Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(84)

“Who took him when you were separated?”

Her brow furrows. “Two social workers,” she says with a small shrug.

I can tell she doesn’t get why this is important. I almost don’t either. But urgency fires my blood; memories swim to the surface, but whenever I try to grasp them, they slip through my hands back into the shadows.

“It was so long ago,” Taya says, holding my gaze.

She places her hand over mine, and I take it gratefully, glad for something to hold on to. Her skin is hot, almost to the point of burning, but I twine my fingers through hers and let the warmth flood me. It’s like she knows I need something to ground me, can tell that the earth is coming apart beneath my feet.

“It was two social workers, a man and a woman,” she says. “They told Terran and me they were brother and sister, just like us. But that we couldn’t stay together, or bad people might find us.” She breaks off and blinks, a tear slipping down her cheek. “That never made any sense. Why would anyone be after us?”

Brekken is the one who answers. “Because you were Solarians,” he says, very gently. He glances at me and back to Taya. “There are those who hunt your people for their magic. And you would have been easier to find together than apart.”

She shakes her head, subdued. “Still.” The hurt is fresh in her voice, swimming right under the surface.

“The social workers, do you remember their names?” I ask. Maybe I can cross-reference them with the Heiress’s list of hosts, figure out who took Terran and where.

Taya shakes her head again. “But … the guy social worker was short, with curly hair and glasses. And the lady—I remember her because she had different-colored eyes. One was brown and one was green.”

This time, it’s not just my breath that stops. Everything stops.

My heart, my thoughts, the ground under me. For a second, the world shorts out in buzzy silence, the snow on an ancient TV screen.

Because she just described my mother. Marcus and Mom.

“And then what happened?” I ask, even though I already know the answer, deep in my bones, in every cell of my body.

I’m still holding Taya with one hand, but I reach out for Brekken with the other, feeling like I might float away if I don’t hold on to both of them.

Nate never looked like the rest of us, not stocky and broad-shouldered like Dad or freckled and brown-haired like Mom. He was slender, graceful, with blond hair and dark eyes and a mischievous grin. Mom used to call him her little changeling.

So many different threads are tangled together here. Mercenaries. A secret trade in magic and souls. Corruption and stolen children.

It really wasn’t my fault.

Time has slowed down. My heart crashes against my ribs as Brekken wraps his arm around my shoulder. Cool, familiar—it should be reassuring. But I can feel the tension in him, hear his intake of breath a couple of seconds after my own when the realization hits him too.

“The man took me,” Taya says. “He took me to the foster family. I remember he was nice, even though I was terrified.” Pain colors her voice; she looks down. “And the woman took my brother.” She looks up at me then, her eyebrows drawing together. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re about to have a heart attack, Maddie.”

Her fingers move around my wrist, playfully checking my pulse before braiding together with mine again. But I can’t laugh. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.

“There’s a word in Solarian,” Brekken says softly. “Nahteran. It means ‘soldier.’ ”

“I don’t understand.” Taya looks back and forth between us, her brow furrowed, her eyes lingering on my face. “What does that have to do with …”

“Nate,” I whisper, more of a breath than a word.

I can tell the moment she understands. I can tell because her hand goes rigid in mine, her spine snaps straight, and her eyes fly wide. They drill into me.

“You don’t mean—”

“We have the same brother.”





24

Even as I speak the words, my heart reacts faster than my mind. Something like helium gathers in my chest, and Taya’s eyes are on mine, wide as coins, and I feel like we’re on the edge of something, but my thoughts come in bright, sharp fragments.

Mom and Marcus, working together to save Solarians imprisoned by the magic trade.

A pair of social workers who looked just like them, collecting Taya and Terran after their parents died, splitting them up and shuffling them off, apart but safe.

Mom on the list of hosts for kidnapped Solarians.

Taya, nineteen, just like Nate would be.

Mom’s little changeling. My older brother who I loved more than anyone in the world. Who never looked anything like Mom or Dad or me, with his fine blond hair and dark eyes.

My older brother, whose body we never found.

And the jacks that seem to be almost buzzing against my collarbone.

“He isn’t dead,” Taya says with certainty. “I would feel it if he were.”

My first instinct is to be bitter. Tell her you don’t know that. But though I open my mouth, I find that nothing comes out; the words have dried up.

All at once I understand the metaphors I’ve heard all my life and always written off as cheesy. A thing with feathers, sure. A baby bird fallen out of the nest, unmoving for so long you thought for sure it was toast, stirring and blinking an eye. Hopping to its feet, ruffling those feathers, and improbably—impossibly—taking flight.