20. Adam

It was one of those rare London mornings that glistened like a gem, a clear blue sky arching above, the temperature not yet high enough for haze to rise from the city. Out on the balcony, I tipped my face into the sun, closed my eyes, and took a minute to soak in the warmth.

Then I turned to the book that portrayed France's magical elite. Its cover was a rich burgundy, the title embossed in gold. Enchanté: The Unfiltered Guide to France's Arcane Aristocracy.

Charming.

I opened the pages to a satin ribbon bookmark. When I'd offered to get started without Liam, it had been partly to counter his unease that I'd sensed, yes—more than that, though, I had yet to share my inkling about the Blanchard family. There was no need to unsettle him when I might very well be wrong.

But it was a place to start. I checked the index at the back and then flipped to the correct page, dominated by a family crest surrounded by lilies. All right, then.

‘In the tapestry of Paris's magical elite, the Blanchard family stands as a testament to arcane prowess and enigmatic influence, firmly positioned within the top ten Paris mage families. Their ranks boast four distinguished mages, each mastering elements as diverse as the city's own rich palette, while the extent of the broader family's power remains a closely guarded enigma.'

Diverse elements, was it? If it hadn't been for my father's comment, I might have simply concluded that elemental control in France varied more widely within families.

‘Amid the swirl of rumours,'the introduction continued, ‘there's talk of an ancient artefact, a hidden wellspring of their considerable influence, though specifics are elusive.'

So…this artefact. Was it, in fact, the ley lines, and they'd simply chosen to obscure the source of their powers? Also—if they had four top-ranking mages, did they all secretly control more than one element? And if the answer was yes, did they register at Nova-level for each and every one?

Because if so, wow. That kind of power would be terrible and awe-inspiring.

Could Liam's magic evolve further?

I inhaled, tucked a finger underneath the leather bracelet clasped around my wrist, and kept reading.

‘Adding a dash of intrigue to their storied legacy is the famed fallout with the Duval family in the 1940s, a broken engagement that sowed the seeds of a rivalry, simmering just beneath the surface and occasionally boiling over.'

Oh, bloody hell. A broken engagement in the forties—that couldn't be a coincidence. Right?

I leaned forward just enough to glance into the flat, a straight shot at Liam moving around the kitchen in a pair of boxers. He was…important. God—he was so important to me. I should call him, tell him what I'd found.

Which meant telling him that his great-grandfather belonged to a family line that had set Notre Dame on fire.

The other family, though. What about them? The Duvals, and now that I thought about it, I recognised the name as the Blanchards' counterpart in that escalation. Two people had died that day, the irreparable damage to a beloved cultural monument notwithstanding.

I skimmed the detailed text on the Blanchard family, bouncing from name to name until—there. The engagement.

Lucien Duval had been engaged to Margaux Blanchard. When he'd broken it off upon returning from the Second World War, it had been a huge affront that had tongues wagging and forced a duel between him and Etienne Blanchard, Margaux's brother. Etienne Blanchard had not survived the challenge.

Lucien Duval. I'd found Liam's great-grandfather.

Slowly, I got up and made my way towards the kitchen, clutching the book to my chest. Something about my face must have tipped Liam off because he stopped to look at me, then turned off the stove. Fried eggs, half-finished, had only just begun to thicken in a pan. The sight turned my stomach. I looked away.

"You found something." Liam's even inflection made it a statement more than a question.

"I believe so," I said anyway.

He sucked in a sharp breath. "I'm not going to like it, am I?"

"Well." Carefully, I set the book down on the kitchen worktop. "Depends on your perspective, I guess. Although I haven't…I only read up on the other family, not yours. Because my father mentioned them, and I thought—you know, maybe." I'd been trained in eloquence, yet somehow, I didn't manage to make sense outside my head.

For a second, we didn't speak, the space filled with distant city sounds. Liam's gaze was heavy on me, and I didn't quite manage to hold it.

"Okay," he said softly. "Start from the beginning, please?"

Right.

"Okay, yeah." Get it together. "So, a couple of years ago, my dad and Eleanor took a trip to Paris. It was related to a client project, but they also used it to explore business ties with the Parisian magical elite. Does the name Blanchard ring a bell?"

Liam's eyebrows drew together. "I don't think so, no."

"It's one of the two families that set Notre Dame on fire."

