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A/N: The Haventon Born ebook has been released. See here for where you can get it!

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Sonia said. “I remember you as a kid, Marian, and Mitakrian ruined your life as much as he did ours. A new life would be good for you as well, I think.” She shook her head. “Good grief, Marian, how did you even keep going when you were in all that pain? I wasn’t in half as bad a state and I was crippled.”

“Sheer bloody-mindedness,” Marian said. “Though as I understand it, your injuries actually messed with your ability to use your powers by making it hurt more, while I had that framework Mitakrian had built to allow me to function. I didn’t hurt any more when I used my powers than when I didn’t so I had no incentive not to. I’d forgotten what it was like to not hurt.” She hugged herself. “You know I’m really, really sorry for how much I hurt you, don’t you?”

“I do,” Sonia said. “And in the name of fairness, I’ll point out you never meant me to suffer. You may have been homicidal, Marian, but you were never sadistic. What I am still mad about is that you went after the kids as well. You didn’t know, so what were you thinking? Was it really just to make Matt mad enough to attack you?”

Marian shook her head slowly. “I knew how good at spatial you are but I thought that you wouldn’t be able to jump both yourself and your kids so you’d throw them clear. I thought that your death and the danger to them would be enough to push Matthias over the edge without killing them.”

“That’s why you didn’t stand down for so long?” Matthias asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I knew something was off about it but you were too good, I could never prove it. And while the Core could tell me she wasn’t dead, it didn’t know if she had fled into exile or was on Earth.”

“Ironic.” Matthias snorted. “I hid the kids too because I thought them resurfacing would make you realise Sonia was still on Earth and it was hiding them made you suspicious.”

“I didn’t think she’d have taken them into exile with her, no.” Marian gave a wry smile. “Not without you, anyway. And the fact my every attempt to track all sets of quadruplets in the UK – which shouldn’t have been so hard – ended with me going around in circles and finding nothing was obvious evidence you were hiding them but I couldn’t prove it, so I pulled back and waited for you to make a mistake. You never did.” She snorted. “You even blocked me from realising Karen’s name wasn’t a coincidence.” She looked over at Julie who was covering her eyes. “What?”

“Much as I’m glad you failed to find them, pain must have addled you more than I realised,” Julie said. “I taught you to get around the Morgan’s distraction ability when you were seven years old.”

Marian tilted her head. “You did!” she exclaimed. “How did I forget that…?” Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t. Someone made me forget it to stop me unravelling something else and not finding Sonia was a side-effect. To do that, they’d have had to know about the state I was in.” She tutted to herself and her eyes widened. “Which tells me two things. One, the resonant spy in the family is Celeste, and two, we wrong to discount Mitakrian as the dragon she might be working for.”

A/N: The Haventon Born ebook has been released. See here for where you can get it!

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