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“You’re being more understanding than I expected,” Kezia said after Celeste and Asra had been taken to a seperate chamber to rest. “We betrayed the family.”
“You were coerced,” Adrian said fiercely. “No one here blames you for protecting Cel.”
“Though you have got to tell James that Cel is his daughter,” Matthias said. “Why did you deny it? We asked before you realised she was in danger.”
“I was going to tell James.” Kezia’s eyes shot sideways to Julie. “But Aunt Caroline said not to.”
“Really?” Matthias raised an eyebrow at Julie. “Why?”
“It was a premonition, I think,” Julie said. “But it was vague enough to just be a hunch. I had a sense that if you knew about her, it would put both families in danger. Now I know what happened later, I think I was sensing that. Imagine if she’d been in contact with you as well. If she hadn’t betrayed you to Marian, she’d have been forced to spy on you as well.”
“That’s a good point,” Sonia said. “It really would have made it hard to hide me, because Marian would have had her looking. Mitakrian as well.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Matthias said. “But James will still want to know.”
“And Lisa will be delighted,” Lucas said. “Ian says she always wanted a sibling.”
“We’re getting diverted,” Adrian said. “We need to know what sort of things they were asking about.”
“They wanted to know about any other resonants in our family, but even with threats hanging over her she missed all three of you. They nearly killed her over Sean, but she has no knack for spotting your kind. She realised about Martin though and managed to avoid telling them. She also knew it meant there was another resonant in the family because someone got the egg to Earth.” She tilted her head at Adrian. “You, I assume? Col’s too young.” She hummed to herself. “And why do we have so many resonants and near resonants in the family? I mean we’re the last family that should, aren’t we?”
Julie snorted. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But someone was clearly expecting it since they sealed those blocks that way.” She gave an impish smile. “I still don’t know why. We had Sean read those blocks, you know. A couple of days before–” She broke off and shuddered. “I don’t really understand why she took the ones she took when Cel couldn’t read them, though. They added little except to say they’d trusted the wrong ida and she was involved – but we know that from context anyway. I almost think part of the message was already missing except it said to seek the truth in the past – which suggests they want us to try retrocognition and I’m not sure there’s enough of a hook to see that far back. Hell, I’m not sure it’s possible with a hook.”
“In theory it should be,” Alaryia said. “Though it would certainly be a first. And you have plenty of hooks; any of us who was alive back then can help. Inherently risky as well, probably not something to try unless all other ways of finding out fails.”

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