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  “Yes,” Malukali said. “We will watch the scroll piece’s reaction when you touch it. It will tell us what we need to know. And we believe that Hoygul’s map will provide Zayna with the information she needs to recover the piece.” She paused, then asked, “Will you allow me to use my abilities to ease your grief, Quincy?”

  He considered it for a moment. The emotional oblivion she could provide would be welcome compared to the still-potent guilt and sorrow currently seated in the center of his chest.

  “No, but thank you,” he said eventually. “I’d really just like to be alone for a while.”

  The elders stood. “Very well,” Malukali said. “I also wanted to let you know that Knorbis and I will be going to visit Kanika. We’re hoping that we can do something to help ease her emotional trauma. While we’re there, we’ll make note of any lingering physical issues she may still have. May we consult with you about these when we return?”

  “Of course,” he said, walking them to the door and opening it. “I would be happy to help.”

  “Thank you.” Malukali touched his arm as she walked past him and out into the night. “I’ll be here for another hour or so if you change your mind.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  He ushered them out, then closed the door and rested his forehead against it. Not even ten seconds later, another knock sounded on the door. He felt the vibrations like shock waves through his already aching head, and jerked away from the wood with a vicious curse.

  “Um…should I come back?” he heard from the other side of the door.

  Sophia.

  Even as his heartbeat accelerated at the sound of her voice, he wondered what cruel twist of fate would have her seeking him out right now when all he wanted was solitude.

  Opening the door, he resigned himself to whatever destiny awaited him.

  “Sorry about the, uh, language,” he managed to say in greeting.

  She waved that away as she walked past him into the gathering area, lowering the hood of her cloak as she passed. The crisp nighttime air clung to her hair and clothing, adding to the mysterious scent that was distinctly her own. He breathed it in like a healing balm.

  “It isn’t as though I’ve never heard the words before,” she said as she sat on the sofa. “You’ve heard Tiege and Joshua when they’re training, haven’t you?”

  Despite himself, he smiled briefly. “I suppose you’re right.”

  When he just stood in front of the closed door staring at her, she tilted her head in question. Abruptly regaining control of himself, he took the steps necessary to get to the chair placed furthest from her. In his current mental state, he didn’t trust himself to get any closer.

  Her eyes moved from him to the seat closer to her. She issued a small sigh before catching his gaze and saying, “I’m sorry that you had to revisit what was obviously a painful memory today, Quincy. I’ve never for a moment stopped to consider how my grandfather’s death must have affected you.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He certainly hadn’t expected this when she knocked on his door.

  “It’s made me realize that I haven’t been a very good friend,” she continued. “We were so much closer when I was younger. When I assumed my fully mature form and we grew more…distant, it was easy for me to assume it was because of my appearance.”

  She no longer held his gaze, but looked at her hands folded in her lap. A pink blush colored her cheeks. He wondered with a great deal of embarrassment how long she had known that he found her the most beautiful being on either plane of existence and began to wish he hadn’t opened the door to her knock. His headache resumed as his stress level rose.

  “What I never considered,” she said softly, “was that it was my personality, and not my appearance, that you suddenly found so unappealing.”

  Quincy felt like he had just been body-slammed into a rock wall.

  “Today has made me realize how self-involved I’ve been,” she added as he struggled to catch up with her ridiculous and incorrect deductions. “If I hadn’t been so focused on adjusting to my adult form and accepting how different I am compared to the rest of my family, I might have had more perspective related to the change in our friendship.”

  She once again caught his gaze. “I’m sorry for judging you in such a harsh light, and for failing to uphold my half of our friendship. I should have made more of an effort to communicate with you when I sensed that things were changing between us. If I had, perhaps we could have gotten things back to the way they were. And I might better know how to offer you comfort at a time like this.”

  After wondering whether he had somehow managed to cross into yet another plane of existence, he blinked to clear his head.

  “Sophia.”

  “Yes?”

  “For someone so intelligent, you’ve never been so wrong.”

  She frowned. He could all but see her remarkable brain puzzling out his meaning. It suddenly occurred to him that his best friend had been willing to die for love, but he himself hadn’t been willing to face Sophia’s rejection or the possibility of casting out by her family because of his love for her.

  Well, there was no time like the present to change that.

  He stood up and moved closer to her. She also got to her feet, which he anticipated. Because she was so much smaller than most of those around her, she had never been comfortable having someone hovering over her. She took a step away from him when he advanced, inadvertently moving closer to his bedroom. He couldn’t deny that the room’s convenient proximity flashed through his mind.

  “I can’t really blame you for the conclusions you’ve drawn,” he said.

  His voice was lower than usual as he stepped closer to her. He watched her eyes go from narrow with concern to wide-eyed with confusion as she took another step away from him.

  “After all,” he continued with another step toward her, “you’ve been provided deliberately clouded concepts upon which you based your hypothesis.”

  Here, her pupils dilated. Her breathing quickened. She stopped retreating and instead gazed up at him with her lips slightly parted. Then he did something he never allowed himself to do: he focused on her mouth with every intent of kissing her until she knew unequivocally how he felt about her.

