Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (21 page)

Hope claws its way back up from my toes to
lodge itself firmly in my mind. “How? How do I access it?”

“How did you get into this room?” he asks.

Without waiting for my answer, he sits
down in the same place he occupied when I first found him. I watch as he
settles into some kind of trance, knowing this conversation is over. There’s
nothing more he can tell me anyway. I get that, but as I walk away I can’t help
thinking that this won’t be the last time we’ll meet. I’m almost to the door
when a new realization hits me and I stop. I need to do one more thing before I
leave. Focusing on this one task, I open myself up to the power circulating in
the room and take it all in.

Chapter 22

Binding

(Mason)

There wasn’t much we could do by the time
we left the Parkers. If I had called home that night and asked Olivia’s parents
to bring Molly to meet me, they would have wanted to leave right that second.
Not wanting to risk them being exposed at night, I held off until this morning,
even though it nearly drove me crazy to do it.

I’m pretty sure I
did
drive Sloane
a little nuts with all my pacing and talking over my theory a million times. I
don’t know if she put up with it all because she’s as anxious as I am for
answers, or if her own thoughts about Hayden being her Escort kept her from
noticing how obnoxious I was being. Either way, neither one of us has much to
say as we drive.

Worried about my decision to not have
Olivia’s parents try to shake their Caretaker guards, I wonder for the
millionth time if I made the right choice. The Caretakers could cause us a
wealth of problems, but we’re short on time
and
allies at this point.
Plus, I’d rather be sure someone was keeping an eye on my little sister and
Olivia’s family. That alone was worth the risk.

“Do you think the ban between humans and
Aerlings is something the Mother made…or is it more, built in or something?” Sloane
asks.

I don’t have to ask for the reason behind
her question. It’s not about Olivia and me. “I don’t know, Sloane. It could be
either.”

“But if it was a rule the Mother made, to
protect any power from escaping her grasp…”

Shaking my head, I say, “There’s no point
in worrying about it right now. We can’t know for sure.” I don’t want to give
her or myself false hope.

For several minutes, Sloane is quiet, but
eventually she says, “If it was her rule, maybe…things could be different once
we’ve defeated her.”

“
If
we defeat her,” I snap.
“Nothing is guaranteed.”

She falls back into silence after that,
not offering up any more comments or thoughts for the rest of the drive. I pull
into the driveway of a house I’ve never seen before and put the car in park.
There’s another car, Olivia’s mom’s, parked next to us, and two more imposing
sedans parked in front of the house and across the street. Caretakers. Not my
favorite group.

Stalling, I ask Sloane, “Do you ever think
about going back to visit your Caretakers?”

“All the time.” Her expression is heavy
with emotion as she stares out the windshield. “It was wonderful to meet my
real father, but they were my family for eighteen years. Blood, it can’t just
replace that, you know?”

My head bobs slowly. “Yeah, I do know.” I
roll my shoulders and try to shake off my anxiety. “These people, they’re my
family, more than anyone else has any right to claim. If I have to choose
between the Aerling world and them, going home won’t mean going back to where I
was born.”

“You’re not the only Aerling who feels
that way,” Sloane says quietly.

It’s actually comforting to hear that.
When we first met, Sloane was very devoted to the Aerling world, but I see now
that her attitude was mainly one of desperation. She had been ripped away from
the family that raised her, told she should be thrilled to be
home
, and
given a new parent only to lose him soon after. All she had left was being an
Aerling. I have the opposite problem.

Breathing in and out slowly, I ready
myself. It’s not Molly or Olivia’s family that has me worried, even though
Olivia not being with us will inspire a million questions. It’s partly having
to face the Caretakers and partly fear that my theory will prove useless. My
hope that Olivia will come back with all the answers is slim. If this doesn’t
work, there’s no chance of us finding the Mother in time.

