Page 71 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
The man who killed Irene.
At the sight of Leon, the feeling that I was going to lose consciousness came back with a vengeance. I shifted in my seat. Although I desperately wanted to be strong, my body began to shudder with chills. In just a few short moments, I was fully trembling.
The corner of Leon’s mouth turned up ever so slightly. For some morbid and unfathomable reason, my discomfort pleased him.
Fuck, I hated him. I hated him so much that the hate was a tangible thing, boiling and bubbling andburningin my veins. I hated him, I hated him, I hated him.
Kieran exhaled steadily beside me. I stole a glance at him and noticed his eyes were trained on me, studying my face, traveling down my body. For the briefest of moments, his cold, irreverent expression was replaced by one of deep concern. Then his gaze flicked to Leon and narrowed in a way I had never seen before. The silver of his eyes had liquified, but the heat in them wasn’t sensual. It was the opposite. It was…terrifying.
The man seated in the center of the table spoke.
“Hello, Maila.” His voice was soft and soothing. “Kieran,” he added with a nod in Kieran’s direction. He spoke with amiable familiarity, as if we were all old friends reunited. “I’m so glad you two could join us. I do apologize for the nature of our summoning you here and the security presence. But it was crucial that we meet with you. And I’m afraid we couldn’t take a chance on you saying no.”
Kieran was silent, but I could feel that he was eyeing each one of them with quiet defiance. I, on the other hand, was blacking out in earnest now.
“Can someone get her some water?” the woman with the shiny hair asked irritably, her question directed to no one in particular. Fading in and out, I didn’t register right away that she was talking about me. “She looks like she’s about to be sick.”
A few moments later, a glass of water was being pressed against my clammy palm. But I my fingers wouldn’t cooperate when I tried to grip it. I had a vague awareness of the glass slipping out of my hand and heard someone’s fumbling steps, their mumbled curse, but no crash. Someone must have caught it in time. Then what felt like a cool towel was being pressed against my forehead.
“Just take deep breaths,” a voice said. I recognized it as Zander’s.
The towel disappeared from my forehead, and I felt it reappear against my face, neck, and arms, gently patting away the sweat that coated my skin.
“What’s wrong with her?” The woman’s bark sounded close, yet far away at the same time. Other voices were murmuring as well, but I couldn’t make out the words or who was talking.
“Maybe…” It was Kieran speaking now. “And this is just a guess. But maybe she’s reacting to the fact that you dragged her into a room against her will to sit across from the piece of shit who murdered her older sister.”
Even as I faded in and out of awareness, I wanted to weep at hearing that he had put the pieces together. Wanted to weep at hearing him use that word—“murdered.” Wanted to weep at the barely restrained rage in his voice, the indignance on my behalf, the protectiveness.
For the first time in ten years…for the first time since I lost Irene…I knew what it was to have someone on my side.
At his rebuke, the voices around me stopped, as did the sensation of someone patting me with the towel. I was still floating through darkness, but I slowly started to find my way out of it. The room and the faces across from me fizzled back into focus as if emerging from beneath grains of sand.
Zander was standing to the right of me, holding a damp towel. On the other side of the table, the five seated people were whispering amongst themselves. There was a humorless snort of a laugh from Leon. Then he was pushing his chair back from the table and striding across the room.
He exited out a side door.
“We apologize for the faux pas,” the man seated in the center said. “Leon”—I flinched at hearing his name spoken out loud, a cruelty that Zander had unknowingly spared me from all these years in by referring to him only asmy Mentor—“has certainly been tasked with doing some difficult things for the greater good of our city. I commend him for doing what is necessary even when it involves taking actions that would be hard for the rest of us to stomach.” At this, he glanced to either side of him at the remaining group, and they each nodded their agreement in turn. “But I can certainly see how Leon’s role in protecting our city could cause him to represent feelings of hurt, anger, and resentment for some. And so, I apologize, again for our insensitivity in including him in the discussion today.”
I should have been appalled at how every sentence contained a clear defense of the man who killed my sister. Burned down ourhome. But by now I couldn’t feel anything except a deep-seated fatigue and relief at the implication that he would not be returning.
“Although we certainly know the two of you,” the man seated in the center continued, and it finally clicked that he had greeted Kieran by name earlier. He knew Kieran? How? “I recognize that you may not know us. My name is Addis, and although we all work as a team, as we do on a larger scale in our great city, I suppose you could say I am the leader of The Council.”
Wow. I couldn’t decide which surprised me more—the fact that after all these years, I was face-to-face with the head of The Council, or his use of the word “leader.” It was common knowledge that The Council didn’t approve of words like that, hence the term “Mentor.” But apparently, an exception could be made to use a word that signaled power and authority as long as it applied to himself.
Addis paused here, giving the others the opportunity to introduce themselves.
The woman introduced herself asQuinn, the Mentor of Education. She oversaw the training and development of Cyllene’s children until age thirteen, when they were old enough to receive their work assignments. Unless, of course, you were forced to begin working at ten because your whole family was dead.
Her attempt at a smile was haughty and laced with that same irritation that had been on her face since we walked in. How ironic that someone so sour-looking would work with children. She couldn’t have been that involved in the day-to-day of the Education division, because I had certainly never met her or even heard her name as a child.
Next came the red-haired hair man next to her who introduced himself as Westley. He was the Mentor of the Medical division of Cyllene, which, although it worked closely with the Knowledge Center on numerous projects, was headquartered in a different part of the city. Westley had an unsteadiness to his voice, and he fidgeted in his seat. He said we were welcome to call him “Wes,” which earned a snort from Kieran.
Catogave his name for Kieran’s benefit and didn’t say anything else. His elbows were resting on the table, hands clasped in front of his face.
Once everyone had finished introducing themselves, Addis resumed speaking.
“It was important that we meet with the two of you today to make sure we’re all on the same page about some things,” he said. “Kieran, I understand that you managed to break into our city last night from Outside, and that in the process, you left fourEnforcersunconscious. Those are some truly admirable men who have dedicated their lives to protecting Cyllene. Each of them have families who are anxious to see them fully recovered. With these men’s spouses and children in mind, can you share with us how our medical team should go about waking them up?”
