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“I’m not trying to do anything, but my magic seeks her out. It’s exhausting to constantly hold it back.”

Luka made a sound of acknowledgment, then said, “I think once her lessons start, she will find her control rather quickly.”

“As long as she can control her emotions,” Theon agreed. “But now that I feel them… She somehow has no control and complete control all at once.”

“Her instructor will help her.”

“An instructor from the Achaz Kingdom,” he said bitterly.

“It makes sense,” Luka said. “We don’t have her gifts.”

“You mastered your gifts just fine without a Sargon instructor.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I am the only one.”

“And she is the only?—”

Theon broke off, already striding towards Tessa while Luka called after him. He reached her in a few quick strides, dropping to a crouch beside her and turning her face to his with the tip of his finger. She looked up at him in surprise, her irises bright and flashing with streaks of violet.

“You believe Luka might not be of this world just as you might not be,” he said, focusing on her emotions.

He felt a flicker of surprise and then that same frustration at being discovered. The same irritation she’d felt when she’d revealed she could overcome the orders of the Source bond.

When he remained silent, waiting for her answer, that feeling shifted to determination. “I never said that,” she answered.

He couldn’t help the dark smile that formed, because she was…

“You beautiful, clever tempest,” he murmured, his hand sliding along her jaw and into her hair. “What other secrets are you keeping?”

A smile as dark as his own filled her lips as she twisted, rising onto her knees so she was eye level with him. He held still as her power slowly wound around his arm, golden strands moving up to his neck, then sliding through his hair as if it were her own fingers. He suppressed the shudder that wanted to roll down his spine as her power flared. His darkness, however, didn’t hold back, tangling with her light.

“You’ve taught me everything I need to know about secret keeping,” Tessa crooned, leaning in even closer.

“And what is that?”

“Secrets are currency,” she replied, her hands landing on his chest as her magic wound around him, sparking with energy and making him jolt. “Secrets are leverage.” Her lips brushed along his in the barest of touches. “Secrets are how you get what you want.”

She pushed off of him, gracefully rising to her feet. Small sparks of energy appeared with each step she took. Of course she’d removed her shoes as soon as they’d entered the arena, her bare feet leaving tracks on the dirt-covered floor.

Luka stepped in front of her, and she held up her wrists before he’d even pulled the bands from his pocket. She held his gaze the entire time he slid them on, and Theon could feel…uncertainty? Curiosity? That didn’t seem right, but he wasn’t sure how to define what she was feeling. She felt so much all the damn time.

But by the gods. He’d been underestimating her all this time. He’d known she was smart. He’d seen her marks on her lessons, but her cleverness had been revealed little by little, and he’d missed all the signs. He’d been too focused on trying to get her to submit to this bond. Too focused on his own means to an end. Too worried about having her completely bound to him before he let her in. It was the only way he knew how to protect all his carefully built plans and, more importantly, the people those plans were meant to protect. But if she had theories about Luka, she had theories about other things, and they could work through all those theories together.

The problem was he needed her to trust him, but any hope of that had been shattered alongside wine bottles and her spirit in the dark of a cellar.

He got to his feet, following her as Luka bent to murmur something in her ear. She nodded at whatever it was, and Theon felt a prickle of irritation. They’d been doing this more lately. Luka speaking words clearly only meant for her. He’d been refusing to tell him about their training sessions, but that would not be an option anymore. Not if she was revealing things to him that she was keeping from Theon.

“Glad to see the two of you are getting along again,” Theon said casually.

But Tessa ignored him, instead saying, “Can we go find Axel and Kat?”

Theon nodded, and she didn’t wait for them. As they followed her, he said to Luka, “She thinks you are not of this world. Did you know that?”

His brow furrowed. “Why would I know that?”

“Maybe she said something during training.”

“Why would you think that?”