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  “Ronald, go watch Dee do her voodoo upstairs, would you?” I say to the empty side of the sofa.

  “Are you talking to yourself, Em?” Zack says as he approaches from the dining room, a subtle smile on his mouth.

  “According to the ancient artifact in there,” I say, motioning to the dining room where my tutu is still stationed, “I’m talking to Ronald, the Reverian who used to live in this house. He discovered gold in the mountains west of here and helped to found this society, but yes, I’m probably talking to myself.”

  “That artifact has some pretty amazing tidbits of knowledge,” Zack says as I walk with him to the foyer.

  “How old did she tell you she is? Because she always lies about her age.”

  “One hundred and nine years old.”

  I roll my eyes. “She’s ninety-nine,” I say with a laugh. “She’s the only lady alive who lies to make herself older.”

  “Except those outside of Austin Valley, trying to buy alcohol or lottery tickets,” Zack says, taking off his jacket and slinging it over his arm. His pressed white shirt glows in the dim light of the entryway.

  I slide up close to him, nervous tension bounding out of my chest. “I have something I need to tell you.”

  He eyes me speculatively, caution on his face. “Go ahead.”

  My eyes sweep around the various rooms that surround us and then settle back on Zack. “It’s Rogue,” I say so low it’s hardly classified as a whisper.

  His eyes pinch together, confusion in them.

  “He’s alive. I saw him today,” I say, realizing how crazy these words make me sound.

  Zack is already shaking his head. Looking at me like I’m trying to play a mean joke on him. His lips tighten, along with his eyes. “Em,” he says, a warning in his voice.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I swear the gods can strike me down now if I’m lying.”

  We pause. Wait. They’ve done it before so that’s a bold statement not just anyone will throw out.

  Nothing happens to me.

  “He said he’s been hiding,” I say in an urgent whispered rush. “Said no one can know he’s alive.”

  “Em,” Zack says again in the same disbelieving tone, but this time he grabs my arm.

  “He asked me to meet him tonight,” I say, laying my hand over his.

  Zack pauses. Searches my eyes. Winces with acute disbelief.

  “Go with me,” I urge him.

  “But we can’t. There’s curfew and—”

  “I know. Just go with me,” I say again. “You’re not going to believe me unless you see him with your own eyes and I’m telling you he’s alive. Not dead. Not missing. I wouldn’t lie to you. I never have. You have to—”

  “I’ll go,” he interrupts. “If you say he’s alive, I believe you, Em.”

  Chapter Six

  Half an hour. That’s as much time as Tutu said she’d cover for me. I’m supposedly in her quarters, learning to sew. If my mother paid the least bit of attention then she’d know I learned that years ago. Her job is more to keep tabs on me, rather than know the specifics of my life. She always wanted a Middling nanny for us, but Father wouldn’t allow it. He said they were good enough to clean our house, manicure us, and cook our meals, but they weren’t fit to raise Dream Traveler children.

  “Come on,” I say, tugging on Zack’s shirt sleeve. “Can you go any faster?”

  Everything about him is reluctant. I’m not sure how I’d have reacted if the tables were turned, if he told me something so outlandish. I want to think I’d believe him instantly, not drudge down the path like I’m on my way to meet a mythical sea creature in the forest.

  Rogue and I didn’t have time to discuss where to meet, but I know where he’ll be. In our spot. The place past the two ponds, far out of the way of the heavy traffic of park visitors. It’s where we’d spend hours lying in the grass watching clouds slide through the sky. It’s where I accidentally pierced Rogue’s ear with a stick when we were pretending to duel as pirates. Zack threw up in the stream afterwards.

  A broad-shouldered figure stands beside that stream now, his hair catching slightly in the warm breeze. It’s hard to know as we approach if it’s Rogue, since the only light is cast by the moon and he stands in the shadow of an oak tree. The figure turns his head when a twig cracks under my foot. And then I see a profile so familiar and also not quite what I remember. The jaw line is more pronounced than in my memories. The angle of his nose more defined. His hair not governed by gel, instead curling at his hairline.

