Adaera's POV
I stand there for a moment after the door clicks shut.
Lilliana is Halecrest.
'That explains alot.' I thought, walking out of the dorm building. Sighing, I pull out my phone, swiping to one of the few numbers saved on my speed dial.
"Sie is in Boston, and it'll be 3:00 AM over there." I mumble to myself walking under the shower of lunar light toward the guest Wing of Skyline.
"Bosslady! What's happenin' girl?" A raspy, high-pitched voice comes through the line followed by the thrum of music and voices shrieking horribly over it. I wince, exhaling in relief.
"Sienna, it's way past midnight." Automatically, I shift into our usual banter, forgetting while I called for a moment.
"I know, girl. It's wild over here. Yo' should have been here…" I zone off, feeling a headache on its way as she rambles on about how alive the Boston nightlife is.
"I still don't get why you rather work off your ass while those bastards do nothing. How long has it been since we last danced our ass off on a girls' night out? That's so unfair, Ady…" She slurs and sniffles slips into the line beneath the music.
Crap.
No way she's crying. I go speechless at her antics.
"What about the stuff I asked you to handle?" With her crying, I was never going to win this battle no matter how long it went.
At least not tonight.
So, I quickly changed the topic, going straight to the point.
"Yes, Bosslady. The responses are still the same. The courier companies I hired are still unable to track down the receiver." With the speed of lightning, Sienna's voice changes, taking a firm and professional cadence.
I lowered the phone, rolling my eyes though I couldn't help the small smile curving up my lips.
Honestly, It still baffled me till date how somehow someone who was so drunk on alcohol and hazy from partying all day long could handle work-related matters perfectly.
Somehow, she's just that reliable and competent.
Talk about reasons why she's my second-in-command.
"I've employed a few underhanded methods. Results will be out by noon tommorrow." She reports in a crisp voice.
"Forget about all that. Rather, hire about a dozen private investigators to document the whole abnormality." She goes silent, her breathing a bit rushed with the music becoming more distant.
"Isn't it obvious the other party doesn't want to be found? Why go through all this trouble, Bosslady?"
"Yes, it's obvious." I pause, frowning at my words.
Something was obviously off with the best courier services in the world unable to find the address on the letter.
Suddenly, it dawned on me that if either I or Sie had given that letter more than a single glance before shipping it off to our subordinates, I would have figured out Lilliana's secret identity days ago.
The image of the sparkly envelope wafting off a strong woodsy fragrance with a smokey undertone passes through my mind and I grow nauseous.
Nevermind.
I never knew people could be so cloying until then.
Then again, it wasn't uncommon considering Velmora was two Oceans and four Continents away from any living settlement and it had been only five days
"But, seeing is believing." I continue after a few heartbeats of silence. The other end goes silent and I can visibly see the wheels in Sienna's brains spinning to decipher my words.
With how hung up Lilliana is, I doubt she would accept the new deluge of hell heading her way with just my words alone.
That girl would rather deny it, till she mentally collapses.
"Sie." I break the silence.
"A Halecrest just showed up and everything is about to spin out of control. I just know it." My voice breaks at the end, the exhaustion from the past week finally crawling through my defences.
"So what if a Halecrest is now in the picture, you've been working your ass off for the past six years and nobody – Halecrest, Kestrel or even both can ruin that for you."
"I saw the posts and I don't get why everyone is fussing about this. She's just an Initiate with an awful fashion taste and even worse survival rates."
"Regardless, she is a Halecrest and she's now in the game.
"Right. In the game, not our game.
I really wish everyone would gloss over it like she did–
A notification chimes and I glance at the screen, my expression falling further at the content
Feira: Hey sweetie! Your Father called. A conference call with the Council of Elders in twelve hours.
"Ady?" She calls when she notices my silence. I bite my lips, my voice tight with frustration.
"A meeting with the Council of Elders by morning." I whisper and the other end goes dead quiet.
"I'm sorry, Ady. I can't make it." After what felt like an eternity, she responds, voice a tad bit quiet.
"Right."
"It's not all that bad. You have Feira and she's much better than a thousand me in such situations." Sienna's voice softens into an intimate whisper, I rarely got to hear.
"You do you, Sie." I cut the call, walking into the foggy night.
Lilliana's POV
The world narrows down to the cold ties beneath me and the sturdy frame of the wooden door behind me.
Click
The room brightens as the lights click on, I look away from the glare shielding my eyes. A broken sob floats from my throat at the harshness of the light and everything I've been through in the last 48 hours.
Like a broken record, snippets from the video loops into an haunting symphony of an awfully familiar voice and the unidealistic and unhinged actions of the owner, who I'd thought I knew.
The casual cruelty in her every action.
The demeaning look of disdain in those emerald eyes.
Her ruthlessness.
No hesitation
No regrets
The fiery madness that left destruction in her awake.
The lives she took.
The voices she suppressed.
Everything she stood for– a tremor rages through me leaving curling my knees to my chest to muffle the tiny sounds escaping my quivering lips.
I sat there and bore witness to it.
A tiny bit of it.
That woman–Sylvia Kestrel….
