Chapter 2 #3
He spoke as she was blowing across the top of a freshly made Americano. “I am sorry for informing them of the meaning behind your changed eye color. They were concerned, and I wished to allay that concern. I should have spoken with you first.”
Nyx sighed. “It’s okay. I would have asked about it too, if I were them.”
There was an awkward lull after that, until Griff said, “I will leave you to it, then,” and exited the room. She and Kaden realized they were the last two people in the room at the same time, and the air was suddenly thick with more awkwardness.
“Don’t you also have a letter to write to Amelia Drahl, or something?” Nyx asked. The woman was, for all intents and purposes, Kaden’s mother, too.
He gave her a look that conveyed the answer more clearly than any words could.
“Let me guess,” she said, “if Morgen expressing affection makes her worry, you writing a letter at all would give her a heart attack?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, almost as if he was trying very hard not to smile. “Something like that.”
“Have you been home since…” She trailed off, because she realized she didn’t know whether to say “since Arkadia” or “since Kiev”.
It was still odd to think of Kaden having a home.
In all the time she’d spent with him in Dead Earth, she’d never known where he’d come from, had only known he’d had a sister because he’d mentioned it once.
“Home” was a word that didn’t seem to fit with him.
She couldn’t picture him as a child, staying in one place long enough to grow up with a brother and a sister, under the guidance of a parent.
There was something about Kaden Moor that gave you the impression he must have come into the world fully formed, exactly as he was now.
The hint of amusement that had come into his face died at her half-spoken question. “No,” he said flatly.
“Why not?” By all accounts, Amelia Drahl sounded like a wonderful person. She must have worried about him, and now she knew he was alive and not in Council custody, but he’d never gone to see her?
He set his coffee cup on the counter, but when he tried to move past her without answering, she stepped in front of him. “Why not?” she asked again.
But he just looked down at her, something coldly mocking in his eyes, until she remembered dragging him out of his room months ago to go to Tobi’s birthday party, remembered him telling her to stop trying to fix him.
She just couldn’t help herself, could she?
It was an automatic response, in her nature, a desire to understand everything that didn’t make sense to her.
But Kaden was never going to make sense to her, and she really needed to be more aware of who she was trying to pry answers from before she kept trying it.
She shouldn’t have asked about his mother.
She shouldn’t have talked to him about personal matters at all.
But there was something she needed to talk to him about, so she changed the subject.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do after we find Tristen?
” At his blank expression, she added, “I appreciate you being willing to find him, but you probably don’t want to see him.
” Or rather, didn’t want Tristen to see him.
“Your wanted poster is still hanging in the Arrival Room.” She took it down every morning, but a new one always came back in its place.
Morgen’s and Maruca’s, oddly, had remained gone when she’d pulled them down on her return.
She kept meaning to ask Morgen about it and forgetting.
Kaden shrugged. “He won’t know who I am in Dead Earth. But he will be dangerous. I should be there.”
Nyx’s irritation rose again. “I thought we just went over this. I can handle him. You backed me up.”
“You can. But you might not be there at all times. I need to back Morgen up.”
Her ire fizzled. Kaden really seemed to be trying to repair that familial relationship, and she knew it meant a lot to Morgen. So she understood why Kaden felt he needed to be there, but: “What about when you get back here and Tristen does understand who you are?”
Kaden shrugged. “Turning me in would be a poor choice on his part. It’s rare for a Shaman to kill—it isn’t in their nature—so when they do?
The Council takes it seriously. The last recorded instance was twelve years ago.
In the little time that Shaman had left after she lost the Congregation, the Council made an example out of her.
“If they knew a Shaman survived a break with the Congregation longterm? They would pursue them with extreme prejudice. If Tristen attempted to buy his freedom with mine, it would not end well for him.”
Probably not, but people didn’t always make rational decisions. “Do you have a contingency plan if he does?”
“Yes.”
Nyx waited, but he did not elaborate. She took a deep breath and did not press for more.
She had done her due diligence and made sure he didn’t feel the need to fall on the proverbial sword for the sake of this mission, and that would have to be enough.
She took her coffee and went upstairs to talk to a different cranky bastard who didn’t like her.