Chapter 223

Sarah POV

A gamma took us to our rooms, explaining that the children were still with the horses.

“Your head of security, Agent Travis, assigned two guards to them,” the gamma said before leaving us alone in another opulent but tasteful suite.

Zane looked at me. “What did you think of her?”

I shrugged. “She’ll either be a great friend or a terrifying enemy, but I have no idea which.”

“She’s right about the strength of the Orleans-Cavendish alliance, but that friendly curiosity on display could be a smoke screen.”

Someone knocked on our door.

“Come in,” Zane called, and there we were face-to-face with Delia; the Torrins were close behind.

“You look great!” I told Delia while she took me into a hug, hoping I wasn’t being tactless. The pale, scrawny girl who could barely hold up a photograph looked whole and healthy, and she felt nicely solid in my arms.

“I feel like I’m at a class reunion,” the ambassador said before she also gave me a hug. Claude settled for just taking my hand in his, then he looked around.

“Did we lose Ted?” he asked just before the alpha showed in the doorway, holding a laptop. “Oh, here we go.”

“The reception here is much better than in my room,” Ted complained, barely making eye contact before she parked herself on a plush light green sofa that matched the drapes.

“Can we get you all some tea or something?” I asked.

“I’ve asked for some champagne to be brought up, actually,” the ambassador said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Not a bit.”

“I’m more of a beer guy,” Shotz said as he entered with Melissa.

“Look what I found wandering around,” she said.

I went to the phone and asked for some beer and sandwiches. While I was listening to options, Travis, Alicia, Whitfield, and Lainey all walked in together. Soon enough, we were sitting down, and although I had truly worried that in person we might not get along as well, it was remarkably pleasant.

It occurred to me that for an orphan, I had made quite the family for myself.

“Huh,” I said just to myself.

Zane caught it, of course, and looked at me with his brows raised. I just whispered I’d tell him later.

“So, how are things at the mine?” Alicia asked Shotz.

“I hardly recognize the place,” he answered. “And the conversion to thermal is ahead of schedule, if you can believe it.”

“Where are you with that?”

“We’re currently installing heat exchange tubes before we go on to the backfill placement. Initial testing from the validated numerical model has shown that we can expect about 24 gigawatts of thermal energy storage capacity per stope.”

Alicia nodded. “Is that a lot?”

“One gigawatt is generally enough to power almost 900,000 houses for a year.”

She nodded again more slowly. “So, that’s a lot.”

Shotz grinned. “Yup.”

Melissa sighed. “Makes me wish that’s the sort of thing all the Pack Alphas were here to talk about, not whether or not the Luna Temple is going to lead us all into mass hysteria and rioting in the streets.”

“Surely the fact that things have been so calm is a good sign?” Claude asked.

“I worry it’s the calm before the storm,” Zane said. “People don’t really seem to know how to feel yet, and, I don’t know, it could go either way.”

“I know Orleans Territory is more free-thinking and relaxed about certain things than other places,” the ambassador said. “But we’ve seen signs even here that violence may be brewing. People feel tricked, and that can lead to a lot of anger.”

“I think one of the main issues is that people didn’t realize how many omegas there actually are,” Melissa said. “I’ve talked to people who believed they’d all but died out, and now we know they’ve been filling the temples.”

“The power issue is bigger,” Whitfield said. “People think they’ve been exiling and subjugating the omegas, and instead they’ve been taking orders from them.”

“Orders,” Lainey said, “that’s a good point.”

“How so?” Zane asked.

“Well, the Oracles don’t really give orders, do they? We should try to stress it’s all been about spiritual guidance, and even the staunchest anti-omega objector has to acknowledge that omegas are closer to spiritual forces. That’s one of the reasons they’ve been so distrusted.”

“Well, this incident with Sarah and Oracle Janine—how odd to call one by name—isn’t going to help in the trust department,” Whitfield said. He looked at me. “You would not believe some of the stories going around about that.”

“I think I probably would,” I said.

“Did they really try to breed you with a priest?” Delia asked, and in her eyes I saw our shared horror over that sort of thing.

“Yes, but it wasn’t going to happen. I mean, I wasn’t frightened. I didn’t even feel like I was in danger. The whole thing was so farcical, and of course, I was pretty stoned.”

“But how did you get out of it?” Delia asked. “How did you escape?”

“Zane was there,” I said. I looked at him and couldn’t help feeling a wave of gratitude, among other things. “He rescued me.”

Several people looked rather meaningfully at each other.

“What?” I asked.

“We’re not really going to talk about the elephant in the room, are we?” Lainey asked.

“No, considering the stakes, we’re not,” Melissa said.

Zane and I realized what they were talking at pretty much the same instant, looking at each other in some alarm.

“Hey, the secret’s safe with us,” Claude said, smirking just slightly. “Though that it has to stay secret is a shame, if you ask me.”

“No one is asking you, dear,” his mother said. He looked annoyed but took a drink of his champagne.

The door opened then, and we all turned to watch Grace and Chloe walk in, smiling madly and smelling of horses.

“The stables are huge!” Chloe said, walking inside.

“And so clean,” Grace said.

“Then why do you smell so much?” I asked. “Go take a bath, both of you.”

Chloe nodded but grabbed her tablet and turned it on on the way to the bathroom. She was about to close the door behind her when Ted’s head came up.

“Chloe, please come back here.”

Chloe turned around, obviously wondering if she were in trouble.

Ted held out her hand. “Please, I need to see your tablet.”

Chloe handed it over. Ted pulled up a command screen and then looked back at her own laptop.

“What is it?” Zane asked.

“A backdoor. The tablet’s communicating with a remote server.”

“Chloe, have you given your tablet to someone else to play with?”

“No. You told me not to.”

“No one’s touched it but you?”

She shrugged. “Well, Grace sometimes, and Dr. Hayes.”

“Dr. Hayes has been working on your tablet?”

“Sure, to give us assignments and things.”

Zane and I looked at each other, then back at Ted.

“Girls, go take your baths now. You can have your tablets back in a bit.”

Looking a little uncertain, but smiling back when their father winked at them, Grace and Chloe went through the door, closing it behind them.

Zane got out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Travis asked.

“Having Dr. Hayes arrested.”