Chapter 442: Chapter 442

Chapter 442

Zane At Stella’s words, Xander was instantly on his feet. Stella took his hand again. She tugged it gently to get him to look at her.

“Daddy, she’s fine. She’s got a man with her.”

Xander scowled. “What man?”

“He’s a doctor.” Stella tilted her head, her gaze going far away. “He’s an eye doctor. She was sensing that something was using her vision, and she stopped it by shutting her own eyes down.

He’s helping her. She’ll be fine. The twins are fine, too.”

“And the High Council? What are they doing?” Xander demanded.

“They already knew we’re gone and where we’re going. They…” She paused. “When she refused to let them see through her third eye any more, they destroyed the scrying device, hoping it would kill her. But it didn’t! She’s free!”

“Won’t they be attacking Brightsky, then?” Mason interjected.

Stella laughed, bubbling with joy. “No! They don’t care now! They’re so focused on us, they’re all coming. Every last one of them is set on destroying us!”

“They’re cutting off their noses to spite their own faces,” Lanie said.

“They have no choice but to do their best to annihilate us,” Stella said. “Not after they’ve spent so much time working everyone into a frenzy about vampires taking over and hybrids being at the root of the wars. All of their lies need to be supported, or they’ll find themselves destroyed.”

Brightsky’s safety was good news, but I couldn’t get too jazzed about us being the sole targets.

Nothing had changed except the number of people on our trail, but it still felt worrisome.

Lanie had fallen asleep, and I didn’t want to disturb her. Xander and Mason were silently playing a game of cards that neither seemed interested in winning. My Beta senses told me I’d done all I could for them so I decided to take myself up on deck.

I spotted Stella at the back of the boat, sitting on the small lower deck used for swimming. For now, the sea was calm enough that she was in no danger…well, other than the danger we were already in.

“How close will he be able to get us to the island?” I asked her as I approached.

She jumped at the sound of my voice and let out a gasp. “Oh! Papa! You scared me!”

It seemed strange that I’d been able to startle her. Maybe she wasn’t so all-seeing and all-knowing as I’d thought. Or, more likely, she had so much on her mind that she hadn’t been paying attention to me.

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”

I sat down next to her, our legs dangling over the back of the yacht’s swim deck. The water was cold on my bare feet. I imagined something coming up from the depths to nibble my toes. If I was lucky, a nibble was all I’d get.

“I was Seeking,” she said. “We’re close to the island. We’ll get there tomorrow.”

She leaned against my shoulder but said nothing for a few minutes. The water slapped at the sides of the yacht. It stretched out beyond us into a vast blackness even the light of the stars could not cut.

“When the sun rises, I’ll know more,” she said. “Fallen Crest is hidden by a fog that stretches for miles, all around it. So long as we stay just outside that barrier, I think our captain will be okay.”

Something in her tone sounded off. I didn’t think she was lying to me, but I did suspect there was something she wasn’t telling me. I gave her another minute to decide if she was going to or not.

“Papa,” she said quietly, then stopped.

“Yes? What is it? You can tell me.”

She hitched in a trembling sigh and pressed her face to my shoulder. Her hand sought mine and took it. I linked our fingers, squeezing, and brought her knuckles up for a kiss.

“Tell me,” I urged her. “We can help.”

“I’m afraid I’ve made some bad choices. Choices that can bring harm to people. But I have no choice. At dinner…” She drew in another shaky breath. “The captain dropped his knife. It landed point down. Stuck in the floor.”

“I remember.” I’d wondered at the odds of that happening.

“He was meant to have it stab his foot,” she said. “So he couldn’t stand. It would take him longer to move around the wheelhouse. And he’d be fine. We’d get to the island, and he’d leave. He’d survive.”

A cold fist squeezed my heart. “But the knife missed his foot.”

“Yes.”

I thought of what she’d told us. How every small action or inaction affected the future’s course. How every path branched a myriad of times, and not all branches led to the same conclusion.

“What happens now that he’s not injured?” I asked her.

“He dies before we get to the island.”