Arrival of the Traveler

by A.L. Tyler

  The call from Hesper arrived with the forerunners of the Council meeting. Lena told her what Griffin had said; Eric was crushed, but Hesper seemed fairly pleased that they hadn’t been entirely exiled. She asked if the marriage would be recognized.

  Lena froze, unsure how to answer. “Recognized? What do you mean?”

  “Did he say anything about a ceremony? A consecration ceremony?”

  Lena thought back. “No, he didn’t. But then, he didn’t exactly give a lot of details. I think he was just trying to bribe me to…do something.”

  There was a quiet pause. “Wow.”

  “Not like that!” Lena blushed. “Geez. Sick mind, Hesper, sick mind. So when are you coming?”

  Hesper laughed. “I don’t know. Tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Tomorrow? That fast?” Lena asked.

  “Sure. We’re only fifty miles away right now.”

  They said their goodbyes and hung up. She arrived the next day, as promised, but even though there was still room inside Waldgrave, Griffin insisted that she sleep in a tent outside. Later that day he asked Lena to meet him in Daray’s office, where they began the tediously mind-numbing process of translating the texts. As Griffin couldn’t read any of the older ones, and Lena couldn’t read Latito at all, they decided to start with a more recent account. It was written in the early 1940s.

  “Is eram tunk ut miles militis venit sumo nos absentis…It was then that the soldiers took us away…miles militis eksuro domus kod panton in is…They burned the house and everything in it…Are you getting all of this?”

  Lena had been staring at the giant cat skeleton again. “Burned the house and everything in it. Yep. Continue.”

  “Say it in Latito.”

  She looked over at Griffin and cracked a smile. He had become a real jerk, but now that they had the chance to be alone, she could see he was still the kind of jerk she remembered him being before. “Griffin, as long as I have you, why do I need to learn it? I’m just a stupid female after all, right?”

  He went on as if she hadn’t interrupted the lesson. “Miles militis eksuro domus kod panton in is. Say it.”

  “Miles militis eksuro…something, something, blah blah blah. Can’t you just paraphrase it for me? He just wants me to know what it says.”

  Griffin snapped the book shut and sighed. He indicated she was giving him a headache and started to rub his temples. “You’ll never get through the older ones. I can’t help you with those.”

  “So I’ll rewrite them out so you can read them and then you can tell me what they say. What’s the big deal?” She shrugged.

  “I could understand if this were boring material, but it really isn’t. These are your ancestors. They’re being taken away by Nazis and you don’t even care.” Griffin shook his head.

  Lena looked at the disappointed expression on his face and sighed. “Fine. Let me see the book.”

  She copied down the phrases as Griffin read them in Latito and English. Everything was going perfectly monotonously until Griffin reached a phrase that piqued her interest.

  “Instituo prodigium inhumatus in kinis kineris…They had found the portal, unburned, in the ashes. Keperunt prodigium. Is eram absentis eks meus os inskeko duos annus laksus…They took the portal, and I never saw it again until two years later.”

  “Wait—“ Lena looked up from her notebook. “What?”

  “Keperunt prodigium—“

  Lena raised a hand to stop Griffin. “No…he actually had the portal? I mean, the portal?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Griffin asked.

  “Well, I mean, the forties weren’t that long ago…” Lena puzzled.

  “And?”

  “And…it was real? Like, a real physical object, that you could put your hands on and touch, and it was…real?” Lena asked.

  Griffin turned his chair so that he could face Lena. He was half smiling, and Lena had never seen his eyes light up so vividly. “Real. A real object, like you like, because you don’t believe in faith. It was so real that the Nazis actually took it and tried to open it…that’s one of my favorite parts. They burned everything in that house, and one of the only things in Dobry Daray’s house that didn’t burn was the portal. It wouldn’t burn. They wanted to know why it wouldn’t burn, so they took it.”

  Griffin was almost giddy. It was bizarre to watch.