His expression shifted, shadows washing across his face as he leaned back against the worktop. He cleared his throat. "Go on, please."

I wanted to be closer, yet at the same time, I didn't want to impose on Liam's space. So I stayed right where I was and knotted my hands together. "My father mentioned they're one of the very few families that draw from the ley lines. And that it's those same families that control all four elements. But it's apparently not something that's openly advertised—I guess the intrigue plays into their power games."

"And they told him?" Liam asked.

His blatant disbelief sparked a glint of distant amusement in me. "Careful, babe." I offered him a lopsided smile. "That's my father you're talking about."

One of his brows twitched as he tilted his head and pointedly didn't reply.

"Fair enough." I paused. "Honestly, he can be very charming when he wants to be. Women like him." It wasn't something I particularly enjoyed thinking about. No, he and my mother hadn't loved each other, but there'd been ample mutual respect. "We came close to an alliance with the Blanchard family, not sure why it fell apart in the end."

"So you think…" Liam's jaw tightened even though his voice remained calm. "You think we could be related to them. Because they control all four elements."

Despite the sunlight washing over the wood floor of my flat, I felt chilled. "In the forties," I started, quiet, "the Blanchards tripped into a bad feud with another Parisian family. Because that family's son broke an engagement with Margaux Blanchard—arranged when both were still children."

For a moment, Liam didn't say anything. Then he drew a measured breath and met my eyes. "What was his name? The son of the other family."

"Lucien Duval."

"Duval." He repeated it almost absently, just a hint pale under his tan. His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper. "I take it they're the other family from the Notre Dame fire?"

"Yes." It hurt, having to confirm it.

He closed his eyes, head bent and arms crossed in front of his stomach.

I took a step towards him. "Notre Dame—two people died that day, and it wasn't the fire that killed them." The patriarch of the Blanchard family and a daughter of the Duvals. "And that's not even taking into account the cultural heritage damage, even if they're making progress rebuilding it. These are…Things in France are still…"

"What they would be like here if not for Archer Summers." Liam exhaled. "Survival of the fittest."

"Yeah." I cupped a hand around his elbow and waited until he looked at me. "Liam. This is an unpleasant family. Power is their primary language, and I doubt they'd throw you a ‘welcome to the family' party. "

Up close, Liam's apparent calm dissolved into an illusion—his shoulders curled in, the faintest tremor to his voice. "I'm aware."

I slid my hand from his elbow up to his shoulder, grasped the other one too, and held on. Liam uncrossed his arms and covered my hands with his own, and we stood like that for a long moment, together.

"Jesus, Adam," Liam mumbled eventually. "Nan Jean was right. That's the kind of family that might object to illegitimate offspring thinning out their gene pool."

"It's been so many decades, though. At this point, I hardly think they'd take drastic measures." I mostly believed it, and Liam nodded, lashes brushing his cheeks as he blinked.

"You said you haven't read it yet? The section on the Duvals."

"Not yet, no."

"Let's take a look, then."

"Yeah." Still I didn't immediately release him, hands clutching his shoulders. Just as I was about to let go, he wrapped both arms around me and pulled me in for a rough embrace, his nose buried in my hair. I folded my own arms around him and closed my eyes.

"Fuck," he muttered roughly. "Couldn't it have been some run-of-the-mill old-money snobs with outdated views instead of…this?"

My chuckle turned out dark because—yeah. That just about summed it up.

* * *

‘In the intricate dance of France's magical high society, the Duvals hold their own with a flair for the mysterious, comfortably nestled among the elite.'

"A flair for the mysterious?" Liam repeated, a hint incredulous. "Is this like one of those wine bibles, with grapes plucked in the early morning hours of a new moon and the whole thing tastes like a fruit salad?"

Ah, humour as a defence mechanism. I recognised it because been there, done that.

I smiled. "Keep reading, will you?"

While he frowned at me, his heart didn't seem to be in it. I pressed our bare knees together under the balcony table and turned back to the book.

‘Their magic, shrouded in layers of secrecy, adds to their allure. Considerable wealth underpins a network of political connections that extend into the corridors of power. Not ones to flaunt their status in the magical hierarchy, the Duvals maintain an elegant silence on their precise rankings, letting their influence speak volumes.'

