She’ll be ready to come out soon.”
I eyed her swollen belly and the invisible life growing within. “This is going to sound like a dumbass question, but can the baby—I mean, when she’s born—?”
“It’s just like human births. It can happen in a human hospital without suspicion, except she’ll cry very little. Her vocal cords won’t develop completely until the end of her first month.”
“Must be nice for you.”
She smiled patiently. “Our children grow faster than human children, so she will be talking at around eight months, in full sentences. The quiet period is quite brief.” Aurora took my right hand in hers and drew it to her belly. I tensed but didn’t stop her. “Here, she’s saying hello.”
Beneath my palm, something beat a firm staccato. I imagined a tiny fist rising upward, demanding to be noticed. “She’ll be a fighter,” I said.
“I’d prefer she know a life of peace,” Aurora said, and let go.
I withdrew my hand, uncomfortable, and stood. “Is there anything you need before I go?”
They shook their heads.
“If Leo keeps asking questions—”
“I’ve told him my brother was your old schoolmate,” Aurora said. “I live with my grandfather, and our apartment is being fumigated this week. It’s unhealthy for the baby for us to remain while it’s occurring.”
“Good.” It was close enough to the story I was going to give her.
Alex’s bedroom door was still closed, a solid barrier between me and a grieving father I’d never before met and yet still felt like I’d known my whole life. I could guess at the relationship Alex had had with the man, who was quick to anger and fast with his fists. Any number of stereotypes applied, and I wished I had time to learn which ones.
I tapped my knuckles on the door. Silence replied, so I went in anyway. Leo sat on the bed, his back to me, holding an album of some sort. I circled the bed, giving him space without being obvious. He’d stopped on a page with two black-and-white photos. One was of a man and woman, probably a couple, and two young children. A girl in pigtails, maybe three, mugged for the camera. An infant was held close by the woman. Take away the hair and smile, add twenty-odd years and a lot of life experience, and the man in the photo was Leo Forrester.
The second photo was of the two children, both older. The girl was about ten, her long hair combed straight. The boy was Alex—I knew his eyes, even at that young age. Both children had forced smiles for the cameraman.
My stomach twisted, shock setting my heart hammering. Alex had a sister. Had Chalice known that? The information didn’t feel familiar. No sense of her as an adult. We’d never met.
Leo touched the face of the woman, probably his wife. The tips of his fingers trembled. “I bet he told you it was my fault,” he said, without looking at me.
Oh no, I did not need a confession of pain from this man. I had too many damned things on my plate already. No more drama from Chalice’s life, please. “He didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “He didn’t talk about it.” Close enough to the truth, even though I hadn’t a freaking clue what “it” was.
Leo snapped the album shut and pressed it to his chest. “I always wanted to tell him the truth, Chalice. I need that chance.”
My eyes stung with tears. I swallowed hard, desperate to keep the grief at bay. I wanted to comfort Leo, offer him some measure of hope. Tell him he’d get the chance, that Alex would turn up soon. But I lived and worked in a pretty damned hopeless world, and I couldn’t give him that false comfort. It would only make the inevitable that much more painful.
“I have to go back to work,” I said.
His head snapped sideways. The wire glasses nearly fell off his nose. He looked me up and down, attention lingering on the old bandage covering a wound no longer there. Shit. Should have taken it off. Distrust telegraphed across his age-lined face, trailed by something else—an emotion akin to curious suspicion. A look I’d given to suspects time and again, in the course of determining if the information I was beating out of them could be trusted.
“Coffee shop can’t run without you?” he asked.
How the …? Maybe Leo and Alex had talked more often than I believed. “It’s not the coffee shop. It’s something I’m doing on the side, for school.”
“I thought the semester was over.”
Okay, now I felt like the one being interrogated. How’d he manage that?
“Aurora has a phone number where I can be reached,” I said. “If you hear anything, call me.”
“Likewise.”
One word, so accusatory. As though he knew I knew more than I was telling. I left the conversation on that note, and then left the room. After a quick detour to my bedroom for something, I stalked out of the apartment. Annoyed at just about everyone, including myself, with no clear plan for dealing with it.
“Chalice! Hey, wait!” The child’s voice pierced my eardrums from the far end of the hallway. I didn’t have to turn to know it was the neighbor girl—whose name I still hadn’t learned.
The elevator doors opened. I slipped inside and hit the Close button, in no mood to deal with the little chatterbox. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else from Chalice’s life, not for the foreseeable future. I needed to be Evy for a while.
Phin was sitting on the car’s hood, looking right at me when I hit the street. He didn’t move until I was close enough to toss a plain white T-shirt at him. He eyed it with a quirk of his head.
“Were you listening?” I asked.
“I tried, but the window faces opposite,” he said.
I opened and closed my mouth, a little thrown by the honesty. And perturbed that he’d tried eavesdropping in the first place. “They’re fine. Leo seems mostly harmless.”
“Mostly?”
“Is anyone completely harmless?”
The rhetorical question pacified him long enough for him to get the T-shirt on.
“But Aurora’s okay?” he asked as he pulled back out into the street.
“She’s fine. The baby’s kicking a lot.”
“The child’s strong, like her father was.”
Curiosity at the inner workings of the Owlk—no, of the Coni and Stri communities—made me open my mouth. Respect made me shut it again. I didn’t need to bring up those painful memories, didn’t need to pick Phin’s brain about the family he’d loved and lost because of me. Shut up, do my job, save what was left of the Coni Clan.
At the next stop sign, he asked, “Back to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
We spoke little on the drive back across the river. I picked the tape off the useless bandage, worked the bloody gauze off next, and tucked the entire mess into a neat pile on the floor. Phin snorted air through his nose, the only outward sign of his disapproval. Yes, it was gross, but I wasn’t putting it in my pocket.
“So, about finding out who the other bi-shifters are?” I said.
“I told you—”
“I know, you told me it’s not your decision. Who do I ask? This Jenner guy who was at the hospital this morning?”
Phin nodded. “He’d be the one to ask, but it’s ultimately the Assembly’s choice.”
“How long does it take to get permission from the Assembly?”
“It depends on how long it takes to contact everyone.”
“Hours?”
“Only if we’re lucky.”
I groaned and tapped my fingernails on the dash. “Can’t we just save time and ask the ones who are actually bi-shifters? Since you’re the ones who are most likely to be targeted?”
“I don’t make these rules, Evy.” Phin had visibly tensed; his hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I never wanted to be part of the Assembly, but since my people have few choices for representation, I have to abide by their traditions. Talk to Jenner.”
“Think he’ll still be at the hospital?”