  “…And they couldn’t open it. A few years later they found Dobry and took him out of the concentration camps because they wanted him to tell them where he got it, but he didn’t, and he couldn’t open it for them, and so they shot him. That part is in…” Griffin looked over the stack of books sitting on the floor next to them and pulled one out, “This one. It’s his son’s, naturally. Obviously Dobry couldn’t have written about his own death, so his son—your great-grandfather—wrote it down. It’s amazing that we have as much as we do, given Dobry wrote most of it from inside the camps. These are actually recopied journals, done by his son, because the originals were all scribbled on stuff that wasn’t real paper—clothes, walls, he even scratched his last words into his skin.”

  Lena looked at Griffin, so happily clutching the personal diary of Master Daray’s father, and tried to smile a little for his benefit. Somehow, she just couldn’t get as happy about a man scratching his final epitaph onto his own hide. “What happened to the portal?”

  “Ah…nobody knew, until just recently when your mom found it.”

  “In Ecuador.” Lena filled in.

  “Off the coast, technically.”

  “Might I ask how it got all the way from Europe to Ecuador?”

  “Oh,” Griffin looked slightly crestfallen, “Well, we don’t have any first-hand accounts of how that happened. I suspect that it was probably taken by a fleeing Nazi officer. Some of them wound up in Central and South America.”

  Lena looked down at the carpet and tried to avoid Griffin’s gaze. It made more sense than she had hoped. It was even plausible.

  The door to the library stairs clicked open, and Marie poked her head cautiously inside.

  “That’s far enough.” Griffin said disdainfully.

  When the girl didn’t respond, Griffin glared at her and repeated the command in thought-speak.

  Marie withdrew slightly. Dinner’s being served downstairs. The door clicked shut again.

  Lena glared over at Griffin, who was still glaring at Marie through the closed door. “Don’t be such a jerk!”

  She pushed her chair back from Daray’s desk. She needed to get ready for dinner, and she didn’t want to be around Griffin anymore. He was being…as arrogant and offensive as he usually was, actually, but it was different when he directed it at a child. As she tried to walk away, Griffin’s hand closed tightly around her wrist. When she couldn’t shake him off, she turned and glowered at him.

  “What?!” She spat.

  “Sit down.” Griffin replied, unflustered. “We’re doing something important, and you don’t follow her orders. If dinner’s being served, she can bring it up for us.”      

  “Why do you have to be such a jerk about it?! She’s new!”

  “She’s a servant. You’re not doing her any favors by teaching her otherwise.” Griffin said evenly.

  Lena shook him off. She dressed and went down to dinner. In the kitchen, she passed Marie, who was struggling to hold a large plate of food level as she walked towards the stairs.

  Hesper and Eric had settled nicely into their tent. It wasn’t much; in fact, Mrs. Ralston had been forced to apologetically place them in one of the older, smaller tents so as not to raise hell with the other families. There was a small hole towards the back, and the zipper door didn’t close all the way, but the roof was leak proof and Hesper seemed in her usual high spirits. Eric had gone off to have “a serious discussion” with his father, who had just arrived; Serena, Daisy, and Rose were also present, but sleeping off their jet lag. Lena had forgotten once again to ask after Hesper’s consecration ceremony.

  “I�
��m so sorry—I really meant to ask. I’ll ask tonight when we…see each other.” She said apologetically.

  Hesper and Eric hadn’t done laundry since eloping, and Hesper was sorting out everything that needed it from their collection of suitcases. “Oh, it’s okay. I really don’t care that much about it. I’m just curious. What are you two doing later?”

  “Just stuff. Hanging out.” Lena said.

  “You’re a horrible liar.”

  “Secret stuff. Family business.” Lena shrugged. “Nothing special.”

  “And since when, in your mind, does the phrase ‘family business’ include you and Griffin at the same time? You didn’t even come out to talk last night when we got here because you needed to do something with Griffin.” Hesper accused.

  Lena sat down on the edge of Hesper’s cot and watched her shaking out cramped messes of clothing. She had never been so messy in all the time that Lena had known her, and didn’t look happy about the state of the suitcases. She pulled one of Eric’s socks out of a pair of her jeans and grimaced. Lena stared at the criminal sock. “Why did you get married?”

  “To annoy my parents—why else?” Hesper replied.

  Lena looked up at Hesper and was relieved to see that she had a sarcastic look on her face.

  “We got married because we’re in love. It wasn’t a snap decision, and we’ve been looking for the opportunity for about a year now. It never would have happened if we’d left it to our parents to decide…well, my parents were the big issue, I guess. Greg and Serena have been great about it.”

