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“Stay with me?” he repeats.

“Yes.” It’s easier to agree than I’d ever imagined it would be. “But tell me what you’re afraid of; I see it.”

“Our doomed future.”

“The future will be what we make it,” I remind him.

Kaelis opens his eyes to meet mine. There’s so much unsaid there…enough that I’m afraid to ask. “Yes, so long as we have the World, we have a future.”

Though, the real question remains: Which one of us will be the one to use it?

The townhome is quiet.

I didn’t announce I’d be coming, so most people have retreated to their rooms. Asleep, probably. Silas makes himself at home, heading tothe kitchen before he’ll settle himself in the front study. Now that he’s more welcome, he’s been given some unspoken liberties that he takes.

The doors to the lounge in the back are cracked open, a strip of light inviting me in. Bristara sits before the fire in her usual chair, staring into the dying flames. She doesn’t even acknowledge me as I slide the doors shut.

“You wanted to speak before tomorrow?” I round her chair, settling into the end of the sofa closest to her.

Her eyes drift to mine. Their purple is offset by the orange firelight. Fearsome without even trying. But every muscle in her body is relaxed, almost weighted down. Her attention drifts back to the flames.

“We need to talk about your mother.”

Not even so much as a hello. The words douse me like a bucket of ice water, drenching me from head to toe.

In my panic, I reach for dry sarcasm. “It only took you, what—four, five years?”

Bristara huffs and shakes her head, returning her attention to me.

“She and I weren’t particularly close. Acquaintances whose paths overlapped once or twice, briefly, nothing more.

” Sure, that’s what Bristara says, but I know Mother wouldn’t have shared our name with just a mere acquaintance.

“I didn’t find out about what happened at the Descent until months after, and, by then, you and Arina had slipped away.

She taught you well…you were able to evade us for so long. ”

“ Us? The Starcrossed Club?” I ask, even though I suspect she isn’t talking about the club.

“No.”

“Who, then?” My voice has dropped to a whisper. Why tell me this now? I want to ask. She’s had years to tell me. But I want whatever information she’s going to impart much, much more.

“Your mother should have been the one to tell you this.” Bristara runs her fingers in a circle over her temple, then along her brow.

“Tell me; I can handle whatever it is.” I’m glad my voice is level despite the cold, sinking feeling that is threatening to drown me.

“What do you know of the Worldkeepers?”

“The name means nothing to me.”

“Oh, Laylis…” She sighs. “The Worldkeepers are the guardians of the Majors. And, first and foremost, of the World itself. It is an ancient order that has existed across time and time anew. We are the ones who will always remember the worlds we walked should it be scrubbed from memory if, or when, it is rebuilt. And we guard the secret of the vessel upon which the World is imprinted.”

As she speaks, Bristara rolls up her sleeve and rests a small, circular card on her forearm—a shape I’ve never seen a card cut before.

It bears a delicate inking that reminds me of something Mother would make, but the lines mean nothing to me.

The moment the paper touches her flesh the card melts away and a symbol illuminates just above it.

It’s like a tattoo cast in a metallic, almost rusty ink.

The design is simple: a diamond with a starburst in its center.

I’m certain I’ve never seen it before. Just as quickly as it appears, it fades away.

My mouth nearly drops open in shock. Here I was, hunting through the library, scouring the workshop of the Fool, trying for months to see if I could get Kaelis to drop a clearer explanation about the vessel he’d mentioned. And all the while, Bristara had the information I needed.

“What is the vessel?” I try not to sound too eager.

“A card, just like any other. Yet it’s also unlike any other card. It is created by a sacred and secret inking process passed down through generations in the Worldkeepers’ bloodline.” She grips and relaxes her hands on her chair.

“And all the Worldkeepers know it?”

“At one time, worlds away. But not any longer. The Worldkeepers, in the last days of the previous world—before it was changed to its current state—were ruthlessly hunted. Only a handful survived, and only to be pursued with equal violence in this world. Among those who persisted was your mother. And she was the last remaining Worldkeeper who knew how to ink the vessel.”

I open and close my mouth. Shock has me easing back into the cushions. I run a hand through my hair.

