I helped Honey load the dishwasher and wipe down the dining room table. When we finished, the adults grabbed a cup of decaf and retired to the living room. They motioned for us to join them, but I declined. I wanted to wrap my head around the last few hours. To escape my aunt and have the possibility of actually being able to go home? It seemed unfathomable.
I had just changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth when I heard the sound of a quiet knock on my door.
I opened it to see Archer standing there in a pair of loose jogging pants and an Imagine Dragons t-shirt. I held open the door and let him walk in.
The scent of him filled my nose as he brushed past me. Something mysterious and undefinable, but still particular to Archer.
He plopped down on my bed like he owned it, which I guess he kind of did, crossed his arms under the back of his head and stared up at my ceiling.
"So... Cassidy Montreal. You're a foreigner," he mused.
"I'm not sure I'd describe it like that," I said, twisting my hair up into a messy bun.
"Maybe not a foreigner. I'd describe it more like an alien." He turned his head to stare at me, his unnerving amber gaze piercing me. "Are you an alien, Cassidy?"
I rolled my eyes trying to keep the secret of my beating-too-fast heart. "Do I look like an alien?" I waved my hand at him. "I don't see any green or slime."
Archer clicked his tongue. "Now you're a speciesist? Who says aliens have green skin? Why can't they have blue or red or why can't they look just like us?"
"What do you want?" I asked him, tired to my very marrow.
"I want to know about you," he said, and for the life of me, I couldn't smell the lie on him.
"And what do you want to know?"
"I want to know about your mother and father. Your homeland." His gaze narrowed. "And I want to know what you're hiding. I can sense something within you, Cassidy Montreal, something sitting right under the surface of your skin. Something foreign." The amber in his eyes darkened to a deep molasses. "Not only are you hiding it from us, I think you're hiding it from yourself."
I swallowed hard. "I'm not hiding anything," I said, though the words sounded false to me.
"But you are," Archer insisted. "I'm concerned about you and I'm concerned for the world. Whatever it is, it's powerful."
I felt the roil of magic in my veins from the time I woke up on my eighth birthday. My mother called it an awakening and told me the feeling would only get stronger as I aged until the magic matured. She'd urged me never to use it until I was properly trained. At sixteen, she said the magic would be ready but not yet matured. Sixteen had come and gone, but I had no one to train me. I'd never dared to use an ounce of the magic within me, and I wondered how this boy, this... seer could see it within me.
"How do you see things like that?" I asked.
A grin broke out on his face. "So you admit it then?"
"I admit nothing. But I do want to know how you think you know something?"
He sat up then, a hank of sand-colored hair falling over one eye. "A secret for a secret, then?"
I tilted my head, studying his eager expression. "How do I know I can trust you with my secrets?"
He waved a hand around the room. "Are you here right now or did I leave you to your aunt's tender ministrations?" he asked.
"What are you going to do with the information?" I asked.
