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Leo strummed his fingers on the table, looking uncomfortable in his chair. “I lied to both of you, and for that I’m sorry.” He bowed his head slightly before pinning his full attention on me. “What I’m not sorry for, is bringing you back.” His eyes landed between my breasts, to where my chest had been aching for him since his return.

“You were by my side when the Deks came,” he explained, “fighting against them with me. Your powers were magnificent back then. You were able to siphon your powers just as easily from One as you could from Two because One saw you as her own. Her future queen.”

Queen.

“But the Deks overtook you . . .” He gripped the table, the wood groaning slightly beneath his fingers. “There were too many. I couldn’t get to you in time.” He shook his head in anger. “Your soul was outside your body, calling to me. Asking me to take it. Like that day in the woods.”

I looked at Adrian, who looked back at me, confused.

Leo continued, “So, I cloaked it. I couldn’t risk you siphoning power from another Earth and drawing attention to yourself, to who you truly were, so I took you somewhere I knew had no magic. Somewhere safe.”

“Six,” I concluded.

“I did what I thought was right.”

He waited for my response, but he wasn’t finished repenting. I nodded toward Adrian, silently asking Leo to tell him the whole truth. His chance at a clean slate.

Leo reluctantly faced his friend. “Bryn’s rebirth wasn’t the only one I hid from you. When we were children, I brought a young deer back from death in the woods outside the castle . . . and I cloaked the memory from you.”

Adrian moved from his post, his face etched with anger, but I narrowed my eyes at him, clearing my throat. If I had the mind to hear Leo out, he was going to as well.

Adrian scrunched his nose at me, calming himself, before asking Leo, “How does it work? The mind-cloaking thing?”

“For starters, I can only cloak non-royal minds. Royal blood carries too much power, which nullifies my own.” Leo chuckled to himself. “I learned that the hard way, not too long after I cloaked your mind as children, when I tried to cover a memory of my mother’s so I wouldn’t get in trouble for something. I don’t even remember what the memory was anymore, but she’d shot back inside my mind so quickly I had a headache for a week.”

“Well deserved, I’d say,” Adrian muttered.

“Agreed,” I said, feeling relieved. Leo couldn’t cloak my mind, if what I’d learned about my heritage was true.

“I’m sorry,” Leo said again. “What can I do to make things right?”

“No more lying,” I offered.

“And never cloak my damn mind again,” added Adrian.

“Fine.”

“Just like that?” I asked.

Leo nodded, his eyes shadowed in the low light of morning. “If it means gaining your trust back, then yes. No cloaking, or lying. We all work together from here on out.”

I looked at Adrian, a scowl set on his face, before looking at Leo again. “We’ll consider your offer.”

Adrian slowly nodded his head in agreement, his need for further arguing pulling his mouth down into a deep frown. He didn’t want to let Leo’s prior actions go so easily. Sweeping what had been done under the rug meant he was putting his trust back in the one person who could so easily lie and conceal it from him again.

I could understand his hesitancy with his friend.

What we all needed was a clear path forward for this arrangement among the three of us to be successful.

“So where do we go from here?” I asked, my question meant more for the king.

He’d put us in this mess—albeit to save my life—an honorable notion.

Leo relaxed back in his seat. “I’ve been thinking through everything, and I see two options for you.” He looked at me, his face sincere. “Option one, on the next full moon I take you back home, and we act like none of this ever happened. Might take some mind-meddling of others, but it can be as if you never left.”

“And my second option?” I was surprised to find the idea of going back to Six wasn’t as appealing as it was only hours ago. I needed to see Hunter, needed to make sure he was okay, but with my history out in the open, could I still consider Six my home?

I didn’t know who I was anymore.