“Managed that without their input.”
“They decided you needed an escort.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“You’d have been heading to the wrong place,” was her simple reply.
Reaching up, I rubbed at my nape. “What’s going on, Agent Black?”
“Temper, please. We’ve already been introduced.”
I knew madness. I knew insanity. I’d seen it light up both of my parents’ eyes at some point in my life—Temperance Black hit differently.
Very differently.
She put me on edge in a way that few people ever had, and that set uncomfortably in my bones.
It was, I thought, her righteousness.
I’d seen that in Da’s gaze too many times to count. An inherent belief that what he was doing was right even when he was very, very wrong.
Temperance was worse, somehow.
Which, trust me, was saying fucking something.
She was a zealot, and I didn’t believe that was based solely on her being a ‘patriot.’
When Star had tried to describe her to me, I hadn’t picked up on that. Maybe it was a trait you had to uncover in the flesh.
At my prolonged silence, she huffed. “You want to find Star, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“That’s where I’m taking you. To her.”
“You know where she is?”
She preened. “I was recently let in on that secret.”
Secret?
“Why is it a secret?”
“Only top Brothers know.”
“Why?”
“She’s important to the Union.”
My nostrils flared at that. “She didn’t even know they existed until recently.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t knowsheexisted.”
Eyes narrowing, I demanded, “She doesn’t know that you’re a Brother, does she?”
“Of course not,” Temper scoffed. “No one knows outside of the Union. And you, of course. You know now.”
“If that’s a threat—”