I took a breath and reluctantly set my lunch tray on my nightstand.
“At first, I was at Viper,” I told him. “But I couldn’t get in. So I went to snoop around Adrian’s apartment on the Third Ring.”
“Olympia–” he started with a sigh.
“Her roommate came home while I was inside,” I interrupted and his lips snapped shut. “He caught me trying to escape.”
“I see. That can be contained. I’ve met Harrison Fletcher. He’s no friend of Cosmo’s and knows Adrian and I were friends. Maybe I could send Bria to explain–”
“Milo, I think the Bexleys are in danger.”
My cousin reached up to rub his chin in deliberation. I could hardly blame him for taking a moment to get his bearings. I’d just informed him I was caught sneaking into a Champion’s apartment and that I believed there was some threat against her family. That was a lot for someone I’d only very recently begun opening up to to comprehend.
“I was going to tell you eventually,” I vowed. “I thought I could try to handle it myself but, well, you said I could trust you.”
My cheeks burned as I spoke the last words quieter than all the others, recalling our conversation in the library.I trust you,he’d said, but trust was a two way street and it didn’t come easily for me. Milo knew that.
“Alright,” he said slowly, turning his body to face me. “Why do you think the Bexleys are in danger?”
I told him. I didn’t leave any of it out. I told him about the woman with the strawberry blonde hair named Veronica, how she’d seen me spying on the Bexleys before, and about the man named Wolf with the rebel tattoo. I told him about their vagueplans that seemed to involve the Bexleys somehow. I told him I hadn’t informed Harrison of any of that but rather issued a vague warning for them to be careful around their neighbors and then spent the rest of the night trying to convince him not to run straight there and alert the whole ring in his panic. As I talked, I started to think maybe I was overreacting or, at least, sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. But once I was finished, Milo practically leapt off my bed and started pacing again.
“We need to get them away from there,” he announced at once. “We can’t allow Adrian’s family to become martyrs for a new rebellion.”
“Are you all that sure they wouldn’t willingly join on their own?”
Milo’s eyes snapped to me and widened.
“They wouldn’t,” he assured me. “Adrian was always curious and, admittedly, fairly blasphemous, but so is grandmother. She was harmless.”
“Adrian isn’t who we’re talking about, Milo.”
He frowned, brows furrowed in thought.
“Go back to the roommate,” he decided after a moment. “Have him gather them up and bring them here. It’ll go over better through him than it would either of us. Tell them their presence is requested by a former friend of Adrian’s, tell them I wish to meet with them. I’ll have dinner prepared. We’ll feel it out, see if they know anything about this organization, and try to determine if they’ve made contact yet without alerting the Bexleys to their existence.”
He wasn’t really talking to me anymore. Lost in his scheming, he turned away, scratching his chin as he headed for the door. He apparently wasn’t going to address the fact that a First Ringer inviting Second Ringers to dinner was entirely unheard of or how, if the Bexleys were half as stubborn as their sister, it would take more than Harrison to get them here.
“Milo,” I called out just as he reached for the doorknob.
My cousin turned back to face me, blinking as if he’d already forgotten I was there.
“I told you what grandmother had me doing,” I said, ignoring all the potential issues with his plan for now. I could fix them myself. “What’s she given you?”
I could have sworn the light behind his eyes dimmed ever so slightly. He heaved a sigh and shook his head.
“I’ll show you tonight once everyone’s gone,” he promised.
Then he opened the door and stepped out into the hall. Before closing it behind him, he peered back over his shoulder to meet my gaze once more.
“You know, Olympia, I think you and I might actually make a decent team.”
Then the door swung shut between us and he was gone.
***
Harrison was apparently in the middle of a nap when I dropped in on him a few hours later. He opened the door with a yawn. His hair was a disheveled mess atop his head and his chest was entirely bare and in my face as he leaned against the doorframe into the hall. I raised a brow, arms crossed and frowning, but his lips simply spread into a wide grin as he beamed down at me.
“Hey there, beautiful,” he crooned. “Couldn’t get enough of me?”