"So there's no way of knowing just how many times over they could kill us, is there?" Liam's tone was dry. I skimmed the rest of the introduction that mentioned the fissure with the Blanchard family and called it a festering wound. Then I turned to face him.

"This might be one of those cases where ignorance truly is bliss."

"Theirs or ours?"

"Both, I think."

Liam was briefly silent, sunlight tangling in his hair. "I guess that explains the change in my magic, though. Doesn't it? Like, what Gale said about how it can take generations for it to adapt to a new place."

"Seems like it." I glanced at the rest of the text and decided it could wait. "The same might happen to Jack and Laurie."

"Yeah." Liam leaned back in his chair. "I'll have to discuss it with them. With my whole family, I mean."

He made it sound like a natural conclusion, and it sparked a second of envy in me at how diametrically opposed we related to our families. Even with Gale, there were things we didn't talk about. It was to protect him, of course, but—stop.

This wasn't about me.

"Do you want me there?" I absently catalogued what Liam looked like with morning brightness shining on his shoulders and chest. Beautiful. "Not that I'll be of much help, but silent support I can do."

"You wouldn't mind?" he asked.

Like I wouldn't swim a fucking ocean for him.

"Whatever you need," I told him, and there might have been something about my tone that made him gaze at me for a long moment.

"Thank you," he said then, hardly loud enough to carry above the faint hum of traffic and the guitar of a street performer. "Also for your help in figuring this out. I don't think I could have done it without you."

"You'd have found a way."

"Adam." Fondness creased the corners of his eyes. "Just let me say thank you, all right?"

"Okay," I said softly. I wasn't sure why my lungs wouldn't fit quite enough air.

* * *

We madeit to Liam's around lunchtime, where a lorry would show up later that afternoon to collect the first waste recycling unit. He'd be able to move it himself now, no need for an air mage to come along—but advertising his newfound powers deserved careful consideration.

"Family council!" Liam announced as soon as we set foot into the house. "Kitchen in ten!"

"Who died and made you king of the family?" Jack called from somewhere, while a few affirmatives could be heard from around the house.

"Someone needs to step up in times of chaos," Liam replied as we both toed off our shoes in the entrance area. As soon as we were done, he snagged my wrist and pulled me towards his bedroom, our feet whispering along the patterned tiles. Once inside, door shut, we tripped onto his bed. The mattress bounced under my back as I fell first, the scent of fresh laundry rising from the soft-washed sheets. Liam followed me down.

After the heaviness of the morning, it felt like a brief respite, a sweet rush of longing shivering through me even though there was no space between us. I reached for a featherlight grin. "Making up for last time?"

Last time. When we'd fallen onto Liam's bed together, me on top of him, hands all over—until Liam had told me he was no one's secret.

He dipped his head for a gentle bite to my jaw. "I was so close to giving in even then. You're bloody hard to resist, you know that?"

"Hard?" I gave a significant shimmy of my hips underneath him, and his breathy laugh against my lips was everything.

"Should have told them half an hour," he grumbled, more to himself. My grin widened and turned real.

"Baby, I'm worth at least forty-five minutes of your time."

Something passed over his face, gone within a fragment of a second, before he shot me a cheesy smile. "Honey, you're worth forever."

Joking. Just joking.

I sent a hot thread of magic down his spine and could feel its bumps like a ghost impression in my mind. His lips parted, his entire focus on me. It was addicting.

"Words are cheap," I told him. "How about you show me?"

I should have known he'd rise to the challenge.

He crushed our lips together—no gentle buildup, just moved right in to claim my mouth for a bruising kiss that left me dizzy, his stubble scraping over my chin, heat dripping down the back of my neck. And wait, wait.

"Are you…?" I began. Liam swallowed any further words before they could form. Our tongues slid together as another curl of his magic moved up the inside of my thigh, a brush of warm air on my skin. This time, I couldn't stifle a half-choked gasp.

"I know." He shaped the words against my lips, a smile swinging in them. "That's exactly what it feels like for me, too. Thought it's only fair I give you a taste."

"Quick study," I managed, my arms wrapped around his back. Focus. I was about to counter with a zig-zagging trail of heat from his navel down, reaching for my magic?—

A sharp rap of knuckles on the door made us freeze.

"Do you have a boy in there?" Laurie asked loudly, her laugh tucked just out of sight. "Also—hi, Adam!"

