sense of self for someone who was held captive for fifteen years.” The cardinal leaned back in her chair. “Not only that, your captor violated your mind on a regular basis.”
Memory curled her fingers against the wood of the table. “Do you think I’m a fraud?” It came out a hard demand, her breath stuck in her chest and scorching flames under her skin. “Does the Collective?”
“Memory.” Sascha smiled in affectionate rebuke. “I’ve been in your mind, little sister. I know the truth better than anyone.”
Cheeks heating, Memory rubbed both hands over her face. “Sorry. It’s just . . .”
“I know.” Sascha took a sip of her drink. “I faced a lot of distrust when I first came in contact with DarkRiver. Trust takes time and a hundred small acts of loyalty to build—you have to be patient and so do I.”
Memory knew the other woman was right, that she couldn’t expect the world to just believe her, but that didn’t stop her from fuming about the unfairness of it. “Why do you think I’m not mad or broken? Why am I normal enough to pass?”
“Eat first,” Sascha ordered in a firm tone.
Memory picked up a sandwich with a grumpiness to rival Alexei’s. “Do all big sisters think they know best?”
Cheeks creasing, Sascha said, “From what I’ve seen, it’s in the manual. The nosiness and annoying interference-for-your-own-good is a pack thing.”
Memory smiled in spite of herself as she took a bite.
Only after she was halfway through her sandwich did Sascha speak. “Part of it is you,” she said, putting down her own sandwich. “You’re one of the strongest personalities I’ve ever come across—you shine, Memory, this strong solid light that refuses to waver.”
Memory made a face. “I came close to crumpling under Renault’s control so many times.”
“But you didn’t,” Sascha pointed out. “Own your courage.”
The words rang inside Memory’s skull, adding weight to the ones Ashaya had spoken. “He’s slithered away. The wolves found evidence of multiple murders in his home, but no signs of where he might’ve gone.”
“He’ll be hunted wherever he lands,” Sascha said with a grim smile. “I like the idea of him scrabbling for hiding spaces, don’t you?”
Yes, yes, she did. “If personality is one part,” she said, “what’s the other?” Renault had already consumed too much of her life; now, she had to focus on learning her own strengths and weaknesses.
“The fact you’re an E.” Sascha took another sip from her mug. “Renault may have blocked you from consciously accessing the PsyNet, but he couldn’t cut off your primitive biofeedback link without killing you, and the empathic ability works in a passive way regardless of Silence or shields. It doesn’t work as well, but it works.”
The cardinal tapped a fingernail against the tabletop. “This isn’t common knowledge, but at one point, the Council went about trying to eliminate Designation E from the gene pool. Eugenics on a massive scale.” Starless eyes held Memory’s. “What use are healers of the heart in a world without emotion?”
Memory froze, black horror curdling her stomach. “What happened?”
“The Correlation Concept. Psy began to lose their minds. Violence erupted. Chaos threatened.” Words that cut, Sascha’s anger a refined blade. “So the Council stopped its extermination program in favor of permitting Es to exist—while erasing all knowledge of the designation from the world. They told us we were nothing, failures.”
Right then, Memory saw that Sascha had lived and survived her own prison, rising to spit in the faces of those who would crush her. “You think that passive aspect worked in reverse to nurture me?”
“It explains your high emotional intelligence and innate sense of good and evil. You were raised by a psychopath and yet you’re a good, whole person.”
“Add spite to the list of reasons,” Memory muttered. “I stayed myself to spite him.”
Sascha’s lips kicked up. “Poor Lexie. I think I need to look out for him, not you. He has no idea who he’s messing with.”
“That stubborn grouchy wolf can go jump in a lava lake for all I care.”
Eyes filled with stars again, Sascha chuckled. “I spoke to Alice Eldridge, as we discussed before lunch, and she suggested that you might be one of the E-sigma.”
Sascha had told Memory that Alice was the closest thing the world had to an expert on Designation E. Put into forcible cryonic suspension over a hundred years ago, the researcher had awakened to a world that had altered beyond comprehension. All her friends and family dead, her research on empaths all but erased