  And then Zack finally moves with an urgency to surpass mine. He’s sprinting, tearing across the grass. In one swift movement he throws his arms around Rogue’s shoulders, wrenching him in tightly. Rogue stumbles back a step and then his arms stretch around, gripping Zack’s back. A laugh echoes from him. A soothing sound. I arrive at their side and over Zack’s shoulder Rogue smiles at me. “I told you not to tell anyone, but I knew you knew that meant ‘tell only one person.’ I’m glad you did,” he says, opening up his arm and pulling me in so we’re all locked in an embrace. I want to live in this moment for the rest of my life. Forever and ever I want to feel Zack’s disbelief come in small laughs and Rogue’s arms around my shoulders, his fingers pinning into my skin like he can’t believe I’m the one who’s real. A sound halfway between a cry and a cough rolls out of my mouth, unleashing a tender ache within.

  There’s a stern look on Zack’s face when he pulls back. “Rogue, where have you been, man?”

  He challenges the look with a light smile. Pats Zack on the shoulder. “Oh, brother, I’ve been all over.”

  They aren’t brothers, but since I can remember Rogue called him that. Zack never returned the nickname, maybe because I suspect he never felt equal enough to him. Maybe that’s changed.

  “What does that mean, Rogue?” Zack shakes his head, his initial relief now turning to anger. “Four years ago you just disappeared. What’s happened to you?”

  “I had to leave. I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you I didn’t have a choice. You have to believe me.” Rogue turns to me. “Em, I told you I’d tell you stuff and I’m gonna make right on that promise, I promise.” He smiles, a dimple surfacing. After all this time, he hasn’t changed. Is never quite serious.

  I nod, feeling entranced briefly. Rogue is built more like a Middling with strong, sculpted muscles. Broad shoulders. A barrel chest. Dark olive skin. He’s dressed like a Middling too. Jeans and boots. He looks so strange next to Zack, who exchanged his suit for khakis and a button-down shirt. He’s slim. Lean. Pale. Hair pushed back in the usual arrangement.

  “Your father?” Zack reaches out and clutches Rogue’s bicep. “Does he know you’re alive?”

  “No!” Rogue says, clapping a hand over Zack’s, gripping it. “I mean, he might, but you can’t tell him you’ve seen me. He’s who I’ve been hiding from.”

  “President Vider?” I say in disbelief. “Why would you hide from him?” My father, as his Chief of Staff, was there a lot for the President after Rogue disappeared. For months we didn’t see my father, his job as support to the President coming first.

  “The Reverians aren’t who you all think.” Rogue clutches either side of his head like a sudden pain just assaulted him. He takes in a few shallow breaths before continuing. “My father, your President, isn’t who you think he is. Right before I disappeared I learned something so unbelievable I had to leave, had to save myself from it.”

  “You couldn’t tell us?” Zack asks, sounding hurt. “You had to allow us to think you were dead?”

  Rogue nods. Shrugs. “I didn’t have a chance. I had to. I didn’t want to hurt you with what I knew. You were better off not knowing.” He blows out an exasperated breath. “Because once the blindfold comes off there’s no going back.”

  “But you said you’d tell me—”

  He claps me on the shoulder. “And I will.” He’s so much taller now. Stands a foot over me, a couple inches over Zack. “Just gi
ve me a minute to enjoy looking at your faces. I’ve missed them every day since I left.”

  My reply is imprisoned under delicate tears, aching to be released. I step forward, slide my hands around his waist, bury my head in his shoulder. With an urgency to match my racing heart he wraps his arms around me and tugs me in tightly. “Em, how am I supposed to see your face like this?” Rogue says, a laugh in his voice, his grip comforting.

  I laugh and it’s enough to release a single tear which streams down my cheek as I step back. Rogue spies the tear and swipes it away with his thumb. “Oh, stop that, would you, Em? Reunions are supposed to be happy.”

  I nod, feeling small, like a child. His thumb still rests on my jaw. His eyes still rest on mine. “In the four years I’ve been gone, the gods made you more beautiful, didn’t they?”

