Sister Seeker

by Shelby Hailstone Law

  “I’m not sabotaging her!” Andrew shot back.

  But I smiled at his sharp reaction and gestured to him with both hands. “And that’s why I can’t believe the story you’re trying to sell me. You care too much about Elaine for it to be the whole truth.” I met his gaze again. “Tell me the rest of it.”

  Andrew frowned, but he must have known I had him beat, because he finally, slowly nodded. “Members of the Family aren’t supposed to fall in love,” he said, speaking more to his unconscious sister than to me. “My father chooses matches for us based on skills and politics. So you can imagine my reaction when I met Elaine and felt this. . . .” He shook his head. “From the first day, I thought I was going insane. I couldn’t keep my head around her, and all my training went out the window.” Now, he was pacing a small path. “I tried to be loyal to both sides. I sent intel that wouldn’t put Elaine in jeopardy personally.”

  “And now?” I prompted him when he trailed off.

  “And now,” he repeated before looking my way again, “that’s why Jordan was in Iceland. I went silent years ago. At first, they must have thought I was in too precarious a position to give them anything. But when I didn’t warn them that Elaine had found you?”

  “That was too big for them to ignore,” I finished for him, my eyes wide. “Andrew, I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Andrew looked like I’d just told him the sky was made of cotton candy. “What are you apologizing for?”

  “If my father hadn’t—”

  Andrew shook his head. “They would have figured it out sooner or later,” he said. “There would have been something that was, like you said, ‘too big to ignore,’ that would have tipped them off.”

  I nodded and reached out a tentative hand to rest it on his arm. “You should tell Elaine.”

  Andrew’s eyes widened, and then, he jerked his arm back from my touch. “What?”

  “You should tell her what you told me. Not just what you were doing before but what you’re doing now.” I raised an eyebrow his way. “And make sure you tell her that she’s the reason you betrayed your family. She loves you; I think she’d like to hear how much you love her back.”

  “Isn’t that sweet?”

  That was all the warning Andrew or I had before Wendy darted toward us. Andrew stepped automatically in front of me, assuming the role of bodyguard as he always did—but I wasn’t the target.

  Wendy had managed to get her arms in front of her, and she used the rope binding her hands as a weapon, pressing it against Andrew’s throat. The force of her surprise attack knocked him back a few steps. I thought that she must have meant to choke him to death right in front of me—until I heard Andrew scream (which he wouldn’t be doing if he was choking) and saw him push Wendy back.

  When Wendy fell back a few steps, I quickly called up the floorboards to wrap around Wendy and keep her pinned tighter than before. Once I was satisfied she wouldn’t break out, I turned toward Andrew, who was holding his neck and panting heavily, obviously in pain and trying to hide it.

  Before I could ask him what had happened, the door burst open, and Elaine had a gun pointed right at Wendy’s head. “What did you do?” she demanded.

  Should have known she wouldn’t stay too far away, even if I was the ‘official’ backup here, I thought.

  You were really there to make Andrew feel better about his overly worried girlfriend, Lila teased.

  Story of my life: I’m here to be a warm body.

  And be an open ear. That’s pretty important.

  Thanks, Lila. Because what we need most in the middle of a war is someone people like to spill their whole life stories to.

  You never know.

  I smirked at Lila but pulled my attention back to the present as Andrew finally took his hand off his neck—and I could see why he’d screamed.

  The brand on his neck was as red and fresh as the one he had on the heel of his foot that marked him as a member of the Family. But that mark had been a circle, while this was angular—a triangle with two horizontal lines through the middle of it.

  For one insane moment, my only thought was that this confirmed the answer to the first question I’d had when I saw Andrew’s brand: Did it hurt? Which wasn’t exactly a helpful thought to have when my friend was in pain and in trouble.

  Elaine’s eyes narrowed when she saw the mark, and she spun to face Wendy, her voice shaking with rage. “What did you do to him?”

