Maya responded with her small smile curving out even further, her amusement over Elijah’s rapid questioning obvious now, with just a small spark of something that might have been approval or respect glinting in her expression. “The officials are as interested in Carter’s unique situation as I am. They allowed me to make contact with a certain professor at UCLA, who invited me into his lab for the day. He showed me how to test the metal, and I managed to convince him that the test itself was confidential.”
“What kind of test?” Isobel asked, as Elijah’s suspicion dropped out of her chest. His face was now painted in curiosity.
Maya shifted around them, closing the doors to the chapel firmly before she started up the vacuum again, but she didn’t resume her work. She beckoned them closer, explaining lowly, “You never know with this place.” She indicated the loudly humming vacuum. “The test I did was for thermal diffusivity. I flattened and smoothed out a section of the chain and set it up between a laser and an infrared detector. No matter how much I pulsed the gold with the laser, the infrared detector didn’t pick up on an ounce of heat. No matter what I did, I simply could not heat the metal.”
“It heats up all the time,” Isobel argued, her fingers drifting up to her chest. “Whenever it changes.”
“It’s still changing?” Maya asked sharply.
Elijah’s arm landed over Isobel’s shoulders, pulling her back an inch and huddling her against his side. He turned slightly, putting himself between her and Maya.
“Have you said anything about Isobel’s eyes?” he asked quietly, his tone now smooth as silk—yet that somehow made it more frightening. “Have your children said anything?”
“No.” Maya frowned, rearing back slightly. “I already gave my word. And I kept the conclusions of my experiments to myself as well. They think the Gifted religion is a bunch of nonsense, so they weren’t surprised when I told them there were no remarkable results.”
“Why would you do that?” Elijah narrowed his eyes on her. “That’s anti-loyalist behaviour. What’s in it for you?”
“What’s in this for you?” Maya returned, gesturing the way Elijah was cuddling Isobel close enough that even her cheek was pressed tight to his shirt. “You aren’t on Carter’s medical records as a surrogate.”
“And you aren’t on her records at all,” Elijah returned.
“Guess who is on my records?” Isobel grumbled. “Yeah, it’s me. You can both stop talking about me like I’m not even here.”
Elijah’s grip didn’t loosen. “What’s in it for you, Guardian?” he insisted flatly, a hint of Alpha voice creeping into his words.
“You just answered your own question,” she returned, just as flatly. The two of them were actually … weirdly similar. “I’m a Guardian. I exist to protect and preserve the Gifted religion, and soul-bonded pairs are one of the fundamental pillars of that religion. All Gifted are supposed to have a bonded mate, divined by fate, but with all our people segregated into camps—and watched so closely—it’s impossible for mates to find each other, or to be near each other when they enter into the Death Phase. Those who do find their mate are to be protected at all costs.”
“Mama?” Sophia raised her voice over the sound of the vacuum, closing the back door to the chapel as she stepped inside. Luis was almost stuck to her back, his face pale, his hand tangled in her shirt. “Oh.” Sophia’s attention caught on Isobel and Elijah. “Hey—” Her expression suddenly crumpled. “Did Ashford have a vision? Does he know something?”
“Nothing new,” Elijah said, as Maya turned off the vacuum.
Isobel lowered her walls a little, tasting the overwhelming, sickening terror that rolled off Luis in large waves. She walked over to them, kneeling before Luis and examining his pale, sweaty face.
“You had another dream?” she guessed.
Luis nodded, his lower lip trembling, and then he hid his face in Sophia’s shirt and started crying. Isobel stood, her chest hurting, but it was nothing on the heartbroken anguish she felt from Sophia. She sipped some of it into herself, realising that she had gotten better at siphoning off people’s emotions without them noticing, and then she raised her wall again, breathing a little easier and feeling guilty for it.
She shared a brief look with Sophia, who had schooled her expression until it only revealed the slightest pinch of pain.
“The same dream,” Sophia explained. “No new details. This is the third time.”
Isobel glanced down at the boy again, making a decision that she already knew she was going to pay for.
“Don’t—” Elijah was stepping toward her, but it was too late.
She yanked down her walls and gulped at Luis’ fear, dragging it into her own body in heaping amounts, barely able to catch her breath before another mountain of terror landed inside her. It was stacking into her body like great big lead blocks, forming a precarious, menacing tower.
Elijah caught her arms, spinning her to face him, his cold eyes flicking between hers, his handsome, aristocratic features a little blurry. “Stop it,” he whispered harshly. “You can’t afford to be sick right now, Carter. This attack could happen at any moment.”
She grappled with her walls, pushing out of Elijah’s hold so that he wouldn’t feel how badly she was shaking. She didn’t want him to know how much she had just shoved into herself.
She glanced back down at Luis, but he wasn’t clinging to Sophia anymore. He flung himself at Isobel, launching at her so heavily that she actually thought she was being attacked at first. His thin arms wrapped around her hips, his head pressing into her stomach, and she waited for him to squeeze too tight, to assault her with a hidden weapon, to try and force her to the ground where his mother and sister would be able to pin her …
But he was just hugging her.
His breaths were short and choppy, his tears wetting her shirt, his arms shaking as much as hers were. She slipped to her knees, and his arms unlatched only to fling up around her neck, his trembling body crashing against hers again.
“It-it’s okay,” he hiccupped. “Y-You’ll be o-okay.”
Why was he comforting her?
Why were her cheeks wet?
She hugged Luis back, trying to hide her tears as his shaking hand patted over her hair in clumsy, soothing motions. Heat suddenly surrounded her spine, the scent of spiced cloves and unfurling woodsmoke wrapping her up and whispering to her limbs that true comfort was only a breath away. She released Luis, and Elijah caught her instantly, lifting her back to her feet, and then higher, until she could wrap her legs around his waist, her arms hooking around his neck, her nose buried in his throat.
“She took everything the boy was feeling,” he explained, his arms wrapped tightly around her.
“Is she okay?” Sophia whispered.
“She will be,” Elijah grunted. “Can we have a minute?”
“Of course,” Maya responded softly. “Luis, come here, darling. We’ll give you five minutes, but you shouldn’t stay in here too long. They’ll send a crew to check on you.”