Siegfried took one of the last available suites in Tian Tower. Eva got a small room. There was quite a bit of explaining about how things worked on Union Central. Esther did a lot of that, excited to have earned another commission on their housing.

The prince, when not engaging in his haughty act, was humble and even came across as thrilled by all the changes being made to his life. However the early years of his life had been, he spent the last nine posing as a refugee working menial jobs. Hector managed to get Eva to himself for an hour so that she could write down detailed instructions for making the Mother Elixir.

She taught him how to separate the layers, of which there were three – two fully grown and one 'young' layer. He could keep the young layer for himself and no one would ever know. But it could not remain on an unempowered world. The Mother cultivated and it had to live on Tian.

So less than a full day later, Hector returned to the artificial cave. He placed the young layer of the Mother in a new container and covered it with sweetened tea and core dust. Then he brought the other two layers together with the written recipe to the estate of Lord Zara.

Servants went running after he appeared in the dining room with a container holding liquid at Level ten. Zara didn't make him wait this time. She was there within minutes, bursting into the room and tripping as she rushed to look at the treasure.

Hector caught Zara before her face could damage the wood of her table. She unthinkingly clasped hands with him, not taking her eyes off the Mother. "You actually retrieved it!"

"You were holding my friend hostage," Hector said.

Zara turned to look at him, realized they were holding hands, and snatched hers back. "I would have returned Riley to you after a year. I'm not needlessly cruel, Hector."

"I apologize for thinking otherwise, Lord Zara." He tapped the handwritten instructions. "This is the 'recipe' you sent me for. It doesn't work without the Mother, which you see floating inside. You have to feed it sweetened tea and elixir in accordance with the instructions. There is another key piece of information which has been withheld. There are two layers to the Mother. You can separate them and give just one to the Emperor."

Her eyes grew even larger than they already were. "I can claim the reward and have my own Mother Elixir. This is well done, Hector. I promised you the right to spend fifty platinum coins at the auction house. You may have twice that for your service."

Zara's airy mood suddenly grew heavier. "You say there is no way to know that there were more layers of the Mother. How many did it have before you came here?"

Hector bowed to hide his expression. "Surely you're not upset at your fortunes, Lord Zara?"

She snorted. "Fine. I will not ask awkward questions. You did well, Hector. Do you care to join me for dinner?"

"With respect, Master Zara, I would not be comfortable having a meal my friend had to make under involuntary service."

"Oh, you must wish to get her back home. I'll tell you what, Hector. Come back in three days. I will host you for an extravagant dinner. Then you can join me and Dorian on our trip to the auction."

"I would be honored, Lord Zara."

Zara smiled. "We will make it a cookout. By the tradition of the Shaocheth family, there are no titles allowed at a cookout. Celebrations are better that way."

He agreed to her request, adding the appointment to his mental calendar. Then they were off to the kitchens. Lord Zara called for Riley and the girl emerged from the stock room, potato in one hand and peeler in the other. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Hector.

"Your friend has done the impossible, Riley. You are free to go."

Riley handed potato and peeler to another cook, removed a dirty apron, and slipped over to stand by Hector. Lord Zara pulled a bottle of cooking wine from a rack and passed it to Hector. "The two of you can drink that in celebration when you get home."

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They thanked the lord, found a room large enough for his sphere, and traveled away.

In the darkness of his sphere, Riley sighed. "I'm really glad to be going home, Hector."

"Were they unkind to you?"

"No, not really," Riley said. "The food was good. I got a lot of body enhancement done, too. Mostly it was boring. There was a guy I liked, but he was dating three of us at the same time. It was very dramatic, Hector. The one girl wanted to fight me."

"I'm sorry my actions caused you to go through all of that."

Riley grunted. "Just promise me you will never take me somewhere in surprise again."

"I promise I won't surprise you again after this next stop."

Pause. "I hope you are joking, Hector. I really want to go home now."

His sphere began to open and he pulled out his flashlight. "It's a safe place this time, Riley. I was just here an hour ago. I know we're supposed to share that bottle of wine in celebration, but there is something a lot better here."

Hector bent over the only remaining jug of Mother Elixir and broke the wax seal holding lid to ceramic container. The volume of the jug was no greater than a can of pop from back on Earth. When he removed the top, energy poured out. "Care to take the first drink, Riley?"

She walked forward as if in a trance and accepted the container. With a delicate motion, she took a large gulp of the liquid. "Whoa. Hector. Whoa."

He accepted the jug and took a large gulp himself. The cosmic energy within the liquid began flooding into his body the moment it touched his lips. This was energy density. It couldn't even be contained by the matter it resided within. Hector swallowed and felt the rate of absorption skyrocket. This was like eating a hundred of the Zing spirit pills. Only it wasn't a quick burst. It kept going.

Beside him, Riley's soul advanced from level three to level four. She swayed and almost hit her head on the floor. Hector's cable caught her later than he'd prefer. His initial reflex had been to use his hands, but he held a priceless elixir. Riley's enhanced body was less fragile than the clay in his hands.

She woke a few minutes later and accepted the jug again. They passed it back and forth until it was gone entirely. Then hector dumped the contents of his canteen inside, swirled the water around, and they drank every last drop of that as well to ensure no dregs went unconsumed. In the end, Riley reached peak level four in her body enhancement. Hector felt like he had made significant progress of his own.

They entered his sphere once more and returned to the lobby of Tian Tower.

Esther greeted Riley with a huge hug and a sloppy kiss to the forehead. Riley became emotional and started proclaiming how much she missed everyone. It was a heartwarming reunion. Right up until Riley noticed that Darius was missing.

Then he discovered how quickly heartwarming could become heartrending.

He had to comfort his friend while knowing he was the source of her present misery. This was after being the source of her previous misery. So much bad came out of that one decision to bring Riley to Tian for the wood delivery. All because he'd been disillusioned after visiting Greg and Maggie. There was no character flaw involved in his bad decision that he could see. Just bad luck. Or maybe it was more accurate to say ignorance of the risk level.

This was the kind of emotional situation he typically ran from. Or handled with money. That wasn't the right response. Respecting the person and the emotion was. And if it caused uncomfortable pressure within his own psyche, well, maybe he deserved that.

When Riley calmed down, he was sitting beside her in the communal area of their floor, one arm around her shoulder. "I will find him and bring him back, Riley."

"No! What if you don't come back from Tian?" She squeezed him with all the ferocity her tiny form could generate. "The three of us are family, Hector. We can't split up. Darius doesn't have anyone on Tian who cares about him."

Hector clenched his jaw. He suspected Darius preferred to avoid the inconvenience of having other people in his life who would distract him from his vengeance. The last words Darius spoke to him echoed in his head. 'You are a better man than my father ever was. Sadly, I am not.' For a while, he'd convinced himself that Darius was changing. That the power of friendship had worked its magic on the dour man.

Such hopes weren't realistic. Hector's own journey of self-improvement certainly wasn't fast or easy. He worked on himself all the damn time. He questioned his decisions and changed them to align with the virtues he was following. None of that was easy. It was a marathon that sometimes felt like it would never end. Darius may care for the two of them, but at his core he was tainted with hate and pain and self-loathing.

Darius was a lost cause. Hector shook his head to refute his own conclusion. He wouldn't give up on his friend. Maybe he was a fool for that – certainly a great number of people thought him naive due to his insistence on adhering to his moral code. In this case, he would practice the virtue of loyalty even if it defied reason. He wanted to be the type of man who never stopped supporting those closest to him.

"Riley, I have to go after him. The same way I had to get you back. If I felt like I had to protect Alfar I'd never met on Eden, how can I not be there for Darius?"

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