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“Not quite that, perhaps,” I said with a forced smile, hoping my awkwardness wasn’t as apparent to him as it was to me. Talking to him felt like picking my careful way through a nest of deadly scorpions.
Grey was watching our conversation, clearly alert and listening for every one of my words. His attention did nothing to calm my nerves, and I felt my heart rate increase.
Ignatius looked my way, his eyes narrowing, and I realized that as a healer, he would also be able to sense it. I sent my power toward my heart, ready to slow it back down to a normal rhythm only to stop myself at the last moment. If I acted too obviously I might tip my hand and reveal my affinity.
But I had to do something to distract his attention. I wished intensely for Nik’s presence and assistance, and just the thought of him gave me my answer. Fear made my heart beat faster, but so did being in Nik’s presence. Which meant I had to fake something I had no interest in faking.
Gritting my teeth and forcing a smile, I leaned slightly toward Grey, meeting his attentive eyes with as bashful a glance as I could manage. When he smiled back at me warmly, I tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled into my lap. Waiting one beat and then another, I snuck a sideways glance at him. He was still smiling at me, apparently having picked up on my intention.
By the time I looked back at Ignatius, he had one eyebrow slightly raised, a look of understanding on his face. Apparently my acting had been sufficient for the occasion, and it had even given an explanation for Grey’s particular interest in me.
A serving girl appeared at my elbow, blocking my view of Grey, and I smiled at her more brightly than the service required. She was carrying a steaming pot of porridge, a cloth wrapped around its handle to guard her hands from the heat. She clearly intended to place it in the middle of the table, but between the placement of our chairs and the weight of the pot, it was a tricky maneuver.
A memory flashed through my mind of Grey telling me that the Constantines didn’t allow cross-influencing on the island. In a flash of brilliance, I thought of a way to give Ignatius the final proof he needed.
Reaching for the metal pot, I wrapped my hands around its base, taking it from the serving girl with another smile. She gasped, but her smile returned when she saw I didn’t shout from pain or pull my hands away. I placed the pot on the table in front of me, handing the cloth around its handle back to the girl.
If Grey was right about the islanders’ lack of experience with cross-influencing, then they would associate a tolerance for burning temperatures solely with an elements seed. They might even be completely unaware that being cross elements conferred that particular protection.
When I finally risked another glance at Ignatius, he wasn’t looking at me at all. Apparently, I had succeeded in shaking his interest. I smiled to myself, although my pleasure at my quick thinking dimmed when I saw the approval in Grey’s eyes. But on this matter, if nothing else, our goals were temporarily aligned. Neither of us wanted the truth of my ability exposed to our new hosts.
Released from my worry over Ignatius, I finally paid attention to the rest of the table, only to find another pair of green eyes watching me. Costas sat across from me, and my display with the pot seemed to have roused rather than quenched his interest.
“I had hoped my new cousin might be elements like me,” he said with a friendly smile. “But at least he has brought you with him.”
I glanced at Grey who looked as surprised by the comment as me.
“You have an elements affinity?” Grey asked, leaning forward.
Costas chuckled. “It’s uncanny how much like a Constantine you look right now. Astonished and mildly disgusted is exactly how they feel whenever they consider how they managed to produce a disgrace like me.”
“Are you the only one with an elements affinity?” I asked.
His smile grew lopsided and self-deprecating. “In three generations, if you can believe it.”
I raised both eyebrows. “But usually—”
“I don’t know how it’s done on the mainland,” he said, “but here, Constantines only marry other healers. I didn’t even know we had anyone in our lineage of a different affinity, so I was as astonished at my testing as everyone else.”
“Everyone has to marry a healer?” I asked, my astonishment growing. It seems it wasn’t only the regular people on the island who had their lives controlled by this family.
“Except for my rebellious Aunt Chloe, of course,” he murmured, eyes on Grey. “How ironic that her son is the healer and not me.”
His words should have carried a heavy dose of bitterness, but he said everything lightly, as if he had long since accepted his position as an outcast in his own family.
I wanted to question him further about Grey’s mother, but I didn’t dare do it with Grey sitting by my side. I wasn’t sure if he even remembered that he had lied to me about her, or if he was merely trusting his mesmerization to hold regardless, but it didn’t seem a good idea to display curiosity over the matter.
The Constantine matriarch abruptly stood, and everyone else put down their cutlery. It seemed the meal was over, whether we were finished eating or not.
I don’t know what I expected to happen after breakfast, but the reality turned out to be an anticlimax. Ignatius and Barnabas both descended on Grey, sweeping him off with them for some sort of cousinly bonding or testing—I suspected they would claim the former while actually intending the latter.
The rest of us were shown to our rooms, where our packs were already waiting for us, and were then left to our own devices. I would have liked to explore the house, but I feared it would be frowned on. In desperation, I searched out Grey’s four companions since their company would be preferable to sitting alone in my room for a full day.
I found them in the gardens in front of the house, and they welcomed me easily enough. Now that we were in such unfamiliar surroundings, they seemed to have forgotten the feelings they’d harbored on the boat.
“Are we really free to do whatever we want?” I asked, not quite able to believe it.
“I heard there’s a market in the center square,” one of them said. “Shall we see if we can find it?”
