I stepped into a foyer twice the size of our kitchen back in the Third Ring. My jaw dropped as my eyes followed the mosaic tile floor to the base of the elegantly carved wooden stairs which rose in a spiral to a massive landing overlooking the entryway. The ceilings must have been twenty feet high. I blinked, astonished.
This was the foyerofmyfamily’s house. It wasn’t the expected opulence of the First Ring or the extravagance of the Minor Houses. But it was better than all of those combined. Because this wasours.This belonged tous.
“My celebrity little sister,” Warren teased, clapping me hard on the back. “You’ve got a fan club wherever you go now, huh?”
“We’re Second Ring now,” I said, more so I could believe it than to remind him. “All of us.”
“On the outside, maybe,” Maurice mumbled as he passed.
“And not you,” Warren added, raising a brow. “Since you insist upon staying in that shitty apartment of yours in the Third Ring.”
“Harrison needs me,” I replied with a shrug. Warren nodded with a smile, but it was tense. My middle brother knew me better than anyone, and he knew exactly what I wasn’t saying. I would never get rid of that apartment, not if I didn’t have to.
It was the only thing I had left of him.
“By the Geist!” Our mother screeched from down the hall.
We glanced at each other once before bolting toward her voice.
With the Trials and the daily life of the Third Ring, my brothers and I had grown to expect danger lurking around every corner, seeping into our lives from every angle. So it was nosurprise that we all came crashing into the kitchen, following our mother’s distress. But our wild, darting eyes only found her on a step stool, reaching up into one of the higher cabinets and examining a fine porcelain plate with wide eyes.
“I suppose they’ve stocked it all for us,” she said wistfully, glancing down at the remnants of our old tableware.
All our shoulders fell as we realized there was no danger. In fact, by the looks of the immaculately decorated kitchen with cabinets fully stocked with plates, glassware, and all manner of utensils and a pantry and refrigerator that—to Maurice’s surprise as he opened them—were packed full as well, it almost feltcomfortable,like there would never be danger again.
As my brothers settled into pulling various snacks from the cabinets and staring down at the packaging which they’d never seen before, I rejoined my mother who stood in the center of the kitchen, staring at all of the cabinets.
“Incredible,” she whispered.
“Mom?” I moved in front of her to ensure she saw me there. “I know it’s going to take some getting used to. But I’m happy that I can grant you all of this, because you deserve it. There’s no better mother in all of Sanctuary.”
Her eyes shone with tears, but she smiled up at me.
“I always knew you would be special,” she whispered. “They know it too, now.”
She gestured her head toward the window. I looked through it. A couple of Second Ringers peered in at us from the street, but once I spotted them they made a show of walking on, glancing every which way but at us, as if they’d never been looking in the first place.
“I saw the girl outside too,” she said, quietly. “How areyougetting used to things, Adrian?”
“It’s strange,” I confessed. “In truth, I hadn’t noticed until today. I’ve hardly left the First Ring since Cosmo brought methere, only going down to the Third from time to time to check in on the apartment. Up there, no one stares, no one approaches me. I’m not all that special. But here…”
“You’re special everywhere, Adrian.” My mother grasped my hands in her own. “You always have been. They’re finally seeing it now because of the Trials, but I’ve always known. And now…you’ve passed the fourth Trial. No one has done that since that boy’s mother, and even she didn’t do it before her twenty-third birthday.”
Myrine, Dante’s mother, that’s who she spoke of. She’d failed the fifth and was the only one to even get that far in centuries. And I was two years younger than she’d been when she’d passed the fourth. Dante had just turned twenty-two. I would soon.
It was incredible how far we’d made it in such a short time, if I was being honest, but it was also fragile, and I feared, deep down, that the success we’d experienced was short-lived at best. We could fail any moment, and people would lose interest. But at least now, no matter what happened next, my family was secure. I’d elevated our position in a way that could never be taken from us.
“By the way,” my mother turned to wash the dishes she’d brought with her in the new sink, “speaking of birthdays, I’m planning on throwing you a party. Both to celebrate your turning twenty-two and your success in the Trials. I want you to let that doddering old fool know you’ll be attending.”
I smiled. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t need—”
The doorbell echoed off the cavernous walls of the house. We all froze.
“What in the Geist’s name was that?” Maurice asked after a moment.
“I think,” Warren started, leaning into the hall and peering down it, “I think someone’s at the door.”
“Visitors?” my mother squawked. She wiped her hands hurriedly on her apron. “We aren’t prepared for visitors.”