Liam sighed against my throat before he raised his head to yell, "Piss off!"

"Muuum!" Laurie drew the word out to a cartoonish extent. "Liam's being mean to me!"

"Sometimes," Liam told me, "I wonder if she's adopted."

"I heard that!" Laurie called.

"You were meant to," he called back.

She rapped on the door again, then began rattling the handle for added effect. With the mood effectively broken, I kissed Liam's cheek before I gently shoved him off me. "All right, time's up."

"I guess it is." Propped up on his elbows, he watched me for a beat as his expression melted into something achingly gentle that made me swallow and look away. I rolled out from under him, sat up, and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.Liam stroked my cheek in passing, and I leaned into it without thinking. It was…

Fine. It was fine. We were fine.

Breathe.

I got up from the bed and followed Liam to the door. Laurie was waiting out in the hallway, her smirk hinting that she was well aware she'd interrupted us.

I could just see the quibbles they'd had when they'd been younger, poking and prodding at each other, mostly in good fun. It was different from how I'd grown up. Gale and I hadn't done much quibbling—that kind of behaviour was unbecoming for a Harrington. I'd been groomed as the heir from an early age while he'd learned to fade into the background, and it was only once we'd grown a bit older, the five-year age gap less meaningful, that we'd begun leaning on each other.

The rest of Liam's family was already gathered in the kitchen when we arrived. They seemed pleased yet unsurprised at my presence, and come to think of it, I'd spent so many hours here that I'd just about become part of the scenery. At first it had been just to help with prototypes, but then I'd started making coffees for everyone, staying for the occasional dinner…And they knew about Liam and me, of course, because he'd probably told them as soon as he'd walked in after our weekend together.

"You called for a family council?" Jack asked Liam. "What gives?"

Liam sat down at the kitchen table, pulling me down onto the bench next to him, before he replied. "I've got some news. Or"—he glanced at me—"we do, I guess."

"Oh my God!" Laurie gave a dramatic gasp. "You're getting married!"

"Serious news," Liam cut in before Jack had a chance to jump on the bandwagon and ride the joke down the hill. "It's about the other night. Like, our ancestry."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Liam's dad glanced at me, then back at his son. "You trust him?" he asked, not unkindly.

"I do," Liam said, simple yet firm.

Warmth flushed my cheeks. I bent my head to hide my reaction and fumbled for Liam's hand under the table. He laced our fingers for a tight squeeze, as though I was the one who needed reassurance when I was meant to be here for him.

"Well." Nan Jean's bright, crisp voice rang clear in the quiet space. "Who'd have guessed it when he first waltzed into this kitchen in all his mighty glory, hmm?"

"Not me, that's for sure." Liam's smile faded far too soon. "But that's not the point right now. It's…We think we know who Nan's father was."

The kitchen went silent once more.

I wound a warm tendril of my magic around Liam's wrist to anchor him. It earned me a bright, fleeting look before he turned back to his family and started talking. While he outlined what we'd found, attributing most of the credit to me, I took in the reactions around the table. Nan Jean seemed unsurprised if noticeably tense while Liam's mum held herself very straight, his father frowning. Jack, on the other hand, appeared downright excited, shifting in his seat. Next to him, Laurie listened with a thoughtful expression, keen concentration in the tilt of her head.

"Everything we learned suggests they're unpleasant," Liam finished quietly, with a glance at Jack. "We don't want to show up on their radar. I think that's something we can all agree on, right?"

"I don't see how they'd find us." Jack leaned forward, blue eyes bright. "They don't even know we exist. The way I see it, this is the best fucking thing I've heard all year. Hey, maybe I will go Sun next!"

"Unlikely," Laurie said dryly. "Seeing as you're miles removed from the brightest bulb in the chandelier."

I bit down on a smile and could tell that Liam did the same. Before Jack had a chance to raise the stakes, Liam's mum interfered with a pointed, "Not the time for comedy, kids."

To my surprise, everyone sobered immediately. Much more used to lighthearted banter over meals, this was the first time I'd witnessed the Morgans come together in a serious discussion. In theory, I'd known they could do it—hell, their excellent Green Horizon Initiative proposal was tangible proof, and thank God for that. But seeing them actually settle in for a proper debate was a different matter. It was nothing like the status reports I knew from my family. Instead, everyone was asked for their opinion in turn and given a chance to speak without interruption.

