FACE-TRANSFORMATION
CAPABLE OF INFLUENCING OTHER EMPYREALS
ADEPT IN EVERY KNOWN STYLE OF FIGHTING
How much information had been left out? Surely the Wake knew more about her than this?
Kyan leaned closer and closer as he read on:
MAY HAVE A CHILD.
The sinking feeling worsened as he scoured for information onhowthey knew about Nicole … but as he scrolled down the page, he found theknown associates, and the question-marked image of a silhouette, with one word:
DAUGHTER?
He schooled his features, kept his body from tensing as the bind between him and Nicole seared his solar plexus like a piece of the star they’d been made from.
I’ll find you, he promised.
Not to hunt her. To keep her as hidden as he could.
But one question remained: how could the Wake expect him to hunt someone by giving him so little information, unless they had discovered he knew her already?
‘I think they’re onto us,’ Kyan said as he stalked into Callum’s favourite tailor’s shop. Kyan had Influenced the employees not to hear a word while they were in the next room.
Callum grew dangerously still before the mirror.
‘Oh?’ It was light in tone, but contained a thousand questions.
‘They’ve given me a new mission.’ Kyan reached the bar cart and poured himself a quick snifter of strong whisky, before throwing it down. He’d never been much for a drink, but he needed one now.
It burned the whole way.
Callum turned. ‘What about that suggests—’
‘To hunt Nicole.’
After all this time, Kyan knew Callum’s different silences: this one was prolonged enough to be calculated.
‘They know about her?’
‘They know Freya had a daughter, and they want her.’
Callum stared, his mind working. He shook his head. ‘I don’t like the timing. How would they know that?’
‘They won’t tell me. Which means this is a test.’
‘A test of your loyalty. Do you think they know about you two?’
‘How else could they have discovered Nicole, now? Sixteen years after her mother’s assassination?’
‘Unless the Palmers have done something in these last six months to give them away.’
Kyan raked his hands through his hair. ‘I wondered that. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Well, there’s one option, but you won’t like it.’
‘Only one?’ Kyan asked bitterly.
