“Whoa,” Wyatt said from behind me. Alejandro winced away from him, and I moved to block my friend again, and then the sound of shuttering cameras increased again. I felt Wyatt cringe as he took a step away from me.
“Yeah,whoa,” I said. “First of all, taking over was an accident. It’s only because I was here when the attack happened. Of course people approached me when they started to arrive, I was already here. Second, thank you for your concern. I’m fine, not harmed from the attack by the way. And third, though, who the hell do you think you are speaking to me this way? Mom will have your balls for breakfast when she hears about this.”
Alejandro gritted his teeth before storming away.
My father had been in the dog house ever since I was suspiciously injured in the military, cutting my conscription short. My mother believed it’d been my father’s doing, and these days, she looked for any excuse to fuck him up.
Typical,Wyatt said, following my train of thought.
I nodded in agreement.
This is why Alejandro is the least favorite, I said.
Or the most hated, Wyatt replied.
Had I really just considered sucker punching him? He was the best friend I ever had. We were always on the same wavelength.
The sound of shuttering cameras sounded again like a gnat in my ear, slowly pissing me off more and more as it droned on. Wyatt was getting antsy, and we both wanted to get the fuck out of here.
“My Prince? Is this a bad time?”
Wyatt and I turned at the same time, and I almost jumped.
Good God.
Marion Holmes, the second most ancient person I knew of, stood not far from us. I hadn’t seen her in a decade, at least. Part of me had thought she’d died, until she was called to the Palace to try healing my grandfather in his final days. Another part of me had assumed my mother would’ve had her killed for letting my grandfather die. But alas, here she was. Frail, but standing on her own, deep in a curtsy.
Marion was just as old as Vince Shafer, the Sensor. The two fossils had to be from the same era. Probably Triassic. They even looked similar, though Vince’s blue eyes were more striking than Marion’s.
She was the oldest Healer in the Palace, and one of the best. I’d never known if she didn’t want to retire, or if she wasn’t allowed to.
Wyatt raised his eyebrows at me.
Right. She’d asked a question.
“Not at all,” I replied smoothly. “What can I do for you?”
Marion twisted her fingers together, looking a little unsure of herself. “I need to speak with you regarding something urgent.”
I cleared my throat. “Of course.”
I followed her across the frosty mud, lost in my thoughts again, replaying the moment Skye had disappeared from existence. I’d been over it a million times now, and I still couldn’t believe I’d missed it.
I’d figured out her hidden affinities for telepathy and telekinesis pretty early on. They weren’t obvious by any means, but I’d spent hours upon hours watching her. I knew a lot of subtle things about her most people wouldn’t.
When she’d thrown her arms over Aiden, closing her eyes tightly, like she didn’t want to see Wyatt or I when she left…
It’d scared the shit out of me.
There hadn’t been an affinity for teleporting in…ever. It was amyth. From thestone ages. There’d never been a recorded Teleporter, or a fully realized Tele of any kind. Telekinesis on its own was practically unheard of these days, but alongside telepathy?
Who the hell were her parents?
I cursed myself for the millionth time since Skye had left. She’d been so close to telling us everything. Right before the initial blast went off, destroying the building we’d been in, she was about to tell us about the teleporting affinity.
Or…about to tellAiden,really. I hardly considered myself someone she trusted. I’d just been there at the moment she decided to open up to Aiden and her friends.
So, my Key didn’t trust me. And I couldn’t exactly blame her. Lord only knew what poor Aiden had gone through before Skye had given him even an inch of trust.