  “They knew?” Lena asked.

  “Yeah, they knew. Not about the marriage thing, but I’m pretty sure they knew everything up to that point.” She tossed another bundle of clothes into a laundry basket without even bothering to untangle them. The zipper on the tent started to unzip, caught midway, was jerked a bit, and then opened the rest of the way.

  Eric stepped into the tent. “Oh. Hi.”

  “Hey.”

  Eric and Lena stared uncomfortably at each other for a moment. Without ever stopping sorting the clothes, Hesper began to talk.

  “Hi, Lena. Hi, Eric. Lena, I’m sorry I kept a really huge secret from you over the summer. I haven’t been able to shut up about how guilty I feel…No, Eric, I’m sorry, I thought you were trying to kill my best friend because I’m psychotically paranoid. Do you forgive me? Of course. We’re going to get to know each other very well in the near future because we’re lucky enough to be the two most important people in Hesper’s life, so we might as well start now.” She threw the last of the dirty clothes into the pile, put her hands on her hips and looked up at Lena and Eric. “Capisce?”

  They shared another uncomfortable moment, which was broken when Eric decided to change the subject. “Well. My dad’s happy for us. Not happy in general about the ordeal, but happy for us.”

  Hesper sighed and braced herself. “Why?”

  “Well, I’ve been kicked off the Council, which means he no longer has a family heir and we’ve lost a vote for our side.” Eric said sheepishly.

  Lena was confused. “No longer has a family heir?”

  He went over to sit on the edge of a cot. “I can’t serve as heir unless I serve on the council, because the head of family has to vote.”

  “Can’t he just name Daisy?” Lena reasoned. “I mean, I know she’s young, but in a few years maybe?”

  Eric stared at her. “Not unless you’re planning to make some serious changes, with light speed, after you get in.”

  “Maybe I will.” Lena said airily.

  Hesper laughed.

  “What?” Lena asked.

  “You’re just so confident, that’s all.” Hesper nodded at the pile of clothes in front of her. “Now help me take these back up to the house.”

  The three of them managed to carry several weeks’ worth of laundry back up to the house in one trip. Once inside the laundry room near the side entrance, they dumped it on the floor just in time for Mrs. Ralston to walk in, look at the mess, and sigh heavily.

  Hesper looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’ll help, if you want.”

  Mrs. Ralston looked up at Hesper. “You’ve never done laundry in your life.”

  “No, I haven’t…” Hesper held out her hands.

  Mrs. Ralston surveyed the mounds of clothes again. “Well, I can’t teach you with these. Some of them will need dry cleaning, and the rest will require special attention.” She looked back up at Hesper. “You’re newlyweds. Just let me handle it this time.”

  Mrs. Ralston turned and walked back towards the kitchen. Once her back was turned, Hesper did a mock victory dance. She grabbed Eric’s hand.

  “Come on—we need to go talk to your dad again and figure out where we’re going to live and what we’re going to do for the rest of our lives. Lena, could you please tell Mrs. Ralston that everything in this pile that’s mine can go to the Mason’s room for Daisy and Rose?”

  Seven more families arrived that day, the Perrys and the Colburns among them. Apparently Serafina and Martin had become engaged over the summer, and planned to get married during the weeks of the Council meeting. Ava made very clear that this was the correct way to go about engagement and marriage. In Lena’s mind they did make quite a couple; she was sure they would have very stuck-up, elitist, skinny children someday. Also, they were only in their late teens. It seemed too early to get married, but Howard assured her that marrying young was considered tradition in the Silenti culture, especially among the more affluent families.

  Even though she had never actually been fond of the Colburns, she made a point of swinging through the kitchen to catch up with Devin when she heard they had arrived. He had gotten taller and had developed a sidekick that went by “Tab” since their last encounter. Tab was a short, skinny kid of fourteen with red hair and brown eyes. He was as predisposed toward cheesy pickup lines as Devin was, and though the two of them looked nothing alike, they gave the impression of being brothers.