  A knock on the door shattered the moment.

  “Quincy?”

  Tate’s muffled question came from the other side of the door just as she opened it to let herself in, something she had always done. Quincy took a step away from Sophia, who moved just as quickly in the other direction. Then they both turned guilty gazes to Tate, who studied them with raised eyebrows as she breezed into the room, followed by Zachariah.

  “Oh,” she said. “What did I interrupt?”

  “Nothing,” Quincy and Sophia replied at the same time.

  Tate’s grin went wide as she easily read the lie in their words. “Hey, that’s great,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I interrupted nothing.”

  Chapter 7

  “No,” Zachariah said. “You have the formula completely wrong. We already went over this.”

  Sophia used a towel to wipe perspiration from her face and neck as Zachariah scratched through the notes she had just made and began adding his own. Her flush was due more to embarrassment over failing to pay proper attention to him than it did the amount of heat in the room.

  She hadn’t slept much last night after leaving Quincy’s cottage. Her mind had been filled with the memory of the intensity of his silver eyes as he leaned toward her. Had he been about to kiss her? Why would he do that when he didn’t even like her?

  But did he like her? Did he possibly—she was kidding herself for even dreaming it—even more than like her?

  No, she had mostly convinced herself. She still remembered how adamantly he told Tate that he didn’t think Sophia was pretty just a few weeks ago. Her appearance hadn’t changed in five years and wouldn’t ever change again, so he couldn’t possibly be attracted to her.

 
So what had last night’s interaction been all about?

  “I’m sorry,” she said now, carefully avoiding Tate’s knowing gaze from where she sat in the lab’s window seat sketching on some parchment. “You’re right. Let’s take it from where we left off with the plasma proteins.”

  Zachariah ran a hand through his already wild hair, a sure sign he was aggravated. “There are at least a thousand plasma proteins, and I said before that although Nyx’s toxin enters the bloodstream, it really only has its impact when reaching the nerve endings.”

  Sophia nodded and pulled at her bottom lip in consideration. Then she said, “We know the antitoxin worked for Tate even though you designed it to work on you. Therefore, the genetic differences in a full and part-Estilorian’s blood appear to be negligible when accounting for how Nyx’s toxin interacts with it.”

  “We need to know more about the differences between human and Estilorian blood in order to know why the antitoxin I created worked for both of us,” Zachariah pointed out. “I have never studied human anatomy.”

  Sophia stiffened. “Well, I have. We’ve mapped the stages at which it affected the eosinophils—”

  “Quincy!” Tate suddenly called out. She had stood up on the window seat and called down toward the courtyard from the high open window. “We need you!”

  “Tate!” Sophia gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Get down, you demented female,” Zachariah said irritably. He walked over to the window seat and gripped Tate around the waist, lifting her as though she weighed nothing and returning her to the ground.

  Ignoring him, Tate said to Sophia, “Do you need Quincy to make this go easier?”

  Sophia opened her mouth to snap out a “no,” only to consider her cousin’s ability to tell when someone was lying. Pursing her lips, she lifted her chin in curt acknowledgment of Tate’s point and then glanced surreptitiously at her reflection in the mirrored surface of her triple beam balance. Her cheeks were flushed and damp tendrils of hair stuck to her temples. She was what Tate would call a hot mess.

  Her shoulders slumped in defeat. Here she was, convinced that Quincy didn’t like her, yet she tried to adjust her appearance to make herself more appealing to him.

  She was pitiable.

  She answered the door when a knock sounded. Quincy stood on the other side of it. She noted that he wore a navy blue tank with matching pants, a color she loved on him because, when paired with his many silver markings, it reminded her of a night sky.

  “We need your help to create an inoculation to Nyx’s toxin,” she greeted him.

  His silver eyes met hers for an extended heartbeat of time. What was it she couldn’t read in that gaze? She simply had no idea. And his meaningfully-issued response only confused her more.

  “I’m all yours,” he said.

  Metis had a more difficult time escaping the next time she went to meet with Eirik and Deimos. It was sometime between midnight and dawn when she reached their temporary shelter among the trees.

  The air was so cold that her breath plumed around her head. The loud crunching of her booted feet on the dead leaves carpeting the ground heralded her arrival. When she arrived, Eirik was awake and standing outside the rocks covered by a canopy of wide branches and leaves that he had erected with his limited abilities.

  They had decided that keeping his location hidden, even from other Mercesti, was essential in light of the scope of their plans. This arrangement was much easier for her, she had to admit, since she had respectable shelter.

  “I come bearing good news,” she said as she stopped a few feet from him.

  “You had better,” he said in his deep voice. “I grow tired of waiting.”

  And she grew tired of his griping, but knew better than to voice that thought. She had to bide her time to achieve her goals. For now, Eirik played a key part in making sure things went as she planned. There was also the fact that he was probably the only being on the plane who could appropriately deal with Deimos in her absence.

  “Very soon, we will have the lure needed to draw the Lekwuesti and Kynzesti females to you.”

