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At first, I shake my head, and then it hits me: That’s the woman I hallucinated the last time I got high. Was that woman actually real? Was the man with the goatee real too?

As if she can hear my thoughts, Mia says, “Yes, Mr. Grant, they were real.”

“I saw that woman in my dreams once,” Arella says. “All I remember is that she kept asking me a bunch of questions.”

“Yes,” Mia says. “You were in the middle of being interrogated by an Enforcer when Grace figured out through your informative answers that you and Mr. Grant were soul mates. And that’s when I got called.

“Ordinaries who get scrubbed are never able to regain their memories. Immunes who get scrubbed are the same. However, when an Immune with a soul mate connection to a Zordi gets scrubbed, their memories return in their dreams. At least, that’s what I gathered from the data from the two previous couples like you.

Since this hasn’t happened for over two hundred years, Grace and I weren’t sure how accurate that data was.

“That’s why we allowed you to keep your memories, Mr. Grant.

That’s why I allowed you to keep your photo with Miss Rance’s writing on the back.

That’s also why I slipped that angel-wings necklace into her hospital bag.

I hoped that leaving you two with those items would help keep your connection alive so we could see if Miss Rance would regain her memories or not. ”

I shoot Mia a nasty look. “So this whole time, we’ve just been a part of your little experiment?”

“I can understand why that might make you angry,” Mia says calmly.

“However, I have good news for you. Three Immunes with a soul mate connection to a Zordi is a small sample size, but it’s a big enough pattern for me to conclude that permanently scrubbing an Immune who has made a soul-mate connection with a Zordi is impossible.

That means the next time this happens, the zovernment will proceed differently.

I suspect that Miss Rance will regain all of her memories over time and it’ll be like she was never scrubbed at all.

At least, that’s how it was for the other two like her. ”

“But she was scrubbed,” I say. “I went through three years of hell without her.”

Mia doesn’t look like she cares. “At the end of the day, Miss Rance was still an Ordinary who found out about the Zordi world. She would have been scrubbed regardless. Grace and I simply kept an eye on you two afterward.”

“But you let it go on for three years. Why not just tell us your plan? Then Arella and I could have worked on getting her to remember me faster.”

“That’s not the way Keepers work. We intervene as little as possible.

Also, we wanted to see how long it would take for Miss Rance’s memories to return and at what capacity.

We also wanted to discover what factors might play into her memories returning.

That’s all valuable data we wouldn’t have been able to collect if we intervened.

Letting you keep that photo and the necklace was already intervening too much.

Saving your life after you tried to kill yourself was pushing it too. ”

“What?” Arella gapes at me. “You . . . what?”

I never told Arella that I used to purposely overdose.

I also never told her about the many times I contemplated jumping out the window of my penthouse or the times I thought about tying bricks to my ankles and accidentally falling into the Hudson River.

I’ve kept that information from her because I don’t need to share the darkest parts of my past with the lightest parts of my future.

“Mixing alcohol with jaderro is a deadly recreational activity,” Mia says. “Not only did you do that multiple times a week, but it went on for months. We tried diluting your supply a few times, but it only made you take larger quantities.”

That explains why I kept having to up my dosage.

Phil’s tone turns to ice as he glares at Arella. “You’re dating a drunk musician with a jaderro addiction?”

I’m about to open my mouth to defend myself, but Arella beats me to it. “Trey has been sober for a long time now.”

“I can confirm that,” Mia says. “And please apologize to Liz for me. A Scrubber altered her memories to make her think she flew to New York and found you in a bad state on the floor of your apartment. In reality, we had already brought you to the hospital and pumped the drugs out of your system. Then we knocked her out and flew her there ourselves. We needed her to talk you out of doing it again. I’m pretty impressed by you, Mr. Grant.

You quit cold turkey, and you haven’t relapsed once. ”

“It’s really fucking creepy that you know that,” I say.

“I wish we knew more. Even with the information we have now, it’s still unclear how Miss Rance is able to reverse the scrubbing.” Mia smiles at Arella. “We can only assume it has to do with whatever makes you immune and the unique way our bodies function after building a soul-mate connection.”

“How did you gather your information?” I ask. “How can the Keepers watch us without me knowing it? My empathy power would have been able to detect whenever someone was nearby.”

“Your empathy power can’t sense Astral Projectors.”

Arella glances around the room, then at the ceiling. “Is there someone watching us now?”

“Yes,” Mia says. “It’s a normal practice. How else do you think the zovernment knows anything?”

Roxy gives Mia a motherly shake of her head. “Just because it’s normal doesn’t make it right.”

I couldn’t agree more.

“It’s done with the intent of our kind’s protection, Mrs. Ward.

And obviously, things do slip through the cracks.

For example, it’s hard for us to keep up with all Royal crimes when there are more of them than there are of us.

I mean, you raised an Ordinary child in your home without us knowing it.

Our limited number of Astral Projectors can only see so much. ”

Mia glances at her watch. “I need to wrap this up, so I’ll end with this: Over the centuries, we’ve learned that it’s easier for our kinds to produce a healthy child together if the couple are soul mates.

Since you’ve already gotten pregnant once before and that fetus was using her mind power in the womb, I’ve got a good feeling your current pregnancy will grow to term.

Most pregnancies between our kinds don’t even get that far.

That’s why it’s crucial that we stepped in early.

With our zoctors handling your prenatal care, we expect your survival rate to rise to almost seventy-five percent. ”

Almost? “That’s it?”

“Seventy-five is much better than fifty, don’t you think, Mr. Grant?”

I scoff. “But that means Arella still has a twenty-five percent chance of dying in the next nine months.”

Mia ignores me and turns to Arella. “Why don’t we start your prenatal visits as soon as the holiday is over?

I’ll have our medical team get in contact with you.

If it gives you any hope, your chances of surviving this pregnancy and the birth are much higher if your child is an Ordinary.

Around week ten, we will do a genetic test. If those test results come back with an elemental chromosome, that’ll mean your baby is a Zordi. ”

Arella lets out a long breath. “I guess we’ll find out in six weeks.”