Page 25 of The World Undone

“You know who my mother is?” I wracked my brain, trying to remember who all I’d told. But it was only my team, my friends.

Hurt flashed sharp and hot in my belly—had everyone known about Sayty? This whole time I’d been a part of The Guild, had people been seeing her written into my features, the way I saw Eli mapped into his mother’s? Was I the only one Cy had kept this secret from—the one who cared most about uncovering it?

She nodded, her expression distant, like she was trapped in a memory. “I didn’t know Sayty nearly as well as Cy did but, yes, she was around our team a lot and we were friends, more or less. When you joined The Guild, I had my suspicions about who you might be, why he’d taken you in—he’d always had such an uncharacteristic soft spot for her.” The sharp corners of her eyes softened. “It was sweet. Seamus never confirmed, of course. He’d never go against his brother’s wishes, even for me—but seeing you now, it’s undeniable.”

Her stare met mine, harsh and unrelenting. “If others don’t see her in you, it’s because they aren’t looking. The Guild hated her, did everything they could to erase her from our collective memories. But she was a good person, Max. And so was Cy. I don’t know what happened to her in the end, but I’m glad that you had him, and that he had you—and I’m sorry that, like her, he was taken from you too.” I had to turn away from the compassion pooling in her eyes, unsure what to do with it. “I’ll admit, the thought of Cyrus Bentley parenting an orphan girl is a surreal, amusing one. I’m truly, very sorry that he is gone. We didn’t always get along or see things the same way, but the world certainly grew dimmer when he left it.”

My throat was tight, words difficult to form. I swallowed, blinking back the film over my eyes. But a flash of hope sparked at what this meant.

Evelyn was perhaps the only person in this realm who knew my mother.

“My family—” I licked my lips, the phrase sticking strangely on my tongue when used to refer to anyone other than Cy and Ro, “Sayty’s family, I mean. Do you know them? Cy said she had a brother—a twin. Saif. Have you met him?” My fingers drummed anxiously on the cool tabletop. I pulled them back to reign in my nerves, my desperation. “Or her line of protectors—could you point me to any of them?”

Her brows lifted slightly, the only evidence of her surprise. “I didn’t know that Sayty had a brother, no.” She paused, considering, “In truth, I knew very little about her in general—and almost nothing about her family, where she came from before The Guild.” She shook her head, “Even the council has sparse details of where—who—she comes from.”

That small spark of hope dimmed, until it died out altogether. “Right. It was a long shot.”

“But I do know several people from other lines of protectors.” She smiled, her brow arching slightly. “In fact, so do you.”

I sat up straighter, folded my hands nervously in my lap. “I do?”

She nodded. “And you don’t have to go looking far at all.”

“I don't?”

“From my understanding, The Lodge and Lake Cadaver are owned by one of these lines. Protectors who split from The Guild many years ago, as far back as records go, who have long hated what that institution stands for—it makes sense that they would be the foundation of the group building a resistance against it, does it not?”

“Charlie—” I started to ask, but Evelyn shook her head.

“I don’t really know the details. Protectors, and supernaturals in general, are private people. Trust is a complicated practice when lives are at stake. But from what I understand, Charlie doesn’t own this place. She’s just inherited the restaurant from an absent uncle who passed years ago. The traces of protector in her blood, however, I assume are from such a line, yes.” She paused for a moment, her smile reaching all the way to her eyes now. “I hear you are particularly fond of our nurse.”

“Greta?”

She nodded again. “She worked at The Guild for most of her life, but she did not grow up there. Her family is from a line of protectors who turned away from The Guild. And she was always quite fond of Sayty. She might be a good place for you to start on this search.”

I chewed on the information for a moment, revisiting my memory of Greta and laying this new insight to her past on top—an overlay that provided new depth.

Did she know that I was Sayty’s daughter? She’d taken an instant liking to me, seemed to trust me from the moment I stepped foot in The Guild’s med ward. There was also something different about her—she always seemed to be just a little bit, I don’t know…more than the other adults at Headquarters. Cy had said that protectors from that line—or those lines, perhaps they’d branched even further over the years—had a different kind of power, a different kind of magic. One that hadn’t diluted over time like The Guild’s, because it honored balance rather than destroying it.

Was that what I’d been sensing in her—a likeness, a familiarity, a connection to my mother’s community?

Why hadn’t Greta ever said anything to me?

Evelyn’s head tilted to the side slightly, sympathy etched into the soft lines around her eyes. “I know how alluring uncovering the past might be for you, Max. How tempting it is to dig out a family history when you’ve just laid a part of your family to rest.”

My stomach tightened at the warning, laced with pity.

“Find the answers you seek, but make sure they don’t come at the expense of what truly matters right now.” She took a deep, steadying breath, like she was folding the sadness encasing me back into herself. Then she pulled a thin file from inside the larger one in front of her, and slid it across the table until the words printed on the tab were face up for me to read.

Max Bentley.

I glanced up, not bothering to hide my surprise. “What is this?”

“Levi found the information they have on you, during one of his clandestine perusals of Headquarters.”

I grunted, not bothering to ask how Levi always seemed to be in places he shouldn’t be—how he always seemed to walk away undetected, unscathed. I knew she wouldn’t answer.

“I didn’t want to scare you, to drop this bomb in front of everyone.” She scrunched her nose, leaning back in the chair. “I know how uncomfortable it can be to have that kind of spotlight on you when you’re trying to process so many big things yourself. It seemed only fair that you decide when and with whom to share this information—to process it before everyone jumps into action.”

---