  Mrs. Ralston and Cheryl sorted through and washed all of Hesper’s and Eric’s clothes surprisingly quickly, and had sent everything that Mrs. Ralston deemed “age appropriate” on to the Mason’s room. Lena was sure it was all Daisy would be wearing the entire month of the meeting, even though many of the clothes were probably too big for her.

  After dinner, she found herself in Daray’s study once again, writing and reciting Latito with Griffin. On a whim, Ava had chosen to join them; Mrs. Perry, who had been Ava’s constant social acquaintance at the last meeting, couldn’t stop bragging about her daughter’s impending marriage. Whether Ava was avoiding Cecelia Perry due to jealously or annoyance Lena wasn’t sure, but from the way that Ava kept looking at her, she guessed it was probably the former. After a solid hour of nothing but listening, writing, and repeating had passed, Lena couldn’t take the boredom any longer.

  “So, you’re sure it was the portal? The box you found in Ecuador?” She asked, looking to Ava.

  Ava, who had been resting her head on one hand and gazing in a frustrated way at Lena, sat up straight. She looked bewildered, and chanced a small smile when Griffin turned to look at her. “Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t it have been?”

  Lena pursed her lips and glanced around. “It’s just that looking at this room, and listening to your dad talk, it sounds like there’s a lot of Silenti junk that’s floating around out there. So how do you know? Did you open it?”

  Ava’s eyes darted to Griffin, who was now staring with interest at her. She looked back to Lena. “Only the heir could open it. Everyone knows that. I didn’t bother to try. But it was the portal—I’m sure of it.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Lena said skeptically.

  “I felt it.” Ava replied simply.

  Lena looked at Griffin. He continued to watch Ava, then looked over. “What?”

  “Well, is there anything else that might help us to identify it? Anything you’ve read?” Lena was thoroughly unimpressed with Ava�
�s conviction. There had to be something else—a symbol, or a phrase—that was unique to the portal and could be used to confirm its identity.

  “The fact that she’s a Daray, and that she believes with certainty what she saw, is enough for me. Her description also closely matches the descriptions left by Silas Cassius. He fashioned embellishments for it while it was in his possession.” Griffin said with finality. Ava smiled deeply and looked proud. Griffin continued. “From the letters we received from Benjamin Collins, just before he died, he also thought it was the genuine article.”

  Lena stared at Griffin for a moment. It seemed like an eternity before what he had said sank in. “Benjamin Collins? Collins?”

  Griffin stared at her for a moment, but then cleared his throat and averted his eyes. He started to nervously thumb through the pages of Dobry Daray’s journal. Lena turned her gaze on Ava, who was once again looking rather bewildered.

  “I’m related to the guy who died bringing the portal back?” Lena asked.

  “So?” Ava looked to Griffin for help, but he was focusing very hard on the manuscript in front of him.

  “So?” Lena said in shock. “Who was he?”

  “Howard and Aaron’s father…I really don’t understand why you’re getting so upset about this, sweetie.” Ava laughed lightly.

  Lena wasn’t sure what to do. She started to talk and then stopped. She looked at Griffin, then at Ava, then she drummed her fingers on the table. After she had gathered herself and was able to speak again, she looked over at Ava and smiled sardonically. To no one’s surprise, Ava smiled back in the shallow way that said she was confused.

  “Well, my other grandfather, the normal one, died bringing back something that we’re not even sure was the portal.” Lena spoke slowly, hoping that Ava was keeping up. “You don’t think that’s important? Not even at all?”

  Ava was still smiling. “But I found the portal. That’s the important part. Nothing else matters.”

  Lena stood up from the table. Griffin looked up with an uncertain expression on his face.

  Still looking down at Griffin, Lena nodded in Ava’s direction. “That’s the kind of woman you want me to be.”

  She left the office and went down to Hesper’s tent, where her friends were good enough to let her spend the night. Even though she had a horrible back ache the next day from sleeping on the ground, it was worth it to have people near her who cared and understood.

  Howard was very busy over the next few days, and Lena never had the chance to talk to him about Benjamin Collins, though her curiosity was certainly getting intense. People kept on coming until the last family finally arrived and was situated into a tent. Although Hesper had been looking forward to seeing the look on her mother’s face, she never came; only Mr. Corbett and his entourage of personal servants were in attendance, though his usual sour expression had turned downright nasty. The night before the big dinner, while Griffin and Lena studied, she asked him why.