  “How soon?”

  “By tomorrow or the next day.”

  He considered this in silence. She wondered—not for the first time—whether he was debating whether to slay her rather than continue to trust that she was upholding her part of their plans.

  “Did Deimos enjoy the gift I sent him yesterday?” she asked to break the silence.

  Glancing over his shoulder into the shelter where Deimos lay sleeping, Eirik gave a short grunt. “He enjoyed the hunt. She was a worthy bit of prey.” He looked back at Metis. “His violence is escalating. The female was hardly more than a mass of torn flesh when he finished with her.”

  She waved that away. “He cannot help what he is. I have assured him that he can have the two females you seek once we are through with them. He will cooperate with our plans.”

  Eirik’s eyes narrowed. “You had better do whatever you have to in order to ensure that. He has tasted the Lekwuesti now. I expect it will be nearly impossible to keep him off her when she is back with us.”

  She didn’t allow her concern to show. Any sign of weakness would spell disaster. But she could silently acknowledge that she worried over Deimos’ increasing aggression.

  “He will be fine,” she said. “He can make use of the Kynzesti female if needed.”

  “I require her abilities, as well,” Eirik snapped. “Allowing Deimos to kill her would—”

  “Who said anything about killing her?” she interrupted coolly. “Just allow him to relieve some of his aggression through her if he requires it. I will instruct him to feed on animals while you search for the scroll.”

  Eirik shook his head. “You fail to recognize the bloodlust in your own creation. I will tell you once again: you had better do what you can to control him. I might need him to transport me with his unusual abilities at some point. But if he interferes in my plans, I will kill him. Then I will return and do the same to you.”

  She stiffened, but nodded. As she turned to leave, she wondered how he would react to the knowledge that she intended to kill him first.

  Quincy’s contributions resulted in Sophia and Zachariah developing a formula for an inoculation to Nyx’s toxin for both full and part-Estilorians. It only took them a few hours of brainstorming, after which Zachariah ended up carrying Tate from the lab. She had been bored into sleep.

  Sophia, however, was energized. It had been a long time since she worked with Quincy on something so deeply intellectual. She remembered now how attractive she had always found him when he was engaged in something that stimulated the mind.

  Okay, she had always found him attractive regardless. But this…wow.

  She was sure her smile radiated from her face after she bathed and changed and made her way downstairs to find out what her family was having for supper. When she heard a host of voices—including those of beings who weren’t related to her—coming from the dining room, she took it in stride. Having impromptu guests was very common with the three family homes being so close together.

  “The issue has definitely become more paramount in recent weeks,” she heard Sebastian say. “Tate was stranded without the benefit of a paired Lekwuesti to provide her with sustenance or clothing. Fortunately, she has learned the skills needed to stay alive on her own, but if she had been injured to the point of immobility…”

  Sophia walked into the room as the elder trailed off. All eyes shifted briefly to her. She realized that her parents and aunts and uncles were also there, along with Quincy, Ini-herit and Jabari. She knew that Zayna and Uriel had gone to Hoygul the Scultresti, while Malukali and Knorbis had traveled to the home of Kanika.

  “Should I come back?” she asked, trying to ignore her grumbling stomach and the platters of sandwiches and fruit on the table.

  “No, Sophia,” her father said. “This topic relates to you. We’d appreciate your input.”

  As she nodde
d and took a seat next to her dad, she wondered about Quincy’s presence. Then her mother made a pained face and Quincy’s sharp gaze quickly assessed her. Sophia understood. With the baby due any time, he wouldn’t go far.

  “We’re talking about the need to pair you and the other firstborn Kynzesti with Lekwuesti,” her mother said as Sophia took half of a sandwich and some cantaloupe.

  That made sense. Sebastian’s example was valid. Tate had been stranded thousands of miles from home without the ability to connect with a Lekwuesti for food, shelter or clothing. Yes, she had drawn on important skills that she learned from her parents and aunts and uncles to survive, but her ordeal would have been far less difficult if she had already been paired with a Lekwuesti.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Sophia said. “We’re all mature enough now to appreciate the weight of the exchange of vows that a Lekwuesti pairing entails, and to honor the once-a-day limit on hospitality requests.”

  There were nods around the table.

  “I think that the pairings should take place at Central,” Jabari said, surprising Sophia.

  “Agreed,” Sebastian said. “We should allow the Kynzesti to pick their paired Lekwuesti, much as we allowed their mothers to do. It would be too much of a security risk to have so many Lekwuesti brought within the protections around your homes.”

  Sophia took a sip of water to wash down the bite of sandwich she had just eaten and tried not to gape. She would be traveling to Central? Holy crap.

  “Zachariah won’t let Tate travel to Central without him,” Aunt Skye mused.

  “It would only be for a couple of days,” Sebastian said. “She would have protection.”

  Aunt Skye’s eyebrows rose. “Zachariah will only sleep if he’s on Tate’s bedroom floor and blocking the door,” she pointed out. “His latent Gloresti instincts have been fully awakened by their pairing.”