The seal on the door pops when I open the
door. I hear Sloane get out a second later. She’s already waiting at my side of
the car when I finally pull myself up to standing. When our eyes meet, she nods
and lets me take the lead. I’m sure the Caretaker Officers in the cars on the
street have already recognized me, but when the front door of the house is
pulled open in response to my knocking, a man I recognize stares out at me in
amazement.

“Mason?”

I rarely talked to the Caretaker Officers
protecting us before my birthday, but this is the guy who took us to Robin’s
mother when I desperately needed to create my wind spirit. He’s always been
polite and respectful, even kind to Molly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Recovering from his shock, he stands back
from the door and ushers us into the house. His eyes dart briefly to Sloane,
but return to me quickly. “How is this possible?”

“What you all think you know about Escorts
and the Aerling world could fit in a thimble,” I say with a bite to my words.
“If you continue to need Escorts after all of this is over, I’d suggest you
start treating them a little differently.”

“
If
?” he asks in confusion.

I don’t have time to answer him when Molly
throws herself into my arms. She’s laughing as tears run down her cheeks.
Olivia’s parents and Evie aren’t far behind, and soon we’re all crammed in
body-to-body in a massive hug. It takes a few minutes to untangle ourselves and
get down to business.

“Where’s Olivia?” her dad is finally able
to ask.

“And Hayden?” Molly demands.

“They both went back to the Aerling world
to try and find the Father and get some answers.”

Both of Olivia’s parents look worried at
that idea, but Evie serves to distract them when she asks, “When will they be
back and what are we doing out here in the middle of nowhere. Traveling around
with a Caretaker Officer isn’t exactly enjoyable, or something I’d ever want to
do again.”

Man, I’ve missed her smart mouth.
Suppressing a laugh, I say, “They should be back some time tomorrow. In answer
to your other question, you’re here because I have an idea I need to test, and
I can only do that with Molly.”

“Why do you need Molly?” Olivia’s dad
asks.

“Because she’s the only blood relative
I’ve got here.”

As I was lying in bed last night thinking
things over, I realized the answer has been in front of me since the moment the
Parker’s realized Molly was my sister. It took learning that Tū and
Tāwhiri were twins, having Shane confirm that there is ambient power
lingering on earth, and learning that power recognizes blood relationships to
finally get me to see it.

“We already knew power could be shared
between siblings, but I had no idea how important that was until we realized
that when power is truly combined it accesses the latent energy in the world
and increases it beyond what it should normally be,” I explain. “That alone is
important, but we’ve also learned that power can follow blood connections
without explicit direction. That’s what we need to test.”

It’s barely enough information to get my
point across, but everyone takes what I’m saying at face value by this point.
They’ve all gotten used to getting half-answers and having to be careful around
Caretakers. Gesturing to Sloane, I set Molly back down on the ground and we all
head for the couch. Molly crowds in next to me while Sloane takes up position
on the coffee table so she can face us both, after I explain what’s happening
to those who can’t see Sloane.

“Molly, I’m going to try to find the
connection between your power and Mason’s, okay?” When Molly nods, she
continues. “All I need you to do is focus and use a small amount of your power.
Mason will do the same.”

“What are you going to do?” Molly asks,
her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Sloane offers a gentle smile. “I’m just
going to feel your power and see if I can determine what it is that allows
power to transfer between the two of you. It’s part of my gift.”

Still seeming skeptical, Molly shakes her
head and takes my hand. I’m sure Sloane backing up her desire to come with us
when we first left Olivia’s house gained her some major points in Molly’s eyes,
but she’s still leery of trusting someone she doesn’t know very well. A few
seconds later, though, I feel her power being called up and put to use
exploring the strange house through her ability to see with her power. I follow
suit, bringing up my power and agitating it enough to ward off the chill of the
house I suspect is only used for meetings like this.

