第4章

The video was four seconds long.

Asher lay flat on the ice, pulling the boy up. His pupils flashed gold, a black tail slipping out from under his jacket. The person filming swore and called him a freak.

After the video spread through the Blackpine parent group, Tommy Reed's father was the first to come to the cabin.

"If not for your son, my boy would be dead." He set down a bag of fruit, his face uneasy. "But everyone's asking... what exactly is he?"

"He's a three-year-old child."

Asher hid behind me and whispered that he'd only pulled the other boy up. Tommy actually wanted to speak up for him, but his father pulled him back to the car. Before the door shut, Tommy mouthed thank you at Asher through the glass.

Someone outside shouted, "Normal kids don't grow tails! Who knows if he's carrying some kind of disease?"

Tommy's father went pale. He stepped back and picked up the bag of fruit he'd just set down.

"Until things are cleared up, it's probably best if they stay away from my son."

Asher was standing at the staircase landing. He heard every word.

That same day, the supermarket manager suspended my shifts. Mabel also came by, her eyes red. The insurance company had seen the video and canceled the cabin's coverage. She said she could only let me stay three more days.

"I know the kids saved someone." She held my hand. "But they said if anything happens, I'll lose this house."

I didn't blame her. I just went home to pack. But Finn spiked a high fever in the middle of the night. He'd burned through all his energy trying to hold the ice steady for Asher, and his temperature wouldn't come down.

I had no choice but to take him to the county ER.

Nurse Sarah Mitchell drew a vial of blood. As the red liquid filled the tube, it coiled into black-gold patterns on its own.

She paused, then quickly turned off the shared screen by the printer and saved the raw data to a personal encrypted drive.

"I don't know what this is, but I'll treat the fever first." She kept her voice low. "If anyone asks, you didn't attack me, and neither did the child."

But the hospital's risk system had already triggered an automatic alert.

Half an hour later, a blonde woman walked into the room with people from the state child protection office.

"I'm Dr. Helena Ward from the St. Grace Children's Foundation." She crouched beside Finn's bed, her smile warm. "We specialize in helping children with rare genetic conditions."

She didn't ask about Finn's symptoms first. Instead, she asked me who the father was, whether I had formal prenatal records, and whether I'd been involved in illegal experiments.

"The father is Cassian Vere," I said. "He lives in New York. I don't have his number."

Ward had her assistant look into it for a few minutes.

"There's no one matching that description in any public registry. Ms. Carter, do you often believe that a very powerful man is coming to pick you up?"

"He's real."

"Of course." She typed a note on her tablet. "Suspected delusion involving a wealthy benefactor. Reality testing pending."

I stared at that line and shut my mouth. If I kept explaining, she'd just add another delusion to her assessment.

Third Person’s POV

At that same moment, Cassian's analysis team intercepted the four-second video.

"My King, the pupil coloration and tail scales belong to your direct bloodline."

Cassian stared at Asher's face on the screen. All six golden threads on his palm lit up at once.

For the first time in three years, he saw one of his children's faces.

"Get me a location."

"The original location data was professionally scrubbed. We can only confirm it's somewhere in the American Northwest."

Cassian stood. "Then search every frozen river, every ER, and every child-risk system in the Northwest."

Evelyn's POV

I brought Finn home once his fever broke and packed through the night, but my debit card had been frozen, the blizzard had closed the roads, and there were officers at the bus station checking IDs.

The six children didn't understand why they had to move after saving someone. Asher wound his tail under his belt on his own and asked me quietly, "If I hadn't saved him, would we still have to leave?"

I held him close. "This isn't your fault. You did the right thing saving that boy. The adults are the ones not being fair."

At nine that evening, there was a knock at the door.

Outside stood a state social worker, Deputy Aaron Garrett, and Ward. Ward held an emergency child safety evaluation order.

"Ms. Carter," she said through the door, "until we confirm these children are safe, you don't have the right to take them out of this state."