  “It’s family business.” He had said quickly. “Instituo prodigium—“

  “Not good enough.” Lena said. “Hesper wants to know why.”

  Griffin sighed and looked uncomfortable. “Hesper doesn’t have a right to know anymore. She’s no longer a member of that family.”

  Lena put her pen down and crossed her arms. Even though learning Latito had become the most boring task she’d ever taken on, it had afforded her certain benefits. The chain of command was clear in her mind—Daray wanted her to learn the manuscripts. He’d given Griffin the responsibility of spearheading that effort. Griffin wanted to stay on her good side for reasons she hadn’t figured out yet while at the same time doing Daray’s bidding. She could wait him out as long as she pleased; he couldn’t force her to learn.

  Griffin cast a glance at the abandoned pencil, went over the options in his mind, and then looked at Lena and raised his eyebrows. “She’s pregnant.”

  She hadn’t seen that one coming; Lena’s jaw dropped. “But she’s…old.”

  “She’s only in her late thirties. Instituo prodigium—“

  “Was it planned?” Lena interjected.

  “Okay…” Griffin closed his book and turned to her. “This is not what we’re supposed to be using these sessions for. And I’m going to let that last question slip because you don’t really have parents, so I’m guessing you don’t know that what you just asked is rude, and on some level, a little disturbing to me.”

  Lena smirked. She did know it was rude. She was also enjoying the fact that Griffin seemed to be getting so flustered.

  “Or maybe you do know.” His expression soured. “I haven’t had much time to speak to him, but I think he sees it as replacing the child they lost.”

  “Oh.”

  “Instituo prodigium—“

  “Why is he so upset about it?”

  Griffin sighed and stared into the text in front of him. His expression became very somber. “They’ve lost both of their children. Unless they produce another male child, the Corbett family will die with Master Corbett.”

  “Your father.” Lena said.

  “My father.” Griffin leaned back in his chair to stretch. “But not my family. Master Daray wasn’t happy with Hesper’s little charade. We’ve decided to petition for my becoming a Daray, and Master Corbett is not pleased with that decision.”

  Lena gawked. Master Daray had pulled the carpet out from beneath the Corbetts in one fell swoop. Where they had once stood to inherit Daray’s full fortune, they were now another powerless family. A dying, desperate, powerless family. It was almost disturbing that Griffin seemed completely at ease abandoning them, but then, he had been raised and primed by Master Daray to do just that. Lena gave a crooked smile. “So you’re joining the family? Don’t you find it a little sick that after that happens you’re going to have a crush on someone in your family?”

  Griffin sneered; he apparently didn’t find the situation amusing. “I will go down on paper as the official inheritor of the Daray possessions and responsibilities, and my loyalty will officially be to the members of this family, but my name isn’t changing. I’m giving up the rights bestowed on me by my father for those bestowed by my mentor, because I can’t legally inherit both votes. May we return to what we’re here to do now?”

  Lena sat back in her chair, distancing herself from the pen and paper on the desk. “One more thing. I want Hesper to get a consecration thingy.”

  Griffin sighed deeply and was beginning to look extremely irked. Lena feared she might have pushed too far, but then he spoke. “She can’t have a consecration ceremony. For all she’s not my sister any more, it still looks bad.”

  “Fine.” Lena made as if to get up from the table. Griffin caught her wrist.

  His eyes were burning. “I’ll see what I can do. I might be able to have it recognized, but there won’t be a consecration ceremony. It wouldn’t be fair to do it back to back with the Colburn-Perry ceremony as if they were equals.”

  Lena sat down and they went back to doing lessons for a while. After finally making it through Dobry’s narrative, which ended rather abruptly, Griffin said they were finished for the evening and would begin the first of Edward Daray’s journals at their next mutual availability—provided that Griffin could find them. Despite the fact that they were amongst the more recent accounts, he’d had problems locating them in all of Daray’s many collections. The dinner was to take place the following evening, followed by the dance, and then by council meetings, and eventually, Lena’s exposition; their mutual lack of availability was about to make study sessions a little more challenging.

