Page 160 of The Amber Sunburst

“I have a brother?” she asks.

“In a sense, yes.”

She’s so sick of this ‘in a sense,’ ‘mostly,’ half-answer bullshit.

“Explain clearly or don’t explain at all,” she spits, trying not to show how desperate she is to know.

The Educator smiles like this is what he was waiting for. “You, Ophelia, would make the perfect Guardian. And I do not say that to be kind, I say it as objective fact. You are the perfect Guardian. You came into this world with that purpose, and that purpose alone. Your brother too.

“Intelligent, capable, crafty. Incredible memory, flawless figure, unbelievable beauty. And your ambition and joy are perfectly complemented by your brother’s realism and calm. Together, you were meant to be unstoppable. The first of a new era of leaders unencumbered by faults and fears.

“I was responsible for the assigning of your attributes, physical and otherwise, and a team of Guardian scientists experimented with DNA and organic matter until they made you a reality. The Uncanny Initiative, we called it, headed up by a true genius from the Producer Class. Then, of course, she had doubts. Questions of morality. She brought them to me, and I reminded her that Morality is not Justice⁠—”

“And Justice is the jurisdiction of a Guardian,” she mumbles under her breath.

“Very good. She did not agree, it seems. She ran off with you both, your brother and yourself. Put your brother in an orphanage where we found him ten years later. Left you with the Priestesses.”

So, she’s what? A designer baby created to be the ideal? A piece of clay shaped for a purpose she never got to fulfill? A single half of a perfect whole?

She can’t even say something dramatic. Can’t shout, ‘my whole life was a lie!’ because it wasn’t. She’s always thought she was meant for more, and now she knows why.

But there’s one part of it all that she can’t shake.

“Where are they?”

“The scientist? Dead.”

“And my brother?”

The Educator’s eyes wander to the screen next to them, and he speaks slowly, like he wants her to figure it out herself. “You and your brother are perfect opposites, at least in your faces and demeanors. Though, I do wish I had found you instead. He’s gorgeous, your brother, but he needs your spark to make him real. Just as I imagine you need his weight to keep you grounded.”

Alexander appears on the screen, attaching mirrors while Kallias follows behind, checking each angle without breaking stride. The subtlety and speed of it are incredible, like it’s hardwired into him.

Oh.

She should have noticed it before.

She and Kallias are the same in too many ways to be natural. And, more importantly, they’re different in ways too uncanny to be a coincidence. Her skin dark where his is pale, her eyes gold where his are black, her hair black where his is gold.

“You see it now, don’t you?”

Her brother.

Her brother who is now ducking under shortening ceilings to escape what feels like his hundredth booby trap today.

Her brother who is quiet and subdued and angry in a way that she never had to learn how to be.

Her brother who she needs to get ahold of right now.

Which means she needs the plan to work.

Which means she needs to stay in this room until the exit button lights up.

“Does he know?” she asks, half because she’s stalling and half because she’s curious.

“No, he doesn’t. He’s never needed to.”

Not surprising. But enraging. Maybe if he’d known, he would have found her.