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I looked at the fifth place at the head of the table. "Asha's coming?"

Namere nodded. "She feels she has recovered sufficiently to join us."

Well, this should be interesting.

I started to take a seat at one of the places along the side, but Namere stopped me. "No," she said. "That is your place." She gestured to the seat at the head of the table.

"All right." I moved over to take the place she designated. I'd have bet money that this had been Asha's seat until yesterday. So, correction: this meal was going to be very interesting. Caelan and Thane brought pots and pans of steaming food out from the kitchen and set it down on the table. Mashed potatoes, rolls, rice. "Carbo-load much?" I muttered. Then I said in a louder voice, "Do you need help with anything?" Thane and Caelan paused and looked over at me. Namere 173

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hastened to my side to lean over. "They are responsible for the cooking of food," she whispered.

"Why?" I whispered back.

"Because Asha and now, you, are the better warrior." Thane apparently had no patience for pretend secrecy in a telepathic world. "Your time is better spent otherwise."

"That's a bunch of crap." I frowned. "If you like doing it, that's fine. Otherwise, everyone should have a shot at it." Thane immediately dropped a pan of chicken breasts on the table. "Do you mean this?" he asked. I looked at Namere who was practically squirming in discomfort. "Uh, yeah?" I answered a bit uncertainly. The first smile I'd ever seen from Thane spread across his face, lightening his features considerably. "It is difficult work, and I will be glad to do it less often." But then his face fell, his familiar scowl returning. "But Asha will not support this." Namere nodded anxiously. Caelan lifted a shoulder, a small smile playing on his lips, as if to say, what are you going to do?

"She's not in charge anymore, is she?" My confidence grew a little. If I'd been given this role, I was going to play it. No one responded. "Well, is she?" I demanded.

"No," Namere whispered. Thane shook his head. And Caelan just gave that same enigmatic smile.

"All right, then," I said. "Let's eat." The three of them started to take their places along the table.

"How easily you all forget what has been done for you." A voice sounded to my right and all of them froze. I looked up at them and shook my head. "Keep going," I said to them quietly. Then I raised my voice to Asha. "I'm glad you're feeling better." I tried to sound genuine. It was one of the only things I could think of to say that wouldn't sound controversial. If I invited her to sit down, it would be making a big deal of my taking her place as leader. If I asked if she was hungry, that would imply 174

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that giving or taking of food belonged to me. After a long moment, she said, "You think too much, human." And then she strode forward and took her place at the table. Right next to me. Caelan sat on the other side of me, so maybe he'd be able to help me keep from screwing this up too badly. Once everyone was seated, we just sat there for a few minutes. I kept waiting for someone to begin passing a bowl of something. I didn't think we were waiting on a prayer or anything. Eventually, Caelan leaned forward. "It is your right to eat first." Oh. I waved my hand. "Forget it. Everyone can eat together."

"No," Asha said sharply.

I looked to her, surprised.

"It is also your responsibility to eat first." Her eyes, the silver cold in them, bored into me.

I turned back to Caelan. "I don't understand." He hesitated, then said, "In the days after first arrival, we did not know which foods were safe to consume. As leader, Asha tasted all first before we ate, presuming that as the strongest, she would be the most likely to survive if something was not right with the food."

I stared out at the many bowls on the table, many of them containing foods, like broccoli, that I didn't even like.

"Finding your role as leader less than you expected?" Asha raised her eyebrows.

I glared at her and spooned a little of everything onto my plate. After tasting it all, I sat back and waited for them to dig in, which they did about three minutes after I'd taken my last bite.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered. Thane, and most likely Caelan as well, had prepared the food themselves, and I recognized it all. It wasn't like either of them was going to poison anyone. Though, I glanced over at Asha, it might be a wise move to keep some of them away from the pantry.

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Nevan?" I asked.