  The next morning, the Waldgrave house underwent the typical transformation that signaled all of the necessary families had arrived, and every public area available was overrun with people chatting about their interests, the upcoming marriage, and other affairs. Many of them were talking about politics.

  In light of her decision to make a run for the Council, Lena had been asked by Howard to start dress
ing more professionally. She asked Mrs. Ralston to help her with her hair, makeup, and clothes, and then started the lengthy process of being introduced to every crusty old Council member that Howard deemed an ally. She shook hands until she felt like her arm was going to fall off, but it did seem to be working. Howard wanted her to sit with him and some other Council members at the big dinner so she could “make a good impression,” so after she was done shaking hands, she sought out Hesper for a quick information exchange.

  “Hesper, dude, you aren’t going to believe this.” Lena whispered excitedly, grabbing her arm when she came down the stairs so no one else would get to her first. She tried to look around the room to be sure no one else was paying attention; everyone seemed to be involved in their own circles.

  “Did you just call me ‘dude’?” Hesper raised an eyebrow.

  “Sit down.”

  Lena forced her friend into a chair in the corner of the living room. She could barely contain herself, and Hesper was already laughing a little.

  “Okay—no, wait! I want to guess. My mom had an affair? Or my dad?” Hesper’s eyes lit up.

  Lena shook her head. “Oh, it’s too good…”

  “She caught a freakish disease during their last trip to Europe?”

  “Nope.” Lena said.

  “The kitchen staff finally rebelled and killed her?”

  Lena sat down on the arm of the chair and placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Your mom is knocked up.”

  Hesper let loose a squeal that caused the room to go quiet for a moment. When everyone had gone back to their previous engagements, she turned to Lena. “You’re kidding! She is not!”

  “She is. According to Griffin, anyway.”

  Hesper leaned in close. “Was it planned?”

  Lena giggled. “You know, I asked Griffin, and he was really evasive about answering that question…”

  Hesper’s jaw dropped. “This is the best wedding present I’ve received so far. Lena, thank you so much.”

  “And speaking of, your marriage will be recognized, but there will be no ceremony. Whatever that means.” Lena said.

  “Oh! That’s fantastic! Basically, we’ll retain all of our rights, but there won’t be a party. That’s much better than I thought we’d get, actually.” Hesper furrowed her brow. “I wonder why he’s going to allow it…”

  “Who cares. What’s done is done, so let’s all be grateful.” Lena looked over and saw Howard walking towards her. Behind him, people were starting to file into the dining room. “And there’s my date. I’ll have to see you later.”

  Howard escorted Lena to a spot around the midsection of the main table, where they sat down together. Seated around them were the Brendons, the Abbotts, and the Riveras. They were dressed very much like everyone else, in suits, dresses, and stern expressions. Lena introduced herself to all of the various wives and sons who were already serving or were planning to serve as heirs, and then the inquisition began.

  Mrs. Brendon, a mousy woman with a stately and respectable manner, folded her napkin in her lap and looked at Lena without smiling. She wasn’t well-liked among most of the other Silenti women; she owned a ranch in southern Colorado that she ran by herself while Mr. Brendon lived in Albuquerque. Hesper had explained once that they weren’t divorced, exactly, because Silenti laws didn’t permit divorce. Mrs. Brendon spent far too much time entertaining humans, and many people felt that she should no longer retain the right to attend Council meetings as a family member. “Well, I can’t say we weren’t surprised to hear about your ambitions. Do you really think it’s a woman’s place?”

  Lena looked at Howard. Howard merely looked back, leaving her to fend for herself. “Well, I feel that every person has a right to hold influences over his or her own life. The times are changing, and I don’t see any reason why a woman shouldn’t be on the Council.”

  Mrs. Brendon smiled politely. She picked up the glass of water in front of her. “You don’t think it will have an effect on your raising a family?”

  It was a loaded question, and everyone within earshot had stopped talking to listen to Lena’s response. It was well known that for Lena, the very personal decision of whether or not to have children was considered a matter of public concern. She weighed her options carefully; in the end, she decided it was best not to lie. “I love children. But I don’t plan on ever having any.”

  Sitting next to her, Howard looked like he was about to be sick. There were several shocked faces sitting across the table from her. Mrs. Brendon, however, was smiling.

