Grom rolls his eyes. “Enjoy, minnow. Just remember, you and Emma aren’t mated yet so…”

Galen holds up his hand. “Grom.” This is not a discussion he ever planned to have with his brother. Or anyone, in fact.

“I’m just reminding you,” Grom says, looking every bit as uncomfortable as Galen feels. “Privacy presents many opportunities.”

A fact Galen knows well. He’s just not sure if he cares anymore. Keeping his hands off Emma is not something he’s good at. And he’s not sure how much he cares about the law anymore. The law was wrong about Half-Breeds, after all. Emma could never be an abomination. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

Grom seems relieved. “But privacy does allow for more conversation, so it still wouldn’t hurt if you could—”

He’s cut off when Nalia links her arm in his. “Toraf and Rayna left already,” she says. “Rayna requests that you bring her back something ‘interesting.’” The couple had come to see Emma and Galen off, but when Toraf felt the tension between Galen and Grom, he’d made up a reason for them to be excused. Galen wishes he’d had some time with them before leaving.

Galen smiles. “Of course she does.” He strolls around to the driver’s side. “See you in two weeks.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, just in case Grom wants him to ask permission for the amount of time they’re taking. Two weeks was just an estimate. Galen has the feeling that when he and Emma are actually alone together, two weeks won’t be enough.

At least, not for him.

5

AHEAD OF us, the interstate looks like a river of cars running between the two mountains. My ears have been popping for at least an hour with the higher altitude. I keep glancing at Galen in the driver’s seat to see if he’s experiencing anything funky. Sometimes the water pressure affects my ears the deeper we go in the ocean. I wonder if Galen’s Syrena ears can adapt to any kind of pressure, or just the pressure caused by the deep blue sea.

He hasn’t complained about it, but that doesn’t mean anything. Actually, he hasn’t said much at all, which might mean something. Either he doesn’t notice how often I look at him, or he’s pretending not to notice. I get what that means: He doesn’t want to talk.

But letting him keep his thoughts to himself seems counterproductive, given the underlying reason for this trip. When my best friend Chloe died, I wanted to hole up and stop living. The possibility that Galen could be going through the same type of pain drives me crazy. Rachel was his best friend, maybe even more so than Toraf. And a mother figure, too. To lose both of those in one fell swoop is a devastating thing.

I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Thinking of her again?”

Galen gives me a wistful, forged smile that lasts only a second before his face falls again. Rachel’s death affected us all. We all could have done more. We all had a responsibility to look out for her. We all should have been more vigilant and kept track of her whereabouts the day we retrieved Jagen from the humans. Any of us could have prevented her drowning. But Galen is bent on stockpiling the blame on himself. And I’m bent on making him snap out of it.

I just haven’t figured out how yet.

“Actually,” he says, “I was thinking about what you and Antonis could have possibly talked about for so long yesterday.”

Oh. That. I was wondering if/when he would ask. “Nothing much,” I say. Maybe I don’t want to talk after all. Not because I’m keeping a secret—I’m not. Not really. The truth is, I don’t know why Grandfather insists we travel to the belly button of Tennessee. But I do know that this weird scavenger hunt is important to him, and for some crazy reason, I’m willing to go along with it. And until now, I thought Galen was, too. He didn’t question it yesterday when I changed our course on the GPS from our original destination of the Cascade Mountains to the new target in the Smoky Mountains.

He turns the radio down. “What are we going to find in these mountains, Emma? Why is Antonis sending us here?”

My reflex is to be defensive, but I know Galen is on edge. Fighting with Galen is the last thing I want to do right now. I smile. “I’m just as curious as you are. Besides, he didn’t send us here, remember? We already said we were going to explore the mountains. He just made a suggestion of which ones to visit.” Meaning he pinpointed the entire middle of the state of Tennessee with his thumb on my cell phone. To scale, his thumb is about 150 miles on a map.

Galen shifts in his seat, leaning his elbow on the armrest of the door. “What exactly did he say?”

“He said to have a safe trip. And that he hopes I find what I’m looking for.” Which is true, and at the time, it didn’t sound nearly as questionable as it does now, even with the epic story he had to tell about searching for my mother. I’m not sure I’m adding anything new to what I’ve already told him about the conversation. It’s not like I’ve kept anything from him—I already explained why we changed course. And I thought he already accepted that. But Galen appears to be mentally dissecting every word my grandfather has spoken since birth.

Which makes me just a little suspicious about Grandfather’s motives myself. Did he anticipate Galen asking questions—and did he intentionally omit any solid answers? If so, why?

Galen glances at me sideways before looking back to the road. “He didn’t say anything else? Something that could have had a double meaning?”