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“I only have theories,” Hunter told her. “You’ll have to ask your friends if you want accurate answers.”

She nodded in understanding and brought them back to their original topic. “So, Samson was discovered and apprehended, but then what? You decided to send an inexperienced group of teenagers to rescue him? Not your most brilliant plan, Hunter.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“It almost didn’t,” she argued.

“But it did, and even more perfectly than I could have imagined,” he said. “Without your involvement, the night would have remained just a dinner party. But with the mess you lot caused, you managed to confirm the identities of an undercover group of insurgents hiding in plain sight. Or a handful of them, at least. That’s quite a success story.”

“We almostdied, Hunter,” Alex emphasised.

He looked at her steadily. “Aven wouldn’t have killed you.”

“He would’ve killed the others!” she argued.

“No, Alex,” Hunter said quietly. “He would have Claimed them.”

Alex felt physically ill. “That’s a fate worse than death.”

“Something we can both agree on,” Hunter said solemnly.

“How do you know all this?” Alex whispered. “Did Darrius tell you about everything? About Aven and the gifted people who have disappeared? The people Darrius thinks are Claimed?”

Hunter averted his eyes and appeared to be considering his next words. There was a long moment of silence before he said, “Headmaster Marselle has spoken with me at length, but much of my knowledge comes from elsewhere.”

He didn’t explain further, and Alex knew she wouldn’t learn anything more by pressing him.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” she asked. “Anything I need to know?”

“I think you already know much more than you should,” Hunter said with the barest hint of an approving smile. Then his face turned serious again. “One thing I’ll say is that I had a specific reason for sendingyou, in particular, to Sir Oswald’s party. You’re right that I thought Aven might be there tonight, and that my allowing you to go in unprepared may seem careless on my part. But listen to me when I say that at no stage were you or your classmates in any real danger, and if you had been, I would have stepped in and pulled you out immediately.”

Alex looked at him disbelievingly. “I’m sorry, but did you miss the part where Aven almost beheaded Kaiden? How could you possibly have known a sword would appear in my hands to save him when I still have no idea how that happened? Or what about when I almost suffocated from smoke inhalation? You didn’t step in then, did you? Or when—”

Hunter cut her off to ask, “I’ve told you about part of my gift before, do you remember?”

“Perception,” Alex answered, not sure where he was going with this. “You’re aware of where people are and what they’re doing.”

He nodded. “Yes. But I also know what they’reaboutto do.”

Alex raised her eyebrows as she digested that. “Are you saying you can see the future?” If that were true, she wondered how similar his gift was to D.C.’s.

“I only see flashes of the outcomes a few seconds before they unfold since the future is dependent upon our choices, but yes, effectively, when I use my gift to concentrate on a specific person, I can see what is about to happen around them. You are, of course, the exception, given your own gifting, but I wasable to work around that while you were in the company of others. I could see your future through their eyes.”

Alex lingered on his words for a moment before she released an accepting sigh. “So you’re saying you knew we’d all make it out of there okay? And that’s why you didn’t intervene?”

“As I said, I can only perceive events within a short span of time, but I was watching closely, Alex. I knew you would save Kaiden. I knew you’d survive your fight with Aven. I knew you wouldn’t suffocate. If I’d seen anything causing a legitimate threat to your lives, I had a plan in motion to get you out. All of you.”

“And that plan was?”

“Irrelevant now, since it wasn’t necessary,” Hunter said.

Alex thought that was a copout response, but Hunter was nothing if not mysterious, so she was willing to let his non-answer slide and simply trust he was telling the truth.

“For the record, a little warning would be nice next time,” she said. “Or at least reassurance that you’ll be around to help if required.”

“My only justification is that you needed to see what you saw and hear what you heard,” Hunter said. “And as much as I wish it wasn’t the case, you needed to fight Aven like you did so you’d know exactly what you’re up against.”

Alex frowned at him. “I’ve gone head-to-head against Aven before. I didn’t need a repeat of that to remember how far out of my league I am when it comes to him.”