David spread his father's journal across the training room floor and the others gathered around like it was something sacred, which Lucas supposed it kind of was. The pages were soft from handling, the ink faded in places, but the drawings were still clear. Maps mostly, sketches of places David had never seen, paths through the Expanse that didn't match any of the official routes the government had published.
"This is what I've been working from," David said, kneeling beside the journal. "My father's notes about the vault. Where it is, how to get there and what to expect when we arrive. But some of it's coded and some of it's in symbols I don't fully understand and some of it assumes I know things he never got the chance to teach me."
Becca knelt beside him, her eyes moving across the pages with the same intensity she brought to everything. "My family has records of the early Expanse expeditions. Before the safe zones were established, before the government mapped everything. If your father built something out there, he would have needed to know about places the official surveys missed."
"You think your grandmother would let you see those records?"
"I think my grandmother wants the same thing we do." Becca looked at him. "She wants to know who attacked her grandson. She wants to know who's been hiding in the shadows for eighteen years. If your father's vault can give her that, she'll give us whatever we need."
Lucas crouched on David's other side, peering at the maps. They looked like nonsense to him, just lines and symbols and arrows pointing at things he couldn't identify. But he'd learned a long time ago that just because something looked like nonsense didn't mean it was.
"Okay so what's the play? We go to the grandma, ask nicely for the old maps, hope she doesn't ask too many questions about why we need them?"
Erica was standing behind them, her arms crossed, her eyes on the journal. "She's going to ask questions. That's what she does. The question is what we tell her."
David was quiet for a moment, his hand resting on the open page. "We tell her the truth. Some of it. Enough. That we found information about something my father built in the Expanse, something the people who attacked Kaito might be looking for. That we need to find it before they do."
"And the rest of it?" Lucas asked. "The list, the names, Chen?"
"That stays between us. For now."
Becca nodded slowly. "I can work with that. My grandmother respects strategy. If we tell her we're moving on something, that we're not just waiting for the next attack, she'll support it."
Erica unfolded her arms. "What about the Vane family? They're not going to sit still while we hunt for something they've been after for eighteen years."
Lucas thought about Marcus's voice on the phone, the smooth way he'd said people being more dangerous than they appear. He thought about the warning he'd ignored, the threat he'd pretended not to understand.
"We deal with them when they show up," he said. "We find the vault, we get whatever's inside, we figure out why it matters so much. Then we go after them."
David looked at him, something unreadable in his expression. "You make it sound simple."
"I make everything sound simple. It's a gift." Lucas grinned. "Now let's go talk to the assassin grandma."
---
The grandmother was in her usual room, tea waiting, her eyes sharper than Lucas remembered from the last time he'd been here. Becca's father stood behind her, silent as always, and Kaito was there too, propped up in a chair with bandages visible at his collar, looking like he'd fought someone to be allowed out of bed.
Lucas had only met Kaito a few times but he'd liked him immediately, the way he joked and smiled and made everyone around him feel like things weren't as serious as they seemed. Seeing him now, pale and bandaged and still smiling, made something tighten in Lucas's chest.
"You found something," the grandmother said before any of them could sit. It wasn't a question.
David met her gaze. "My father left something behind. A vault in the Expanse, built before he died. I think what's inside is what the people who attacked Kaito are looking for."
The grandmother set down her tea. "And you know where this vault is?"
"I know where to look. My father's journal has maps, sketches, but they're coded. I need access to your clan's early Expanse records, the ones from before the government surveys. I think they'll help me fill in the gaps."
The grandmother was quiet for a long moment, her eyes moving from David to Becca to Lucas to Erica and back to David. Lucas held his breath, waiting for the refusal, the negotiation, the price she'd demand for access to things she'd kept hidden for decades.
But when she spoke, her voice was different than he expected. Softer. Tired.
"You want to go out there, into the deep Expanse, into places no one's mapped in twenty years, chasing something your father built before you were born." She shook her head slowly. "You're going to get yourself killed."
David didn't flinch. "Maybe. But if I don't go, if they find it first, they're going to kill a lot more people than me. They already tried to kill your grandson. They're not going to stop."
The grandmother's eyes flickered to Kaito, who was watching David with something that looked like respect.
"Give him the records," Kaito said. His voice was rough, still healing, but steady. "Give him everything we have. Let him do what he needs to do."
"Kaito—"
"He's right, Grandmother. The people who attacked me, they're not going to stop. They've been waiting for eighteen years. They'll wait another eighteen if they have to. The only way this ends is if someone goes after them first." Kaito met David's eyes. "Let it be him."
The grandmother stared at her grandson for a long moment. Then she laughed, a dry rasping sound that held no humor but something else, something that might have been pride.
"You're too much like your father," she said. "He would have said the same thing." She looked at David. "You'll have the records. Becca will show you where we keep them. But I want something in return."
David tensed. "What?"
"When you find what your father left behind, when you understand what it is and why people have been killing for it, you come back here and you tell me. Everything. No secrets, no omissions, no protecting us from the truth. Deal?"
David held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Deal."
The grandmother waved a hand. "Then go. You have work to do."
---
The Moon Clan's archive was in the lowest level of the estate, below the training facility, below the medical wing, below everything. Lucas followed Becca down staircases that seemed to go on forever, past doors that required handprints and retinal scans and something that pulsed against his skin like a question.
