There was a minute of silence after Emma’s question, during which Amelia tightened her hold on the blanket that was around her body, and then took a seat on the sofa. She had been standing all this while.
Emma thought of giving her a trouser and sweater and socks from her collection since they were mostly the same size, but she didn’t follow through with the thoughts. Her sister was a jaguar, which means that the latter could regulate her body temperature. She only needs clothes to cover her nakedness. The blanket was doing justice to that.
“You aren’t going to answer the question?” Emma poses, tired of her sister’s silence.
“That’s because I think you already know the answer to that, Emma. If you already have dug into the powers that have been stored in you before your eighteen birthday, then it means that something had triggered it, before its time. It means that you had probably fought against something. Something must have tried to hurt you, and so it jumped out.”
Emma said nothing, but she remembered the first time she had seen the power. It had been in Zipfarah’s palace; when they had tried to stop her from going back to the pack, when the queen had contained her in a cage.
Thinking of it now, Emma wished she had stayed back there. It would have been better for her to stay in oblivion, than to have experienced that heartbreak that had commissioned her to kill Casper.
Casper.
A reminder that her powers were still uncontrollable, and that she needed to train.
Where the hell was Prescott? He should have been back by now? Or was there a problem with Casper’s burial? She hoped not. She hoped that Zipfarah would be lenient with her old friend.
“So, you have been a spy? All this time, Amelia, you have bidding time to do what? Protect me? Take me? Or what? Were you groomed for this? Were you adopted then? I don’t think Father is aware of your animal state. So, who exactly are you? I heard you are the guardian and all that. But who exactly are you? Where are you from? What is your mission? What do you want from me?”
Amelia inhaled deeply, gathering her thoughts, choosing which to say, and which to leave out. “Yes, I was adopted. When Tempest had brought you to father, they had been with no children, and so they hadn’t a problem taking care of you. My master had found that out…”
“Who is that?” Emma asked, interrupting Amelia’s tale.
“Master is the man that had trained me. I don’t know his name. And I don’t actually know my parents. According to him, they are dead. I am not sure of the truth in that statement, but he had been the one that had taken care of me since I was a baby, and it was him that had orchestrated the meeting between father and me. It was him that had convinced father to adopt me. Father had agreed. Mother had no problem with that. That’s how I came to meet you. I don’t know how he knew of you. He had just told me that my mission was to keep tabs and make a report every month to him about you. He hasn’t done anything harmful, so I have no cause to believe that he is the enemy. He only told me of your role in the upcoming war.”
War? What was that?
Emma’s mind drifted to the dreams she had when she had been in Derek’s house the first night, and shook her head. She hated wars. If she had her way, there wouldn’t be war at all. Maybe she could reach a compromise with Leonarya?
“But why don’t I have a memory of that? I only have the one of growing up and seeing you. I have always thought you are my elder sibling.”
“Well, typically, I am older than you. But I think the master must have tampered with your memory so that you wouldn’t be aware that I was adopted.”
That must be why their father then had always favored Amelia to some extent. Emma considered. He had thought that she knew the latter was adopted, and had believed that it was the reason why she had acted spoiled all the time. He had done all that to teach her a lesson, not knowing that her memories had been tampered with.
“So, why did you follow me here?”
There was a short silence, in which Emma was sure that a bombshell was about to drop.
“I followed you here, because the master demands it. I am here, to take you back to the master, by all means possible.”
Emma snorted.
***
Margo was aware that Zipfarah’s attention was now on her, was aware of her heart beating out of rhythm, was aware of the distrust, yet maddening curiosity in Keturah’s eyes. She opened her mouth, and then shut it, not knowing how to go about the truth.
“Margo, Esther is your biological daughter? Why didn’t you say so? Why did you keep that from the girl? Why did you both leave the community? Please give me answers. I have always wanted to know why my niece had suddenly left. I owed your mother to care for you, but you had deprived me of that. What really happened?”
Margo bowed her head, not knowing how to say what she had to say without hurting the people that she loved, without hurting her people. At least Tempest was not here.
“Margo, we won’t judge. You know that.”
Margo shook her head. “You have to wait until you hear it.” Her statement brought a confused sort of tension in the room, which settled on the Queen and Ketura. But they waited in silence for her to speak.
“I left the pack because Esther was being bullied. She didn’t tell me, but I knew. Her magic took time, in coming out. Then, I had believed that it was the consequence of what I had done.”
There was silence.
A tear slipped from her eyes.
Zipfarah opened her mouth, then shut it. She hadn’t known of this. Why hadn’t the twin boys mentioned this to her?
“I would have tried to stop it, but Daniel was behind it. I am not sure why, but I always thought that he knew that Malone was the father of Esther.”