The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(62)

Leo watched, stunned, as Sera spoke again.

“Please don’t do this,” she begged.

What . . . was . . . happening? How was he able to understand her all of a sudden? Maybe everyone else could hear her too. Perhaps his father and Kiernan had figured out—

“What is that gibberish she’s speaking?” Mr. Horne asked.

So Leo was the only one who had understood. He rubbed at his ear.

“She cannot speak our language,” Xavier explained. “But she is not here to dazzle us with words.”

Leo thought he saw his sister mouth “I’m sorry” to her. Could Agnes understand her too? His mind was spinning, making it hard to focus on anything. Maybe he’d been hit on the head harder than he thought. Maybe his brain had suffered some sort of damage that Sera’s blood couldn’t cure.

Xavier grabbed him by the wrist and held up Leo’s hand.

“You see my son’s palm here—unblemished, not a scratch on it. Do you all agree?”

Leo’s instinct to yank his hand away was tempered only by eighteen years of absolute obedience to his father. Xavier nodded to Kiernan—James was gripping Sera’s elbow so tight that his knuckles were white. She shrieked as Kiernan sank the needle into the crook of her arm.

“No!” she cried, and Leo knew this was no hallucination. “Stop, stop, please! I am a Cerulean and my blood is magic and you cannot take it from me!”

Kiernan held up the blood, part two of this magic trick—its rich blue color was shot through with glimmering facets of light, and there were gasps from the audience. Leo felt a sharp slash across his palm and his father held up a small knife, wet with his son’s blood. There was a dull thrumming in Leo’s ears, and the edges of the room went fuzzy. Agnes looked like she was going to be sick, and in some faraway part of his brain he thought, That’s strange, I thought she liked dissecting things.

“Xavier!” Mr. Conway bellowed.

“My son will be fine,” he said. “Watch and be amazed, Hubert.”

Leo’s hand throbbed, the pain setting in like a thin streak of fire. James had to actively hold Sera back as Kiernan approached Leo with the syringe. He removed the needle and carefully administered three drops of blood along the length of the cut.

“No,” Sera moaned, and she seemed to weaken as she struggled against James’s grip.

It was awful, being able to understand her. All the times he had heard her speak came back to him in a rush—what had she been saying when she clutched for her necklace? What had she cried out when he caught her with that net?

She looked to his sister. “Agnes, help me!”

She knows my sister’s name. Agnes’s face was chalky, her hands gripping the fabric of her skirt, her shoulders tense. Leo was certain Agnes could understand Sera too. But she was as powerless as he was in this room, in this moment. No one besides the twins paid Sera any mind; all eyes were on Leo’s hand. The audience surged forward and the men’s faces lit up with shock and amazement as they watched his skin knit itself back together until his palm was once again smooth, not even a scar to show where Xavier had cut him.

“In the name of the One True God . . .”

“How can this be?”

“It is as if he was never cut at all!”

“It’s a miracle.” Hubert Conway was thunderstruck. “It’s an absolute miracle.”

“This blood is a gift, bestowed upon my family for a purpose. As are the Arboreal and the mertag,” Xavier said. “And I intend to use them. Who here will join me in this venture? Who will invest in the future of Kaolin and the health of its people with me?”

As if Xavier cared a jot for the health of Kaolin or its people, Leo thought grimly. The men were clamoring for his father’s attention, eager to outdo each other, waving their checkbooks and shouting to be heard. Leo’s hand was grabbed and examined and poked at like he was a magician’s assistant and not the future leader of the McLellan enterprise.

Suddenly, Sera let out a scream, and it seemed to him like it had an edge of excitement.

“Can someone stop that god-awful shrieking?” Wilbur Grandstreet muttered.

“Perhaps our Azure is tired,” Kiernan said, trying to smooth things over. “She is a lady, after all, and must be fatigued. I shall—”

“The tether!” Sera cried. She was staring at the photograph of the ruins. “Agnes, it’s the tether, I can see it, it’s coming right out of that stone temple!”

Agnes’s mouth fell open, but the next moment the Pembertons had descended on Sera and were dragging her away.

“I have to get to the tether!” Leo heard her shout before her voice was cut off.

Agnes knew something, he could see it in her eyes, the cogs and gears of her brain working furiously. She knew what this tether thing was. Did she know where the girl was from? Did she know how her blood healed him, or why he could suddenly understand her?

Leo wanted answers. Whatever Agnes knew, he wanted to know too. Even if it meant going against his father. Even if it meant losing his place in the business.

As the men continued to pass him around, patting his father on the back and speculating wildly about how else they might use Sera’s blood, Leo found his thoughts taking a path they had never ventured down before, new and unfamiliar, but one that felt right.