She was everything I hated about this place.
Everything Velmora represented.
Everything they held in high esteem.
Yet, I saw her in her.
I saw traces of my Mum in her.
The sly curve of her lips that held no warmth.
In the small arch of her brows
In the quiet hums of delights at the misery of others.
The deceptive softness of her voice.
In the leisure poses she took
In the gentle prodding of her eyes.
I saw every one of them.
Expressions I had seen my whole life, moments so domestic and warm…
They were eeriely familiar and I know why.
I could no longer deny it.
I've no more strength to fight it.
All I could do was sit there and watch every budding hope in me wilt a thousand times.
Watch every truth of my life being ridiculed and tossed away.
Sniffled cries leave me as I break over and over again, more than I ever knew possible in many painful ways.
"Lilliana." Eave's calm, tentative voice reaches my ears, I raise my head. My vision blurry from the moist glistening in my eyes. The overhead sound channels flickers before settling.
"Is this your definition of fun?" My hoarse voice fills the space weighing down on it like a ton of iron. The flicker of bluish light on my wrist watch catches my attention from my the side.
Haha
The dreary crackle of my laughter vibrates through the room in a tingling outburst.
At the surge of anger and betrayal running in my veins, I stand on my wobbly feet walking into the living room until I was directly under the sound chanel her voice comes through.
"Why are you silent? You always have lots to say. Speak, Eave. Today, I want to hear it. Tell me, is having my whole life labelled a lie, your definition of fun?" I inhale sharply, using everything in me to stop the tremor that shook me with every word
"Is having millions of people I don't know amuse themselves over the storm wrecking my world, your definition of fun?" I yell, my voice sharp and broken against the deafening silence that enveloped every inch of the room.
Warm tears streak down my blotched cheeks and I fall to the floor clutching the rugged centerpiece in agony.
"I never expected it will happen like this." Eave's voice fills every inch of the room, the sound doing something inside me. Her words devoid of the emotional wavelengths they usually carried, falling cold and flat into my ears and somewhere far deeper.
"That's it? Is that all you have to say?" A scoff of disbelief tinges my every word as my teary eyes track every flicker of the sound channel overhead.
"What do you want me to say? Sorry?"
"What do you mean? I let out a broken whimper, my head spinning at the sharp edge in her voice and snark in her words.
"Is that it? You want me to apologise. For what?"
"You could have at least told me. I thought we were a team…."
"We are a team. Ask yourself this: If I had told you would you have believed me?"
I fall silent at her words, unsure of what to say.
"I basically watched you find out the truth, lie to yourself and guilt trip yourself into a self-induced panic attack. You wouldn't have believed me, Lilliana."
I swallow loudly, stunned silent at her answer.
"And yes, it wasn't fun watching you make a mess of yourself but I won't apologise. It is also true this could have been prevented if I said something but you what I won't apologise?"
"Because I didn't lie to you, I didn't enroll you into Velmora under deception, I didn't leak the information, and my 'sorry' won't change the fact that all of these things happened."
I look at my reflection in the glass of the coffee table, a dejected smile on my crest-fallen face.
She's right.
Though she is an AI, she was still the closest thing to a friend I've had in my life and knowing she knew and let me find out through a gossip blog with the rest of the world was just too much.
As such, little naive me, expected at the very least that she would have been guilty, figuratively.
But, what will her apology do?
She didn't lie to me all my life and her apology surely won't make the betrayal hurt any less nor will it change what's already happened.
'I will only give me a false sense of relief.' I bite my lips, fighting back the sobs bubbling at the back of my throat.
Whether apology or no apology, who was guilty or not–this is the truth of my life now and I'm stuck with it. I fall limply to the floor giving way to the anguish I could no longer fight.
_________________________________________________________
DING DONG
The sharp chime of the doorbell rushes me back to reality.
I look up at the wall clock in my bedroom, it was only 8:53AM.
"Who could it be?" I mutter groggily, my eyes hurting from the last of rest.
"It's your delivery." Eave's cheerful voice slices through the suffocating silence in the room, all traces of yesterday's tension gone.
"My delivery?" I hissed, my bones snapping in and out of place from remaining in one posture for too long.
"Good morning to you." Ignoring her obvious jab, I rub my hands over my swollen, red eyes taking in my disheveled appearance in the mirror on the vanity table.
"I didn't make any orders, Eave. What's this about?" I ask flatly, not entertaining her attempt to fall into our usual morning banter.
Reading the room, she drops the politeness and dives head straight to the point, her voice cold and decisive. "You didn't have dinner last night. You've been crying for the past 15 hours depriving yourself of sleep, water and food and I'll not have you kill us both under my watch."
"And what makes you think I'll do as you say."
"Oh, the poor delivery boy will have no choice but to wait till you're done throwing a tantrum or risk his means of livelihood."
I shut my eyes at the threat and emotional blackmail in her playful words. A streak of guilt crosses my chest and I slip into my slippers before heading for the main door.
"Geez, Eave. You're so evil."
"HaHA HA" " Her booming laughter rings behind me, replying with a tone that sent shivers down my spine.
"I thought we're over that."