Everyone stopped and stared at me. I stared back. Apparently, the lack of conversation was some kind of social more. Caelan set down his silverware and pushed his plate toward the center of the table. "There are several options to consider." He glanced around until everyone but Asha followed his move by putting aside their food. Caelan to the rescue again. I gritted my teeth.

"Wait, you don't have to stop eating," I said. "I just wanted to hear what you were thinking about Nevan." Another moment of prolonged silence indicated I'd stepped in it again.

Caelan intervened. "We wait until we have eaten our fill before conversing," he said. "It is uncomfortable for us to communicate, even by thought-sharing, and eat at the same time. We feel more vulnerable to attack if our minds are occupied with communicating and our bodies with eating."

"Why?"

"Because the distraction may cause us to miss signs of an enemy approaching," Thane spoke up.

"Here?" I lifted a hand to indicate the wood-paneled dining room. "It's not exactly a war zone or anything."

"It's not something we can control, more of an instinct." Caelan glanced at Asha, who continued to eat, undisturbed, a small grim smile on her face.

I gritted my teeth until the urge to scream passed. "No problem," I said. "I'll wait." So I did, until everyone, including Asha, pushed their plates toward the center of the table. I opened my mouth to repeat my question from earlier, but before I could, the now-scraped clean plates and platters rose from the table and headed to the kitchen. I watched them go, unable to keep from staring, as the procession of white plates flew away, like a convoy of miniature UFOs. 176

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"There are several options to consider," Caelan said again, as if I had repeated my question. "But the significant point for each of them is the likeliness of finding Nevan unguarded."

"Unguarded?" I frowned.

"Outside of the embassy in your capital, he does not move about unaccompanied," Namere said.

"Is that typical of others like Nevan? Other Council members?" I asked.

No one responded, but they all engaged in a moment of staring at one another, so I had to assume they were conferring. Namere eventually answered with a shrug. "We do not know. What anyone else does has never been our concern." The very definition of tunnel vision, folks.

"So, these guards, that's why you can't just get Nevan and hold him hostage until he talks?"

Thane looked over at me with hardness in his blue and silver eyes. "We could defeat his guards." He sounded angry that I'd suggested otherwise.

"Or at least, engage them in battle long enough for two of us to take Nevan. On his own, he is not strong enough to resist more than one of us," Caelan added.

"Then why haven't you?"

"Because there are some here who feel that a dream must rule our every plan," Asha interjected before Caelan could answer. She stared at me. "That we must work toward a half-remembered fantasy, instead of survival."

I didn't want Caelan's vision to be true any more than she did. But facts were facts, and it was time for both of us to face them.

"We have not taken him because his absence would eventually be noted," Caelan answered my question.

"Noted by who?"

"Other Council members, at first, and then, your government and media, if the Council decided to notify or involve them." 177

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"Have you ever gone to the Council? Asked them for help?" It seemed to me they might be interested to hear that one of their esteemed members was running around withholding important information from others of his kind and trying to kill humans. Well, half-humans, anyway.

"And if they share Nevan's opinion that we should return to the tanks to start again?" Caelan said.

Then there'd be just that many more out there against them, probably enough to make them do whatever the Council decided, regardless of how strong they were against just Nevan. All right, good point.

"But that means you think he hasn't already told them about you. If he could get that kind of help to get you guys back in the tanks, why wouldn't he do it?" I frowned.

"Enough," Asha snapped. The room trembled with her power.

"This discussion is pointless. We will not confront Nevan." She leveled the challenge at me without blinking. She seemed to be trying to make me angry, like proving she wasn't afraid of me or what had happened–which could only mean she was. But I was more afraid of it than she was, though I wasn't planning on sharing that with her.

I looked around the table. No one seemed particularly surprised by her outburst, though with them it was hard to tell. "I thought you...some of you wanted answers."

