Empowered (Unbound, Book 6)

Chapter Thirty-Two

This is it.

A lump I couldn't swallow past formed in my throat, instantly giving me dry mouth. My heart raced as we stared at each other. The cool I felt exiting the portal turned to cold.

He's read the journal and still came back.

Calin accepts me.

No. He's going to expose me.

No.

Tell him.

"Nora? Are you okay?" Calin started to get up and I held my hand out, shaking my head. He sat again, never taking his eyes off me.

I blinked slowly—once, twice—and exhaled. My hand moved to the strap of my computer bag on my shoulder and I crossed to the table. Without breaking eye contact with Calin, I sat at the opposite side of the table and mimicked his hands clasped on top. I didn't know what to say. If I remained silent, how long would he take to ask another question I actually had an answer to?

Calin leaned forward, narrowing his gaze. "Nora? Are you okay? Was that a... Did you just return through a portal?"

Be calm.

Islene said he read the journals, so this is just confirming what he already thinks he knows.

I hoped I appeared calm despite feeling like I was tumbling down a waterfall as big and as deadly as Niagara Falls—my lungs would drown if I breathed, I'd run out of oxygen if I didn't, and my body was beaten and bruised from the force of the frothing streams pouring down. There was no point trying to get my feet under me. Even if I could touch the bottom, all I would do is fall.

"Nora?"

I blinked again, then cleared my throat. I looked down at my hands and tried to lick my lip despite the dryness of my tongue. Finally, I took another deep breath and looked up again to meet Calin's gaze. "You've read the journals. What do you think that was?"

"Then what?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What happens once I tell you what I think? Are you going to clam back up if I'm wrong?"

"What? No."

"How do I know that?"

"Because you aren't stupid, and I'm not a liar."

"Sometimes, you are by omission."

"Doesn't count. I hadn't learned the answers before—I was upfront when I did and asked you to read the journals before I shared."

"An ultimatum to be trusted with whatever you're hiding isn't much better."

"Why not? I didn't hide the fact that I discovered things, but those things are well-guarded family secrets. If I tell the wrong person, I'll be bombarded at minimum or there'd be what some would categorize as the end of the world—or at least magic," I said quickly. I reached down and pulled my computer from its bag, continuing as I set it up on the table. "The flip side of that is those that know should be given enough information to decide if it's a secret they can carry."

"Fine. In that one case, you don't but you keep everything to yourself."

"No, I don't."

"The fact that you had abilities when you moved here?"

"I wish I didn't and saw no reason in confirming what I was content to ignore."

"Keeping us a secret from Maible?"

"She was betting on us!"

"What about when you hid Maible's abilities from herself?"

I groaned. "You mean after I unbound her because someone had done that without her knowledge? To protect her?"