“You know what I love so much about this?” the man says, his dark eyes gleaming. “That you still haven’t figured it out. That you still have no idea who I am, dearest Alyssa. Even after recovering your memories of that fateful day—” He notes my stunned look and pauses to add, “Oh, yes, with the right … motivation … Theodore Smith sang like a canary, sharing everything you witnessed this morning.” My blood freezes and then boils at his self-satisfied grin, before he continues, “Even with all that, with all the clues, you still have no idea why I’ve done all this, why I’ve waited nearly three years to see this day happen, to see your family suffer, to see Speakers everywhere brought to their knees.”

I have no tolerance left for guessing games. “Then hurry up and tell me.”

His mouth quirks into a smile, an echo of the gentle, compassionate man I first saw at Luna Park. The man who definitely isn’t a security guard.

“I will,” he says, “but only because you, of all people, deserve to know the truth, deserve to understand. I couldn’t have done any of this without you, after all.” His smile widens. “Alyssa Scott, my secret weapon.”

“Stop calling me that,” I grind out. “I’m not your weapon—I don’t even know you.”

“That’s the beauty of this, isn’t it? You don’t know me. Even before all this, you only knew of me. That’s what made it so easy.” He looks toward my dad, his smile fading and his face darkening. “We have your father to thank for that. With a single word, Christopher Scott ruined my life. But I wasn’t the only one who paid the price. My whole family did.”

His gaze locks on me again as he says, “Because of what your dad stole from me, my wife died. She was taken from me, taken from my son. And today, the two of us will finally get the vengeance we deserve.”

He turns to look at my friends, and a sinking feeling settles in my stomach, as if I already know what he’s going to say next, even if I can’t believe it. Even if I won’t believe it. But that doesn’t change the words that come out of his mouth, words that aren’t filled with any kind of intent and yet still have the power to shatter me.

“Isn’t that right, Kael?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I want to close my eyes. I want to close my eyes, block my ears, and go back in time so I can unhear what was just revealed, so I don’t have to see Kael stepping forward. He doesn’t need a Spoken command to do so—he was never bound, never constrained like the others. He was free all along, acting the part so I wouldn’t suspect anything.