“I did not bumble,” she stated with a frown.
Kaiden laughed. “You did. I have no idea how no one else noticed, especially on our SAS overnight trip.” He shook his head again. “I’ll never forget when you thought we had to hike our way across the Durungan Ranges before Jordan ‘reminded’ you that there were other options.” He laughed at another memory and added, “And remember when I used the Quick-Dry dust on you after the river rapids? There’s not a human in Medora who hasn’t experienced that powder before. You had no idea what you’d given away by saying it was your first time.”
Alex gritted her teeth and said, “Can we please get back to what you were saying earlier?”
If anything, Kaiden seemed more amused, but he did as she requested.
“What I was saying,” he said, “was that from the moment you first arrived here, you were a mystery. That mystery only deepened as time went by and strange things began to happen—strange things that revolved around you.”
That was the story of Alex’s life.
“While it soon reached the stage where I couldn’t use any kind of gift on you, I could still use them on those you were close to,” he said. “It took time, but with enough access to the right people, including, or perhaps, especially, during our encounter with Aven and his followers at Sir Oswald’s, I was eventually able to put enough pieces together to come to my own conclusions about you—and everything happening around you.”
Alex didn’t want to ask, but she forced the words through her lips. “And those conclusions were?”
Kaiden shrugged, but despite the gesture, his body was lined with tension, like he was worried about her reaction. “Let’s just say I know more than you’d likely be comfortable with me knowing.”
That, Alex knew, was true. And yet…
You feel safe with me.
Those five words from imaginary-Kaiden whispered across her mind and she couldn’t hold up against the weight of them. Needing to escape his knowing eyes, she turned her back on him and looked down into the fire, allowing the hypnotising flames to sooth her spiralling thoughts.
You feel safe with me.
Imaginary-Kaiden was right—she did feel safe with him.
… And that absolutely terrified her.
“There’s something else you need to know,” Kaiden said quietly, and Alex inhaled a fortifying breath at his careful tone. “And it may freak you out.”
A disbelieving laugh left her lips as she turned back around, finding him much closer than before—only a few steps away now.
“I doubt there’s anything you could say that would freak me out any more than I already am,” she said honestly.
When he remained hesitant to share, she mustered up the will to encourage, “Go on, sock it to me.”
“The reason I know you were in the past,” he said, “is because over the holidays, I had a dream about you.”
That certainly wasn’t what Alex had expected to hear. “You… dreamed about me?”
“D.C.’s gift,” was all Kaiden had to say.
“Oh,” she murmured. “You mean you had a true dream.”
Alex knew that Lena Morrow was still neutralising D.C.’s ability to access her own gift—something that frustrated the princess to no end—but apparently the same didn’t hold true for Kaiden.
“I only saw snippets of your time there, but it was enough to get an idea of what went down while you were ‘gone’, including flashes of the future you witnessed—cities burning, blurred faces of screaming people, so much death and chaos,” Kaiden said, his eyes unfocused as he recalled the memory.
Alex desperately wanted to know if he’d seen himself in that vision—the avatar of him guiding her through it, or the part showing his own death at Aven’s hands—but she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
He shook off his stupor and finished, “I also dreamed enough to see what you discovered upon your return to the present.”
“So that’s how you knew about Aven taking over Meya,” Alex said.
“That’s how I knew,” Kaiden confirmed.
Everything he’d told her was utterly mad. But Alex couldn’t deny that it made a startling amount of sense, regardless of how vulnerable she now felt with him knowing so much about her.
“Why did you disappear afterwards—no explanation, nothing?” Alex asked.
Kaiden made an apologetic face. “The timing of that was terrible, I’ll admit. And I swear it wasn’t deliberate. But my aunt needed me to do something and, well, I hear you’ve met her, so hopefully you’ll believe me when I say that when she wants something done, she won’t accept any excuses, not even school.” He caught her eyes and finished, “I promise I wasn’t avoiding you.”
Alex rubbed the inside of her elbow, unable to keep from fidgeting. “It looked suspiciously like you were.”
Kaiden grinned and moved a step forward, then another, closing the distance between them. This time she didn’t back away—mostly because it would have meant walking into the fire.
Quietly, he said, “You should know by now, Alex. You’re not someone I want to avoid.” An upward quirk of his lips as he added, “Quite the opposite.”
“And on that note, I think we’re done here.”
Alex jumped at the interruption from Athora who had reappeared out of nowhere.
She frowned at him and demanded, “Were you eavesdropping that whole time?”
“I was,” he said, shameless. “And all that’s left is for you to hear the answer to why you will now be training with Kaiden.”
Alex, however, had already figured that much out. “I’m guessing it’s so he can aim his various gifts at you and I’ll be tasked with seeing if I can stretch my gift to keep you protected. Right?”
All Athora said in response was, “For you to learn what you must, it will take time.”
That didn’t surprise Alex. Especially if he continued to have her balance bananas on her head.
“For now, we are finished for the night,” Athora said. “I shall see you both on Monday.”
And just like that, he was gone. But so too were Alex and Kaiden, who found themselves standing in the foyer of the Library.
Hit by a dizzy spell from their unanticipated change of location, Alex wobbled on her feet, with Kaiden reaching out to steady her.
“I take it he doesn’t normally relocate you like that?” he asked, amused.
Alex looked around in bewilderment. “Usually I make my way back up here myself.”
Kaiden made a knowing sound. “It’s because of me—I don’t have access to the Library like you do. I can’t create my own doorways, so he has to collect me and return me every time we meet. We’ve done it like that for years.”
“No one’s ever noticed you disappearing into thin air? Or reappearing from nowhere?” Alex asked, brushing aside her surprise at his casual admission of her access to the Library. Yet another thing he knew about her.
“If anyone happens to be watching me,” Kaiden said, tipping his head towards the librarian sitting at his desk and speaking sternly to an abashed-looking Blink, “all they would see is a flicker between when I leave and when I return.”