Zarya saw a nervous light flash in Drake’s eyes before he caught himself.

Frowning, she wondered what he was hiding from the rest of his family. Obviously, he’d been trained by someone. But the three of them were gone before she could ask about it.

The others followed suit.

Syn yawned before he looked at her and Maris. “I’m going to bet that you two aren’t leaving.”

“No,” they said in unison.

He scratched at the back of his neck. “C’mon. I’ll have a cot brought into Darling’s room for you to sleep on,” he said to her. “And I’ll send your sister down to the empty office next to mine that has a couch she can crash on.”

“Thank you.”

He inclined his head to her as he led her toward the doors. “Should I have one brought for you, too, Mari?”

“No, thanks. But I will go back for the drinks I left when I saw you come in.” Maris touched her elbow. “I won’t be long.” He squeezed her lightly before he took his leave.

Once they were alone, she pulled Syn to a stop. “What aren’t you saying about Darling?”

“Really nothing. I’m just worried.”

Which worried her. “About his dying?”

“Partly, but that’s not my biggest fear.” There was a haunted, chilling light in his black eyes. “You weren’t here when I took the bandages off his face and he saw the scars your people gave him. He didn’t cope well, Zarya. Not at all.”

That she could believe. Who would have? “He’s still not coping well.”

Syn snorted. “Do you blame him?”

“No.” Her throat tightened as she thought about the constant pain Darling lived in, and all the damage that had been done by his own allies. “I’m not sure I would cope as well as he has, all things considered.”

“Yeah,” Syn breathed. “So I’m nervous as hell about what we might find this time and how he’s going to react if there’s little, or gods forbid, no change.”

Honestly, so was she. But she refused to consider that. If it happened, they’d deal with it. “I don’t care what he looks like.”

“Yeah, but he does.” Syn sighed in disgust. “You know why he grew his hair over the scar?”

“He hated the sight of it.”

Syn laughed bitterly. “Yeah… That’s the simple answer. The truth? We were in a restaurant when Darling was twenty-one, maybe twenty-two, having dinner and celebrating the fact that we’d been able to repair all the damage on his face except for that one scar… which given the severity of what we started with was damn incredible. I know Ryn didn’t do it on purpose, but damn… Darling’s face was awful before the surgeries… Anyway, Darling was finally so happy that he looked human again. It was the first time he’d been out in public since he was scarred by his fight. While he was in the middle of thanking me for repairing him, the manager came over and asked if we’d mind moving to a corner table so that Darling could face the wall.”