That’s all that happens on my end of this
first stage of the experiment. I have no idea how long it will take for Sloane
to find what she needs, so I just keep warming the air section by section. I
don’t know if anyone realizes that’s what I’m doing, but when Sloane finally
signals that I can stop, everyone in the room has their coats off and is
sitting more comfortably than before.

“Well?” I ask Sloane.

Her face puckers in thought before
speaking. “It’s not what I was expecting. I know you’ve mentioned how
everyone’s power has a different feel to you, but I don’t experience people’s
power like that. To me, it’s more like different layers of texture. Stronger
power feels sturdier. More defined abilities feel…thicker, I guess. It’s how I
judge a person’s potential power and strength. Finding some sort of commonality
between the two of you was a completely different task.”

“Did you find anything?” I ask. Surely
this wasn’t all a waste of time. There has to be something to this blood
connection. It felt right the moment the idea entered my mind.

Sloane folds her hands in her lap and
huffs. “What I found was…I’m not sure it’s going to make sense. To me, what it
feels like is layers of clothing. This is putting it simply, but it’s like
Molly’s wearing a fuzzy wool sweater and you’ve got on a leather jacket, but
underneath all the layers, you have the same…skin.” Sloane sighs in
frustration. “That sounds stupid.”

“No,” I say, “I think I know what you
mean. On the outer edges of our power, we have our different talents and
potential, but the core of our power is the same.”

“Similar,” Sloane corrects. “It’s not
identical, but yours and Molly’s core is much more similar than yours and
mine.”

Glad for her initiative, I ask, “You
compared our power to yours, then?”

Sloane nods. “My core is very different
from either of yours, which makes sense since we’re not related, but there’s
the tiniest, thinnest layer in all three of us that’s not just similar, but
exactly the same.”

“What does that mean?” Molly asks.

Twisting her hands together, I can tell Sloane
is unsure, but she answers as best she can. “I think it’s like DNA. Everyone
except identical twins have a unique genetic code, but when you get down to the
basics, we’re all made out of the same basic building blocks. I think that one
layer I’m feeling is where we came from, our connection to the first parents.”

“Can you show us how to find that?” I ask.
I have a few ideas I want to test out, but none of them will really work if Sloane
can’t show Olivia how to do what she just did.

Sloane reaches out for both our hands,
smiling now that she’s being asked to do something she has more confidence in.
“I’m usually trying to show someone where they need to go rather than where
they came from, but I should be able to show you what you need to know.”

Even though there is a Caretaker Officer,
Olivia’s parents, and Evie in the room with us, it feels like we’re alone as Sloane’s
power guides us through the layers of our power to the most basic part of who
we are. For me, I feels like moving through different electric fields. Some are
more like static while some feel like a thrumming. It’s not until I hit
something more solid, a deep hum that feels both strong and fragile at the same
time that the movement stops.

Under Sloane’s direction, I move my focus
to Molly. The bumblebee hum I’m familiar with hits me first, but then Sloane
shows me that Molly’s power is also made up of so much more than just her happy
buzzing. Down through the layers, I feel the strength that made Sloane so sure
Molly was a fighter and the softness that makes her compassionate like Olivia.
It’s only with Sloane’s guidance that I feel how similar our powers really are.
They lean in different directions, Molly’s toward action and excitement while
mine falls more on the side of caution and stability, but the thrum of power feeding
us both is almost identical.

Beneath everything else is that deep hum
that binds all Aerlings together. That is what I need more than anything else.
That is what Olivia needs to find the Mother. Opening my eyes when Sloane pulls
back her power, I ask, “Can you show Olivia how to do this?”

Sloane’s nod is slow, but sure. “I’ll help
her find the binding layer, and I should be able to help her develop her Seeker
abilities so she can track it and hopefully lead us toward the Mother, but it’s
not going to be as simple as a hound following as scent.”

No, I suppose it won’t. “How many Aerlings
are on Earth right now?” I ask.

Grimacing, Sloane says, “I don’t have an
exact number, but somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand. It used to be
a lot more.”