Chapter 41
MIDMORNING THE DAY after Ivy received the information about Clara Alvarez, her well-rested husband teleported her and Rabbit to Haven. It was a peaceful and sprawling green estate meant for F-Psy who were fractured—and it was also home to Samuel Rain. The robotics and biofusion expert who’d saved Vasic’s life and who was now determined to build him a working prosthetic could’ve moved out, but he liked it here and had requested to stay.
“Do you have to go see Miane?” Ivy asked.
Vasic had received a message from BlackSea right before they teleported.
“No,” he said into the gentle quiet, his body strong and warm as he stood partially behind her. “With the SUV lead having dead-ended, there’s nothing I can do at this stage but wait until they have another location. The message had photos from Persephone’s birthday celebration—we can look at them together after your meeting.”
Ivy nodded, fiercely proud of the little girl who’d survived the monsters of the Consortium. Ivy wasn’t the empath working with her, but she received regular updates from the young male E who was, and those reports told her Persephone had a defiant spirit that might be wounded but was in no way beaten.
“Do you want me with you?” Vasic asked, curving his hand over her hip. “Samuel asked me to come in for a deep-tissue scan.”
“Go have the scan,” she said. “I think this’ll go better if it’s just me.”
When Vasic nodded, she tilted up her head and pressed a palm to his cheek. “Thank you for the ride.” She was well aware she was ridiculously spoiled in how she could go anywhere in the world she wanted.
Just over three weeks ago, when she’d mentioned she wanted to try a pastry she’d heard about called mille-feuille, Vasic had taken her to a bakery in Paris. “I love you.”
Vasic’s expression didn’t alter, but he turned his head to kiss her palm, while deep within, their bond vibrated with the potent strength of his own emotions. “That’s one thing I never doubt.” A faint smile that made her want to kiss him.
So she did.
Ivy. I’ll teleport us back to bed if you’re not careful.
Laughing at the cool warning that belied the sinful way he was kissing her back, his fingers stroking her hip, she stole another taste before pushing him away. “Stop distracting me.”
His eyes glinted a promise of vengeance. “I’ll see you soon, Mrs. Zen.”
“You can count on it, Mr. Zen.”
Lips curving, Vasic angled his head at Rabbit. “Come on, let’s go see Samuel.”
Rabbit padded off happily at his side.
Ivy took a few moments to watch her husband walk toward the main Haven building—he was so beautiful in motion—before she turned to head to the rose garden where she’d asked to meet Clara. The other woman was already there, seated on a familiar weathered wooden bench, her eyes on the colorful mass of blooms open to the sun and scenting the air.
“Ivy,” she said as she rose, her smile warm.
The manager of Haven was dressed in a pale gray pantsuit paired with an aqua blue shirt, her golden brown hair parted in the center and rolled into a neat knot at the nape and her hands covered by thin black gloves.
“Clara.” Ivy walked forward. “Thank you so much for agreeing to see me.”
“Of course,” Clara said as they both took seats on the bench. “Is it about Samuel? He’s doing very well.”
“No, it’s something else.” Deciding to dive straight into it, she told the other woman about the severe and deadly disintegration of the fabric of the PsyNet. Then she spoke about the two other healthy loci.
When she said, “You’re the third,” Clara’s eyes widened.
“I see,” the former Justice Psy said. “Do you know what sets apart the other two?”
“Not their abilities,” Ivy said. “One is a teleport-capable Tk, the other a J like you.” Then she added what she believed to be the critical factor. “Both are bonded to humans.”
Clara didn’t respond in any visible fashion, as Ivy continued. “I know you have a human husband,” she said quietly. “I need to know if you’re bonded on a psychic level—I swear I’ll protect your privacy. The only people who know or need to know all have their own bonds.” Each and every one understood that it was a gift, not to be harmed. “None of them would betray you.”
Clara’s brown eyes held hers for a long moment, as if she was judging Ivy’s sincerity, before the manager of Haven reached down to quietly tug off the glove on her left hand . . . to reveal a golden band on her ring finger. “His name is Patrick,” she said, her love for him a kiss against Ivy’s senses. “And yes, we’re connected on the psychic level. Mated.”
