“You’re… but you look…” I stop speaking when displeasure shifts across Valec’s features. Sensitive subject, I guess.

“Balanced cambions are rare.” Valec’s lips press into a grim line, and he looks away.

“And arrogant,” Selwyn grumbles.

Valec shoots him a hot glare. “I can afford to be arrogant. I’ve earned it. You and me, Kane?” He points between them. “We are not the same. Or did you not notice how easily I handed you your ass upstairs?”

Lucille groans. “Why did you bring these children to me, Valechaz?”

“Because,” Valec says, taking Lucille’s palm in his, “my many-times-great-niece demands that her uncle bring her any Rootcrafter that crosses his path.”

I freeze. I never told Valec I practiced root.

Lucille’s eyes find me again with new interest. “Was that your power I felt earlier? It knocked me right out of a reading.”

“I’m sorry. But how did you know I know Rootcraft?” I ask Valec.

He lifts a shoulder. “I didn’t, until just now.”

“D-does this mean my session’s done?” A white man sitting on a round, knitted ottoman in the room behind Lucille raises his hand tentatively. He’s dressed in a Georgia-peach-colored button-up shirt and sports at least an eight-o’clock shadow.

“We’ll make it up to you, sir!” Valec beckons the man forward and points him down the hall, leaving us in the doorway.

“Well? Comin’ in or what?” Lucille huffs and sweeps back into the room.

With a shrug, we follow, and seated beyond the edge of the door on another ottoman, pouring tea, is someone I never thought I’d see here.

“Mariah?”

Mariah blinks at me, frozen with a tea kettle in her hand.

“Oh, this night keeps getting better and better,” Valec says.

36

MARIAH RUSHES FORWARD to fold me into a hug. “Oh my God. I thought I felt your root earlier, but then I said, ‘No, can’t be Bree, she’s back at Carolina.’ What the hell are you doing here?”

“Same question.” I laugh.

“I help out my Aunt Lu on the weekends.”

Lucille turns to Mariah, and in that moment, I can see the slight resemblance. The slope of her nose, the shape and shade of her full upper lip. “Mariah, you know these folks?”

Mariah stutters. “N-no, Auntie. I know Bree. She goes to my school.” Mariah pauses, eyeing the rest of the room as if carefully considering whether to add more.

“And yet you are accompanied by members of the Order.” Lucille steps back, staring at Sel and William. “You are here with a Kingsmage and a Scion, I’d wager. Merlins mesmer first, imprison second. They’ve hunted root users for centuries, and at this point, I consider them my natural enemy. Why shouldn’t I turn these two over to Valec and his crew for safekeeping?”

I explain, “It’s not just me. We are all fugitives from the Order.”