  “He did it to himself,” Wendy ground out, her tone venomous. She wasn’t even looking at Elaine. Instead, she had her whole focus on Andrew so that he could see the hatred in her eyes before she spat at his feet. “I came here to see for myself if Jordan was right. I didn’t want to believe it. Little Andy couldn’t be that far gone. Not my baby brother. I thought they might have you under some spell or threat. Or maybe you were too young to know better. And here I find you in love and throwing your loyalty to her instead!”

  “If you have a problem with me, deal with me,” Elaine snapped. “But don’t come after Andrew. You won’t survive it.”

  Wendy laughed. “She’s so loyal, Andy. I see why you like her.”

  “She’s also holding a gun on you,” I pointed out. “So I’d be careful what I say around her if I were you.”

  Wendy let out a hum and turned my way. “Then why don’t you tell her what’s going on? Since you’re so concerned for my well-being.”

  “I don’t know what that mark means,” I retorted. “I didn’t come equipped with my own copy of ‘The Obscure Rules of Dealing with Magical Brands.’”

  Wendy laughed again. “I like her. You should have fallen in love with her,” she said, turning back to Andrew. “At least you could argue a political marriage in her case.”

  “Wen—”

  “Tell her, Andy,” Wendy interrupted him, the laughter completely gone in an instant and replaced by that same hatred she’d shown moments before. “Tell her about how you spied for us until you lost your nerve. You were never one of her precious agents. You’d still be spying for us right now if you hadn’t lost your head for a pretty princess.”

  Andrew was stock still, horrified. Wendy was smug, her lips pulled back in a sneer that showed how much she believed she’d won. I was frozen between worry for Andrew and concern for Elaine.

  And then there was Elaine, who took one look at Wendy and simply shot her.

  Chapter 12: I Stand by My Friends (All of Them)

  Elaine hadn’t spoken to either one of us after she shot Wendy. She’d been completely focused on tying Wendy up even tighter than before, with the ropes around her arms as well as her wrists and around her knees as well as her ankles. And then she’d finally gotten to her feet and turned to face us both.

  “We need to get out of here. And we need to warn Theresa what’s coming.”

  I couldn’t leave it at that, even if Andrew was numbly nodding along to her commands. “Elaine,” I said, “you have to know—”

  “Later,” Elaine said in a crisp tone that had me straightening up without realizing it.

  “There’s an evacuation to run,” Andrew agreed, his tone just as crisp. And I realized with a sinking heart that not only had Andrew reverted back to his soldier self, but it looked like he’d taught Elaine the same trick.

  We’re not going to let those two get away with destroying themselves, right? Lila asked.

  Not in a million years.

  Good.

  With that decided, I slipped into a frown. But they’re right. That’s not the most important problem right now. I don’t know what’s going on with Wendy, but I doubt that brand she put on Andrew is a good thing.

  That’s probably a solid assumption.

  I nodded as I followed Elaine and Andrew out of the room. Elaine locked the door behind us from our side of the room and then looked right at Theresa—who looked like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “She’s here for revenge on Andrew—and if we don’t move fast, the Family is going to destroy us a
ll.”

  Theresa’s entire expression as she turned Andrew’s way screamed “I knew it,” but to her credit, she didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she simply nodded once, sharply, and then turned to Santo. “You know what to do.”

  Santo gave her the same sharp nod—I could more easily see the family resemblance when they both had their game faces on like that—and then rushed off without another word.

  “You’re . . . prepared,” I said mildly.

  Theresa let out a laugh that didn’t have any real mirth in it. “My sister is probably the last Future Seeker in the world. If you think we haven’t had plans in place for what to do when King William inevitably found us, you underestimate what I’ll do for my family.”

  “Do you know where you’ll go?” Elaine asked.

  “That depends entirely on whether or not we need to fight our way out,” Theresa said. “If we can slip away undetected, I know of a few uninhabited islands.”

