Last time he’d been standing, dead-eyed, just behind the premier, looking like he’d been sentenced to prison. That was when he’d taken over for Madeline, so perhaps that’s exactly what had happened. Aya had never realized before that the Airs used their mind-wipers as a form of punishment.

Jason inched closer, and though most people were larger than her, right then he seemed impossibly tall, as wide as a mountain. His gaze traveled over her face and hair, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Who are you?”

Clearing her throat, she lifted her chin and looked right at him. “I am Aya, Daughter of Earth, here to see the premier on Senatus matters.”

“I see.” He nodded, the back of his teeth making a terrible grinding noise. “You don’t look how I thought you would.”

“What do you mean? What were you expecting?”

He let out a hollow laugh. His eyes made a general sweep of her body. Different than how Nem had looked at her, however. Jason’s study was critical and detached. Still, standing there wrapped in the suit of woven grass that suddenly felt too constrictive, a new kind of warmth spread out to her extremities. Never one to cower, though, confident in her decision to evolve, she stared back.

“A Child of Earth?” he finally said with a faint snort. “Dreadlocks. Hairy legs. Bells on your wrists and ankles.”

None of that made sense to her and she made a mental note to look it up.

“But you’re none of that. Are you?” As his voice turned distant, his wandering gaze settled on her hair—still not entirely human, she knew, with its color, or lack thereof, and the way it tended to move on its own—growing, curling, wrapping around her neck and body.

With another sudden jerk and shake of his head, he threw off whatever ghosts clung to his thoughts and leaned closer. Filling her vision with his face.

“Don’t worry, Senatus,” he spit, “I’ll do what you fucking want me to.”

Aya opened her mouth—to ask what he meant or to defend herself or to deny she had anything to do with whatever it was the premier wanted of him—but Jason kept talking, his tone spiraling into the same ugly one he’d used on the premier.

“I’ll do it,” he said, “but you tell him that after this one, I’m done. This is the last mind I fuck with.” Swerving around her with the force of a gale, Jason lunged for the exterior door, rattling the knob so hard Aya thought he might rip it off. “Nancy.” He pounded on the wood. “Let me the fuck out.”

Aya only stood there, knowing she could not reveal herself to this man. Knowing she could not tell him that she was just as abhorred by the Senatus practice of mind scrambling as he was.

Jason glared at her and she had to clamp her lips shut to keep from begging him to give her time. To hold on until Griffin succeeded and the two of them could start to steer Senatus thinking and practices in different, better directions.

Nancy, the Air who’d met her at the gate, unlocked the door and Jason fled the waiting room so fast Aya wondered if he’d used his magic to ride the wind. In his wake, she stared at the space he’d once consumed, still able to see his shape. Still able to sense the force of his emotion. Evolution had brought that to her, that blessing and that curse of being finely in tune with what others—Primary or Secondary—felt. And there was no doubt over what she’d just experienced.

Jason hated her.

 • • •

How much time passed before the door to the premier’s office opened, Aya couldn’t say. The hole in her gut had eaten much of her present awareness. Her mind was spinning away, thinking about the human who would suffer so terribly at Jason’s will because they probably inadvertently saw something they shouldn’t have. Hating how, yet again, all she could do was stand here and watch it happen.

Was that what this was about? This midnight summons? Did the premier want to see her about Jason or a new threat coming out of Reno?

“Aya.” The premier’s voice hadn’t lost its snarl.

She turned, giving him a slight inclination of her head and noticing with consternation how his icy eyes pierced her. “Premier.”

Aaron stepped out of the office, beckoning her inside. Too late she remembered how human skin was susceptible to sharp edges. She stepped on a small shard of broken glass and hissed. A sliver of red leaked out from her sole.

The premier didn’t notice. In fact, he stood in front of his desk, arms crossed, hair dented by the cowboy hat now lying upside down in a corner. Staring.

“I know a lot more about you now,” he said, his voice chilly, “don’t I?”

She swept a long look around his office, glancing pointedly at the ceiling where the huge Christian cross sat atop the false church. “And I you.”

He didn’t seem to hear her, or if he did, he chose to ignore her. “How you move about under the earth. How you can change your shape. Quite unusual. Quite fascinating. It’s why you always insisted the Senatus meet outside. In the dark. In remote places.”

There’d been reasons why the Children had kept their true nature and their history secret since the dawn of man: to avoid reactions like this one.

So this was what the summons was about, to confront her about the Children. Maybe to use her indiscretion—done in heat and haste—against her like Nem had done. Worry started to worm its way into her consciousness. Worry that the Father would learn what she’d done, and worry that the premier would feel threatened and cut her loose from the Senatus when she was so close to finally putting her plan into motion.

“Yes, that’s why,” she replied, because it would be disadvantageous to admit otherwise, or to give him any further information.

“But what I don’t get”—he rubbed his forehead in a way that even she knew to be exaggerated—“is why the fuck you would go against your own directive.”

Give away nothing. “Why do you think I did that?”

His hand came away from his face, one finger stabbing into the air between them. “Why make such a grand, dramatic entrance the other night, put massive demands on the Senatus, outline your own terms, and then blow everything to pieces?”

A strange, buzzing sensation filled her head, making her feel dizzy and nauseous. “I think you need to explain yourself.”

“I need to explain?” He was shouting now. “There is one thing the Senatus is about, and that’s solidarity. Consensus. You know this. And yet you rise up out of the ground and declare the Earth in danger if Keko so much as breathes on this Fire Source. You cut a deal to allow us to go after her and hopefully keep the peace with the Chimerans. You know you’ll have a chance at her if Griffin fails. And you attack her anyway.”

Dread and rage twisted through her, but she drew herself up as tall as the diminutive body would allow. “I did no such thing.”

The premier shook his head in disbelief and turned to rest both palms on the edge of his desk. “Trust is a tenuous thing, Aya. Especially among Secondaries.”

All this human emotion warred inside her—fear and anger, concern and confusion—and she didn’t know how to keep them separate. Or even if she should. “You forget. The Children of Earth are the ones who approached the Airs and the Chimerans to begin the Senatus many centuries ago. We are invested in its success and don’t want to compromise it. Now tell me what happened.”

He inhaled long and slow through his nose as he regarded her. “Got a call from Griffin a couple hours ago. Pissed off as all hell. Said a Child of Earth attacked them when they were nowhere near the Source. Something about a tree coming to life.”

“Keko. Is she—”

“Alive.”

Aya held in the massive sigh she desperately wanted to release.

The premier pushed off the desk. “Griffin wants assurances he’ll have his chance. Then you can have yours. As you originally agreed.”