I carried my plate over to join him.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“It’s delicious,” I admitted.
Vale made short work of a drumstick. “There’s another reason I invited you here, aside from lunch. I wasn’t sure the best way to bring it up. Harriet said to leave it alone.”
My emergency radar kicked into high gear, and I fought the urge to drop my lasagna and run. “Then maybe you should listen to her. Harriet’s a smart witch.”
A smile flickered across his lips. “She is, but my curiosity got the better of me.”
I quickly swallowed another mouthful of lasagna, in case I was about to lose my appetite. “And?”
“There is no record of you, Maya August, prior to your arrival on Evermore. No record of your Gorgon mother either.”
I snorted. “You ran a search for ‘Gorgon mothers’?”
“I ran multiple searches. My knowledge base isn’t limited to my own region. I put in a request to the other regions for information. I found Gorgon mothers, but no matches.”
“And you think the HOA would hire someone with no record as their assistant director of security?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“What’s your question, Vale?” My heart pounded as I tried to maintain a neutral tone.
“Who are you?”
“Maya August. I was scrubbed from all written records.”
“Impossible. No one can be removed completely. I’m a demigod and I wouldn’t be able to erase myself. Harriet couldn’t find a record of you using magic either.”
I balked. “You asked your best friend to investigate me?”
“Not investigate you. Just figure out why there was no trace of you. I assumed it was a glitch until she came away from the spell empty-handed. Now it seems clear that you’re hiding something. I’ve let you into my world, my home.” He waved a hand at the kitchen. “I want to know whether my trust in you has been misplaced.”
I set down the fork and gave him my full attention. “You convinced me to trust you less than an hour ago, and now you’re questioning whether you should trust me? What are you doing, Vale?”
He broke eye contact with me. “You have more power than you let on. You live on a secret island that’s arguably outside my jurisdiction. If my people are at risk, I deserve to know.”
We were treading dangerous ground. I chose my answer carefully. “Evermore is a clean slate for me and everyone else on the island. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“If you can be scrubbed, why not also scrub those who’ve been snagged by modern technology? Why bother to create islands like Evermore at all?”
“Because scrubbing can’t help them if they continue to live in the regular world. You can’t scrub someone who’s still interacting with people and functioning in regular society. You’ll hit snag after snag. It would mean constant cleanup. No onehas the resources or the emotional bandwidth to devote to that, which is why the islands became necessary.”
“Why doyouneed a clean slate, Maya? You said you’re only thirty-five. Why would someone so young need to erase evidence of her existence, unless, of course, thirty-five is a lie?”
“It’s the truth.” A lump gathered in my throat. It was time to redirect the inquisitive demigod before he dove too deep. If he dragged me down, we’d both drown.
“Then why?”
“I think you can agree that we all have moments in our past we’d rather forget or be forgotten by others. Accepting the job at Evermore granted me that opportunity and I took it,” I said.
He leaned across the table, dropping his voice to a near whisper. “And what is it you’d like to forget, or have others forget?”
“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be forgotten, now would it?” I got up from the table and carried my plate to the sink.
Vale followed. As I moved away from the counter, he stood directly in front of me, hips square with mine. “Who are you?”
