A woman, her face heavily painted in a manner resembling the jesters of a different age, stepped away from the wall.“Going so soon?”
Gus stopped short, suddenly on guard.“Thea.”
Of all the luck.
Thea was one of those siblings that Gus preferred to avoid.Actually, she tried to avoid all her siblings, but Thea and a few others especially.
It wasn’t that Gus didn’t like her.
Okay.Scratch that.Gus didn’t like her.Hate was a strong word that Gus didn’t often waste her time contemplating, but Thea sometimes tested those boundaries.
The woman was arrogant and sly.A pathological liar with an appetite for starting shit that other people had to finish.More than once, Gus had found herself on the wrong side of one of her nasty little pranks.That was bad enough, but Thea also had a terrible habit of bad mouthing her to anyone who’d listen.She twisted every encounter until she came out smelling like roses and Gus stunk of betrayal and excrement.
It had happened often enough that Gus felt her stomach sink as her gaze slowly traveled to the wall Thea had made a show of stepping out of.Illusion.One of the many tricks in Thea’s bag.In this case, she’d manipulated the waves of light, bending and refracting them around her body to render herself effectively invisible.
What she’d done wasn’t hard.Any of their siblings could have done the same.
Well—maybe not Kira.
But the rest—definitely.Even Gus whose pool ofkiwas pathetically small when compared to the others could have managed.It would have drained her to do it, depleted herkireserves so completely that it would have taken hours to recover, but she could have done it.
Yet for some reason, Thea thought her little illusion made her better than Gus.As if her simple parlor trick was a feat deserving of worship.
“What do you want?”Gus asked.
She couldn’t say why Thea’s presence made her so apprehensive.The forty-three didn’t harm each other.Permanently, at least.
That was how it was supposed to be.
Reality, however, had a funny way of failing to live up to ideals.Life always challenged your most closely held beliefs.The ties of yesterday coming loose if not reinforced through affection or some equally strong emotion.
Eventually, the forty-three would drift apart.The same way the Tuann had in the thousands of years since they’d gained their freedom; a race that was once wholly united fracturing into what was now the Great and Minor Houses.
As the humans would put it—death by a thousand cuts.
Choices, often simple and seemingly unimportant, stacking up to lead to diverging paths that eventually led you to standing on opposite sides of an unbridgeable divide.
The strange thing was that Thea set off the same instincts of self-preservation in Gus that the strongest of their siblings did.Siblings like Ryan.Alexander.Pallas.
Even Kira.
Thea wasn’t on their level.But the voices didn’t lie.If they said Thea was a danger to her, then she was a danger.And right now, those voices were whispering that she should be careful.
“Just curious is all,” Thea purred.
With the heavy paint masking her features, it was hard to read the other’s expression.
Gus stayed quiet, using her silence like a weapon in hopes Thea would reveal her intentions without her having to do much conversing.
It worked, too.
Thea’s head tilted, her creepy expression unwavering.“You never voice an opinion at these things.Is the hermit finally coming out of her shell?”
Under the veil of her cloak, Gus touched one of the vials of poison she kept close at all times.It was a hobby of hers, creating poisons.Her own version of armor.Collected from the most toxic and venomous plants and animals she could find.
“Tell me, sister—what about Kira’s plight inspired you to find that mousy little voice of yours?”Thea asked.
Reading the danger in her tone, Gus moved her hand from the vial she’d been fingering to one that was a little more lethal.
