Eden and Ansley overturned a table, then slid it toward the center of the room. As they worked, Eden narrowed her gaze and looked at Ansley. “You knew about all of this, didn’t you?” With gold-streaked brown hair confined in a tight French braid, Eden’s angular features were starkly expressive. “How long have you known?”
“Neeva told me when I was picked to be her replacement.” A soft gasp drew Ansley’s attention to her left.
Kendra, one of their dorm mates, must have heard what Eden said because she was staring at them nearly in tears. “He claimed that we’re aliens. Do you believe him?”
“An alien is simply someone who was not born on Earth. We’re Altorians from the planet Altor. Or most of us are anyway.”
They turned over another table and the three women slid it toward the center of the room. “Then the other names he listed are planets?” Eden asked, clearly unconvinced.
“There are four inhabitable planets in our star system, Altor, Torret, Pyron, and Houkdi, but almost all of us are from Altor.”
“Start at the beginning,” Eden suggested as they all grabbed chairs and carried them toward the nearest doorway. “Why did the founders come to Earth?”
One glance around told Ansley that most of the women didn’t believe what Ratan had told them. Or at the very least, they didn’t know what to believe. That would change quickly when the hunters arrived. “We’re part of a group of people who were genetically engineered to manipulate magic.”
A sharp, humorless laugh drew Ansley’s attention to Jessie, a particularly outspoken resident. “We’re not just aliens. We’remagicalaliens?”
Ansley sighed. The last thing she needed was a heckler. There was a ton she needed to explain and Jessie would just slow her down. She placed her chair on the barricade and headed across the room for more.
Kendra touched her on the arm and asked in a soft, unsteady tone, “If what you’re saying is true, why can’t any of us do magic?”
Reaching the center barricade, she helped place the final table before she offered more information. “I didn’t take their word for it. I’ve seen videos and I’ve read detailed reports proving that all of this is real.” Work paused as everyone listened to Ansley’s explanation. “The ability to manipulate magic was broken into three separate gifts. This keeps any one person from becoming too powerful. All three gifts are required for magic to flow. That’s why none of us can do anything magical right now. When the three parts combine, it’s called a power triad.”
“What are the three parts?” Jessie wanted to know.
“A source, a conduit, and a controller,” Ansley provided. “Sources and controllers are always male, and conduits are female.”
“So, we’re conduits?” Kendra’s brows drew together as she fit the pieces together.
“Yes,” Ansley confirmed. “Except we’re not just regular conduits. We’re second-level conduits. That means we’re new and improved to be even more powerful than our predecessors. The last time a group of conduits like us was produced, a long and bloody war resulted.”
“This is such bullshit,” Jessie muttered, then stormed across the room to help move the final few tables. About half of the crowd went with her.
“I’ve seen videos of the Citadel,” Ansley stressed, making eye contact with the ones still huddled around her. “I’ve seen power triads in action. What they can do—what we will be able to do—is staggering. The founders aren’t making this up.”
“You better hurry,” Eden urged. “I didn’t get the impression that they’d be gone long.”
Ansley nodded and tried harder to condense the information. The interested women quickly gathered the remaining chairs and used them to fill in the gaps around the overlapping tables. Ansley spoke louder, hoping everyone could hear. “The founders are old enough to remember the Controller Wars. Mistress Neeva and Director Ratan lost the rest of their family because of the conflict. The founders were determined to keep it from happening again. That’s why they brought us to Earth.”
Eden’s eyes narrowed as she shook her head. “Did they expect us to live on this island for the rest of our lives? Some of us have never even been to Sitka, and those who have were closely supervised.”
Kendra nodded enthusiastically. “Mistress Neeva loves to call this place a hobby farm, but it’s more like a convent, or a prison.”
One of the others picked up where Kendra left off. “They encourage us to watch TV and movies, even give us access to the internet. Why won’t they let us actually interact with the outside world?”
“The integration program was about to begin.” Neeva hadn’t explained the rest to Ansley. She’d figured it out on her own. Neeva had given Ansley access to the information that had allowed her to unravel the mystery, but all the secrecy was frustrating as hell. “We started complaining about persistent restlessness and strange, erotic dreams, so the integration program was put on hold.”
“We’re bored and sexually frustrated,” Kendra grumbled. “It can’t surprise anyone that we’re having erotic dreams.”
“Our abilities are suppressed with a chemical blocker. That blocker is losing its effectiveness.” Everything Ansley had told them so far was documented fact. What she was about to share now was utter supposition. Maybe it was better to keep her theories to herself. No, they were starving for understanding. If truth be told, so was she. “I think that’s what happened to Jodi. I think her power… flipped on and her body couldn’t handle it.”
A long, tense silence followed, and Ansley sighed. It looked like her impulse had been wrong. Everyone was stressed out enough. Besides, she had no proof that the seizure had anything to do with the suppressants starting to fail.
“Wouldn’t human doctors be able to help if we’re heading into a medical crisis?” Kendra asked, tears escaping the corners of her eyes.
“If humans learn what we really are, we’ll spend the rest of our lives as lab rats or worse,” Eden insisted. “Humans have never been tolerant of anyo—”
Flashes of golden light snapped Ansley’s attention to her left.