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I should be ready to set her free at this moment. I’d been planning to do so for six months, but still, in this moment, I wanted to push her back into the truck and tear away from here. The instinct to keep her safe from everything the world was going to bombard her with was still a constant heartbeat thrumming through my veins.
But this was it.
I had to let her go.
She needed it.
Even if I didn’t.
I gave her my brightest smile. The same one I used whenever I would have to break it to her that we needed to move again. “You are ready?”
“No.” The frown on her face deepened. “Yes.”
It was the best I was going to get from her. Once she walked under that archway she was here. Protected for at least another three years. No one could get to her here.
I just needed her to take that first step.
I pointed to Triaten. “Uncle Triaten will take you in, get you settled.”
Her eyes went to slits. “Why can’t you take me in?”
“You know why.”
Her eyes relaxed ever so slightly and my chest started to constrict so tightly I was afraid my ribs would crack with the pressure.
Four years I spent with Venetia, teaching her everything she needed to know about the panthenite and malefic worlds, and now it was time to deliver her to the Academy. I’d given her enough to survive here. If she hurt anyone—if theymadeher hurt anyone—I knew I’d done all I could do to prevent it.
It was time to step back.
Triaten nudged his shoulder into mine. “You know what this means?” He skewered me with a look.
“I do.” I looked to Venetia. “It means you are taking your rightful place in the world.”
She rolled her eyes.
Triaten cleared his throat. “It also means he will know. It means he can find you, Ada.”
There it was, the unspoken words he’d managed to hold in since picking us up at the coast.
I turned my face toward Triaten, meeting his stare. “I plan on being gone long before Damen becomes aware I was here. I’m going to take the truck and you can have them fire up the Academy helicopter to get home.” My head flicked toward the alien building.
This was the price of getting Venetia into the Academy. We had to come out of hiding.
A risk that was worth it.
His chest lifted in a sigh. “Figures. Then you need to get out of here.” He waved his forefinger between the two of us. “Say your goodbyes.”
He walked away from us, standing under the iron archway of the Academy.
I watched him, and it took me a long moment of steeling myself before I could look to Venetia.
When I did, I nearly broke when I saw tears glistening in her eyes.
Unable to look at them, I jabbed a step toward her and wrapped my arms around her, my face turning to talk into her hair. “You will be fine. You will be the phoenix that I know you are.”
“I don’t feel like a phoenix.”
“Then that is perfect. You will appear fragile.” I pulled back, determination bleeding from my look to try and bolster her. “We have to be smarter than our enemies and that is all about estimation. Make everyone in there underestimate you, for you don’t know who your enemies are.”