“How do you keep the bond hidden?” Ivy whispered. “There’s no hint of it in the Net.”
“Anthony helped us,” Clara said, and it wasn’t as big a surprise as it should’ve been. Anthony Kyriakus, after all, was the man who’d created Haven.
“You see, he was already helping me,” Clara continued. “Justice Psy don’t last too long once our internal telepathic shields go.” Shadows in her eyes, memories of all the evil she’d witnessed, evil that had acted like acid on her mind. “That was why he was able to react within microseconds when Patrick and I refused to follow orders and ended up mated.”
A smile that made her entire face glow. “Then, when it became clear my ability to shield was starting to heal”—wonder touched her expression—“Anthony taught me how to take over, how to hide the bond and Patrick’s mind.”
“The only other J I know whose shields spontaneously regenerated is Sophia,” Ivy murmured. “And she’s unique.”
“Sophie and I’ve talked this over,” Clara said. “The only commonality between us is that we both love human men with unbreakable natural shields.” She lifted her gaze from her wedding band. “And love can’t be forced. If there’s another answer . . . There are so many hurt Js in the world.” Her hands fisted in her lap, pain drenching her voice. “You say the PsyNet is healthy around me—maybe that has something to do with the regeneration, too.”
Ivy was beginning to realize that if her suspicions were true, then the single fact that connected Stefan, Sophia, and Clara had far more staggering implications than even she had guessed. “The shielding technique Anthony taught you,” she said. “It must be phenomenal to hide your bond with Patrick so effectively.”
A pause, before Clara said, “The shields are very strong, but the thing is . . . I always had the sense something was helping Patrick and me keep our secret.”
“The NetMind protected Es for a century.” A tremor of understanding ran through Ivy’s bones. “I can see it doing that for a human mind in the PsyNet.”
“Would you like to see?” Clara’s question was whispered, secret.
Ivy nodded and joined Haven’s manager in the PsyNet. The J-Psy slipped her own shields around Ivy’s, with Ivy’s permission—after Ivy warned Vasic what was about to happen. Only after Ivy was isolated did Clara drop a second layer of shields, and Ivy saw the autumnal warmth and cool blue rope of the other woman’s psychic bond with another mind. That second mind wasn’t Psy, though it shone as bright, in shades of icy blue. And it sat not in the PsyNet but not quite out of it.
No Psy mind could reach it, could hack it. Clara was the only point of contact.
Conscious she’d been given a gift, Ivy slipped back out of Clara’s shields when the woman opened them. “Thank you,” she said on the physical plane. “Why did you trust me?”
“J-Psy get good at judging people. I know your heart, Ivy Jane Zen, and I know it’s good.” Clara rose to her feet. “I have to go, but call me if you need anything else.”
“I’d like to meet Patrick.” Ivy had only glimpsed him at Zie Zen’s funeral. “He seems fascinating.”
“Oh, he is.” A sudden smile. “Aggravating at times, but always wonderful.”
Ivy sat in place long after Clara left, turning over the consequences of what she’d discovered. It all made sense—the NetMind’s bloody images of loss and desecration, the fact that the PsyNet was barely maintaining coherence despite the number of active Es, why the Forgotten had a healthy network and the Psy didn’t.
Because when the Forgotten left the Net, they took their human mates with them, while the Psy were told to sever those bonds or to suffocate them out of existence. Until in this generation, there were only three known human minds in the PsyNet.
Ivy understood now.
Until the dawn of Silence, the PsyNet had never been populated only by Psy. Changelings and humans had both been a presence—though, in the case of changelings, that presence would’ve been minor at most. From what Ivy knew as a result of her friendship with Sascha, changelings tended to pull their mates into their own psychic networks.
Not so with humans.
There were no records of humans being an active presence in the PsyNet, but even the old Councils hadn’t succeeded in erasing eons of history that spoke of human-Psy marriages and relationships.
Such relationships had been unremarkable before Silence.
Ivy’s own family history included multiple human ancestors.
The human race had therefore always been part of the PsyNet’s psychic fabric, providing a mysterious and indefinable energy without which the Psy race’s entire future hung in the balance.
And most humans hated most of the Psy.