Nan Jean, unsurprisingly, cautioned against anything that might draw attention. Liam's dad, quiet and solid, preferred to showcase their new powers, while Laurie wanted to protect the status quo. "Things are good right now, no need to rock the boat." Liam erred on the side of caution, clearly wary about the Duvals and never one who enjoyed it when all eyes were on him. Even Jack, dripping enthusiasm earlier, offered a far more restrained view now.

His mum agreed that they wanted to steer clear of anything that could be picked up in Paris, sure—but that was quite unlikely. Also, if there was a chance to learn more about the workings of the Duval family's magic, how it intersected with ley lines, that could be useful.

"Adam?" Liam's mum asked then. "Your turn."

"My turn?" I glanced around the table. "But I'm not…My opinion doesn't exactly count."

"And why not?" Liam asked. The question was edged with sharpness that didn't seem to be directed at me.

"Because I'm not a member of this family. I don't get a say."

"But you have an opinion, don't you?" Nan Jean fixed me with a clear look that couldn't be further from the scatter-brained front she'd presented when we first met. "And you are the one who supplied us with this uncomfortable truth. So let's hear your take on it."

Under the table, Liam's fingers squeezed mine. When I glanced at him, he was watching me warmly but with the same air of expectation as everyone else.

"I really don't think…" I trailed off, unsure.

"For the sake of curiosity…" Laurie's voice regained a slightly teasing note. "Given how much time you've been spending here lately, do you still remember the way to Harrington Manor?"

Before I settled on how to respond, Liam turned to face me. "Listen, Adam—even if it wasn't for…you know, this?" He brought our laced hands up onto the table for everyone to see. "Your help in the last few weeks has been invaluable. You've earned your place here."

"You have," his mum said calmly.

"Plus," Jack added, "you actually know something about the power games at the top. Tell us how to handle this, oh wise one."

Oh.

"This isn't exactly your standard playbook situation, is it?" I wasn't sure why I felt a little choked up. "But, yes. I think Liam is right—the Duvals seem unpleasant, and you'd do well to stay away. There's very little interaction between our two communities, though. Meaning I don't think you should make yourself appear weaker than you are."

"That's what I said!" Jack sounded triumphant.

I shot him a smile before I turned to Liam. "Pick one of your elements and stick with only that—water would be the obvious choice. And then get some rumours started about how you are in fact much more powerful than you let on in the past. Actually, I can help spread those rumours. There's no reason it should create a buzz outside our London bubble."

"I'd say that being underestimated has served us well," Nan Jean put in, a reflection of the view she'd put forward earlier. "I don't see how we benefit from everyone sitting up and taking note."

She was the grandmother I only wished I'd had—sharp and fiercely protective, warm and subtly funny. But in this case, her biography might skew her perception.

"They already are," I told her gently. "Ever since the Aqua Reclaimer. Co-leading the Green Horizon Initiative was the final nail in the coffin of any chance you might have had at obscurity."

Nan Jean's mouth pulled tight. "Which is why I, for one, voted against it."

"And the rest of us in favour," Liam's mum said. "For better or worse, it's our path now."

I tightened my fingers around Liam's. "It is. And sooner or later, someone will find an excuse to test you. I'd rather it be later." I'd rather it be never—the Morgans weren't fighters. "A combination of technomancy and at least one Sun-ranking mage will act as a deterrent."

This kitchen, with its big wooden table and the dated cabinets, had never felt big to me. Right now, as everyone quietly digested my words and I waited for a reaction, it felt massive.

Liam broke the still life. "How do I explain that I haven't been quite so forthcoming before? About my powers."

"Oh, you've always been powerful." I made it an easy, confident claim and raised my hand, palm up. "It's just that you didn't have the best training, nothing like what I've had, so your control was lacking. But working on the Initiative forced you to step it up—and so you did."

"You think people will buy that?" he asked.

"They will if I'm the one spreading the word," I told him.

"You'd do that?"

"Of course." I was aware that the rest of Liam's family was watching us, but I didn't quite dare look at them. My focus remained on Liam. "You'll need allies. It's not the Wild West anymore, but there are still plenty of loopholes." The last time my family had clashed with the Ashtons came to mind. "If you have strong allies, it should lessen the temptation."

