I don’t hold it against Lorn, but a small part of me wonders what would have happened if he’d come looking for us. If he’d realized what the secret meant and searched. As much as I’d like to imagine that things could have been better for me and the other Syphons, the reality is that we’d all probably be dead. With no way to reveal and protect ourselves, whoever hunted our kith and kindred would have come for us too.
For the second time since I was discovered by The Horde, I wonder if we’ve gotten the Noctises all wrong. I’ve been on the defense since I arrived, but what if they were just as wounded and fractured by everything that happened as we were? Surprisingly, I find myself willing to pull at those threads and see how they unravel, but another part of me worries what I might find in the end. Because as much as I want to hate the scions, they’re making it much harder than it should be. But I don’t know if my bruised and battered soul can withstand the damage it would take if I started to believe them only to find out that they were playing me all along.
I wish I knew if my fear was unfounded or justified. This kind of trepidation could be a warning from my intuition, but it could just as easily be a result of prejudice and fear.
My stomach twists uneasily.
“But here’s the thing,” Lorn goes on, his tone now edged with determination.
He leans back and looks down at me, his eyes bright and intense. I go still, and unease percolates in my gut. He tucks my hair behind my ear, and I’m too frozen to untuck it even though I hate how it feels.
“Novak saidsisters,” he tells me deliberately, evenly, giving me time to process each syllable like it’s the most important combination of words I’ll ever hear out of his mouth. “I don’t think Novak made a mistake, Ever. I think your father told him sisters—plural, not singular—for a reason.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I was really hoping he wasn’t going to focus on that despite the fact that he keeps bloody repeating it. I beg my vitals to stay calm and collected even though I feel the exact opposite. I force myself not to look over at the tree trunk to see if Selik is listening in. I know he is, everyone watching us like hawks.
Fuck the fae, and fuck too observant scions and their Wing.
Measuredly, I shake my head, but I keep my eyes trained on Lorn’s as feigned bewilderment washes over my face.
“But he had to have misunderstood, Lorn. There’s only me here,” I counter, careful not to sound too defensive or worried by his revelation. “Or maybe he hoped there would be more but it didn’t happen before my father was killed. That was the goal of this whole breeding situation in the first place. It would make sense for him to want that.”
Lorn looks as though he’s considering the possibility, and I use it as an opportunity to pull out of his grasp and put some much needed distance between us. I pretend to think and pace while I do, as though his speculations are worth considering, when really I’m trying to figure out how to steer him away from all of this without giving myself away.
My gaze catches on a large door and the purple list that lights up as I wander by. Absently I scan the list as I wait to see if Lorn will take my bait. The wordmirrorsflashes across the vault door, and something about it plucks at long forgotten, stale, and dusty thoughts. The list disappears as I continue pacing, popping back up when I make another round.
“Maybe,” Lorn mumbles. “But what if he wasn’t just hoping for it? What if thereweremore children?” he asks, and I don’t like the dogged undercurrent thrumming through the question.
Dammit. He’s not going to let this go.
“Hear me out,” he implores when I open my mouth to try to redirect him again. “If the king implemented thisbreeding programand he had you, he could have had others that onlyhewould have known about. What if there are more Syphons out there? Other dragons hiding just like you were because of what happened?”
He closes the distance between us, and I stop pacing to look up at him.
“What if you really do have a sister out there, but the other Tenebrae daughter wasn’t brought to Four Tiers like you were? What if she’s waiting for us to find her, Ever?”
I jerk back, his words snapping at my face like half-starved dogs. Lorn reaches out to steady me, and hope flashes in his ice blue eyes.
“I failed you, failed to see what Novak told me for what it was. I don’t want to do that again,” Lorn whispers, an ache in his voice that echoes through me.
It stalls the argument I’m readying to launch and makes me take a second to really hear him. I sift through everything he just told me and focus on his sorrow, on his apology for not understanding the magnitude of the secret Novak shared.
Lorn pulls me closer, and something dawns on me. This is my hook. I was looking for aninwith the scion, a way to connect and build trust so I can find what I need. This is myin. I don’t need to flirt or pretend to care about him and his friendship. I need to help him rescue the damsel in distress. I need to help him find the other sister, even if she doesn’t exist—at least not in the way he’s thinking, but he doesn’t need to know that.
I don’t need to steer him away from this train of thought. I just need to direct him as far as I can from where the real Syphons are—where Enslee is—and this is the perfect way to do that.
I stare up at Lorn and I let a little hope leak into my eyes. “Do you really think it’s possible?” I whisper as though afraid to believe.
“I do,” he quickly answers. “And I think we could find her.”
“Okay,” I answer after a long drawn out moment where I pretend to carefully consider what he’s saying. “I don’t know if you’re right, but if there’s even the smallest possibility that there might be more Syphons out there, I want to help them.”
Lorn’s smile is resplendent, and the optimism suddenly wafting off of him is unmistakable. For a moment, I almost feel bad, and then it hits me.
Mirrors.
I know why that word caught my attention. Even better, it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.
