Chapter 35

Hello big brother,

I want to thank you and Marian for your grace and kindness, your sheer depth of love, during the worst period of my life. I was so ashamed after I came out of the fog at last, at how jealous and bitter I’d acted.

Especially after I began to remember the good times, remember how much Kanoa enjoyed being with you both. He said you felt like a brother to him, too. I don’t think I ever told you that.

The way you hugged me when I turned up at the den . . . I love you, Déwei. And I miss you, but it’s good for me to get back to work, even if I couldn’t bear to return to Hanoi. Paris is as lovely as ever, and my old workplace welcomed me back with open arms, even if I do plan to return to Moscow to go on maternity leave in three months.

We’re taking this time to set things up so I can work remotely long term, with short visits to Paris—my mind and heart feel more healthy with the extra focus provided by work, and Mom and Dad have told me they’ll disown me if I dare hire a nanny when they’re right there.

Otto and Grady are beyond excited to be uncles, just like their “wow-to-the-max” big brother, Déwei—they’re already going around boasting of it to their school friends. I adore them—such hearts they have, D. And what fun for my baby to grow up with uncles who will be only eight and ten years older.

Plus, I want my baby to spend lots of time with her Uncle D and Aunt Mimi. I know you’ll be terrible in spoiling her, and I can’t wait for that for her.

As for what I said about my vote when it comes to the new brand of Silence . . . that was said in anger and grief. Any decision I make, I’ll make with thought and care, for this will be my daughter’s life.

See you in three months (when I’ll be huge and nearly ready to pop)!!

Lots of love from your baby sister

—Letter from Hien Nguyen to Déwei Nguyen (18 October 1976)

SEARCH COMPLETE, YAKOV and Theo exited the building at eight that night to emerge into the pitch-black of a fall evening. Yakov had flashlights in the vehicle, but Pax—in his capacity as the Marshall CEO—had managed to get the power company to turn the electricity back on, so they’d been working under clinically bright lights for the last couple of hours.

“No point searching the grounds in this,” he said, just as the land vibrated under his feet. Ignoring it, he continued on. “Especially without a scent trail. We’ll come back tomorrow with the proper tools, do it right. And it’s already eight. By the time we get back to the city, it’ll be past nine.”

Theo—who he was starting to realize wasn’t the most patient of women—stared out at the dark but did eventually nod. “You’re right. I’d probably trip on a root, fall on my face, and break my nose. Impromptu cosmetic surgery.”

His bear grinned, delighted at her deadpan humor.

“Was that a quake?” she asked as he pulled the facility’s door shut.

Yakov nodded. “We’ve had an increase in them over the past couple of years. Scientists were worried they were warnings of a much bigger event on the horizon, but all tests confirm no unusual activity underground, and the mini quakes never do any real damage.”

The odd cracked road or bit of landscape was about it.

“So now we just shrug and move on. Pasha likes to joke it’s Kaleb Krychek having a laugh at our expense.” Silver’s ex-boss was one hell of a powerful telekinetic.

He thought Theo would ask him more on the peculiar phenomenon, but after she’d engaged the lock, she said, “It’s strange, Yasha.”

Loving the sound of his name on her lips, in that soft accent she had, he said, “What?”

“Knowing that if I didn’t have a twin, I might’ve been one of the bodies carted out of here for disposal.” Words unadorned with emotion on the surface, but her pain was a song in the air.

His claws sliced out, his bear in no mood to be calm any longer.

Yakov gritted his teeth, but his anger continued to rise and rise. He’d done a good job of controlling it at her dog-on-a-leash comment, but after witnessing how this place had stolen the shine from her through the day, he was done. His bear was so angry for her that it wasn’t rational at all. He needed to burn it off, but no fucking way was he abandoning Theo to go rampaging in the forest.

“Your claws are out.” Theo’s voice, her body close to his. “Can I touch them?”

Of course she wasn’t scared. Not his Theo. He held out one hand so she could examine his claws. “I want to punch something,” he muttered in a low grumble because it was nice having her close and he didn’t want to scare her off by being loud and angry. “Since I can’t—would you like to go dance?”

She blinked, looking at him as if he’d taken up speaking in hieroglyphics. “Excuse me?”

“Dance. Move to music.”

Theo parted her lips. Her instinctive reaction was to say no. Of course it was to say no. Theodora Marshall did not go about dancing with bears. She didn’t go dancing at all.

But when she went to speak, she found she didn’t want to say no.

Perhaps it was the anger on Yakov’s face on her behalf. No one but Pax had ever been angry for her—but her twin was bound to her by bonds of birth, of genetics. Nothing bound Yakov to her . . . yet she mattered to him.

He’d made that crystal clear.

And now, he was inviting her to dance because he was a physical being and he needed to work off the anger inside him.

Theo thought of the rage that stretched her own skin until it felt as if it would explode. For so long, she’d tried to convince herself that she had it under full control, that she was an iceberg cold and contained, nothing inside any longer. But that was exactly the problem she’d always had—there was too much inside her.

Even before being separated from Pax, she’d been by far the more emotional of the two of them. She’d cried when she’d seen the bird wounded on the lawn, and she’d sobbed to Pax when they were punished for things no human or changeling child would ever be punished for—simply for being children.

And now, here she stood in a world where emotion was no longer illegal—and yet she felt locked in chains. Because her grandfather had painted her with his evil, made her an accomplice to his crimes.

Then the bear who’d invited her to go dancing said, “I promise we don’t bite.” Light words, but he simmered with contained fury.

For her.

And Theo found herself grabbing at this chance to be wild, to be normal for this moment in time where her whole future hung in the balance. In that space in between, she could allow herself to believe that she wasn’t evil, that she hadn’t made the choice for her grandfather’s approval . . . and that she deserved a glimmer of happiness.

“I have no idea how to dance.”

A sudden grin that lit up his face and made her stomach flip in an unsettling way that somehow wasn’t unpleasant. “No bear has ever let a lack of knowledge or skill stop them from dancing.”