Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) by Nalini Singh

At this moment, he had everyone’s attention. “One of my foreseers has twice this week reported visions of what she termed ‘a great migration of stars.’ She could make no sense of it at the time, but if we look at it in the context of shifting minds out of a dangerous PsyNet zone, it fits.”

NightStar foreseers were the best in the world. And if Anthony was mentioning it, the vision had to have been seen by one of their senior F-Psy, possibly even Faith NightStar, the jewel in the NightStar crown.

“Is a move viable from an anchor perspective?” Nikita, pragmatic and ruthless. “The same number of As handling a significantly larger number of minds?”

“Yes.” Payal held her own with one of the deadliest women in the Net. “Our zones are limited by geography, not by the number of minds.”

Because anchors, Canto thought, worked for the PsyNet. That was the critical difference between them and empaths. The Honeycomb helped protect the PsyNet, but the basis of the empaths’ work was to protect and provide succor to the people within it.

An anchor’s first priority, by contrast, was to the Net.

That was why the loss of the NetMind and DarkMind had hurt Designation A so much. Every anchor in the world had been connected to the twin neosentiences in some way, even psychopathic Santano Enrique. The twins had sickened as they sickened. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

That As and the Net were entwined was beyond question.

“We still have the problem of logistics,” Nikita pointed out. “Such a large psychic migration has never before been attempted. Most Psy won’t even know how to sever their PsyNet link, then reconnect.”

Canto acknowledged the point. The biofeedback link was necessary for life. Unless the Psy in question had another psychic network in which to link, to cut it was to die, so what was the point of learning?

Still, there was something …

“Panic will kill the majority.” Ivy Jane rubbed her face, the purplish shadows under her eyes a silent statement of the strain on Designation E.

Canto’s brain worked, his mind finally unearthing the piece of random information he’d stored away at some point in his teens. It’s been done before, he telepathed Payal. Hundreds of years ago. No detailed information available in any of my databases, but it was precipitated by an accident that took out twenty anchors at once.

Payal kept her eyes on the screen as she replied. Why were the twenty anchors together? Anchors are never physically together in such a big number.

From what I was able to dig up at the time, they were having a regional meeting. Perhaps that was where he’d gotten the kernel of his idea of an association to represent anchors, and it had grown to fullness in the back of his mind. A violent and unforeseen volcanic eruption destroyed the city in which they were staying, burying them before anyone could get help. No teleporters in the group.

Payal’s response was thoughtful. That could explain the strong prohibition against anchors gathering in one place. Because too many of us died once. A prohibition passed on through time with the explanation lost.

Sounds right. Canto’s head spun with the implications—past and present—but for now, he dug through his files for further information. The Catari Incident. That’s how the migration was listed in the records I found, but it says in my notes that those records were in human-authored history books. I couldn’t find any Psy corroboration.

I am shocked. Our race, after all, does not have a tendency to hide things. Payal followed up her acerbic telepathic statement by interrupting the discussion onscreen. “The Catari Incident. What do you know of it?”

Blank faces.

She shared the few facts they had, then said, “If it happened, the records must exist in some dusty archive—I see no reason why any Psy Council would’ve prioritized destroying it. The problem will be in finding that information with the NetMind no longer capable of offering assistance.”

“Did the NetMind talk to anchors?” Krychek asked, and as always, Canto was struck by how the man had managed to fly under the radar for years when power fairly pulsed off him. Kaleb Krychek’s will had to be a thing of vicious strength.

“We had a connection that meant such communication was unnecessary,” Payal explained, though no one but an anchor could understand the depth of that link. “The NetMind existed as part of the PsyNet, as do we. We knew and understood one another.” She glanced at her timepiece. “The clock is counting down. What are our chances of tracking down the relevant information?”

“There’s an old historical archive that we always ignored while I was on the Council.” Nikita Duncan’s eyes were acute with intelligence, and it was only when those eyes went to the left for a split second—and Anthony Kyriakus’s went right at the same instant—that Canto zeroed in on their physical backgrounds.

Nikita was at her desk, a night-cloaked San Francisco glittering with lights beyond the large plate glass window to her back. Anthony, meanwhile, had nothing but a blank wall behind him. But Canto was nearly one hundred percent sure they were in the same room. He couldn’t figure out what that might mean—could be nothing, the two might have been in a meeting before this one—or it could be confirmation of a rumor he’d picked up.

That Nikita and Anthony had a relationship beyond the political.

His hand tightened on the arm of his chair. He wanted that rumor to be true. Not so he could use it in some way, but because it would mean he and Payal had a chance. Neither former Councilor, after all, had ever betrayed emotion … except in how they’d protected their children.