Wesley’s chin tilted down, the boy I’d known suddenly returning, and said, “He … well, he’s not really feeling up to this yet.”
I stared into Wesley’s eyes, knowing the answer went deeper, his hesitation implying much more. I was struck with an image, something not quite a vision, not quite right. Brendan, head down as he sat at his desk, a desk at the Westlake house, waving off a fretful Ellin as she tried to offer him a cup of hot tea. His face was scarred, but not like Wesley’s. This was worse, much worse, as the skin that covered one side of his face and most of his ear was raw, even with the healing. I placed a hand absently over my cheek, as if feeling the damage, and Wesley nodded.
There was something so off about the image that I couldn’t process it. It was not a vision, not the future. Not something that would come to pass. It was the impression of Brendan now, hurt worse than the healing could repair in the days since I’d been taken. It meant that he must have been near death when they’d found him.
But it wasn’t a vision. And I didn’t know how it had gotten there.
The others were watching us. Wesley laid a hand briefly on my arm before walking to his seat, leaving two chairs open at the head of the table beside Emily and Aern. I glanced at her, a silent inquiry about her reaction to the changes I’d made and she shrugged a shoulder, apparently not sure if she felt any different. I’d have to do more, there was something I’d missed.
Aern was determined to do whatever he could to keep me safe, so he opened discussion without mention of our discovery, of our plans, merely allowing the others to relay the updates and information they and their teams had gathered. Morgan’s numbers were growing too big. He was getting to a point that he would have been hard to deal with even without the benefit of sway. But he did have that influence, which meant that every man, every soldier, would fight until the end, to whatever lengths Morgan had ordered them. However he had manipulated them.
“It’s not just that,” Kara said. “He’s placing them in strategic locations around the city.” She dropped a map to the center of the table, dots spreading out and around the Council properties, near Division houses, and near any place unpopulated. Any place where the Seven would be free to fight without having to conceal themselves from the masses of unknowing, from the watching eyes of humans. My fingers tightened on the cold metal frame that supported the glass top table. He was collecting rundown properties, vacant lots that were no longer under the care, the watchful eyes, of the city. To build his army.
“He’s getting close,” Seth said, his gaze skirting mine. No one was going to make predictions with me in the room, but that didn’t stop them from thinking it. Morgan was coming, and soon.
“Let’s keep teams at these four locations,” Aern said, gesturing to points outside the Council gates. “Keep an eye on his movements, but don’t engage. We only want you to report what he’s up to.”
“By then it will be too late,” Eric argued, “all we have to do is—”
Aern cut him off, “We do not engage.”
He wasn’t one to repeat an order, and the room fell silent. Eric said, “Sir.”
When he leaned back, openly accepting the instruction, Aern looked to Kara. “I want your team outside the Westlake Properties.” She nodded, and by her solemn expression, I knew the vision, the impression I’d had, had been right about where Brendan was recovering. Aern didn’t take his eyes off her. “This is your call, Kara. But you have to know, if they descend too quickly, we won’t be able to get there in time.”
My focus drifted from the conversation as I became aware of the meeting’s purpose. They had decided it was time, were prepared for the end. This group, the leaders of the last soldiers of the Seven Lines, was prepared to either give their lives in the fight or to lose themselves to Morgan and his sway. All of it, to protect their way of life, what they believed in.
And they believed in me. Their prophet. Their guardian. I closed my eyes, sinking in to the horrible, horrible feeling. Maybe I was put here to save them, and to save the human lives. Or maybe I was put here to stop them. A shade, a hidden shadow, meant to slay the dragon. Their leader, their dragon.
It was Morgan, no matter what the visions said. It had to be Morgan. That other sight, the one with fire and Aern, that was some alternate fate, some destiny that wouldn’t come, that couldn’t play out, because my sister was not going to die.