argue, but I recognized a “why” in her expression.
“They are searching for you now, Emily. Morgan’s men will find you, they will do anything to get to you.”
The idea distracted me, and my hands fell to the dresser to curl over the edge I leaned against. Emily noticed the short stripes of dry blood and looked a little sick.
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, and then realized how ridiculous it was. I rubbed a palm surreptitiously over the worst patch to brush it loose and changed my apology into what it should have been for. “You should have never been involved. If Morgan were to find you, he could pull anything you’ve learned from your mind.” Her eyes came back to mine. “And I’ve already let you know more than is safe.”
“Morgan,” she asked, “he’s different… from the others?”
I nodded. “He’s stronger. There’s never been a commonblood immune to his gift.”
She swallowed. “And Brianna, she’s not immune?”
“We don’t know,” I said truthfully. “He’s not had the chance to try.”
Emily chewed her lip, contemplating this for a very long time before she finally spoke again. “I’ll go with you. I’ll go to save Brianna.”
She moved to stand, but I stopped her. “Not yet.”
“We have to go now,” she insisted.
“There are a few things I need to explain first.”
Her lips were moving in that measured, silent way again, the way they had as the policemen searched for us outside the warehouse. The way they had as she climbed the hotel. I knelt before her, finally able, to some degree, to read her lips and gather a few words. A prophecy.
I was suddenly standing again. She was reciting words in the ancient language, re-memorizing a prophecy. Not our prophecy, but her own. My heart sank in a why me kind of hopelessness as Emily realized my discovery. She looked at once guilty and defiant.
“Tell me,” I said flatly.
Her fingers curled into her palms. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I can’t remember. There were so many.” She glanced up at me again, stricken. “And I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t believe her, Aern.”
“Your mother?”
She nodded.
“Your mother was a prophet,” I repeated, to no one in particular.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
They were wrong about the prophecy. All this time, it wasn’t a daughter of great power, but the daughter of a great power. Did that mean Brianna truly wasn’t hiding a talent as the Division had suspected? Did it mean they were wrong about her protector as well?
“What did she say, Emily?”
Emily shook her head. “Something about the Division. The Taken will die at the hands of the Division.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, desperately seeking the words. “I can’t remember it all. But the Division is bad, Aern. She drilled that into my head over and over and over. We’ve got to get her out of there.”
“They won’t kill her,” I promised. “They have to keep her alive. They have to keep her from the Council.”
“But—”
“That’s why she’s there,” I said. “They need her.”
“No,” she said. “No, that’s not right. Why would they need Brianna?”
My jaw flexed involuntarily. “To get me.”
Emily’s mouth went slack with confusion and I sat heavily beside her. “That’s what I wanted to tell you about,” I said. “Why the Division is after me.”
Chapter Eleven
Morals
Emily sat silent while I attempted to explain my relationship with the Division, how I’d handed her sister over to the one group her prophecy said would kill her.
I told her how Morgan had turned on us. How he’d removed all those of Council who didn’t cower to him. I explained our fear, that those who stayed seemed to submit to his every whim, as if they’d lost their own power of will. I told her he was treacherous, barbaric, but I didn’t tell her the extent of his cruelty. I didn’t tell her of the human girls we’d found, their bodies barely recognizable, as he passed the time until he came into his prophesied power. I couldn’t tell her that. Not when he was after her, and not when he was after Brianna.
“Brendan convinced the others to leave Council, and he’s been gathering new followers every day.” Every time Morgan committed a new offense. “The split is quickly becoming a war. I’d never officially left Council, I stayed to try and right things, and I stayed because it was my place. When it went beyond fixing, I simply stepped away from everyone. The Division has been wooing me for a long time,” I said.