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982 Words
The blush in his cheeks deepened, turning them ruddy. “And how are you feeling this morning, Your Highness?” he asked, a little too brightly. “Any sign of the Sight returning?”
Jenna and Leander shared a knowing glance. They hadn’t told anyone her Sight had returned once the children had been born because there was a traitor to be found . . . and nothing brought out the circling wolves like a whiff of weakness. It would be so much more convenient if the mind reading would return—she’d simply line everyone up and shake their hands, and it would be done—but at least they knew where Caesar was hiding. It would have to be enough for now.
“No, not yet.” Jenna sighed, pretending dismay and doing her best to look crestfallen. “All the other Gifts are intact, but the Sight . . . we’re still hoping, of course.”
“Of course!” the viscount enthused, rising up on his toes as if he were going to hop. He lowered himself immediately and nervously cleared his throat. “Er . . . well, then, if there’s not anything else, I’ll wait outside. My family is already gathered in the motor court, along with the rest of the Assembly.”
Jenna’s stomach squeezed to a knot. Once they left, Sommerley would be a ghost town. No one knew if they’d ever be able to return. For a woman who as a child had never lived in any one place longer than a few months, Sommerley had become more than a home. It had become a sanctuary.
Her arm tightened around her husband’s waist. Home is with him. Home is wherever he and the girls are. Nothing else matters.
“Thank you, Edward,” said Leander. “We’ll be down in a moment.”
The viscount and his valet bowed their goodbyes and left, and Jenna and Leander stood looking in silence around the grand, glittering room.
Leander turned to her. “It’s twelve hundred miles from here to Morocco—”
“Thirteen hundred sixty-eight,” Jenna correctly softly. “I know, love.”
He stared at her a beat.
“I looked it up.”
His eyes bored into her. “How long have you been planning this?”
She stroked his cheek with her fingertips. “I’m going to be fine, Leander. I promise I won’t take any unnecessary risks. Caesar won’t even know I’m there . . . you know I can do this.”
As he stared down at her, a muscle in his jaw flexed, over and over.
“If I leave soon, I can be there before sunset. A bit of recon, then I’ll head toward Brazil.”
He shook his head. “You’ll be flying over open water on the way back. What is it? Two, three thousand miles from Morocco to Manaus?”
“Four thousand two hundred fifty.” Jenna pressed her fingers against that angry muscle in his jaw, willing it to calm.
Leander cupped her face in his hands. “This is insanity! You’ll be totally exposed! Over that distance, you’ll have to fly without stopping, for . . . how long? Days, likely! There’re airplanes, there’s radar . . . you don’t think someone will notice a huge white dragon flying over the Atlantic Ocean?”
“I can be Vapor,” she said gently. “I can be a bird—”
“What if you tire? What about food, water? What if, God forbid, you get injured? Jenna, think!”
She removed his hands from her face, and stepped back, out of his reach. She watched his face, his desperate, begging eyes, and steeled herself against them.
“I’m doing this, Leander. You know how much I love you, but I’m not asking your permission. This tribe is my responsibility, our survival is my responsibility, and I’m not just going to sit by helplessly while Caesar tears us apart and makes the world hate us. I’m going to spy on him and his little pack of rats, and find out what their plan is, so we can formulate a plan of our own. I’m sorry you don’t approve, but I’m doing it. This isn’t a negotiation.”
His eyes flashed. “And what about the girls? They’re still breast-feeding—”
“Grayson Sutherland’s wife is still breast-feeding, too.”
Grayson was an Assembly member, one of the few families left at Sommerley who’d be making the trip with them to Manaus. His wife had conveniently given birth the month prior, and had agreed to care for Honor and Hope in Jenna’s absence.
Leander’s face hardened. “A wet nurse. I see you’ve thought of everything.”
“I have. And everything will be fine, you’ll see. Please, just trust me.”
They stared at one another while the long-case clock chimed the hour. When the doleful tolls faded into silence, Jenna asked quietly, “Did you think I’d just stand by and let him walk all over us? Did you think when my Gifts returned I wouldn’t retaliate?”
Leander blinked. His lips parted. Dread leached the color from his face. “You can’t kill him, Jenna. He can’t be killed, you know that. Don’t even try; you’ll only end up getting hurt. Or worse!”
“Everything that can be made can be unmade. We just don’t know how Caesar can be unmade yet, but he can. He might be immortal, but he isn’t invincible. Even Superman has his Kryptonite—”
“Superman is a comic book character! Caesar is real!”
“He’s got a weakness, Leander. I know it. And I’m going to find out what it is.”
In a hoarse, disbelieving voice, he asked, “Even if it kills you?”
Yes.
- Writer
