My eyes widened in surprise. “Your birthday?” I repeated. “Shit Lexi, why didn’t you tell us? When is it?”
She seemed even more embarrassed. “Yesterday,” she admitted.
I looked at her in shock, before giving her a serious expression as her overall posture finally clicked. “Okay, seriously Lexi, this has to stop.”
She focused on me in alarm. “W-What?”
I gestured at her in general, referring to her posture and the associated mentality that went with it. “This. I realize we’ve had a lot going on the last few days, but you’re not an inconvenience. And your birthday is still important. I mean, we celebrated Heidi’s birthday in February, didn’t we?”
She nodded, her amethyst eyes tight.
“Well, I want to celebrate yours too.” I glanced at the road as I quickly recalled what the date was yesterday. Not ever sleeping meant the days easily blurred together. “Okay, so yesterday was April 9th.” I looked at her again. “I won’t forget next year, but you’ve got to stop neglecting information like that too. Okay? If it’s something you think I would want to know, then tell me.”
Her eyes were still tight. “It’s just, with everything going on…”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “It’s been a lot. And it’s been rough for all of us, especially me and Freya. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t important, okay?” I scoffed. “Maybe once you reach eighty or ninety, then we’ll let it slide if you really don’t want to celebrate your birthday, but until then you need to experience at least a good sixty to seventy celebrations.”
She gawked at me, only for tears to reappear in her eyes again.
It took me a moment to understand why she was crying. My tone was gentle. “If you want to hang around that long,” I added quietly.
She only nodded once, as if it was the most sure thing she’d ever agreed to in her entire life.
Against my better judgment, I reached out for her hand again, prompting her to accept it without hesitation as she tried to collect herself. By the time we arrived at the local State Bureau of Superheroes where Lexi went to work most days, she was pretty much back to her usual self, though I couldn’t deny that my hand was still very much in hers.
However, I let go and sat forward when I noticed something alarming in my second-sight. We had just pulled off the interstate and were traveling down the paved road toward the massive solitary building that was gated off, which was adorned with impressive landscaping.
Freya had been here once before, to get Eden’s evaluation done, so from her description I had a general idea of what this place looked like, since it wasn’t something you could look up and see on a map – locations like this had long since had satellite images banned from the public eye, nor was it something the average person could just look up. Most people driving by probably had no idea what this place was, although it was doubtful they thought much about it since most unmarked buildings were just random landscape along the interstate.
However, the impressive sight wasn’t why I was suddenly alert.
Rather, it was the massive invisible bubble that surrounded the entire area that had me focused now.
Because it signaled the presence of someone I’d met previously, back in January. Someone powerful and ancient, who also happened to look like a short, five-foot-tall, eighteen-year-old blonde sprite.
Well, at least now I had a good guess as to why this meeting was happening with such urgency. No doubt that out of everyone who would be here today – out of everyone important who had busy schedules – this one person, who I recalled was referred to as the Supreme Guardian, was likely the reason why the timeframe for this meeting was so limited.
Because, out of everyone, her time was the most valuable, and she probably didn’t intend to make herself available for long.
The girl who they simply referred to as Knight.
3: Discoveries
Heidi Stockton
April 10, 2735 – Current Day – Morning
Heidi sat at the kitchen table with Rose, watching her work through word problems involving the four basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Honestly though, this stuff was almost too easy for her. It was required for her to advance to the next grade, but Rose’s intelligence was definitely above average for someone her age.
Especially so, since Heidi recalled hearing Sam comment about how she was actually nine months younger than her birthday indicated, because July 3rd was essentially her conception date. Really, while Rose had been eight years old since last summer, technically she only truly turned eight just a few weeks ago, around Lily’s birthday.
That basically made her a year younger than she was claiming to be, which was both good and bad. It was good because it meant Rose was already studying stuff a grade ahead, after having easily gotten caught up in the last year, but it was bad because she had the physique of an eight-year-old, not an almost-nine-year-old.
Granted, Heidi had no problem homeschooling her little sunshine for the entirety of her education, but she knew Sam and Freya wanted her to be socialized and have the opportunity to make friends.
Like, normal friends.
Rose considered Heidi to be her best friend, and Heidi loved her to death, but she worried Rose wouldn’t build normal social skills if Heidi remained her only friend.
However, before they could even consider that, they had to deal with Rose’s other problem – the fact her face began changing colors whenever she smelled blood.
Like right now.
Lily was fixing lunch barely ten feet away, and Heidi immediately knew what the sharp gasp coming from Lily meant when Rose abruptly looked up at the wall, the whites of her eyes turning pitch-black, her face beginning to gray across the bridge of her nose and around her eyelashes.
“How bad is it?” Heidi