  “Those could be difficult to defend,” Andrew noted. “You have enough people in your group with limited access to magic that evacuating would be a challenge in the middle of an ocean.”

  Theresa glared at him. “Don’t talk to me right now,” she warned. “Keep very, very quiet, and I might keep overlooking the fact that you’ve disrupted my home.”

  Andrew frowned at that, but he didn’t say anything, either. I knew he felt responsible; I could still hear the way he’d completely and utterly failed to defend himself against his sister’s accusations ringing in my ears. Watching him now, I remembered how he had acted around King Peter: he didn’t defend himself because he didn’t think anything he said would make a lick of difference in how everyone else thought of him.

  And maybe it wouldn’t make a difference for Theresa, but Andrew was my friend, and I couldn’t let him carry on thinking he was a total failure. So once everyone was busy with their own missions, I sidled up to him and bumped shoulders with him, giving him an encouraging smile.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll handle the Royalists. We always do.”

  The very corner of Andrew’s mouth turned up. “Optimist.”

  I shrugged. “I get it from my mother.”

  “Then I probably would have liked her,” Andrew said. He paused and then did his best to give me the warmest smile he could manage under the circumstances. “I’m glad you remember her now. I know it’s hard to be separated from family.”

  “Not as hard as it must have been to choose that separation,” I said softly. I was pretty sure no one was eavesdropping when everyone had jobs to do with the evacuation and defense of the village, but I kept my voice low all the same. “I’m sorry your family is as controlling as mine is.”

  Andrew looked like he couldn’t quite stop the light laugh that escaped him. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “Hey, mine ripped all my memories out of my head and forced a human to fall in love with me,” I said dryly. “I think we can commiserate on crummy families.”

  Andrew snorted at that. “Fair,” he said, then tapped the skin underneath the bright red mark on his neck that wasn’t fading at all. And considering the way the brand on his foot looked, I doubted it would ever truly fade. “My family just put a bounty on my head.”

  I raised both eyebrows. “Oh, is that what that is?”

  Andrew nodded and tapped the mark again. “It’s more than a brand. This is a beacon. Even people who aren’t good at tracking spells would be able to find me with this. They don’t even need my name.” He shook his head. “If they’d put a simpler spell on me, I’d change my name. My father does it all the time, once he’s finished a job or once he’s made another enemy, so he’s harder to track down.”

  “He must do it a lot, considering how many enemies your family makes on a regular basis,” I said, trying to pull Andrew out of his head and get Person Andrew back. And judging by the quiet smirk at the corner of his mouth, I’d cheered him up at least a little bit.

  “He only changes the name if they know it,” Andrew pointed out. “And he’s insulated enough that it’s rare for anyone to get that close.”

  I paused as a new thought occurred to me. “So, do you think he changed his name after he sent Wendy here?”

  Andrew turned my way, his lips slightly parted, before he quickly shook his head. “No,” he said slowly. “I think he might . . . I think he might have waited to change his name until he knew for sure.” He tapped his neck again. “This would have alerted him. It means even the person I’m closest to in my family thinks I’m a traitor. It means I’m no longer trusted, no longer part of the Family. So I wouldn’t be allowed to know his name.”

  “On the plus side, your name fits you better now,” I said with a small smile, still trying to get him to relax.

  “Oh, are you siding with the Future Seekers?”

  “Hey, I’m just glad their name for you means you’re betraying the people who believe in torture and violence to stand beside someone you love.”

  Andrew shook his head slowly, though I noticed he couldn’t quite hide his smile, either. “When you say things like that, you make me sound heroic.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “And I’m really not, Michelle.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I see. So you’re completely fine with people thinking you’re this big, bad, terrible mercenary with no conscience and no loyalty—but when I tell you you’re a big marshmallow, you get offended?”

  Andrew laughed. “I already told you: I’m not a marshmallow!”

  “You totally are.”

