“There was a man,” Brianna answered with a nervous glance at Logan. “I hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone, but I didn’t realize …” She shook her head, started again, “He was there, in the warehouse where Morgan held me.”
Logan flinched at the reminder, but Brianna couldn’t see where he stood at her shoulder. Only Aern and Emily saw.
“Who?” Aern asked.
Brianna shrugged. “I’d never seen him before. Dark hair, sharp features, and a strong jaw. Maybe six two. But there was something about him, something that made me want to tear free and fight.”
The man’s words echoed through Aern’s mind, a warning they’d not understood at all.
Maybe Morgan isn’t the only one you should be worried about.
Aern’s gaze flicked to Logan, and Brianna glanced up at him over her shoulder. “That’s not all.” She swallowed hard, eyes coming back to Aern. “I saw him again, after I’d repaired some of the connections in me and Emily.”
The room went still, Emily and Logan finally understanding. “And you saw him as he was, not as a prophecy,” Aern said.
Brianna nodded. “I didn’t realize that was what was happening. But he was there, with Morgan, and it was as if he wanted me to see him.”
It seemed she did notice Logan then, the absolute stillness of him, not a breath, not even the tightening of his fist, and her eyes pleaded with Aern to follow her conclusion without making her say it. Without explaining to Logan and her sister that someone might have that power over her, might be able to push thoughts into her mind.
“Okay,” Aern said, “then we find him.” He reached across the space between them, taking Brianna’s hand in his. It was a promise. They’d let her down before, and he’d not let it happen again. “Whatever it takes, Brianna. We’ll do it.”
Brianna nodded, her expression hinting that there might have been more, but he wouldn’t push her. Whatever she needed to do, he would have to trust in. “Make me a list,” Aern said, sliding a notepad across the table toward her. “Every single detail you can remember about him, the things he said, the background to your visions. Especially the backgrounds, anything that will help identify where you’ve seen him.” He would send a team out. This man had worked for Morgan and not all of those men were recovered.
Emily stood beside him, watching as Brianna took the pen. She wanted to say something, wanted to ask. Brianna knew her sister as well as Aern did; she glanced up at her, waiting.
“Bri,” Emily said levelly. “How many?”
They understood from two words the full scope of what she was asking. Brianna and Emily had thought they were alone. After the death of their mother, they’d been convinced they were the last of their kind, even when they’d not known exactly what that had entailed. But mere days ago, they’d discovered that they were something no one had expected, no one would have believed. They’d discovered they were something the Seven Lines—something everyone—had good reason to fear.
And now Brianna was telling her there were more of them.
Shadows.
And here was the more Aern had thought he’d seen in Brianna’s expression. Because she’d known, once she’d found the connections to free herself and Emily, that they had not been still in place from centuries ago. Those bonds, the ones that had kept their powers hidden, were put in place after they’d been born. And the only thing strong enough to do so would have been another shadow.
Brianna’s fingers tightened on the pen, twisting as she answered. “I don’t know for certain. But there’s more than one, more than just a few. I think”—she swallowed, momentarily reluctant to voice her fears, and the pen came to rest on paper—“I think they’re behind all of this, Emily. I think they’re trying to control the outcome of the war.”
There was a moment of collective silence, and then Logan, from behind her shoulder, said, “What war?”
“The war,” she answered, “they’re planning on inciting between us.”
“Us?” Aern asked.
She nodded. “The shadows. And the Seven.”
She’d said it. She’d marked them as an enemy, separated the us by blood, not by their bonds. But it hurt her. Brianna was on their team.
She had to be.
Aern straightened, feeling the not-so-subtle tug in his chest that connected him to Emily.
“It’s not that,” Brianna started, seeing whatever response he’d missed on her sister’s face. “Emily, it isn’t like that. It’s just—” She stopped again, squeezing her eyes shut tight for a moment before continuing in a more earnest tone, “It’s just that someone had to do this to us. And they did it while our mother was alive.” Their mother had allowed it, or at least kept the truth from them.