As he left the room, his two bodyguards walking on either side of him, he noted the frown on Mercier’s face and the paleness of the other two. Cruz and Mitsotakis would leak the information to other countries in the EU, maybe even to America, within the day. Both of them wanted to take point on this issue, but that would only happen to the person who had the most information. Sinclair had no doubt the pair would fuck up, as they had with every other tip they’d received in the past. He didn’t care what those two did; he was anxious to see what Mercier would discover.
Sinclair’s staged attacks were just an excuse to find real disturbances. If enough first-borns were freely using their elemental abilities, Sinclair could finally threaten to leak that information to the human press. With the threat of human hysteria and pandemonium hanging over their heads, Sinclair would be able to bring the remaining high councilors to his side on the first-born issue.
If Sinclair’s gamble paid off, Etienne Mercier—one of the least self-serving people he knew—would be responsible for the permanent downfall of the Feiru first-borns. That thought made him smile.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Go to the address printed below by 8 p.m. A woman dressed in Feiru traditional garb will greet you at the door.
Kiarra looked up from the slip of paper to make sure she hadn’t missed her stop. It was already a little after 7:20pm and she couldn’t afford to backtrack if she got lost.
The alarm clock had gone off around 3 p.m., blaring heavy metal and scaring Kiarra out of her mind. A quick check around the room had revealed that she was alone, but when she saw Neena’s dark blue scarf thrown across the chair at the desk, Neena’s betrayal had come rushing back.
But then she’d remembered about the clue on North Berwick Law and would’ve bolted out the door if not for the large sign taped over the peephole that read: The clue is on the table, under my scarf.
Sure enough, the slip of paper had been tucked inside an envelope, along with a few other sheets of paper.
Kiarra looked out the window of the double-decker bus one more time, but the slow crawl of traffic told her that she had a while to go before she reached her destination. Kiarra pulled out the papers Neena had left her and reread part of what had convinced her to go through with this wild goose chase:
If I hadn’t drugged you, both Jaxton and his sister would be dead right now. Neither one of us wants that, not that I expect you to believe me. I’ve included the clue from North Berwick Law with this note. Follow my instructions if you wish to save all three of them. If you try to rebel, and ignore my instructions, then not only will they all die, but your greatest fear about the first-borns will come true. Is that a chance you’re willing to take?
Ultimately, no, it wasn’t.
Neena’s note had also mentioned saving three, not two, people. While she was learning to never presume anything about Neena, Kiarra liked to believe the third person she referred to was her brother Giovanni.
She still had reservations about what she was doing, but after Darius had mysteriously called the safe house at 3:15 p.m., Kiarra had found herself with no other choice but to follow Neena’s instructions. The call had been short and to the point, but Darius had wanted her to trust Neena, assuring Kiarra that he would be in Edinburgh soon to help get Jaxton ba
ck.
It’ll make it easier to trust the others later on. Jaxton had been right; without her trust in him, she never would’ve gone out on a limb with anyone else. She did not trust Neena, but Darius had been nothing but kind to her and would never wish Jaxton harm. So, through a strange web of logic, she was now tentatively trusting a woman who’d drugged her unconscious, hoping it would be enough to save the man who now mattered most to her.
Still, if Neena’s actions caused Jaxton’s death, Kiarra would not cooperate with DEFEND, supposed Talent or not. Revenge was not her style, but she refused to work with a person so careless with other people’s lives.
At the thought of never seeing Jaxton again, Kiarra felt a tightness in her chest that she couldn’t define. She’d only known him a little less than two weeks, but apart from her parents, no one had understood Kiarra’s need to be pushed. Yet Jaxton had. Without him, she never would’ve had the nerve to try and save someone else’s life.
Dead or alive, she would find Jaxton. She owed him that much.
Kiarra tested her abilities and confirmed that they were nearly at full strength. At least as full as they could be without Jaxton’s touch. She still didn’t understand how or why he amplified her powers.
Her thoughts were heading down that path again, but she couldn’t afford to think about the way he’d made her feel, either emotionally or physically. She needed a clear head for this meeting.
She unfolded the second sheet of paper that Neena had put inside the envelope with the clue. It was a photocopied page of a journal, which had seemed irrelevant at the time, but it might be the distraction she needed to clear her head. Neena had penned a sentence in purple ink at the top of the page and it read: Thoughts and doubts from one fire user to another.
Kiarra continued on to the handwritten journal entry:
March 29, 1918 – Yucatan, Mexico
Another day has passed, but the others have yet to arrive. I know that we are isolated from the world here, but I wonder if something has happened to them. Even making allowances for war on the Continent, they should have arrived here two weeks ago.
I have made the best use of my time by practicing and honing my technique to the best of my ability, or at least as much as I can without my Conduit. I sometimes envy Safiye. Not only does she have her Conduit to enhance her powers, there is a love and trust between them that I fear I will never possess.
But in truth, I am happy for them—our mission isn’t easy, and moments of joy can be few and far between. We must overcome the difficulties, however, as the task ahead of us is our only chance to prove the usefulness of first-borns, Talents in particular. Science has become the new magic of our age, one people find easier to control. Possessing the power to both heal and destroy is terrifying to the general F. population, elemental fire more so than the others. But if something isn’t done, the spreading sickness will kill most of the world’s population and I cannot allow that to happen.
Despite reaching the end of the journal page, Kiarra continued to stare at it in disbelief.
If the photocopied page was authentic, then she’d just read a former Talent’s journal.
Could the legends be true after all?