“They taught you many lessons without you knowing it.” Drake took a moment, as if thinking carefully about what he was going to say next. “And they’ve been monitoring you, even when you thought they weren’t. They’ve been reporting back to the rest of the Myrmidons all these years. They’ve dedicated their lives to protecting you.”

Anger rose up inside of me. This guy clearly had no idea what he was talking about. “I can assure you, Drake, they didn’t teach me anything.”

“Remember that time when you forgot to lock the door?” asked Hawke, his expression holding no emotion. “Well, you had actually locked the door.”

Sweet roasted corn! I freaking knew it!

“I went to your school and yelled at you in front of your classmates to teach you humiliation.”

“And why the fuck would I need to learn that lesson?” I spat the words at the face that I had spent nearly eighteen years searching for any resemblance. Jared Montgomery or Nathan whatever his name was.

He didn’t flinch. In fact, he stared at me with a serious expression. “You’re a Stavros. You need to handle being humiliated. Your bloodline is the most hated and feared.”

“Do you know how many hours I cried in the bathroom because of what you did?” I marched up to him and shook him by the shoulders.

He took both of my hands from his shoulders and dropped them. “But you didn’t show any hint of tears when you faced your friends. You held your head high. You handled it well, you learned the lesson.”

“I have a question.” I turned to Drake, who motioned for me to continue. “If you knew I was being targeted and these two”—I pointed at Hawke and Lincoln—“are working for you, then why have they been like ghosts? Since I’ve been at Court I’ve barely seen them.” I just couldn’t understand how they could have been monitoring me my whole life and still knew so little about me? They didn’t even know that Bryan had lived in my bedroom for days. How could they have been protecting me when they didn’t know anything about what was going on in my life?

“They were in fact still protecting you, but they were also investigating the Faction.”

“That’s another thing! What is the Faction? And who are my real parents if these two are fakes?” I was struggling to keep up with everything.

Drake shook his head. “I can’t answer either of those questions until I get approval from the queen. The only reason we are having this conversation in the first place is because you drew attention to yourself when you questioned those Myrmidons in Quickfood. A Faction member must have overheard you; they know for sure you are their target. You might as well have just painted a bull’s-eye on your forehead.”