“I’ll leave that to your angelic friend. He knows enough.” But clearly not all. What did The Order think they were doing, pounding at the gate without thought or caution?
Layla pulled a breath. “Mind telling me?” Outrage roared within her. She pushed away from Khan, her loss diminishing him further, and moved toward Adam. “First Khan says he started the whole wraith business. Then he says Talia—his daughter?—killed somebody. Then he shows me magic. Transporting. Strange people in the street.” Her words sped up as if she was trying to make sense of it herself. “Next thing I know I’m in a world of hurt. I mean hurt.”
Adam transferred his gaze to him, a dangerous smile darkening his expression. “‘Khan,’ is it?”
Khan remained silent under Adam’s scrutiny. He didn’t have to answer to him.
“I’d like a word,” Adam said.
Layla grabbed Adam’s arm. “Please. I need to know what’s going on. What’s just happened to me?”
Adam ignored her request, glancing up instead to signal a couple of approaching mortals, one wheeling a gurney. Khan had bowed over many a stretcher during the millennia. This one was narrow, with railings walling the sides, as if it were part coffin, too. There was no way he would permit his death-touched woman on the thing.
“Will somebody tell me what’s going on?” Layla addressed everyone.
“Okay, help’s here.” Adam stood, fury battering the air, his gaze hot on Khan. “We need to speak privately. And now. In the meantime, our good doctor can look Ms. Mathews over, though she seems to be recovering just fine and can be on her way shortly.”
“It’s not safe for her to leave,” Khan said.
Adam shook his head. “The question is whether Segue is safe from Ms. Mathews.”
“Hey!” Layla said.
If Layla was going to take refuge here, Khan needed Adam’s agreement. No, he needed his willing support, and Adam, it seemed, was far from it. Layla, for the moment, could wait; Adam couldn’t. And then there were things he had to tend to. One evil thing, in particular.
Khan leaned to whisper in Layla’s ear. “You’re safe now.”
“But—?” Layla sputtered after him.
As he moved to follow Adam, a medic of sorts knelt beside her, pressing gently around her eyes, the bridge of her nose. “Can you tell me your name?” he asked, and Khan almost laughed. Her name had troubled him, too, this day.
“Come on,” Adam said, gesturing to the rooms beyond. Khan followed his daughter’s husband out of the room, through the connecting passageways to privacy. It pleased him how the place was webbed in Shadow. Not the mundane falls of dark that emphasized normal depth and variation, but the stuff of magic and possibility. Of Between. This was clearly Talia’s place. Time lay thick within the throbs, an echo of memory here, a wisp of ghostly movement there.
As soon as he was beyond the notice of Layla and the others, he let his own Shadow loose around him, his illusion of a mortal form relaxing into a body haze that cost him little to hold. Adam could use reminding that he conferred with the lord of the fae, the father of his dark bride, and not one of his underlings.
When Adam turned, he did indeed take a swift step back. Then he gritted his teeth, steeling his nerve, which also pleased Khan. Talia deserved a strong man. “Custo says that Ms. Mathews is . . .” Adam raised his hands, head shaking, as if he had difficulty completing the sentence.
“Layla is Kathleen, yes.” The fact still shot an acute emotion, something sharp and sweet, throughout his body. Kathleen. Found. Kathleen. His.
“Impossible.” Under Adam’s controlled exterior, he was thick with disbelief and confusion. “You can’t possibly expect me or Talia to believe this.”
“Yet the fact remains.”
Adam frowned his disapproval. “I take it she doesn’t know? Or remember anything? Doesn’t know who or what you are?”
Good. Adam understood. “She can’t know, not yet. She would reject me.”
“Yet you saw fit to fill her in on everything else, very likely endangering Talia in the process, not to mention our work here.” Adam threw his hands in the air. “She’s a reporter. She’s been dogging our steps for the past couple years! My favorite piece of hers featured that fuzzy picture of Talia, with the caption WHO IS TALIA THORNE? If she exposes us, Talia will be hounded. Our children will be in danger. And all this in the middle of the wraiths’ reorganization! You can’t be serious.”
“Layla doesn’t want to hurt anyone. If she is driven, it is to know her daughter. Surely, the rest is the means to that end. She will reveal nothing when she learns the truth.”
“That in some cockeyed, messed-up way she’s Talia’s mother? Why would she believe that?”