"George," Laurie said. "Obviously."

"The Sands' are well-respected," I said, "and would be obvious allies. So, yes. But they're not exactly top-ranking."

Liam studied me before he smiled, a hint sadly. "I doubt you'll convince your father and aunt to side with us, Adam."

"Let me try, at least." It would be a hard sell given their traditional leanings that abhorred any change to the established order—which saw us at the top, of course.

"One paltry Sun is so far beneath their notice it might as well be…" Liam trailed off, and Laurie jumped in to finish.

"Part of a mole's home story."

"What even is your brain," Jack muttered, a respectful statement rather than a question.

"Yes." A grin shone in Liam's eyes. "That."

"First off," I told him, "this family isn't just one Sun, namely you. Technomancy gives you an edge, especially because no one understands it. More importantly, no one's managed to replicate it."

"You probably could, at this point. You kind of get how it works, don't you?" Liam's voice was calm. I was about to deny it except—yeah, maybe. Not immediately, but if I brushed up on my understanding of technology, learned about electric currents and relied on my increased awareness of my own magic…Probably.

"I haven't shared it with anyone. Certainly not with my family." It came out low and serious, and only once it was out did I realise what it said about my loyalties. I let my gaze skim over everyone gathered around the table—Jack's sweetness that he tried to hide, the always-present impish glint in Laurie's eyes, Nan Jean's birdlike stature that concealed her iron will, and the steady warmth of Liam's parents.

Liam.

God, I liked them all so much. Could I help protect them?

I'd bloody well try.

* * *

In the end,the family voted largely for what I'd proposed. I abstained, not meant to have a stake in the outcome, yet I found myself breathing easier at the idea of them taking things more seriously. A concerted effort to reach out to potential allies to firmly establish themselves in the top tier of our magical community was overdue.

The lorry arrived to pick up the waste recycling unit. Before Liam and I followed in separate cars, I faked a toilet break to sneak a note under Liam's pillow. Sentimental? Maybe. But it was so much easier to be brave on paper. It was also something tangible, a visible trace that proved I trusted him to guard our secret.

We met Gale on the Southwark construction site, where the terrain had been altered almost beyond recognition. The base of the energy tower, Gale told us, had already been erected, and I glanced over just in time to catch Liam's smirk.

"Don't," I told him, fighting a grin, and he laughed. Now that the path forward was clearer, an air of lightness hung around him, his posture much more relaxed than it had been this morning.

"It would be rude to refuse such a silver-platter invitation," he argued.

"Do I even want to know?" Gale asked.

I snorted. "Liam maintains that our energy towers are phallic symbols meant to compensate for…something."

"I guess you'd have to ask Dad," Gale said, "given it's his design."

"Bleach!" Liam demanded loudly, and I tucked a laugh into the palm of my hand. When I glanced over, Gale was watching me with something soft and happy in his eyes that made me swallow. I stayed quiet while he and Liam discussed how the recycler would line up with the tower, which acted as the central energy distribution point for the site.

It wouldn't be functional until all elements came together, hopefully in a couple of weeks so we could begin clustering the residential homes around it. That would be a time when my services might come into demand again—Gale's design incorporated a lot of individually shaped glass, and I was faster and cheaper than any window manufacturer out there.

Until then, well. I'd find ways to make myself feel useful.

* * *

Before dinner,I pulled Gale aside to tell him that I'd only just learned Liam was a Sun, that I would sow the seeds of an alliance with the Morgans because this was my chance to protect him.

"You know as well as I do how this works." I lowered my voice, the heavy drapes that framed the hallway windows keeping my words from carrying. "You know they're in danger. Families like ours don't take well to newcomers, and the moment they step on the wrong toe, they'll be tested. Unless they have the right kind of allies."

Ironically, it was then I'd realised that my petty feud with Liam, sparked by our heated pub meeting over a year ago, might have escalated if my father or aunt had been paying closer attention.

Gale stopped walking. "He's a Sun?"he repeated, as though it was the most important part of what I'd said.

Ah, hell.

"He is," I confirmed, slowly turning to face him. Had he drawn the line to my question about late manifestation of powers?

No, he hadn't—not if the sad tilt to his head was any indication, and bloody hell, I should have been more sensitive. The concept of someone being secretly more powerful than widely assumed was bound to resonate oddly with him, when he was the very opposite.