  Andrew shook his head at me—but I’d pulled him out of his thoughts, so no dry look he shot my way was going to stop me. He cleared his throat, shook his head, and looked back toward the room where Wendy was still very well-restrained. “I should stick with her,” he said. “It’s a bad idea to leave a member of my family unattended for too long.”

  “Let me do it,” I said.

  “I appreciate the offer, and I know you’re trying to help, but you haven’t trained—”

  “And you aren’t as trained as she is,” I pointed out. “She’s got a few years on you, and then you spent all this time undercover. I’m pretty sure she’s been honing her skills in how to be a mercenary this whole time while you’ve been falling in love.”

  Andrew looked like I’d splashed water in his face. “I . . .”

  I realized my mistake instantly, and my hands flew to my mouth. “No, it wasn’t—oh, come on. You know it wasn’t a criticism. I’m glad you fell in love. You deserve to be happy!”

  “Even if that puts everyone else in danger?” Andrew’s eyes were narrowed, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to find a way—yet again—to talk himself out of happiness.

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “I just told you that this thing is a beacon,” Andrew pointed out, raising his voice as he gestured once more to his neck. “My family will be able to track me down no matter where I go.” He gestured broadly. “How exactly am I going to help Elaine and her underground resistance movement when I’m a walking lighthouse?”

  “Okay, that . . . definitely makes things harder,” I said slowly. “But we can still make this work. Right? We totally can.”

  Andrew shook his head. “I can’t stay with the Rendezvous,” he said. “As soon as this is over and Theresa’s people are safe—”

  “Don’t you dare,” I cut in before Andrew could get going. “You’re an idiot if you think that’s going to help anybody. All you’d do is break Elaine’s heart—and make her think you’re the traitor you keep trying to convince yourself you are!”

  “I am a traitor.”

  “To your family,” I insisted. I reached out to grab Andrew’s arm to spin him to face me. “Don’t be such a child,” I said. “You’re acting like a dramatic teenager who thinks having a curfew is the end of the world.”

  “This is bigger than a curfew.”

  “Which is why I’m trying to help
you,” I insisted, allowing some of my honest frustration to show in the tone of my voice. “Do you think I’d waste my time otherwise?”

  Andrew shook his head. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

  “Yes. I am. And you are too. So don’t you dare go anywhere without talking to Elaine so she knows the whole story or I’ll—I’ll—” I tipped my chin up. “I’ll learn the spell that lets me track down your stupid lighthouse mark so I can drag you back to the Rendezvous by your ear and make you apologize to Elaine.”

  Andrew blinked at me for a long moment before he let out a breathless laugh that I don’t think he could stop. “When did you turn into my mum, Michelle?”

  “Just now. Apparently.” I shrugged openly. “I can’t seem to stop myself from trying to take care of everyone I meet, so I’ve decided to embrace it.”

  “Could you decide to embrace it somewhere else?”

  “I don’t think so, no,” I said. I spun on my heel to walk back into the room where Wendy was still tied up. “I’ve got this. You help the others get out of here. I’m sure I’ll hear about it if something else goes wrong.”

  “I really don’t like leaving you alone with her.”

  “Think of it this way: Elaine already did the heavy lifting. I’m just insurance.” I grinned crookedly as I watched Andrew warring with himself over that one. Obviously, he wanted to acknowledge Elaine’s superior skills, but his fear of his own family made it hard for him to trust Wendy around me, too.

  “Fine,” he said at last. “But if anything happens—anything—get out of there. You and I both know she’d love to get her hands on you and drag you back to your father.”

  Oh. Right. I had been so focused on Andrew’s family drama that I’d completely forgotten about mine—except to use it as a yardstick for how much I didn’t have any room to judge him for bad families. I probably should have realized I’d be in as much trouble as Andrew if either of us got caught again.

  Without thinking about it, I raised one hand to rest against the side of my neck in the corresponding place where Andrew had been branded, but when he saw the motion, Andrew quickly shook his head.