Page 36 of Winterfall Destiny

I'd expected Andrei to make a snarky comment and walk away, but he steps through the door and closes it behind him to rest against the wood. "You want to look deeper in my mind than you have so far."

"That doesn't surprise you?" I ask.

"Come on, Tobias. I've felt you trying." He raises a brow. "At least you've asked now."

"You blocked me?"

"Do you like people looking in your mind without permission?" He slants his head. "In fact, has anybody found their way past your famously impenetrable barrier?"

"Maeve."

"Huh. And what did she see?"

What I allowed, apart from snatched memories of the Winterfalls before I slammed my mind shut. "Not much."

"Funny how you insist on looking into my mind for threats to Maeve when nobody knows what you harbour," he continues.

"I don't harbour anything," I reply tersely.

"Uh huh."

Jamie sighs. "Andrei. We just need to know if everything is okay with you."

He doesn't move. "If you want to check whether Maeve's safe with me, go ahead. I don't have the slightest desire to hurt her or any of you."

"This isn't only abut Maeve. You've changed physically, so you can't be untouched mentally too."

Drawing away from the door, Andrei sits in the seat opposite and leans forward, arms on his legs eyes fixed on mine. "You think I've the First in my mind, don't you? Are you worried that I'm secretly communicating with the creature?"

Jamie is. I'm unsure. "Perhaps not deliberately."

"Go ahead," he retorts. "If you see nothing, stop policing my every move."

"I am not policing you, Andrei."

"We're cautious, that's all," puts in Jamie.

Scowling, Andrei gestures at himself. "Like I said, go ahead. I've nothing to hide."

The ease with which he agrees reassures me, but what if Andrei doesn't know what's inside his mind?

"Do you feel the difference?" asks Jamie. "You don't look a hundred percent the same and there's something… off in your energy."

"I contain a primordial creature's blood. Maybe that's why?" he says sarcastically, looking to Jamie before returning his scrutiny to me. "What will you do if there's something you don't like in my mind, Tobias? Lock me up? Attempt to kill me?"

"Don't be absurd, Andrei."

"Yeah, because both would fail." He holds my gaze. "Just fucking look in my head if it'll get you off my back."

The times I've sneakily attempted to find my way into Andrei's head, I've hit a barrier similar to mine. Not the usual solid wall that repels mind reading use; something bright, as if looking into the sun, the brightness blinding. These attempts dazed me—what will penetrating Andrei's energy do if he allows me?

"Like I said, if you don't see anything that's a threat, I want you to stop watching my every move around Maeve." He flicks a look at Jamie. "Both of you."

I nod, but that's a request I can't meet. Not yet.

As I work my way inside Andrei's head, the blinding barricade doesn't appear this time. Although there's more familiar than unfamiliar, this isn't Andrei. I'd worried I'll find a void to match a necromancer's construct, but Andrei's mind's his own. The unusual energy that Andrei radiates centres inside him, mingled with his old self, and it's when I attempt to break through to there that I'm hit with the blinding defence.

Fuck. If I can't touch Andrei's mind, nobody can. Nothing could break through to take hold of and control him—not because he's protected but because my magic couldn't reach the place that controls his thoughts and actions.

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