“I would like to know where my husband is,” Mom demanded without preamble.
“I don’t know where he’s being held,” Juliana said, “but Mr. Corbeau is alive. He was captured a few years ago, when he tried to break into the Institute.” She turned toward Max, but looked at his shoulder rather than his eyes. “Max, do you remember when iron warriors attacked the Institute?”
Max nodded. “How could I forget?” he murmured. “He really was trying to rescue me?”
“He was,” Juliana confirmed. The shifter hadn’t lied about everything, then. “He enlisted Ferra’s assistance, but she betrayed him and turned him over to Mike.”
“Why would Ferra do that?” I asked. “Shouldn’t she have been against Mike, too?”
Juliana shrugged. “She wanted to eliminate any metal Elementals more powerful than her. So, she handed Mr. Corbeau over to the Institute, then removed all of the metal from the surrounding area so Max wouldn’t be able to escape.”
“The shapeshifter,” Micah prompted. “What made them send that abomination to my home when they did?”
Juliana’s eyes widened—based on the anger in Micah’s eyes, he was less than pleased that an imposter had been sent to the manor. Mom was rather unpleased as well. “The decision was made when the drones spotted the rest of you at the Hall of Records, when you got married,” Juliana replied. “Congratulations, by the way,” she added with a nod toward Micah and me.
“Thanks,” I muttered while Micah stated, “We were glamoured. There is no way your drones could have recognized any of us.”
“It was you they recognized,” Juliana said. Micah began to protest, but she raised her hand, and just like that silenced the Lord of Silver. “You were wearing the same glamour that you wore to the Promenade. The exact same glamour that you were wearing when I met you at Sara’s apartment.”
Micah opened his mouth only to snap it shut. He did always wear the same human guise, that of a tall human man with brown hair and gray eyes. I’d named him Mike Silver.
Max leaned back in his chair, his hands laced behind his head. “You mean Mr. Perfect screwed up?”
“Not now, Max,” I hissed, then I turned back to Juliana. “So, you identified Micah for them?” I accused.
“I didn’t have to,” she retorted. “After your little stunt at the Promenade, everyone was on the lookout for him.”
“But how did they know he was the Lord of Silver?” I demanded.
“Remember when you wrecked the Institute?” Juliana asked, and I nodded. As if I could have forgotten. “Micah was beside you the whole time, supporting you. Everyone, even Peacekeepers, knows who the Lord of Silver is. Then you show up at the Promenade with a man whose image wasn’t recorded anywhere, and a few weeks later that same mystery man trots into a Hall of Records with four other unrecorded individuals and requests a marriage ceremony. It wasn’t too difficult to connect the dots.”
“I guess it wasn’t,” I mumbled, chancing a look toward Micah. He was frowning so hard I worried he’d give himself a hernia, and he was so mad the tips of his ears were pink. By contrast, Max looked as happy as I’d ever seen him. “Was that the plan all along? Wait for me to get married and send a fake father to kidnap me?”
“Not the marriage part. As soon as we dug our way out of the Institute, they started looking for suitable candidates to impersonate your father.”
“We or they?” I asked. Juliana blinked, so I elaborated. “Which is it—are you one of them or not? Are you a traitor now?”
“They’ve thought that I was a traitor for a while,” she mumbled, dropping her eyes. “Now it’s just official.”
“And we should believe you why?” I pressed. “For all we know, you’re just feeding us more lies.”
“I never wanted to lie to you,” Juliana said.
“Then why was I working that sham job?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me where Max was, I don’t know, ever?”
“Who do you think put those plans on your computer?” Juliana shot back. She was trembling, fists clenched.
I blinked. “Why didn’t you drop a hint, so I knew where to look?”
“If I’d known it was going to take you a fricken’ year to check the files on your own computer, I would have tacked them to your forehead,” she retorted. “Seriously, Sara, you didn’t even need Internet access.”
“It was against the rules,” I snapped. Juliana glanced at her upper arm meaningfully. Though we couldn’t see it beneath her shirt sleeve, Juliana sported a half-moon-shaped scar over where her tracking chip had once resided, right over her bicep. It had been my idea to cut the chips out of our arms, a teenager’s way of thumbing her nose at authority. And no, we hadn’t followed the rules in the slightest.