“Hey,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that. Grace was the one who took off with that good-for-nothing and left Leto flat-footed. Why should I trust that just because she’s come back, she means to do her duty?”
Thorne leaned forward and held her gaze. “Because Grace has tremendous integrity and you know that. She also knows what obsidian flame will mean to you, to all of us. When she left like she did, I know she had a good reason, even if she didn’t share it with us. Coming back, she’ll have a better one.”
“Do you have to be reasonable?”
He smiled. Thorne had a beautiful smile—maybe not quite as brilliant as Jean-Pierre’s, but damn close.
“All right,” she said, waving her hand in his direction. “The warrior games will start in a few hours. The four of you can take off, but, Thorne, please do what you can to impress your sister with all of this. Let both Leto and Grace know about Alison’s wings as well.”
When the two couples vanished, Endelle turned back to Alison, whose gaze dipped down to Endelle’s chest. When Alison frowned, Endelle also glanced at her latest creation. She flipped the pinecones and the resin-coated monarch butterfly necklace. “You no like?”
Alison said, “Well, it’s not in your usual style?”
“Lacks the glam I’m used to rocking. It’s in honor of the warrior games. I’m telling you, though, that colony is so organic, it gives me the scratch. But I thought I should make an effort. I have bee-stilettos to die for.”
“I’m not even gonna ask.”
“Good. So how’s Helena, anyway?” Warrior Kerrick had gotten his woman pregnant on about the third day of her rite of ascension. Talk about virile. Now baby Helena was ten months old, or something like that.
Alison shrugged. “She’s got too many powers for an infant. It’s hard to know what to do with her. She can communicate telepathically now, but hearing that baby gibberish in my head all day is driving me bonkers.”
“Bonkers? That a new psychobabble expression?” Alison had been a therapist by profession before her ascension.
“It is today.”
“Well, you should bring her by. It’s good for morale.” Endelle clasped her fingers together. She doubted she was fooling anyone, but she actually liked Helena. There was a kind of intelligence in her green eyes that Endelle approved of. She wasn’t your ordinary kid.
“I’ll do that.”
Endelle was about to let Alison go, but she had one more person she wanted to alert to these sudden changes. She focused her thoughts on Marcus. Get your ass in here, she sent. She’d given up the complete futility of politeness, oh, about three millennia ago.
On my way. Marcus didn’t complain. He was older than Leto and had a tough hide.
To Alison, she said, “Marcus is coming. I want to let him know what’s doin’.”
“Good idea.”
Within a minute, Marcus appeared at the end of the long, glass-lined hallway. He was one good-looking sonofabitch. He had dark hair, which was now a few good inches down his back and secured in the cadroen. Two nights out of seven he battled at the Borderlands alongside his warrior brothers. The rest of the time he had an office down the hall where he worked his PR and administrative magic.
He was the High Administrator of Southwest Desert Two, but that was just a title. He was really in charge of global PR for Endelle’s administration and had effectively staved off the defection of at least a dozen of her territorial High Administrators around the globe. This was no small thing. If Greaves had gotten his hooks into them, Endelle was pretty sure the self-styled Commander would have already taken the war to its inevitable conclusion and bombed the hell out of Metro Phoenix Two.
Marcus had become one of her numerous miracle workers. But whatever happened from this point forward, especially from a PR standpoint, Marcus would need to be included.
“So, what’s going on?” he asked, glancing from Alison to Endelle. But he frowned as he looked back at Alison, his gaze running over her flight suit. “Is that what I think it is?”
Alison smiled and nodded.
“Shit, you got your wings.”
“I did. This morning.”
“Hot damn, that’s good news.”
Endelle told him the rest, about the dreams and about Grace returning. By the time she was finished, Marcus looked like she’d slapped him hard a few times.
“I’m fucking speechless,” he said. “You know what all this means, or could mean, right?”
Endelle was smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. “Damn straight I do.”
Marcus put his hand on the top of his head and turned in a full circle. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”