Page 33 of Never the Same

“You usually use a firearm. Knife, sometimes. Rarely just your hands to take someone out.”

Rarely implied it had happened.

“We’re not psychos, I promise,” he said quietly, urging both my arms down. “We’re not even red flags. More like yellow lights.”

I cracked a smile, surprising myself with that reaction. “And that means?”

“We always give warnings.” He smirked. “If someone chooses not to listen, then—”

“I get it.” A little too much, in fact. I gestured for him to start walking again, and we took baby steps into my literal past until we made it to the end of the corridor, stopping before a domed chamber.

Without thinking twice about it, I moved in front of a retinal scanner and punched in the access code.

“Muscle memory. Your fingers knew the numbers, even if you didn’t.”

I stumbled back in surprise as the door clicked and began to creak open, scraping against the stone floor.

“Come on,” he said when I remained stuck at the threshold, unsure whether I should take the plunge. “It’ll help.”

“Not so sure about that.” But I did as he asked, and a burst of goose bumps prickled across my skin as I walked into the chamber.

The room was encased in smooth gray limestone laced with obsidian veins that shimmered under the soft golden glow of the lanterns.

Forgetting for a moment why I was there, I just took it all in. I ran my fingers along the edge of a marble bust, absorbing the sight of the artifacts lining the walls. Swords, scrolls, framed maps—each preserved in glass or reinforced metal casings.

“Recognize that?” Julian pointed to a painting on the wall. “Our family crest.”

I stepped closer to the oil painting, an exact match to our tattoos.

It was divided into four quadrants. A crown in the right-hand corner. A chained lion, a falcon holding a scroll, and a phoenix wing rising through fire in the other three. A crucifix sat at the top, and beneath the shield was Latin script: In tempore veritas.

In time, there is truth. I assumed I’d correctly translated that.

“Tell me about the crest,” I requested, my voice soft, like I might disturb the dead while stepping into the past. “What do the symbols mean for us? For our family?”

“Well, uh, the scroll represents knowledge we’ve protected under our wing. And it’s a falcon because they don’t rule from the sky. They hunt. Silent and precise. They don’t wait for war. They end it before it begins.”

“And that’s who we are? What we do?”

“That’s who we were trained to be.”

I focused back on the sword and crown. “This is a classic heraldic symbol?”

“Yeah, but what makes ours different is that the sword is in front of the crown instead of behind it like normal. It means truth over sovereignty. Truth above loyalty to any king.”

“So we don’t serve the crown?”

A nearby sconce light flickered against his pupils, giving them a brief golden sheen. “No, we defend the truth.”

“And the lion?”

“He’s chained to represent restrained strength. That just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.” He traced his stubbled jawline with his knuckles while continuing. “Power can corrupt, and we have to be careful we don’t let it corrupt us.”

“So truth over ourselves, even.” I turned to face the final quadrant. “The phoenix. I recognize that symbol. From a movie, maybe?”

“That’s Audrey’s doing. She’s been catching you up on a lifetime of movies you missed whenever you hang out.”

Audrey, the one I’m using to feel normal? Eight years was a long time to play pretend, though, wasn’t it? Maybe my mother didn’t know the real me—or at least, only the one she wanted to see: Celeste, the warrior.