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Sebastian swallowed, and Leon felt the anxiety in his throat. “Yeah.”
They walked down a flight of stairs and to a heavy metal door. Sebastian flipped open the covering of a keypad on the door’s right, input a code, pressed a button, then flipped the covering back down.
Nothing happened.
Leon poked out at Sebastian. “Is…the door going to open?”
Sebastian nodded even though Leon felt it rather than saw it. “Yeah, just give it a second.”
Leon had expected a smart-ass remark, not that tense reply, and he retreated to his corner, feeling wary.
After a couple more minutes, heavy metal mechanisms scraped together on the other side of the door, and it swung open.
Leon stared in shock at the woman who had opened it. Tall, willowy, older, and elegant, Leon recognized her instantly but couldn’t believe his eyes. “Is that…Alice Ralsdi?” Alice Ralsdi, wife of the powerful politician William Ralsdi, the direct descendant of Ralscoln’s founder, from whom the city took its name?
Sebastian didn’t answer him. Instead, he opened Leon’s mouth and said, “Hi, Mom.”
Hi, Mom.
Mom. Mother? Alice Ralsdi? Mother of Sebastian…Ralsdi?
Leon’s mind spun.
“Sebbie.” Alice Ralsdi stared at them, and the color drained from her face. “What did you do?”
She grabbed Sebastian—Leon’s—arm and dragged them to her side of the door. Then she slammed it shut and redid the numerous heavy locks.
“I didn’t do anything.” Sebastian pulled his arm free as Alice slid home the fourth huge deadbolt.
Alice spun back to them and looked them over with a pinched expression. “Is he still in there?”
“Yeah.” Overwhelming awkwardness flooded out of Sebastian’s consciousness. So much awkwardness that even Leon found himself cringing. “Um, Hess, this is my mom, Al—”
“I know who she is!” Leon snapped, unable to handle the embarrassment of the most mortifying introduction of his life.
“Right.” Sebastian stopped mid-sentence, which was even worse with the disbelieving look Alice gave them.
“Oh god.” Alice threw her hands over her face in a dramatic gesture that would have confirmed her relationship to Sebastian if there were still any doubt. “Come on. Your father’s in the living room.”
Sebastian’s father…. William Ralsdi.
Alice led the way up the stairs on her side of the door and into a hallway dimly lit by yellow lights. Sebastian turned off their lantern and stowed it in the backpack. Finally, Leon regained his footing enough to confront Sebastian.
“You—You’re—” And then everything slotted into place, and Leon went slack with the realization. “You’re the Ralsdi son. The one that died in the occupation.”
Sebastian pressed his lips together and pulled his shoulders in. “That’s me.”
“Was it faked?”
“Yup.” Some of the tension finally leaked back out of Sebastian. “I wanted to join the Resistance. And William Ralsdi Jr. couldn’t just disappear.”
William Ralsdi, Jr. So the Sebastian that Leon cared so much for wasn’t even real—
“I’m real.”
Leon recoiled. “Get out of my head.”
“I’m sorry.” Sebastian’s consciousness pulled back immediately. “I didn’t mean to. You were being so loud…”