"Your family really likes security," he said, trying to keep his voice light.
Becca didn't look back. "My family has a lot of enemies."
"You think that's going to change? After all this?"
She stopped at the last door, her hand on the scanner, and turned to look at him. "No. That's the thing about enemies, Lucas. They don't go away. They just get replaced by new ones." She pressed her hand to the scanner and the door opened.
The archive was a single room, circular, the walls lined with shelves that held everything from physical books to data crystals to things Lucas couldn't identify. A single table sat in the center, lit from above, waiting.
Becca moved to one of the shelves without hesitation, pulling out a series of crystals, laying them on the table. "These are the early survey records. Before the safe zones, before the government started controlling access to the Expanse. My family was one of the first through the portals. They mapped everything, recorded everything, kept it all secret."
David picked up one of the crystals, turned it over in his hands. "Why secret?"
"Because knowledge is power. My family has always believed that. If you know where the resources are, where the dangers are, where the paths no one else has found, you have leverage." She looked at him. "My grandmother didn't give you access to these because she likes you. She gave you access because she thinks you're going to find something worth having."
Lucas watched David's face, saw the understanding there. "And when I find it?"
"Then you come back and tell her everything. Like you promised." Becca's voice was steady. "And then we figure out what happens next."
David set the crystal down and opened his father's journal to the first map. "Let's get to work."
---
Hours passed. Lucas lost track of time somewhere around the third hour, his eyes glazing over as David and Becca pored over maps and records, cross-referencing symbols, matching terrain features, arguing about paths and distances and the things David's father had written in the margins.
Erica was quiet, watching, her eyes moving between the maps and the door in a way that told Lucas she was thinking about the same thing he was. Someone had attacked Kaito for looking into this. Someone had been waiting eighteen years for David to surface. Someone was out there, right now, probably doing the same thing they were doing. Looking at maps, planning routes, getting ready to move.
"You think they know?" he asked Erica quietly. "About the vault, about what David's looking for?"
Erica didn't look at him. "I think they've known about the vault longer than we have. I think they've been looking for it for eighteen years. I think the only reason they haven't found it is because your father built it to be found by someone specific."
"David."
"David." She finally looked at him. "Which means they're going to be watching him. Waiting for him to lead them to it. The same way they waited for him to find the crystal, to find the journal, to find everything else."
Lucas's stomach tightened. "So if we go out there, into the deep Expanse, looking for this vault..."
"They'll be right behind us." Erica's voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "Maybe ahead of us. But they'll be there."
David looked up from the maps, his eyes finding Lucas's. He'd heard, of course he'd heard. He heard everything.
"Then we make sure we get there first," he said. "And we make sure whatever's inside is something they can never use."
Becca straightened, her hand on one of the maps. "I found it."
Everyone moved closer. She was pointing at a section of David's journal, a symbol he'd drawn in the corner of a map, something that looked like a mountain split in two.
"This symbol, it's not Expanse terrain. It's old clan markings. Before the system, before the portals, before any of this. My grandmother taught me these when I was young. It means hidden place. Safe place. Place where things are kept that no one should find." She traced the symbol with her finger. "There's a location that matches this in the early survey records. A mountain range in the deep Expanse, past the C-rank zones, past anything the government's mapped. The survey team reported something strange there. Anomalies in the mana flow, readings that didn't match anything else. They marked it as dangerous and moved on."
David leaned closer, his eyes moving between his father's journal and Becca's maps. "That's it. That's where he built it."
Lucas looked at the maps, at the distances marked, at the zones they'd have to cross to get there. "That's days from the nearest safe zone. Weeks maybe. Through territory no one's mapped in twenty years."
David closed the journal, his face set. "Then we leave tomorrow."
Becca nodded. "I'll tell my grandmother. She'll want to send people with us, support, backup."
"No." David's voice was firm. "The more people we bring, the more attention we draw. We go small. We go quiet. We go fast."
"I'm going," Lucas said. "Don't even think about leaving me behind."
David looked at him, something shifting in his expression. "I wasn't going to."
Erica stepped forward. "Someone needs to stay here. Watch the Vane family, watch Chen, watch for whoever else might be moving. If they follow you into the Expanse, someone needs to know about it."
Becca looked at her. "You're volunteering?"
"I'm always watching anyway." Erica's lips twitched. "Might as well be useful."
David held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you."
Erica shrugged. "Don't thank me yet. Thank me when you come back."
---
They spent the rest of the day planning, packing, preparing. Lucas went back to his apartment to get his things, to tell his mom he was going on a training trip, to promise he'd be careful, to lie through his teeth about what they were actually doing.
His mom hugged him at the door, held on longer than usual, told him to come back safe. He promised, and meant it, and walked out into the evening with his bag over his shoulder and his heart pounding in his chest.
David was waiting at the transit station, his own bag small, his face set. Becca was there too, dressed in dark clothes that looked like they'd seen hard use, her hair pulled back, her eyes sharp.
"This is it," Lucas said, trying to sound casual. "Three people, a map, and whatever we can carry. Going into the deep Expanse to find a secret vault built by a dead man. What could go wrong?"
David almost smiled. "You want the list alphabetically or by severity?"
"Alphabetically. I like to save the worst for last."
Becca looked between them, something softening in her expression. "You two are strange."
"We're best friends. There's a difference."