“The Administration wants an account?” Ilain asked.
“Can you blame them?” Vayden replied, then glanced at his wife. “You’ve forced their greatest spy to reveal herself.”
Ilain rolled her eyes. But it was Auden who spoke. “We didn’t have much choice in the matter.”
“No,” Vayden allowed. “But they’d like an accounting of your mission anyway. The archminister has called for an impromptu hearing.”
“A hearing?” Deckard asked with a startled scan of the table.
Evylin didn’t feel any less unsettled, but Vayden held up a hand to forestall their concern. “It’s merely a term,” he assured them. “None of you is on trial. The Administration simply wants our most influential members to gather so they can understand the situation to its full extent.”
That didn’t make Evylin feel any better. “And what is the situation?” she asked.
Vayden’s bright eyes shone in the light as he gave a dry grin that looked strikingly like Ilain’s. “I should think you’d be aware of it,” he said. “Seeing as you’re in the midst of it yourself.”
“You mean,” Ethenn interjected, “this meeting is simply to hear what we’ve been up to these last two months?”
“More or less,” Vayden confirmed.
“And,” Auden added, “for us to request additional aid.”
“What sort of aid?” Evylin asked.
“Finances, supplies...” Auden glanced at his brother and sister-in-law. “Members.”
Lifting her chin, Evylin looked at Vayden and Isla with renewed interest. “You want to come with us?” she asked.
“If the Alliance will allow,” Isla confirmed.
“Regardless of whom they allow,” Auden said, “we need help now that we’ve lost two of the Relics.”
Frowning, Evylin met first Deckard’s, then Thom’s stares. Though she thought Auden was correct, she didn’t know how she felt about adding additional members to their party. It had been the seven of them for so long now that she could hardly imagine life any other way.
Eight,Evylin corrected herself. Hewitt was still with them, even if he was a ghost.
Evylin glanced at Deckard, wondering when he could bring her uncle back to her again.
Suddenly, the kitchen door burst open, slamming against the wall. They all whirled just as a youthful peal rent the air. “Mama!”
Isla gasped, leaping out of her seat. “Reya!”
In a frantic collision, Isla embraced a girl who looked to be in her early teens, with dark hair and pale skin. They clutched one another in a mess of tears, kisses, and murmured words. A sudden swell of homesickness clutched Evylin’s heart. It’d been so long since she’d been held by her mother, a feeling she hadn’t realized she missed so dearly.
Isla was muttering to her daughter in a foreign tongue that Evylin didn’t understand while Vayden, Auden, and Ilain rose together. Then the mother spun to slap her husband with a sharpsmack. “You didn’t tell me she was here,” she said, clinging fiercely to the teen.
Vayden smiled kindly even as he held a hand to the red mark blossoming on his cheek. “My darling, I wanted it to be a surprise,” he said. He turned back to the others with a dry look. “I always forget how temperamental Schonese women can be.”
Isla held her daughter closer even as the girl giggled in her embrace. “Papa brought me because he knew you’d be coming soon,” she said, the features of her face a blend between the sharpness of Waulden and the fullness of Schonese. “I told him it was a bad idea to hide it from you. Hello, Aunt Lainy, Uncle Audy.”
Rafferty sniggered at the nicknames while the family exchanged their greetings. Evylin smiled all the while. She hadn’t known that Auden and Ilain had a niece. Granted, she hadn’t known they had a sister-in-law either. And once again, she realized she didn’t know very much about the people who surrounded her.
Thoughtful as ever, Deckard rose to set another chair at their table for the young Calder girl to join them. She sat between her aunt and mother, chatting blithely...until she spotted Ethenn across from her. The young girl blinked, taking in the strapping Warrior, then blushed deeply. She scanned the rest of the table, swallowing visibly. “Hello,” she murmured.
“Hello,” Evylin said, thinking of her own nieces. She’d never particularly gotten on with children, but this girl was old enough and the Calders were witty enough that she thought she might have some sporting conversation.
Vayden took his seat once more, nodding to the teen. “This is our daughter, Reyana,” he said, then introduced her to the Ephrians.
Reyana shrank in her seat as the Ephrian men said their hellos. Her eyes kept darting between Ethenn and Thom, and she pressed closer to her aunt as though to hide, though Ilain wasn’t very adequate cover, being trim as a post.