  I don’t respond. All my efforts work to force the knot out of my constricted throat.

  “Why are you back after four years?” Zack asks, pulling Rogue’s attention away from me. We part, opening back into the three-person circle.

  “Oh, Zachariah, again with the questions,” Rogue says, a laugh in his voice. “Can’t you see we’re having a moment?”

  A trace of a smile edges Zack’s lips. Rogue was the only one who could make him a little less serious. His eyes flash on me, an unreadable expression in them, then they’re back on Rogue. “Why are you back?” Zack asks again. I know the wheels of his brain are working. He’s doing what he’s been taught: asking strategic questions, not just the curious ones.

  “Fine. Fine. I’ll give you some answers. Not that one. But I’ll tell you a few things I know,” Rogue says, rubbing his temple.

  “Why won’t you tell us everything?” I ask.

  “Em, there are things you’re better off not knowing,” Rogue says, a haunting in his voice now.

  “How can you dangle the presence of some troubling knowledge in front of us and then keep it a secret?” I ask.

  “Because if I could unknow some things, I would. Why would I want my two favorite people to be troubled by knowledge they can’t erase or forget?” he says, a strange look in his eyes.

  “Well, tell us what you will,” Zack encourages.

  Rogue nods. “Em”—he turns to me—“you heard that baby in the lab, didn’t you?”

  I nod.

  “I thought so. That’s what had you sneaking around, wasn’t it?”

  Zack whips in my direction, a punishing glare pinned on me. “You were sneaking around the lab? Are you trying to get yourself in trouble again?”

  “Oh, let up on her,” Rogue says. “It’s how she found me. Anyway, my father has the labs experimenting on Middling children. Not just experimenting, but using them. The things he’s done—”

  “Are to preserve our race,” Zack says, nodding. “I’m aware of this. He’s been using Middlings to fix the Defect crisis.”

  “You knew about this?” I slap Zack on the arm and return the punishing look he just gave me.

  “They’re helping you,” he says.

  “Oh no, Em,” Rogue says, pushing his hair off his forehead. “They put you on the Defect list?”

  I scrunch up my face in confusion. “Put? What does that mean?”

  He waves me off. “Nothing, you misunderstand.”

  “So you left because they’re using Middlings?” Zack asks.

  “I left for that reason and more.”

  “Look, I get that your father is a demanding man,” Zack says, “but did you have to leave?”

  I remember the bruises Rogue used to hide. The way he always kept his face light when I asked him about returning home after curfew. “No biggie,” he’d say, but I always spied the pain below his mask.

  “I had to leave,” he says and backs up. “It was the only way for me.”

  “Your gift? Is it still gone?” Zack asks, stepping forward.

  Rogue was the first Defect. Since he’s a little older than me, by several months, I hadn’t been classified yet. That was the hardest year I ever remember. I lost one of my best friends and became a Defect.

  He smiles, a triumphant look in his eyes. “Oh no, my gift has come.”

  “That’s great, man,” Zack says. “What is it?”

  “Well, you, my brother, as a telekinetic may be able to move things with your mind, but can you do this?” Out of the humid air a single mauve dahlia pops into Rogue’s hand. They only grow in one place in town, around the first duck pond at the entrance of the park. “I have the gift of apportation.”

  “Wait,” Zack says, taking the flower from Rogue. Inspecting it. “You transported that, didn’t you?”

  “Yep,” Rogue smiles broadly. “I pulled it through the window, so to speak. I have to be relatively close and know exactly where the object is, but I can manifest anything of moderate size into the palm of my hand. Neat, huh?”

  Zack slides his hand over his smoothed back hair. “That’s incredible. There’s no recorded history of an apportational in the Reverian society. You’re the first.”

  “Well, since I’m supposedly dead, don’t go off bragging, would you?”

  “How long are you staying?” I ask.

  “Not sure yet,” Rogue says, turning his too alluring eyes directly on me. “Depends on how long it takes.”

  “Takes to do what?”

  “Nice try,” he says, shaking his head.