"And you offer them answers at the expense of their lives." Asha leaned forward, her hands flat on the table. I risked a quick look at Caelan for help with this one. No matter how much I wanted the truth, for them and me, I wouldn't force anyone into this. Too much at stake, including their lives, for that. "Fine. I'll go alone, or with those who wish to accompany me."

"You cannot." Namere's face was a study in misery at being forced to contradict me.

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"Her decision is rule." Asha gave a sharp look to the other female. A little light went on in the back of my head. I sat back in my chair. "So, if I take off, that's considered abandonment, which let me guess, gives you grounds to take over again?" I raised an eyebrow at Asha.

Her lips twitched with a barely restrained snarl, and I knew I had her on this one.

"So now what?" I muttered to Caelan.

"Order us to go," he answered in a normal voice. I can't. I won't. This is a free country, for now, at least, I thought at him.

"One to which we do not belong," he responded quietly.

"If your order it, I shall follow," Namere said.

"As will I." Thane gave me an abrupt nod. All eyes turned to Asha. A ghost grim of amusement flickered in her eyes. "I will not go, despite your order. If you give such an order, I will challenge your right to lead this group, to rule in the name of their safety and protection as I have done for so long."

"Yeah, safe and protected except from you," I retorted. She touched the fading bruise on her temple with a tight smile. "Perhaps. Though it seems we are not so different in that respect." With that, she swung her legs over the bench and walked off.

A long moment of silence held after her departure. "Got any help for this one?" I asked the remaining three in general.

"Accept her challenge," Thane said immediately. I shook my head. "I almost killed her last time. I won't...can't do that again."

He shrugged, as if to say her death would be an understandable outcome to such a challenge.

"She must come with us," Caelan said. "Without her, all elements of the vision may be altered, including the outcome." 179

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Namere, who'd remained silent during most of the discussion, looked up at me then, her silver and gray eyes, which I'd once found so frightening, now seemed simply calm and unflinching.

"If you cannot order her to accompany us, then you must convince her."

Okay, but how do you convince the criminally insane? "I'm guessing that my saving her life didn't earn me any favors." Collectively, they shook their heads.

"And probably bribery, given that I have nothing to offer, is not a good option." I tossed my napkin on the table. "I'm out of ideas." Unless we hit her over the head and dragged her out, but I wasn't sure anyone, including me, would volunteer to get close enough.

"There may yet still be a way," Namere said. I looked over at her, eyebrows raised.

"You do have something she wants."

Involuntarily, I looked over at Caelan. He met my eyes without flinching. He wasn't exactly mine to give, if he was mine at all.

"No. She wants to be leader again," Namere said. "That is who she is. If you offer it to her–"

Caelan shook his head. "It is Zara who must be our leader. The vision shows that."

"Besides," I added, "I doubt she'd take it, if I offered it willingly. And," I hesitated, "I can't leave you guys to her. Not when I know what she's like."

Thane stiffened. "She has only done her best to protect us."

"And beaten you into submission along the way, just for jollies." I rubbed my face with my hands. "No." Caelan, likely sensing another argument between Thane and me brewing, intervened. "We will reach no conclusion on this tonight. But we have time."

For now, I agreed silently.

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Thane and Namere left the table, in silent agreement to let the discussion rest for the evening.

"Thanks," I said to Caelan.

"Why?"

"For helping me." I shook my head. "I'm in dangerous water here and way over my head."

"You will learn to swim." He reached out to touch my cheek.

"As will most when entering water often enough."

"I hope so."

He started to pull back from me, but I caught his hand. Heat immediately followed by uncertainty crossed his face.

"I believe that some time ago, you promised me some place more comfortable than a certain underground facility." My heart throbbed in my throat and my stomach was light and fluttery feeling.

He nodded slowly. "I did."

"Should we find it then? That some place more comfortable?" I turned my face into his hand, feeling the heat of skin warm mine. He stood, letting his hand drift down to my arm, where his fingers traced shivery lines to my hand. "Come." He closed his hand over mine.