“Is that why he hid his first Atmá away?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.
“It’s not my place to tell you about her.” Jayden watched me cautiously as he spoke. “I was surprised when he told me about you, as any sane person would be. Neither of us had even dreamed that it was possible for a person to steal a pair, but he didn’t doubt for a second that you had done exactly that. His mark didn’t change, but hers did. All signs pointed to you being particularly powerful. You had to have been, since you were raised without Dominic’s drugs to keep you stable—your mother took you for regular testing, you see, so Dominic couldn’t chance slipping you any pills. Your powers came into fruition early, too. Usually the bond begins to strain you toward your pair as soon as your powers are activated, but you managed to sustain all on your own. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop you from needing a pair. You sought out the most powerful magical blood in our world, and you made it yours. That is beyond unheard of.”
“Wouldn’t Miro have possessed the most powerful magical blood, since he was supposed to be the Voda Heir?”
“He did, but his mental state wasn’t weak enough for you to break through. Silas was constantly being tortured by Weston to test the reactions of women whom Weston suspected were bonded to him. One night—specifically the night that Weston almost killed him—he was so weak that you were able to connect with him. He was your pathway to Miro. I took most of your paintings and destroyed them the day I took your memory … but they were all of Miro, not Silas.”
“Wow.”
“Silas knew that he wouldn’t simply be able to hide you away from his father. Not if you were that powerful. He would have to hide you away from our whole world.”
“And he did,” I mused, “for years.”
“Your pull was too powerful, though. The others kept trying to move back to Seattle without knowing why. It turns out your power wasn’t satisfied with just one pair, and it latched onto the other two brothers as well. Maybe because they were the second most powerful pair, or maybe because they were so closely related to your first pair. I don’t know why.”
“Why did he let them see me? He went to so much effort to keep me a secret.”
“Ahh… you can thank Gerald for that.”
“Gerald?”
“As you know, he was tasked to watch you as soon as you were confiscated from the Klovoda. He attached himself to your mother in the weeks after you left us. From what I understand, he got her pregnant with Tariq a year later to lock her into the marriage. I believe she had begun to entertain thoughts of leaving him. Maryanne changed your name, forged you a whole set of new documents, and tried to hide you from the Klovoda, not realising that Gerald was one of them. Gerald gave progress reports for a while, but then he seemed to… decline. From what I’ve been told, he was drunk most of the time, and stopped checking-in with Weston. They lost touch with you for a little while, but there was nothing that they could do when Maryanne was alive anyway. The Klovoda tried to get into contact with you after her death, but Gerald blocked them at every turn. He thought it was a game. He demanded money, demanded to be given an Atmá power of his own. He thought it was possible, since we had created you. He wasn’t interested in spying anymore.”
“Couldn’t the Klovoda have just snatched me away?”
“No.” Jayden frowned, dipping his head forward in a disapproving shift of expression. “The Klovoda isn’t in the business of kidnapping children, Seraph. They wanted you to be eased into our world. They tried to recruit Tariq instead, hoping to get him onto their side. Tariq rebuffed them much more violently than Gerald, saying that his mother had warned him about them. Had warned him that he would need to protect you when the right time came. He took his role very seriously. Basically, until the Adairs and Quillans, nobody was able to touch you.”
“How does that have anything to do with Silas allowing everyone to move back to Seattle and get close to me?”
“He found out that Dominic and Weston were getting impatient. They were going to make a move on you once and for all. He knew that his distance wasn’t going to protect you anymore. Not once they saw your mark—singular, because he thought it was only one. He told Dominic that he would spend the next year getting close to you, and then he would be the one to introduce you to the Klovoda. They agreed, and then things got messy.”
“Because of Noah and Cabe.”