  Zack steps up close to Rogue, tilts his head back and forth, inspecting him. “You know, besides needing a clean shave, you look pretty good.”

  “Oh, come on,” Rogue says, brandishing a giant smile, his teeth perfect on the top and perfectly crooked on the bottom. “I look great, brother,” he says, slapping Zack on the shoulder.

  Chapter Seven

  “You called for me, Mother?” I say, standing up tall, chin held high.

  She nods, stands from the Victorian couch in the sitting room, and waves her hand in a presenting manner at the man standing next to her. He’s a stranger. It is rare to find one of those in Austin Valley. “Yes, I’d like you to meet who President Vider hired to do skills evaluations on all Defects.” The man beside her has spiky red hair, a similar shade as my mother’s. He looks to be in his mid-forties, and by the style of his dark green suit, he definitely isn’t a Reverian. Another clue is that he has a pointy red goatee and all Dream Traveler Reverians are required to be clean shaven.

  “Name’s Ren,” he says, not extending a hand to me.

  “Hello,” I say with a small curtsy. “Nice to meet you. I’m Em.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t name her after Mummy,” he says to my mother, his words coated in a British accent.

  She rolls her eyes. A strange gesture for her to do to someone who isn’t one of her children. “Shut up, Ren. You know I’d never do something so sentimental and downright repulsive.”

  “No, Lyza, you’d have to have a heart to do that, and we both know you don’t,” he says to my mother, a smug look on his face.

  “A heart pumps blood. I obviously have one of those,” she says, smoothing back a strand of hair into her tight bun. “What I don’t have is this useless capacity for caring.”

  “Always the literal one, aren’t you?” Ren says.

  “This man, Ren, happens to also be my brother,” my mother says, not hiding the disappointment in her voice.

  “Happens?” he says, actually looking amused. “Like it’s one big happenstance that we were born from the same parents?”

  “What I mean is that the person who was hired by the President just happens to be related to me,” my mother says, cinching her arms across her chest.

  I didn’t know my mother had a brother. Never met her parents. She doesn’t talk to us about them. About anything really. “Why does he have an accent and you don’t?” I finally say, breaking the staring contest between them.

  Mother sighs loudly. “Because my brother doesn’t subscribe to the fact that accents lead to labeling and the best way to gain advantage is to have nothing marking you w
ith where you’re from,” she says with her typical perfect diction.

  “So we’re British?” I ask, confused.

  “No, we are Reverians.”

  A loud, thick yawn echoes from Ren. “Although this family reunion is incredibly touching, can we get to the reason I’m here, which isn’t to exchange stories of what we’ve been doing for the last twenty years?”

  I step forward, studying the man in front of me. Disbelief and curiosity take turns overwhelming my thoughts. “Wait, you’re my uncle?”

  “Don’t call me that,” Ren says, looking disgusted. “And yes, technically I am. I don’t send Christmas presents, don’t care about your grades, and I don’t give piggyback rides.”

  “We don’t celebrate Christmas,” is all I say. I’d heard about this weird tradition from a new Middling who had started working at the Agricultural Center.

  “No, I remember now my dear sister belongs to the Reverians’ religion, which is based on myths that are likened to unicorns. Do yourself a favor, luv, and pick up a world religion book. It will blow your mind. Although, come to think about it, diverse texts are probably banned here,” Ren says.

  My mother throws a seething glance at her brother. “I see you haven’t changed a bit, have you, Ren?”

  “Oh yes, I’m just as delightful as ever,” he says.

  “Which is why you’re still alone, hopping from job to job, society to society, is that right?” my mother says.

  “Being alone is a choice, dear Lyza. Some of us don’t need the money and prestige of a significant other. Some of us make our own way in the world, but you wouldn’t know about that, would you? How long has it been since you ventured out of this valley? Really ventured out, on your own, not some organized dream travel field trip managed and supervised by the Reverians?”

  “I still fail to see why President Vider hired you for this job,” she says, her anger flaring in every word. I’ve hardly ever seen her this flustered, my mother, the queen of pretense.