  “You don’t scare easily. That will serve you well.” She raised her glass to Lena, and then took a polite sip before resigning herself to her pork chop.

  Master Rivera cleared his throat. “You don’t believe in the prophecy, then?”      

  “Oh, well, I wouldn’t go that far…” Lena thought desperately hard to put her feelings into words. She needed to make a recovery—saying that she didn’t believe in the prophecy would tag her as a radical, greatly reducing her chances of getting onto the Council. Howard reached and scratched his ear next to her. “I just believe that if the prophecy is true, then my not having children shouldn’t affect it.”

  “How’s that?” Master Rivera looked puzzled. He was a tan-skinned man with dark hair and sharp, serious eyes.

  “Well…” Lena shut her mouth. She didn’t want to babble until she knew what she wanted to say. “I’ve studied some of the ancient texts that concern the matter of the portal and the heir…and knowing how far back the original ancestor dates to…ah…well…”

  “You don’t believe your family line represents the only descendants?” Master Rivera guessed, raising a hand to his chin.

  “Yes!” Lena breathed a sigh of relief. “Exactly. Why, I suppose it’s true that any one of us could have become entangled in the mess generations ago. Even if the stories are true, I couldn’t possibly be the very last one. It’s a sacred prophecy, and if it’s for real, nothing I can do will stop it.”

  There was silence again as her dinner mates took in what she had just managed to spit out. Mrs. Brendon was actually looking impressed, which was more than could be said for everyone else sitting around her. Polite silence filled the space between them, and Lena realized that she had fumbled the question; people didn’t care what her thoughts were. They cared about her actions. She was going to greatly displease half of society, and both sides wanted to know it wasn’t going to be them; she couldn’t please everybody. Eventually, she was going to have to pick, because statements of compromise weren’t going to get her anywhere.

  Lena allowed her eyes to wander briefly before the next hard question was put to her. Master Daray, looking to be his usual fresh-pressed self, was once again sitting at the head of the table—Master Corbett was conspicuously absent from his side, and indeed anywhere at the head of the table. To Daray’s right, on the opposite side of the table from Lena, was Griffin. He’d been watching her for some time.

  You look lovely tonight.

  Lena’s eyes snapped back to the disappointed faces in front of her. Thankfully, Master Daray stood up and started talking at that point, and while he did manage to blather on for a good ten minutes, he didn’t say anything as offensive or shocking as he had at the first dinner of the last gathering. When he went silent, and the food was being brought out, Master Rivera’s son and heir, Jason, finally spoke.

  He was paler than his father, and had a thin, though athletic, build. It was well-known that Jason had attended a private boarding school in Maine for the last several years of his life, which was considered odd for the first born child of such wealthy parents—most eligible Council heirs spent their youths learning and networking with Silenti families. Lena had heard Hesper coin his new nickname, “the third culture kid,” when he had arrived in the entrance hall wearing a shirt supporting the campaign of a human politician. Lena had immediately developed an interest in him; like her, he didn’t belong here.

  “I’ve
never heard that position before. The implications are…unsettling and astounding, to say the least. You really believe the fate of the prophecy is out of our hands?” He asked.

  The serving staff arrived. Next to her, Howard was happier than she’d ever heard him. “Food! Excellent! No more politics tonight. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the exposition. So, Orville, I’m told you made a trip to Belize over the summer?”

  A small smile appeared on Master Abbott’s face and he glanced over at his wife. “Well, that’s a funny story, actually. Katia and I were…”

  As her dinner salad landed in front of her, Lena noticed a small piece of paper sticking out slightly from under one edge of the bowl. She turned around and saw Tab, Devin’s new and slightly younger protégé, wink at her. She discretely took the note in her hand and unfolded it as she set her napkin in her lap. She took care to read it without reading it out loud in her head.

  Don’t eat the potatoes. Trust me. –Dev

  She looked over at the kitchen door, where she saw Devin wave and then give her a thumbs up. She looked back at her dinner plate. Beef, greens, and mashed potatoes. Across the table from her, the Brendons and Abbotts had already sampled the forbidden food; Lena tried not to laugh make a face to give away the situation, though she was secretly mortified. As dinner and conversation went on, she tried to pick around her plate as inconspicuously as possible.

  *****