Not knowing how to answer, I remained quiet. Oddly, even in silence, I did not feel any awkwardness in the air.

Things were definitely changing. I had always considered him as a jerk, but lately I had seen a different side of him—a side that made me reconsider my earlier thought about him. I had thought he was selfish but he wasn’t; he actually cared about other people, not just himself. He cared about me, and he cared about Adrian. He even cared about Althea, Adrian’s maid, from what I had seen the other day.

I made the mistake of turning my head slightly to the right and risking my eyes meeting his. His moss-green eyes, wise and warm, and undeniably perceptive, were focused on mine. For one split second I had a bizarre thought that he somehow knew everything about me—every little bit. Things that not even Kris knew about me. That moment back in Verona Ti Amo, he knew I was trying not to have a breakdown and he swiftly changed the conversation. It seemed, in that moment, that he, more than anyone else in the world, truly knew me. Inside and out. No matter how many walls I had built to prevent that from happening.

It was thrilling.

But more than that, it was terrifying. So I did what I always did best: totally avoid the situation and talk about something entirely unrelated. “Do you know anyone named Hawke and Lincoln?”

“No,” he replied. The good thing about Vlad was, unlike Adrian, he never asked why. He knew that if I wanted him to know more, I would tell him.

We had arrived at our destination and Vlad parallel parked with ease, turning off the engine as he undid his seat belt. With one hand on top of the steering wheel, he shifted to face me.

“What about the Faction?” I was desperate to find out anything. Because otherwise, today had been completely unproductive, and I was no closer to my end goal. And with my birthday looming time wasn’t exactly on my side. He knew something, and from the expression on his face, I could tell that he was debating with himself whether to share this information with me or not.

I wasn’t sure what came over me, but I placed my hand on top of his on the steering wheel. “What is it?”

Whether it was my touch or his own decision that changed his mind, I didn’t know, but whatever it was, he unclasped his lips to say, “It’s just, this afternoon I was tidying up Dad’s desk—I’ve been using it to work. Anyway, earlier today, my parents were at another Council meeting, and he’d left a bunch of papers all over his desk. The word Faction was in bold, capital letters on one of his Council files.”

“Did you read anything more?” I asked.

“No,” he said, looking surprised that I would even think that he would pry like that. “But I did ask Dad about it.”