Page 40 of Lost in Fire

“How long what?”

“How long have you been spying on me through our connection?”

Her jaw tightens. “It wasn’t spying.”

“What would you call it?”

She’s silent for a while, and then, “Self-indulgence,” she says softly, eyes straight ahead as we reach a dark vehicle.

“Vanya, I—”

“Get in.” She unlocks the car with a gesture, cutting off anything I might have been about to say.

I slide into the passenger seat, the leather cold against my back. She starts the engine, and we’re moving through the garage toward an exit that opens at her approach.

Sunlight hits us, blinding me after hours in the facility’s depths. I squint against the brightness as she guides us through city streets that blur past in unfamiliar patterns.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Somewhere safe.” She takes a right turn that carries us away from the Syndicate’s administrative district, toward residential areas I don’t recognize. “Somewhere they can’t find us.”

The drive stretches between us, filled with questions I’m afraid to ask and answers I’m not sure I want to hear. She’s taking usthrough a deliberate route—doubling back, changing directions, ensuring we’re not followed. Professional-level tradecraft.

“Tell me more about Ember.” The words slip out before I can stop them.

Vanya shoots a look at me before turning her attention back to the road ahead. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” I say. “What’s she like?”

A smile flickers across her face. “Like a ray of light. She’s brilliant. Stubborn. Gets that from both of us, I think.” She glances at me again. “She’s studying environmental science. Wants to save the world through sustainable agriculture.”

“Does she know? About magic? About what she is?”

“Some of it.” Vanya’s voice grows careful. “She knows she’s different. That she can do things others can’t. But I’ve kept her away from the deeper truths. Away from the politics and the bloodlines and the wars.”

“And me?”

The silence stretches too long.

I press harder. “She doesn’t know about me.” It’s not a question.

“I told her that her father died before she was born. It seemed… safer.”

“Safer?”

“I didn’t want her going looking for you, Hargen.” Her voice is tortured. “It was hard enough lying to her about being half-witch. But if she’d known her father was so close…” She trails off.

“She would have exposed all of us,” I say.

Vanya nods, her focus back on the road. “She’s like most kids. Impulsive. Headstrong. Like a dog with a bone when her mind’s set on something.” She pinches her lips together. “She wouldn’t understand the danger she’d be facing.”

We slip into silence as she keeps driving.

“What does she look like?” I change the angle of the conversation to something less troubling.

This time, her smile is radiant. “She has your eyes. Your chin. But her hair is pale like mine.” Vanya’s voice grows soft with remembered tenderness. “When she was little, it was almost snow white.”

The image forms in my mind—a young woman with serious dark eyes and hair like spun silver, carrying pieces of both of us in her features.

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