Her eyes dared him to try it. “You do and I’ll tell Momair on you.”

Scoffing at her threat, he’d pay money to see his mother take him to task. Ladling him with guilt, though, was another matter entirely…

“Oh wait,” he said in a fearful tone, “that would mean she’d actually have to speak to me.” He made a sound of utter shock. “Maybe even acknowledge my existence. Gods forbid! Kere’s fire throne would freeze over from the shock of it.”

Honestly, he couldn’t remember the last time his mother had said anything to him at all. Even a single syllable. Must have been at least three or four years ago. Maybe more. Whenever she found herself in his presence, she’d quickly walk out the closest door. In the beginning, he’d taken it personally. Now he strangely considered it amusing.

“Forget it, sis. It’ll never happen.” He tapped his watch. “You have five minutes to get dressed in something a little more appropriate before I stun you and carry you out of here. Naked if I have to.”

She jerked her earphones out in a royal huff. “Gah, I swear you’ve been hanging out with that barbarian Syn too long. You’re starting to sound like him.” She finally got up and began cramming her materials into a pink tote. “Where are we going and how long will I be gone?”

“A few days.”

“Does Momair know?”

“I’m taking you to her and Drake.”

Lise straightened up with a frown. “Do I need to pack clothes?”

“No. I don’t want you to take anything too personal. I want it to look like you’ll be back any second.”

She glanced at her roommate before she looked back at him. “Now you are starting to scare me.”

He didn’t respond to that as he met her roommate’s gaze. “Can you tell her instructors that we had a family emergency?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.”

As soon as Lise had pulled on a pair of acceptable pants over her shorts, and a large shirt and shoes, he took her arm to guide her from her room, and down the hallway of her dorm.

She looked around with a frown. “Where are my guards?”

“Out of commission for a while.” Making sure they couldn’t see him, he’d stunned them unconscious and stashed them in a back room down the hallway.

She slowed her pace. “Sashi, you have to tell me what’s going on. Are we running from Arturo?”

Only Lise called him sashi. It was the Caronese word for “beloved.” An epithet she’d given him when she was four years old and he’d taught her to catch glow flies in their back garden.

Even though she was twenty now, he still saw her as that adorable toddler who would run to him, laughing the whole way.

Because he’d been forced to grow up so young while his siblings had been able to have a fairly normal childhood, he had a hard time thinking of them as adults. Something that seriously pissed them both off.