“Right.” Isobel glanced around the chapel, but it wasn’t like any of the shadows were about to shift away from the wall and turn into robed, celestial beings. It was just a chapel. Not even a very elaborate one, considering it belonged to Ironside. “The mysterious god.”
“The Duskfall Warden,” Maya corrected. “The Gifted don’t have a ‘god of mystery,’ just as we don’t have a ‘goddess of love,’ or a ‘god of the seas.’ Our gods aren’t so simple as that, with only one segment of the world they are relegated to. The Duskfall Warden is named for the fact that he guards the space between light and dark. Sometimes, even the space between life and death. Without him, we have no balance.”
Isobel wanted to bite her tongue, but the words spilled out anyway. “You call this world balanced?”
“The gods don’t exist to serve us, Carter. We exist to serve them. They give us our abilities, our gifted blood, and in return, we are supposed to keep their temples and follow their edicts.”
“I’m curious,” Elijah spoke up suddenly, his voice calm and soft—definitely not as riled up as Isobel felt. “The chain you took from Isobel—has it shown any signs of sentience?”
“None at all,” Maya answered immediately. “It was not intended for me.”
“Have you studied it further?” Elijah pressed.
“Of course.” Maya looked him over a little more thoroughly, arching a thin, elegant brow. “It’s identical to Aphelina’s chain. I’ve cross-referenced it across every picture I could find, and all the written accounts of bonded people receiving Aphelina’s chain in the past.”
“It can be gifted to more than one person at the same time?” Elijah’s expression was almost bored, but he spoke quickly, his tone bordering on sharp.
“It would seem so.” Maya brushed some cleaning dust from her faded, button-down shirt. “The chain always disappears after some time, but it has never fused itself to a person’s body. Not in any record I can find.”
“Did you find any records of the chain being cut or deformed?” Elijah barely paused to digest Maya’s words.
“No—” Maya admitted, but Elijah was already speaking again.
“What was so distinctive about the chain that you’re so sure it’s the same as those mentioned in your records?”
“It’s not a metal of this world.” Maya looked amused now.
“And how did you test that?” Elijah’s disappointment reached out to Isobel, like he had already concluded that Maya couldn’t possibly verify what she was saying.
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.