Is it crazy for us to even hope?
I can’t see Engel either, but the whisper of a turned page reaches my ears. The clink of her mug set down on a side table.
The sounds give me an impression of her in my mind’s eye, off to the left side of the room where the ceiling looms highest. The second floor only fills half of the space, over the kitchen and dining room. Dark beams crisscross the far wall of the living room around towering windows, stretching so high I can see them even crouched behind the island.
This isn’t how accepted guests are supposed to enter, but we can’t risk slipping back out and simply knocking on the door, not knowing how she’ll react. Instead, we rise cautiously to our feet.
The woman who’s only been a name to me before now flinches in her armchair beneath the tall windows. Her book falls from her hand to thump on the floor.
My eyes skim over her, absorbing my first real view of the woman I’ve wondered about so much.
Her hair, a mix of fawn-brown and gray, curls lightly where it’s tucked behind her ears. Her oval-paned, wire-rimmed glasses slide down her nose with a flinch, revealing pale eyes with crinkles of age at the corners. A cozy sweater and faded jeans clothe her softly rounded frame.
I can’t help thinking she looks almost motherly, even in her startled state. Like the moms I’ve seen on TV screens, sending their grown kids off to college or comforting them through breakups.
It isn’t hard at all to imagine her offering a warm hug or reassuring words—I mean, if she wasn’t staring at us like we’ve nearly given her a heart attack.
Andreas has raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry for sneaking up on you like this. We were hoping to speak with you—we don’t mean any harm.”
As long as she doesn’t try to harm us, he means.
The rest of us stay perfectly still, watching. Engel nudges her glasses up her nose to study us through them. Then her hand swipes downward in an odd motion I don’t totally understand.
It looks almost like she’s reaching for her mug, but instead her fingers dip between the arm of the chair and the side table. Just a brief skim before she’s folding her hands in her lap.
Jacob tensed beside me for a second, but once both her hands are in view and empty, he relaxes again, just a smidge.
“Do you know who we are?” he asks, managing to sound more curious than hostile, although I don’t think he’s capable of completely erasing the demanding note from his voice.
A hint of a smile curves the woman’s lips, enough to send hope flitting through my chest.
“My shadowblood children, all grown up,” she says in a crisp but gentle voice. “I haven’t seen pictures in years, but you haven’t changed that much since the last time.”
That voice. The faintest of recollections, not even really a memory it’s so vague, wisps through my head like the hazy impressions I got in the playroom at the old facility.
I’ve heard that voice lilting in a lullaby before—I’m sure of it.
Now that I can see the living room properly, it occurs to me that it looks an awful lot like that playroom. Log walls, suede seating, a fireplace where flames are crackling away over pine logs.
An image so familiar yet distant it sends a pang of homesickness through my chest.
If we ever had a real home, it was something like this.
As I take that in, Engel’s brow knits. “It’s only the five of you?”
She doesn’t know about Griffin. The realization jabs me in the gut like he’s dying all over again.
I swallow thickly, but Dominic speaks before I can. “He’s gone. Four years ago—we tried to get out, but it didn’t work.”
“Ah.” Engel appears to hold her emotions close, but a flicker of sadness crosses her face. “I heard about the attempt but not the entire outcome. My condolences.”
She leans forward slowly, and it occurs to me that she must feel just as wary of us as we are of her. She doesn’t know how much we know or what we think of her.
Picking up her mug, she gets to her feet. “I can be a proper host, even if the visit was unexpected. Before we get into the talking, how would you like some hot chocolate?”
A whisper of a memory passes through my head of buying a cup once while on an outside mission. I remember the sting of burning my tongue better than the actual flavor.
But the fact that she’s offering at all sends a quiver of elation through my chest. “That would be nice,” I say automatically.