different. An all right change. Especially these gators. They’re nothing like the crocs at home.”
“Glad you’ve been enjoying your vacay,” Owen said, “but let’s get back to this witch and girl.”
“Sure, mate,” Jax said, and he told us about how he’d been here for a couple of months, learning his way around the Everglades and searching for what his were-bird friend had told him about—the girl and the witch. He hadn’t found them until his friend arrived and led him to their hideout, then he had her fly to the nearest Amadis shifter to deliver a message to us. The visit from Trevor’s wolves surprised him when they came to check him out and make sure the message was real. He didn’t like them much, but he was friendly enough to build their trust in him.
“Well . . . where are they?” I demanded when he finished his story. My patience ran thin. After months of searching, we were So. Close. The girl hid somewhere in the vicinity. The girl who could be our daughter.
Jax led us through the woods, swamps, and brush, Tristan and I behind him, and Owen and Julia covering our backs. Although our summer had seen less rainfall than normal, much of the ground was mushy under our feet. We waded through water and reeds, squelched and squished through mucky marshes, avoiding the sharp edges of waist-high saw grass, and crossed broad areas of solid ground with forests of cypress, pine, and palm trees. Birds floated lazily overhead when we were out in the open, their shadows often making me duck after yesterday’s attack. The noises of the subtropical wild—birds’ squawks, the plop of something dropping into the water, whispers of waving grass—filled me with both awe and anxiety. After all, those movements were made by wild animals, including panthers, snakes, and alligators.
I tried to suppress the excitement I felt by staying alert and focusing on my surroundings, but the butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t go away. I’d been thinking of this day for months, visualizing what this girl would look like—a lot like Mom, Rina, and me, I assumed. Imagining how it would feel to be certain I had a daughter, a daughter I hadn’t been able to raise myself, a daughter who might know nothing about us. And envisioning the consequences—how it would release the pressure off Tristan and me to produce a daughter, how the council would settle down and the Amadis unity could be restored, how everyone’s trust in us and each other could be regained so we could do what we’re meant to do: fight the Daemoni, not each other. Of course, there was still a traitor trying to take things over, but this girl seemed to be tied to her in some way, and when everything came out, surely we’d be able to identify the traitor, too.
Speaking of traitors, I wondered what Julia thought right now, knowing secrets were about to be exposed. She knew Rina kept a secret about the next daughter, and this was probably it. Was this why she didn’t trust Tristan and me? Because she knew we’d discover Rina’s secret before Rina wanted us to? Or did she expect to find us somehow betraying the Amadis with this trip? Was that why she really came, to prove herself right? Did she really think we’d take her along with us to have a powwow with the Daemoni? Or . . .
Shit! Why hadn’t we thought of this sooner? She could have been setting us up! Perhaps this was all her doing. Now that I thought about it, it was rather convenient that she showed up just as we received the information we’d been seeking all this time. Only one way to find out.
I felt out for her mind signature but before I latched onto her thoughts, three extra signatures floating around distracted me from Julia. Three more than our expedition accounted for, and two were relatively close by. And very different than I expected. The childlike one was vivid, like Dorian’s, but not quite the same. It had a rougher and darker edge to it. The other one felt more human than anything, but that wasn’t quite right. Something . . . different . . . layered it, a suppressed undertone. Tristan had expected a witch, and Jax had confirmed it, but this signature didn’t feel like a mage’s. Perhaps the witch worked with a norm who helped care for the child. Perhaps that third signature belonged