“Everything she taught me…” Every inking process.

Every night we stayed up drawing, her teaching me how to ink in our own way—how to feel the cards and let that guide me.

This, Clara, is our special card, I can hear her whisper, as if she wants to be a part of this momenthere and now.

Her rigorous instruction wasn’t because I was a Major—or not only because I was a Major.

“You, Clara, are the last person alive who knows how to ink the vessel. A fact I am sure the crown is not far from uncovering, if they haven’t already.

” Bristara shifts in her seat to face me more evenly.

“And you will soon have a choice to make: Will you give that knowledge to the family that has been our enemy for generations? Or will you protect it as your mother did?”

“Kaelis isn’t like the rest of his family.”

“He is worse.” Her eyes darken. “He is the last of the Revisan bloodline.”

The portrait of the mystery queen and King Naethor. A woman whom I had never once heard mention of—who seemed like she’d never existed.

“The Revisan Kingdom was thousands of years ago…” I say weakly, already knowing things aren’t quite adding up for it to be true: the age of the fortress the academy occupies, modern yet supposedly ancient; the machines within from centuries ago, yet still in good working order.

“You know better than that,” she calls me on the obvious truth. Ido.

Kaelis’s mentions that now suddenly have so many more layers. He said his father had killed his mother—that his memories of her were scattered. Kaelis’s disdain for his family and wanting to destroy Oricalis. Did King Naethor use the World to kill Kaelis’s mother and, if so, why?

“Why are you telling me all this now? You’ve had years.” Panic wars with anger between my words. A mystery that was once thrilling is now terrifying.

“The Worldkeepers’ induction is usually at twenty-one as an homage to the World we protect.

” It’s not lost on me that they apply similar logic as the academy when it comes to age of induction.

The irony is stunning. “But, when you were taken to Halazar, we all agreed waiting any longer was foolish. If— when you managed to get out, or we managed to break you out, we would immediately induct you.”

“Why haven’t you, then? I’ve been out for almost a year.”

“Given your recent associations… we wanted to be sure that we could trust your instincts.” A flash of the disapproval I’ve been seeing for weeks is back in her eyes.

“You kept me in the dark because you were testing me?” My anger is as searing as a red-hot branding iron.

“Oricalis already knows too much. Before giving you more information, there were those among the Worldkeepers who wanted to be sure you wouldn’t funnel even more to them.”

Those among the Worldkeepers, not all. Still, I get the sense Bristara is going a bit rogue. Not that I’m complaining. “But you don’t doubt me?”

“I think, when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice.

That it is too dangerous to keep you unaware of the greater forces at play.

Who knows how you would’ve acted had you known all of this from the start?

” The answer soothes my annoyance slightly.

But I try not to let any of it show. The information is too valuable to possibly lose out on because of an outburst.

“How many of you are there?” I focus on her heavy use of “we.”

“Now a few dozen, minus the ones we lost attacking King Naethor on All Coins Day.” She adds, with a somewhat disgusted uttering, “Fools.”

That was how the assassin knew my real name on All Coins Day. How she recognized me. I wonder if she could’ve been one of Mother’s “friends” who came by from time to time in Rot Hollow. Had I seen her before? Or did she just know who I was through this organization?

“The tunnels in the mountains—”

“Our pathways.”

“And my sister—”

“The academy is as much of a blind spot to us as it is to everyone else.” She stops me. “You know as much as I do when it comes to her, likely more.”

“But you knew she didn’t make it out of the academy,” I realize.

Bristara’s expression hardens. “Because if Arina had been sent to a mill, you would’ve followed her.

You let the rest of the club think there was a chance Arina was out there.

” My voice drops to a whisper. “Would you have ever told them?”

A long stretch of silence.

“We do what we must.” Bristara is unapologetic and unflinching.

“Do you even care about us?” I whisper.

“Of course I do. You and your sister have always had people looking out for you, even if you never noticed. You still do.” She’s genuinely offended, shifting in her chair.

“And me? I care about this star-crossed family I’ve built more than anything else in the world.

The club never had anything to do with the Worldkeepers. ”

“Yet you’d lie to us.”