with you about the . . . Light.” He seemed uncertain about the last word.
“Yes?” Tyler prompted him as I frowned.
“My apologies. I am very tired, and my English suffers for it. Uh . . . kagayaku.” He said the word in Japanese, and by some miracle, my addled brain remembered its meaning.
“Glow?” I supplied, and his face lit up.
“Hai.” He inclined his head. All three of my Bondmates stiffened. I didn’t see anything threatening about him, and my Light-driven instincts had put him squarely on our side of the fight last night, so his intentions were pure, or at least they had been then. Still, their hesitancy put me on edge. Now that I thought about it, he had used the term Bondmates—not Bonded Variants or Bond members as most Variants did. Was that just a cultural thing—a quirk of translation? I’d only ever heard one other person use the term—Nina, the Lighthunter. And why did he want to speak to us about my glowing?
“I am honored to meet one such as yourself. I have known only one other with a glow such as yours, and she was extraordinary also.”
He smiled as my eyes widened in shock. Did he know what it was? Why I glowed? Was I finally about to get some answers?
Within minutes, Tyler had commandeered a small meeting room at the other end of the corridor and stationed two guards in front of the closed door.
We settled around the small table. Tyler looked downright exhausted as he collapsed into a chair and leaned forward on his elbows. I took his hand and pushed a little Light to him, hoping it would be both a pleasant sensation and a boost to his ability for the conversation we were about to have.
“Thank you for understanding our need to be cautious.” I smiled at the man across from me. The guys were still throwing him worried, suspicious glances. If Alec had been here, he probably wouldn’t have even let this conversation happen.
I understood their suspicion, but I was more excited than anything. Trying to find any information on this had been one dead end after another.
“Of course.” He nodded.
“Please tell me about . . . uh . . .” The Vital? The other glowing chick? What was the correct terminology?
He smiled and leaned forward, wrapping his hands around his plastic cup of water. “When you glowed last night, the way you drew the Light into yourself and were able to transfer it remotely not only to your Bond but to others, to me”—he pressed a hand to his chest—“I had never felt anything like it. But I saw the glow, and I couldn’t quite believe what I was witnessing. You truly are extraordinary, Miss Maynard.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled and fiddled with the rolled-up sleeve of Tyler’s shirt. Tyler threaded his fingers through mine, stilling my hand.
The man continued. “When I was a boy, I would spend summers with my grandmother. She was a Vital, and she had three Variants. She would tell me stories of the ones that glowed—their power and potential. On a few occasions, I even witnessed her skin glow as she transferred Light to one of her Bondmates. But as I grew into an adult, I relegated her stories to the stuff of myth and folktales, put the glow I’d seen down to a child’s overactive imagination. The few times I raised it with my parents, they dismissed the topic. For forty years, I put it out of my mind. And then last night, I saw you, felt you, and it all came back to me. I knew it was real.”
“Is your grandmother still alive?” I was hanging on every word, leaning forward over the table. I didn’t mean for the question to sound so harsh—I was simply ravenous for more information. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive.”
He bowed his head but waved my concern away. “It is quite all right. Yes, my grandmother is still alive. She is one hundred and three years old, but she still tends an herb garden and has tea with her friends every day. Or so she tells me in her letters. She lives in the same village, high in the Hida Mountains, but I have not been to see her in many years.”
“I’m sorry”—Tyler leaned forward, suddenly all business—“why are you telling us this? Excuse my bluntness, but what do you want?”
Tyler’s ability would’ve alerted him if any of Mr. Takata’s story so far had been a lie—the