Page 22 of Caelum

My lips pursed at that. “Well, isn’t that kind of them?”

Nestor laughed a little. “I’m only telling you what I know.”

“Why, though?”

“How long is a piece of string?” he countered with a shrug, and I stared at him.

“I don’t know. How long is a piece of string?”

He snorted. “That’s the point. We don’t know. Some things are just ingrained in us. Why does Stefan have blond hair and I don’t?” Another shrug. “It’s in our genetics.”

Genetics. I thought about that word, thought about the definition, and remembered that it had been blotted out with a black pen in the dictionary. Some words were. I’d never understood why, had never bothered to question it, but now it made me wonder if those words went against the New Order’s rules.

I made a mental note to find a dictionary and for that word to be the first one I looked up.

Eren patted my knee. “Your soul will probably reveal itself close to graduation.”

“You know what you are?”

“Yes.”

“How?” I tilted my head to the side. “Do you choose?”

“No. It’s selected for us.”

“By whom? God?” I queried, my brow puckering with disquiet.

“No. It’s just another one of those questions that we don’t have answers to. It seems to be completely random, but I’m sure there’s a pattern that we just haven’t seen yet,” Eren told me, his voice steady, his eyes calm. As I looked at him, I felt that calm down to my marrow.

“Okay,” I replied, knowing he had no reason to lie to me. Blinking at Stefan, I asked, “So, which are you then?”

“I’m either a Lorelei or an Incubus.”

Eren stated, “They’re similar. Both are emotional souls that can tempt and entice…” He hesitated. “Humans.”

“Okay, so what do they do? How do they tempt and entice?” I thought about the words and tried to fit them to the souls I’d been living with for over six years. Which was which?

“Don’t you know by now?” Nestor rasped, making me hesitate.

“I don’t know what either means so I can’t say. I can imagine, but I don’t know the difference. There’s one day when my voice can make men do whatever I want. Then the next, they look at me like I’m a large meal and they’re starving.”

The boys shot each other wry glances, but it was Eren who spoke, “You pinpointed the Succubus and the Lorelei. An Incubus is a boy; a Succubus is a girl. She’s the one that makes the men look at you that way. That’s the soul in control today, isn’t it?”

My cheeks heated. “Yes.”

His smile was teasing. “Don’t worry. We’re used to it.”

That didn’t make me feel better.

“Oh,” I croaked. “Good, I suppose.”

They snickered together, but it wasn’t meant to be cruel.

Nestor said, “The voice one, that’s the Lorelei. The difference between the two is that the Lorelei can use their voice to make a human do whatever they want. If they’re powerful enough, they can even make creatures move at their command.”

I thought about how Merinda had sung a song and the entire compound had fallen asleep.

That was the definition of power, I felt sure.

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