For a few long seconds, Gale didn't respond. Then he exhaled, nodded, and smiled. "You know I have your back. Always."

"Thank you," I said and wished there was more I could offer. There wasn't, though. Liam's situation was unique, and I wasn't at liberty to share it anyway.

After a moment, we resumed walking, our steps swallowed by the thick carpet.

* * *

"More powerful than we assumed?"Aunt Eleanor lowered her fork and fixed me with a flat look. "Elaborate, please."

She had a way of making ‘please' sound like an order. Good thing I was happy to elaborate even as I feigned hesitation. "Well." I looked from her to my father, equally focused on me, and my uncle, who'd stopped eating. "They never drew attention to themselves, did they? Not until the Aqua Reclaimer. So it seemed logical to believe their powers were unremarkable—everyone did."

A waiter entered to refill our wine glasses, and the table fell silent except for my two youngest cousins whispering between themselves. I took a bite of salmon fillet, chewed, and swallowed. While prepared far more expertly than the fish Liam and I had cooked at the beach house, it tasted bland to me, my enjoyment muted by the stiff air of expectation that I'd never thought to question until…

Until.

"And what," my father asked as soon as the waiter had left, "makes you think they had us all fooled?"

All right, I'd expected that. I would have to dissuade him of the notion that Liam had intentionally misled opinions without coming across like I cared. Easy. I dabbed at my mouth with a crisp, white napkin and set it down on the grand mahogany table before I replied.

"Because I spent a fair bit of time with Liam Morgan over the last few weeks"—far more than I was comfortable letting on—"and I think he's untrained rather than weak. Pretty sure he'd qualify as a Sun."

A glance showed Gale staring at his plate before he raised his gaze. His voice was quiet as usual. "So they're more than just the sum of their technomancy?"

Thank you.

"It seems so," I said as though it made no difference to me either way.

"Liam Morgan?" Christian sounded like the idea was laughable. "Doubt it."

I forced myself to stay cool—just another one of Christian's and my disagreements, hardly out of the ordinary. "And how would you know?"

"It's in the way he carries himself."

That was surprisingly insightful from someone so self-centred.

"I suspect he didn't really understand what he could do," I said. "Not until he had to step it up for the Initiative. I don't know about the other Morgans, but I've seen Liam crush rocks with water." If anyone asked, I had an explanation ready—we'd wanted to see if we could replace parts of the cement production process with something more sustainable. Unnecessary details often embellished amateur lies, though, and my aunt had an excellent eye for it.

"He crushed rocks with water?" My father leaned back in his chair, his face carefully controlled in the evening light streaming in through tall windows.

I took another unhurried bite of salmon before I nodded. "It was a formidable display, I'll give him that."

"And yet you yourself told us they're not a threat," my aunt said. "Did you not?"

I had, hadn't I? Right after the Initiative had been handed to both our families and I'd sought to dissuade any notions of violence.

"I didn't know how powerful he was at the time." This was thin ice, so I moved carefully, aiming for an even yet slightly regretful tone. "To be fair, no one else did either. I stand by what I said, though—they're not a threat. Not while we are on good terms with them, and I'm making sure of that."

"Are you?" Something swung in my father's voice that gave me pause. I met his eyes and found him watching me with a sharp crease between his eyebrows, calmly assessing as I willed myself not to react. Me jumping at shadows, that was all.

"I am." I curled my mouth into a confident smile. "Liam Morgan considers me a friend, and he's the kind of guy who takes that sort of thing seriously. Should word about his powers get out? Well, I am quite certain that if the Ashtons were to approach him about an alliance, he'd decline and tell me about it."

Hook.

My uncle leaned forward, frowning. "You think they might?"

"Jasper Ashton wasn't pleased about losing the Green Horizon Initiative to us." And to the Morgans, but no need to weaken my own argument. It wasn't a lie either—according to Cassandra, the Ashtons had complained to Archer Summers about the decision being a stitch-up. Apparently, she'd pointed to the Morgans' co-lead to prove it was not.

"They've been suspiciously quiet lately," Eleanor said, ever willing to believe that foul play was afoot.

I didn't comment, turning back to my food as my father and uncle debated the likelihood of an imminent move by the Ashtons. I'd made mine, and this wasn't a one-day sprint.

Patience was the only route to winning this.