“They . . . talk to one another? Like that?”

When he nodded, nausea made her stomach lurch, and she covered her mouth with her hand. She’d been blocking Honor for years, blocking everyone’s thoughts for years because she’d learned the only way to survive was to shut the world out, to act “normal.” The probability that she’d also inadvertently been blocking her own mother made her feel sick. She shook her head, trying to clear it enough to make sense of what he was telling her.

“So does that mean she doesn’t want Honor to know where she is, or . . .”

Anger flickered across his features, darkening his eyes, thinning his lips, and suddenly she knew exactly what it meant.

Horrified, Lu breathed, “She’s a prisoner!”

His expression was a tortured mix of grief, guilt, and fury. He looked away, as if he couldn’t meet her eyes, and she took his silence as affirmation.

All the stories she’d ever heard about how Abs were abused in government-run detention centers slammed into her head and became a whirling vortex of horror inside her skull. She whispered, “For how long?”

He seemed reluctant to answer, and she thought his teeth were in danger of shattering with all the grinding of his jaw.

“Magnus—how long?”

“Since the Flash.”

Oh dear God. For decades, her mother had been locked up, probably experimented on, probably tortured—

Lu squeezed shut her eyes, forcing herself to remain calm though all she wanted to do was succumb to the sobs trapped inside her chest. She saw the Grand Minister’s face just before she threw up her hands at the Hospice, remembered the words he’d said that she’d been so convinced were lies.

And you can meet your mother—you’d like that wouldn’t you? To meet your birth mother? She’s missed you so much.

Lu wanted to vomit. Her voice shaking, she said, “And my birth father?”

Magnus exhaled heavily, as if he’d been holding his breath. “We don’t know where he is either. Or if he’s . . .”

Alive. He didn’t say it, but the unspoken word hung there.

“Honor can’t talk to him, and your mother doesn’t know his whereabouts. They were separated . . . in the . . . battle . . .”

She began to hyperventilate. Trying hard to concentrate on the sound of water rushing over some far-off streambed, she thought if only she could stay focused on that sound, she might be able to banish the images in her head. The terrible, bloody images—

“Hope.” Magnus’s voice was soft, but beneath it she heard the edge. “Your mother is unharmed. She’s a prisoner, yes, but apparently a well-treated one. And I’m going to find her. If Leander is alive, I’ll find him, too. It’s what I do. Find our people, what’s left of them. And bring them back to live here. We’re trying to rebuild, one at a time. There’s not many of us left, but . . . it’s something. It’s a start. I give you my word: I. Will. Find. Them. No matter how long it takes me. No matter the cost. I’ll bring them back to you. Or I’ll die trying.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. Every muscle in his face showed his strain and fatigue, his eyes, so dark and intense, showed her his sincerity. She didn’t know if what he was promising was possible, but she knew he believed what he was telling her. And that, at least, was something.

In that moment, she began to trust him. Whatever else he was, Magnus was a man who would rather die than not honor his word, and that made her breathe just the tiniest bit easier. Even if it was short-lived, he’d just given her some peace of mind.

And he found me, she thought, studying his face. So maybe it really is possible.

After a long while, she said, “I think I might need a drink. Or four.”

That seemed to soften the hard lines around his mouth, which is what she’d hoped for.

“You’re in luck. Jack makes potato vodka that will rot your guts but will definitely put you right in the head. At least until you go blind from drinking it.”

“Jack?”

“You’ll meet her at the Assembly meeting.”

“Jack’s a she?”

His lips twitched. Was he trying not to smile?

“That she is.” He stood, helping her up by the arm. Lu leaned on him heavily, more shaky than she’d realized, and he steadied her, his eyes worried though his posture was stiff. Because I’m too close, she realized. She sighed and stepped away, noting how the tension left his body when she did.

She sighed again, scrubbing her hands over her face. Time for a change of subject.

“Do you have any gloves here? Even if they’re thin, I just . . .” she stared at her hands. “I feel naked without them. I’ve been wearing them my whole life. And after what happened back there with Honor I’m not sure it’s safe for me to walk around without them.” She thought of Morgan’s singed jacket. “Honor wasn’t hurt, but someone else could be.”

His brows knit. “Gloves can control your Gift?”

“I don’t really know how it works,” she admitted quietly. “Just that I don’t have accidents when I wear gloves.”

“Ah, yes. Your ‘accidents.’ That’s how I knew where to find you, incidentally.”

When Lu looked at him, startled, he said, “The fire at the credit market. That was my first clue where to look.”

Seeing the confusion on her face, he said, “Just like the IF does, we monitor GlobeNet for any kind of suspicious activity that might indicate one of us living undercover.” His face hardened. “And we try to get to them first.”

GlobeNet was the Imperial Federation’s international spynet, which surveilled all citizens and communications and distributed the “news.”

So technology had brought him to her. Not those wonderful, delicious dreams, which now that she thought about it, probably were only one-sided. She knew she had Gifts she didn’t understand; perhaps dreaming about people she’d meet was one of them. She’d never met her birth mother or father in those dreams, though. Or her sister. Or her godmother.

Only him. A very different him, unscarred and smiling, full of lightness and life.

So . . . just like the rest of her life, her dreams of Magnus had been a lie.

Lu tried to feel nothing but her newly found numbness, but all sorts of other emotions were leaking through. Fun, lovely things like foolishness. Misery. Despair.

New Vienna. City of her childhood, city of dreams. All her life had been nothing but dreams. And here, finally, was reality.

Boy, did it suck.

“Are you sure you want to go to this Assembly meeting, Hope? You look pale.”

The concern in his voice and eyes was genuine, but now Lu realized it for what it was: brotherly. “Yes,” she answered dully, turning away. “And I told you before, my name’s Lumina.”

I’m the monster who broke the world.

ELEVEN

Everyone had been milling around, talking quietly in small groups, until Magnus and Hope—Lumina, he corrected himself—were about ten meters from the entrance to the cave where the Assembly regularly gathered. He knew it wasn’t only their footsteps echoing on the stone that had cut off the conversation so abruptly.

It was Lu. Her presence was electric, as tangible and shocking as a hand slapping his face.

Walking beside him, she was pale and silent, her lips set to a grim line. He thought she looked slightly ill, and had to fight the urge to pick her up and carry her back to her bedchamber. That urge was simultaneously fighting the urge to get as far away from her as possible, because he also had another—and very powerful—urge to kiss her. More than kiss her, but he wasn’t allowing himself to dwell on that.