“Why didn’t we just go to Libertas?” I ask and Cooper raises his hand to calm me.
“I’m getting to that,” he says gently. “The journey to Libertas is hard. It’s a minimum of a three day hike from Garth. You have to get through Sard and then survive at sea for another two days. It was too dangerous to make the journey with so many kids. So, our father decided he needed to hide us.”
Alexander clears his throat, “Where do I come into this?”
“Right,” Cooper says and rubs his face with his hand. “I’m sorry it’s so confusing.” He takes a minute to collect his thoughts and says, “Our father and your mother, Marin, were good friends growing up. When our father went undercover to work for Libertas Marin joined him.”
“She had an enhanced sense of touch didn’t she?” Alexander asks and Cooper nods.
“Your father, George, had seen visions of you with similar powers to Marin and they knew they needed to protect you too,” Cooper explains.
“So our families worked together,” I say, trying to hold on to what seems real because I am still struggling to even remember Cooper’s existence.
“They did and when our father was caught they knew they needed to hide all of us until the time was right to move to Libertas. So, they put us where King Renon would be least likely to look,” Cooper says and glances between Alexander and myself.
“In his own castle,” Alexander processes out loud.
“Correct. Then he put together a group to wait in the woods until we would be old enough to make the journey together. He took me with him and we went around the village asking families to send their children with us,” Cooper begins to explain but I stop him.
“And they just did?” I ask.
“We explained to their families that we needed their children to come with us so we could have a group waiting for you when you escaped the prison. If their families agreed to send their children with us they would be considered as possible candidates to reside in Libertas. This in itself was enough for the parents to agree because only people with gifts had been allowed to make the journey away from Garth.” Cooper pauses when he sees me open my mouth to say something but I close it and just shake my head, not sure what I should even ask now.
“After we had gathered the other kids we met up with Mio and Cinder, both of them have helped Derith and Marin with previous journeys,” Cooper begins to explain faster and faster spilling out the details of that night. “Father said he had one more family to talk to before he was ready to leave. So we all went with him to this house outside the village. A man and a woman came and talked to our father in hushed voices. I’m not really sure what they said, but then this kid walked outside and I remember the older woman telling the boy to go back inside. It was you, Alexander. She said, ‘Alexander go back inside’ and then my father said ‘Marin we have to go now. You should go and say goodbye and grab whatever you’re bringing with us. You both know the plan and if we just keep doing everything according to the plan it will all work out.’”
“Wait,” I interrupt him again and he lets out an exhausted breath. “If you’re really my brother then we would have grown up together. You talk about Alexander and his parents like you don’t know them, but as far as I can remember they were like family to us,” I say, trying to keep straight what I can remember about my childhood and what Cooper is telling me.
“No, Adaline we never talked to Alexander or his family before. Just our father had, secretly on trips to Libertas,” Cooper says, confusion in his voice.
“But don’t you remember that one summer when I was eight I came home from building forts with Alexander in the forest and I had gotten poison ivy so bad I had to stay in bed for a week and Alexander basically lived at our house. He insisted on taking care of me because it was his idea to build the forts in the poison ivy.”
“No, that was me, Adaline,” Cooper says defensively. “I told you that was the best spot,”
“Because we could see our intruders from all angles,” I say, finishing his sentence and the memory finally comes back to me clearly. I see Cooper up on top of a hill and he’s yelling down to me that this is where we should put our fort. “It was you,” I say confused.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Alexander says. “Because I remember myself being there.”
“I get it,” Cooper says suddenly and Alexander and I look to him to continue to explain. “Father told me when we left that mother was going to take away all your memories of me, one of the many things Future Holders are capable of doing. She must have substituted all of the memories with me in them with Alexander in my place.”
“But why?” Alexander asks.
“That way Adaline would trust you as soon as she saw your face when she ran out of the castle. She would instantly think you were her childhood friend and then you would go with her to Libertas.”
“Continue the story,” I say after a moment of silence because I’m starting to realize that everything I thought I shared with Alexander was actually a lie. I don’t even know the person sitting next to me.
“We waited as both of
