Page 91 of Anchor

“I know that, baby. I know—I believe you, it’s not that.” He kissed my forehead.

“Then what it is? You’re scaring me, Taland.”

“Hill isourguy, sweetness,” he said, and I stopped breathing. “His mother was a Mergenbach, his grandfather one of the original founders of Selem. Hill is at the very head of the organization, together with his cousins and my brothers—Radock and Kaid.”

My ears whistled—loudly.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“Hill put me in that school for the veler. Hill told me how to find the Strongroom and how to deactivate the wards. It was because of him that I made it that far.”

His voice echoed in my head. His words tried to stick to my brain, to make sense, but they couldn’t. They were just too absurd.

“No,” was all I could say for a moment. Justno.

“Selem has been after that veler for safekeeping since the beginning, but it wasn’t until I was old enough for high school that Hill thought it was time to take it into our own hands,” Taland continued.

“But…but he’s the director of the IDD. If he wanted the damn veler, he could have just gotten it! He could havemadeone, he could have…he…” I couldn’t speak. Words kept evading me.

“He is, but the Council still runs thing around here. Hill couldn’t justtakeit for himself without them knowing about it. And the veler that was in our school is different, made of old magics, with spells that are not used for velers anymore. That’s why Selem wanted that one. It’s the most powerful veler in existence today—that we know of,” he explained.

“Taland, I…I’m pretty sure Hill gave the order to shoot you,” I choked. “I’m pretty,pretty-pretty-prettysure.”

He shook his head, pale as a ghost still, his eyes dark even though the first sunlight of the day was falling on the side of his face.

“And he told you to follow me during the Feast?”

I nodded. “He called me when I left the party and told me to keep following you together with the agents he’d sent there.”

“Hesent the agents?”

“Yes, he did. He called me—on the phone thathegave me, and onlyheknew about. He called me and he said to keep my eyes on you, and then…and then that order…” I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply. The voice was there in my ears, the memory so fresh, so raw. It was Hill’s voice. I was ninety-nine percent certain of it. Hill had given that order.

“It was his idea to use the Feast of Hope as a disguise,” Taland mumbled. “His idea.”

“I swear I’m telling you the truth, Taland. I swear it. I don’t really have any proof, but?—”

“Sweetness, stop talking.” He took my face in his hand and came closer and closer until the tips of our noses touched. “You don’t need proof. You don’t need to swear. I know you’re not lying.”

I swallowed hard. “He took the phone when I went back to the mansion. I can’t?—”

“I don’t care.” He kissed me on the lips. “You’re not allowed to swear or try toproveanything about anything—do you understand me? I believe you more than I believe myself.”

I nodded and I smiled, like his words didn’t mean the absolute world to me. “Okay.”

“Good,” he said, and kissed me again. “Because this is much worse than I imagined.”

He lay down and brought me with him, put me on the pillow gently. Like that, we were face-to-face, eye level, our hands intertwined together between us, our legs tangled.

“The file doesn’t exist for real,” I said because now that I knew he believed me, I could think more clearly. “Radock said it didn’t—and of course he didn’t believe me when I said the IDD sent me! Of course, he didn’t!”

Now it made sense when his brothers had me chained to that basement and were questioning me. I said the IDD had sent me on that mission, and they didn’t believe me.

“Goddess, it was never the IDD—it was Hill. Just Hill.” And I’d been too blind to see it.

Taland brought my hands to his lips and kissed my fingers. “A double agent?” he wondered.

“Maybe. I had your file in my hands—a professor brought it to me the third day of the school. It had your picture and yourinformation, and it said that you were part of this secret rebel organization. The name was not disclosed, but Isawthat file. When I returned home, he asked my grandmother to take it from me together with the phone. I’ve been searching for that file since I came back from the Iris Roe, Taland. It doesn’t exist.”

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