The estate had gone quiet. The corridor lights had dimd to their night-watch level. Above, the moon moved slowly behind a thin sheet of cloud, and the ceiling of Ayla’s room shifted shade as it passed.
She lay on the bed with her eyes open.
Sleep had been an option an hour ago. It was no longer. She perceived a presence from the door.
And sure enough, with a soft click, the door opened. Kenji slipped inside and closed the door behind him as silently as he ca and locked it. Surprise flashed in his face as their eyes t.
"You are not sleeping?"
He crossed the room without speaking, pulled the chair from her writing desk, and set it beside her bed. The angle gave him the wall behind her head as a backdrop.
Ayla sat up slowly. The thin sleeping robe Sarah had picked out for her sat where it sat. She did not adjust it.
"Brother," she said.
She had been testing the word at dinner. She tested it again now.
"Drop the act. We are alone."
"Was it bad?"
"It was good. That is the problem."
Kenji leaned forward. His elbows ca down on his knees. His hands clasped between them.
"What happened inside the tunnel after the system confird the clearance?"
Ayla considered him for a mont. The Twin Lens read him without effort, but his mind tonight was unusually quiet.
He had been preparing this conversation for hours, and the preparation had given his thoughts a disciplined stillness. She decided to answer.
"I received a bone fragnt as a reward."
"I did not see one."
"It went into ."
"Show ."
She closed her eyes. She opened them again. The gold of her irises shifted. Two pupils inside each eye. Stacked. Layered.
Black on black inside a field of slow-burning gold. Kenji exhaled a word that was not entirely a word.
"It is called the Twin Lens of the Weaver. The system nad it. I did not."
"What does it do?"
"Two things." She held up one finger. "I read minds within line of sight when I et a gaze."
"That is how you are reading everyone."
"Hm. Since before the hospital, on and off. Tonight, all through dinner."
His jaw tightened. The preparation did not entirely soften the landing.
"And the second thing?"
"Anyone who does not actively hold hostility toward feels drawn to . The pull manifests as protectiveness, fascination, fondness, or trust depending on what they already feel. Hostile observers feel nothing."
Kenji was silent for a long mont.
"My mother?"
"She arrived hostile. She left protective. The hostility was for a hypothetical fake girl. The mont she saw , the artifact began its work."
"My father?"
"Sa."
"Sora. Jaxon. Kael. Elara. Inside the tunnel?"
"So of it was them. So of it was the artifact. I cannot tell which was which anymore."
A pause.
"Kenji."
"Yes."
"You also got a bone fragnt, right?" She watched the change in his eyes with a smile. "You really were not under my control. If you wanted, you could have broken it. Tell , what is it?" She moved her face within a breath’s distance of him.
They could feel each other’s breath at this distance. Although he flushed a bit red, he did not answer for a long ti.
"You first," he finally muttered.
"You are no fun," she murmured as she continued. "There is also a new form. Eyes of the Weaver."
"Weaver? What is that?" he asked in confusion. "And also, eyes? You only get its eye form?"
Ayla nodded. "Yes."
"Can you show ?"
"No," she answered instantly.
"Why not?"
"Because if I shift inside this house, everyone here will fall into a dream, and I have decided I do not want our mother and father to faint."
Kenji almost laughed. He set his hands flat on his knees instead.
"Why did you use it on ?"
Ayla’s eyes widened slightly. "How did you know?"
"My bone fragnt is called Illusion Mask. It allowed to see through any illusions and project any illusions. If you did not use the trait of your new form and put into a dream, you could not control ," he scoffed.
"Oh..." Ayla showed no guilt. She did not think she did anything wrong at all. Controlling Kenji was a necessity. Ayla looked at him deeply. "Because of what I saw inside the Weaver’s mory."
"What?"
"The end of the world."
A pause.
"What?"
"Sothing is coming. From outside the universe. The Weaver was not the strongest thing in its ti. It was the one that survived longest. The thing that ca for it killed it. Cut its body into six pieces. Sealed each piece inside the Crusade."
Kenji’s breath had gone shallow. Sothing stronger than a Apocalypse level monster....
"What is that thing?"
"I do not know. The mory does not show. I will only know when I have collected all six pieces of the Weaver. Together, they reconstruct what it saw."
"And the six pieces are inside the Crusade?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then you have to enter the Crusade."
"Yes."
"The tunnels are gated by humans. A monster cannot walk through the Crusade without registration. No, a monster cannot go to the Crusade through the human side at all."
"Yes." Ayla placed her palms together. "Kenji, you are so smart. A perfect ’brother’ to ." She emphasized the word brother so much he gritted his teeth.
"But why my family?" He furrowed his brows.
"Because your father is the most influential person in this city."
"How did you know that? You read my mory? No chance. Then, how?"
"You revealed that in your dreams," she shrugged. While in a dream, Kenji had revealed many other things too.
Example...
"Take to the Lustrous Lounge too. I want to mate too." she said with a shine in eyes.
"YOU READ THAT?" His voice almost exploded.
"You revealed it. With this face..." She showed the face he had when he revealed that.
"Stop it." Kenji closed his eyes to avoid seeing the playful smile on her face. Kenji rubbed his temples. "My mother is going to be furious when she finds out."
"She will not find out."
"She is a Gold-rank Crusader, Ayla."
"She is also in love with the idea of having a daughter. The two facts will fight each other inside her for the rest of her life. The first one will keep losing."
He pressed his thumb against the bridge of his nose.
"My mother had your DNA tested. Multiple tis. The results matched my father’s." he paused, "how?"
Ayla blinked at him. A confused expression spread slowly across her face.
"Is it because I made this body using your biomass?"
Kenji went very still.
"What?"
"When I shifted into human form the first ti, my biomass was Jaxon’s. Then I added Martin’s. The third ti I rebuilt the form, I used yours. You bled enough tis in our partnership that I had material to work with. I did not think about it. I needed reference points. You were the most recent. I used you."
"You used ?"
"Yes."
"My DNA is in your body?"
"Yes."
"Ayla."
"What?"
"That ans you are biologically my sister."
"...Is it bad?"
He put his face in his hands. "If my mother ever used her DNA to check, it will show you are her real daughter!"
When he lifted his face again, the calm had returned. The calm he wore when sothing was genuinely dangerous and he wanted to keep his voice steady.
"I am damned."
"Why did you wait until tonight to ask these questions?" Ayla asked, ignoring his pained expression.
"Why did you wait?" he asked without answering.
"I waited because you were avoiding . I did not know why. I assud you were processing. I would have answered any of these questions in the hospital if you had asked," she complained.
He almost smiled. He did not.
"I could not ask in the hospital."
"Why?"
He breathed in.
"Alex."
"Alex? The old butler?"
He nodded.
"Alex has another na. The Truth Seeker."
A pause.
"What does that an?"
"He hears the gap between what you say and what you an. Not minds. Words. The way you place a syllable. The way you breathe before an answer. His trait allowed him to read it across thirty years in my father’s service. Anything we said in the car would have been registered. Anything at the dinner table. Anything in the corridor." Kenji stopped.
"Kenji..." Ayla called softly.
"Hm?" He glanced at her.
She raised her head to stare into his eyes. "Can I eat him?"
"Eh?"
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