“Okay, but what about me?” Dex asked. “I’m part of the Black Swan. How could you stand there in Alluveterre after I swore fealty and not tell me?”

“It was the Collective’s decision—though I did support it.” She reached for him, but unlike his father, Dex did pull away. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I know how huge this must feel. But I had to protect our organization. We’d never planned to let any of you join—”

“Not even me?” Sophie interrupted.

“Not this early, no. But if we’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that we have to adapt in order to survive. So we let the five of you swear fealty—but we also took measures to minimize our risk. And one of those measures was to keep our identities anonymous until each of you had proven that you could protect our secrets. As it turned out, that was a wise decision, given what Keefe has done.”

The frustration in her voice reminded Sophie that Wraith had included Squall in the not-trusting-Keefe camp.

“Okay, fine,” Dex said. “But Forkle and Granite showed us who they are a few weeks ago—you could’ve come clean then!”

Juline stared at the ground, where tiny crystals of ice swirled around her feet. “I could give you a thousand excuses, but none of them will change the fact that I handled this wrong. I should’ve told you before your friends caught me.”

Biana slouched lower. “Sorry again.”

“It’s not your fault,” Juline told her. “If anything, it’s a valuable reminder of why none of us should ever underestimate the four of you.”

“You mean the three of us.” Dex said, kicking the snow. “I’m the jerk who didn’t recognize my own mom.”

“Hey, my brother was spying on my family for most of my life, and I never noticed,” Fitz reminded him. “At least your mom is one of the good guys.”

Dex shrugged. “I dunno. The Black Swan have done some pretty shady stuff—don’t even try to deny it.”

“I won’t,” Juline said. “It’s yet another reason I didn’t want to involve my family. I’ve never done anything I didn’t believe in—but that doesn’t mean I haven’t crossed hard lines.”

Sophie remembered the nightmares she’d had after she’d learned that Squall would be freezing off Gethen’s fingernails to remove whatever enzyme kept allowing the Neverseen to track him. Squall had assured her the process was painless, but . . .

“See?” Dex said when she shuddered. “Sophie gets it.”

“I do,” Sophie said. “But I also think we all know the hard choices we have to face for this cause. You don’t defeat a group of murderers with rainbows and candy.”

“I know,” Dex mumbled. “It’s just . . . weird.”

“Aren’t you always telling people you like weird?” Juline asked.

She reached for Dex again and this time he stayed put. He didn’t even flinch when she brushed the back of her fingers against his cheek.

But he didn’t stop scowling, either.

“Am I allowed to know how long you’ve been with the Black Swan?” Sophie asked.

“Not as long as you’re probably thinking. Project Moonlark was well under way by the time I swore fealty. In fact, you’d already been born.”

“So when was it?” Kesler pressed.

Juline bit her lip. “A few months after I had the triplets.”

“The triplets?” Kesler and Dex repeated.

“Are you talking about us?” Bex shouted from somewhere among the trees.

“I’m sharing stories about when you were babies. Want to join us?”

Juline’s answer was perfect—not a lie, but all three shouted, “NO WAY!”

Kesler kept his voice low as he said, “You’ve been with the Black Swan for eleven years?”

“Closer to ten,” Juline corrected. “But yes, it’s been a long time. And it wasn’t something I planned. I was at the birthing center, and I kept holding my three innocent, adorable babies and thinking about how horribly our world was going to treat them. I could already see it happening. My physicians kept ending every sentence with ‘for triplets,’ like they automatically had low expectations. The babies are healthy ‘for triplets.’ Their speaking skills are normal ‘for triplets.’ Their intelligence is strong ‘for triplets.’ It broke my heart and made me want to cry and punch people in the throat and pack up our lives and leave the Lost Cities.”

Kesler closed the space between them, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me that was happening?”

“Because I didn’t want you to blame yourself. Sometimes you act like you ruined my life by marrying me—and I hate that. I love you. I’ve never regretted my decision for one second. But it’s also helped me to see that our world is deeply flawed. That’s why I was so grateful to find Physic.”

“Physic recruited you?” Sophie asked, sharing a look with Fitz.

Physic was the physician who came to Alluveterre to save Fitz’s life after he’d been injured in Exile.

Juline nodded. “When I left the birthing center, I asked Elwin for a list of pediatric physicians who would be more . . . open-minded.”

“Does that mean Elwin knows who Physic is?” Biana asked.

“Knowing and realizing are two different things. But I’m sure Physic will reveal herself soon. She’s not a fan of subterfuge. In fact, she never made any attempt to hide what she was from me. When she came to the house for the first checkup, she asked why I wasn’t at the birthing center, and when I gave a vague answer, she flat-out asked if I ever worried that the Council was blind to our world’s prejudices. After that, whenever she’d come for a checkup, she wouldn’t stop pushing until I’d admitted any callous things people had said or done. A few months later, she asked me, ‘If you could change our world, would you?’ And when I said yes, she asked if my answer would be different if the only way to change the world involved breaking rules. I was surprised to admit that it wouldn’t matter. That’s when she told me about the Black Swan and asked me to join. I swore fealty a few weeks later and started out as a simple information channel. But over time, they trusted me more. Eventually, when Physic stepped down from the Collective, she suggested me as her replacement—and I accepted the position.”