. Cultists are too scared to be Mason's Muse. Deb killed our old Apollo to get rid of her conspirator."

"No, she received the wrong dose after her accident, didn't she?"