“Not just a science experiment?” I bite my lip to try to keep myself from crying (more), but the tears overflow anyway.
I finally understand what Aidan meant when he said he didn’t abandon me: he gave me up to save me.
Later, after I’ve taken a shower and gotten dressed—a T-shirt decorated with Audrey Hepburn’s face instead of Care Bears, jean shorts with the knife tucked safely into a back pocket—Aidan is waiting for me in the kitchen, standing at the stove over a pot of soup. He’s changed into a fresh pair of khakis and a white button-down. He fills a bowl for me. I sit down and begin eating, surprised by how hungry I am.
After a few spoonfuls, I ask, “Helena found out, right? That you didn’t . . . eliminate me?”
Aidan sits in a squeaky wooden chair across from me. “It didn’t take long for Helena to discover what I’d done.”
“How did she know?”
“Helena believed that killing you would undo the surge we’d released when you were born. A year went by, and no luiseach became pregnant. Even with our dwindling numbers, a drought like that was unprecedented. When Helena confronted me, I couldn’t lie to her.”
“Why not?”
He smiles. “I was never very good at lying to the people I loved. It was a miracle I was able to keep it from her for as long as I did.”
I blush, just like any teenager might when her parents talk about loving each other. Ashley always hated it when her parents got lovey-dovey in front of her. Eww, gross, she’d moan, acting like she might throw up.
“Helena was furious,” Aidan continues. “She insisted that with you alive, our extinction was inevitable, and I couldn’t disagree. She demanded I tell her what I’d done with you, insisted she would find you and eliminate you herself. When I refused, she left.”
“And that was the beginning of the rift?”
He nods slowly, like moving his head up and down hurts. Helena didn’t just leave this place. She left him. “One by one, as the years went by and no more luiseach were born, those who stood by my side joined her. I could hardly begrudge them their choice,” he concedes wearily. “They’re frightened about our future, frightened of what our extinction will mean for the human race.”
I lift another spoonful to my lips. “So Helena isn’t the only luiseach who wants me eliminated?”
Aidan shakes his head and slowly answers, “Lucio and I are the only remaining luiseach who want you alive.”
I drop my spoon with a clatter. Tomato soup splashes across the table, onto my T-shirt and even onto Aidan’s white button-down. I really shouldn’t be allowed to eat brightly colored food like tomato soup and cherry pie and grape juice. But Aidan doesn’t seem to notice. At least, he doesn’t seem to care.
“That’s why I brought you here,” he explains. “Once you passed your test, it would only be a matter of time before she found you. She’d be able to sense you now that your powers had been awakened. All luiseach parents can after their offspring turn sixteen. But she and her people cannot step foot inside this compound, not after the way they abandoned it. It’s part of the magic that protects this place. They would need the express invitation of someone who still lives here—yours, Lucio’s, or my own.”
This place isn’t just a campus. It’s not even a hiding place. It’s a fortress.
And everything—whether I live or die, whether humanity survives after the extinction of the luiseach—hinges on what I saw in Aidan’s lab this morning. Whether or not those spirits can move on by themselves.
“Has a single spirit been able to do it?” I don’t have to explain what it is.
“No.” His voice drops an octave. “I’ve been trying for sixteen years, and it’s never happened.”
“Sounds like the other side of the rift has the upper hand.”
He nods. “But just after you passed your test, something happened that never happened before.”
“What?”
“One of the spirits escaped. Lucio’s been tracking it, but—”
“I know,” I say. “He told me. It’s on the verge of going dark. That shouldn’t happen. Not here.”
“Exactly,” Aidan says, snapping his fingers.
“How can you sound so happy about it?” I shudder, thinking of Anna’s spirit refusing to move on. Of the demon that nearly destroyed her.
“Because it means that the spirits are behaving differently.”
“Do you know why?”
“I don’t—not exactly,” Aidan concedes. “But I do have a theory.”
I lean back in my chair even though the wood digs into my shoulder blades. “Something tells me I’m not going to like your theory.”
Aidan smiles, raising his eyebrow. His cat-green eyes, mirror images of my own, don’t blink when he says, “I think the difference is you. I’ve wondered for years what your gifts might be, what skills you might possess. I’ve always believed it would be your destiny to change everything.”